This month’s Daily Kos/Civiqs poll was another deliberate effort to home in on why voters seem generally dissatisfied with President Joe Biden and Democrats right now. Not only are Biden’s approval ratings eight points underwater, but Democrats took a political hit Tuesday with heavy losses in Virginia and an uncomfortably close win in New Jersey.
Readers of this site often fill my comment section with questions about why people are unhappy with President Biden. Everyone has their own suspicions, but here’s some data that can help get us closer to the truth of what is leaving voters most disgruntled.
What emerged overall was a lot of dissatisfaction on both sides of the aisle. Asked whether their quality of life now is better than it was at the beginning of this year (when Biden took office), just 20% of registered voters said it was better now while 44% said it was worse now and 33% said it’s about the same. Additionally, of the 16 policy issues Civiqs asked about, voters expressed dissatisfaction of 50% or higher on fully 10 items.
Perhaps surprisingly, issues that often resonate—such as housing, employment, and crime—were relatively low on the list of concerns. The same was true of how voters felt about the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in their local area: Just 36% counted themselves dissatisfied with the situation while 38% said they were satisfied and 22% said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
What jumped out on the dissatisfaction scale were financial and inflationary issues related to the price of gas and household goods, personal savings, and the wealth gap “between the rich and everyone else.” Race relations and the quality of local education also registered high on voters’ list of concerns.
But the single biggest concern was the state of democracy in America, with 88% saying they were dissatisfied with it.
Below is the top 10 list of voters’ grievances, followed by partisan crosstabs. For each item, voters were asked whether they were satisfied, dissatisfied, neither, or not affected by it.
List of voters’ top concerns (via Civiqs)
Total
(dissatisfied/satisfied)
DEmocrat
(dissatisfied/satisfied)
Republican
(dissatisfied/satisfied)
Independent
(dissatisfied/satisfied)
State of Democracy
88%, 5%
86%, 7%
90%, 3%
89%, 4%
Gas prices
78%, 5%
59%, 9%
97%, 2%
80%, 3%
Price of Household goods
75%, 11%
57%, 21%
92%, 3%
78%, 8%
Race Relations
63%, 11%
79%, 6%
50%, 14%
57%, 14%
Personal Savings
59%, 23%
56%, 28%
60%, 22%
60%, 18%
Wealth Gap
58%, 10%
91%, 2%
20%, 21%
57%, 8%
Quality of local education
58%, 16%
42%, 26%
71%, 9%
64%, 13%
price of health care
57%, 21%
59%, 24%
54%, 22%
58%, 16%
Freedom to live as one pleases
51%, 34%
26%, 56%
73%, 17%
59%, 26%
Local Infrastructure
50%, 30%
59%, 26%
38%, 36%
49%, 30%
Places of real partisan agreement included dissatisfaction with the state of democracy, personal savings, and the price of health care. (Note: This is not to say that Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree on what’s ailing our democracy, just that it’s a key area of dissatisfaction for all three groups.)
Republicans top three concerns were gas prices, the price of household goods, and the state of American democracy—all registering at 90% dissatisfaction or above.
Democrats top three concerns were the wealth gap (91%), the state of democracy (86%), and race relations (79%).
Independents’ top concerns were the state of democracy (89%), gas prices (80%), and the price of household goods (78%).
On Wednesday, Nov. 3, many progressives are feeling a mix of frustration and stress about election results. It’s good, normal, and important to process and accept where things didn’t go our way—and it’s also good, normal, and important to celebrate some good news where we can.
As reported by LGBTQ Nation, the Biden administration has allowed LGBTQ+ seniors to access Social Security survivor benefits, just like folks in heterosexual relationships. To give you some context of how much this payout tends to be, the average is more than $1,000 per month. So, not something to sneer at, especially if you’re older, retired, or live with disabilities.
As some background, the Trump administration filed not one but two legal appeals to stop widows from getting the payout they were rightfully entitled to after the death of their loved ones, like spouses and partners. As of Monday, Nov. 1, the Biden administration dismissed both appeals. To understand why this victory is so major—and such a long time coming—let’s look at the two lead plaintiffs below.
To contextualize the full impact of this win, we have to look at the fight for marriage equality on both the state and federal levels. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, represented the two widows in the case, ultimately arguing that same-sex couples either couldn’t be married, or couldn’t be married the “right” amount of time, because their partners or spouses died before their unions could be legally recognized.
First, let’s take widow Michael Ely (Ely v. Saul) as an example of how complicated (and unfair) this whole process has been for queer couples. Ely, an openly gay man, married his spouse as soon as legally possible in 2014 (per their state of Arizona), but because Ely’s spouse died six months later—before their marriage lasted the length of the time needed to qualify for benefits (nine months)—Ely didn’t qualify. They had been together for more than 40 years. If they were a heterosexual couple, they theoretically could have been married long before 2014 and qualified for the benefits. Confusing, yes. Unfair? Absolutely.
The other plaintiff, Helen Thorton (Thorton v. Saul), was denied benefits after her partner of more than 25 years died in 2006. At that point, Washington state did not recognize marriage equality, and thus she was told she wasn’t eligible. Again, deeply unfair.
How did the Trump administration become involved in these cases? In Thorton’s case, a district judge ordered the SSA to give Thorton the benefits she was entitled to, arguing that the SSA couldn’t fairly use the state’s former ban on same-sex marriage to deny folks benefits as the ban itself was discriminatory. In Ely’s case, a federal judge argued that the nine-month qualifying time was unconstitutional in the state of Arizona. So, both victories that the Trump administration tried to stomp out.
The Trump administration argued that maintaining the refusal of benefits for same-sex couples who weren’t legally married (or weren’t legally married for long enough, like in Ely’s case) was important because it helped to reduce the risk of fraudulent marriages. The Trump administration filed appeals in both Thorton and Ely’s cases.
And now, the Biden administration has dismissed both appeals, letting the rulings stand.
Per a press release from Lambda Legal, Thorton said she’s “relieved” that the government will finally respect her relationship with her late partner, Margie. “Marriage equality came too late for many of us, but it was not too late to fix this problem involving survivor’s benefits,” she stated. “I hope everyone who has been harmed by this problem, but never dared to apply for benefits, understands that this development is a game-changer. The pathway is now finally open to everyone.”
Ely expressed similar gratitude and relief, noting that one of his husband’s last hopes was that Ely would be able to access benefits. “I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that these benefits are now finally secure,” he said. “Not only for me, but for everyone else who found themselves in the same boat.”
One candidate for a Massachusetts school board posted a selfie of himself among the mob of insurrectionists on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Another participant, who is running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, not only boasted about it on Facebook but also predicted a “coming Civil War,” saying she was willing to “fight and die” for both her “family” and “small businesses.” Another Virginia House candidate responded to Black critics of his presence at the insurrection by telling them to focus on “the needs of the colored community.” A city council candidate in Idaho described her experience at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show support for our country.”
On Tuesday, each of these candidates—Republicans all—won, as did four others who participated in the Jan. 6 events. As Christopher Mathias observes at HuffPost, these outcomes at the very least tell us that “one of the country’s major political parties, despite some initial gestures at being horrified by the events of Jan. 6, is almost completely unrepentant over its role in fomenting the historic attack on the Capitol.”
Before the election, BuzzFeedcompiled a list of 13 candidates for various levels of elected public office around the nation who had been present at the Jan. 6 events. A total of eight of them won their elections Tuesday while four were defeated, including Edward Durfee, the Oath Keepers member who was seen communicating with team members who later assaulted the Capitol, and who lost his race for a state assembly seat in New Jersey.
Some of these candidates were at least modestly repentant about the Capitol siege, but most of them simply downplayed the severity of the destruction that occurred and abjured any culpability for having helped inflame it. Charles Ausburger, running for reelection to the Mansfield, Connecticut, town council, blamed the Jan. 6 violence on a “very small group of people” who “had to go and ruin a nice day.” (Ausburger won his race, though he only finished eighth out of nine candidates.)
“Our group was shocked, outraged, and frankly scared, when it became apparent that a group of thugs were using the rally as a pretense to attack the U.S. Capitol,” explained Susan Soloway, who is seeking reelection to a county commission in New Jersey after she had posted a selfie at the Capitol that day. She later decried criticism of her presence at the Capitol as an “attack on all Americans.” (Soloway won handily on Tuesday.)
John McGuire’s selfie from Jan. 6, near the police barricades.
Virginia House candidate John McGuire—who at one time posed for a photo with a paramilitary outfit—claimed that he had just gone home after Stop the Steal and was “shocked and horrified” that people had gone into the Capitol afterward—though in fact photos collected by Sedition Hunters showed him near police barricades as they were being attacked by the mob. (McGuire won his race handily Tuesday.)
Others were relatively unrepentant, and blamed the violence on “antifa” and “paid provocateurs,” like Virginia House Delegate Dave LaRock. When Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall—the first person of color to be elected chair of any county board in Virginia—and District Supervisor Juli Briskman (also known as the cyclist who flipped off Trump’s motorcade) announced plans for a resolution calling for LaRock’s resignation, he responded: “Rather than focusing on the business of Loudoun County and the needs of the colored community, they are wasting their time and taxpayer resources to attack me.” (LaRock won reelection handily on Tuesday.)
Marie March, who penned a manifesto about a ‘coming civil war’ after attending the Jan. 6 events, campaigned for the Virginia House with GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin, who also won Tuesday.
Another Virginia House candidate—Marie March, with whom gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin campaigned—boasted in a campaign ad about her attendance at the Stop the Steal rally. In a since-deleted lengthy Facebook post that read more like a manifesto about a “coming Civil War,” she mused: “Will this coming War be us killing each other in order to reset this country? … I will personally fight and die for family. I will also die for my small businesses, because I have dedicated my life to them.” (March won her race on Tuesday.)
Matthew Lynch’s Jan. 6 selfie.
Then there was Matthew Lynch, a former schoolteacher in Braintree, Massachusetts, who resigned his position after his presence among the rioters was exposed thanks to a selfie he took among the crowd that day. Lynch, who says he was visited twice by the FBI afterwards, ran aggressively for the Braintree school board on a culture war agenda focused on “critical race theory,” and accused the people who shared the picture and FBI information of “slandering [him] as a domestic terrorist.” He also called the group a “digital lynch mob” who “decided they would take ‘justice’ into their own hands.” (Lynch also won election on Tuesday.)
As Mathias notes, these are not the only insurrectionists seeking office: A number of local and state officials—57 in all, according to his earlier reporting—will be up for reelection in 2022. These include notorious figures such as Pennsylvania legislator Doug Mastriano, who was seen with the crowd dismantling police barricades but appears unlikely to face any political consequences for his actions.
If all the excuses being trotted out by these candidates sound familiar, they should: They’re the same mendacious rationalizations concocted by the right-wing gaslighting brigade that swung into action immediately after Jan. 6. At this point, it’s hard to tell who is echoing whom. But it doesn’t matter, because their work is done.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Note: Please see our Uncalled Races and Election Recaps sections below for a summary of all of Tuesday’s action.
Leading Off
●Atlanta, GA Mayor: City Council President Felicia Moore took a decisive first place in Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary to lead the loyally blue city of Atlanta, but, to the surprise of many political observers, it appears that her rival in the Nov. 30 runoff won’t be former Mayor Kasim Reed after all. Moore is out in front with 41% of the vote with 96,000 votes counted, while City Councilman Andre Dickens holds a 23.0-22.4 lead over Reed—a margin of just over 600 votes—for the second spot in the runoff.
The math looks daunting for Reed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Greg Bluestein noted on Wednesday that there were only 970 uncounted provisional ballots cast in the two counties Atlanta’s based in (Fulton and DeKalb), and some were from voters outside city limits. Bluestein adds that those ballots could conceivably narrow Reed’s deficit enough to place him within the 0.5% margin needed for a recount, but he’d need to overwhelmingly win them to actually outpace Dickens.
The election night results rolled in as the Atlanta Braves were winning their first World Series since 1995, and even the three leading candidates’ supporters were distracted at their parties. Bluestein writes that at one point, a “deafening roar” convinced some of Reed’s backers that he had outpaced Dickens, but in fact “the crowd was cheering a Freddie Freeman home run.”
However, at least a few Reed supporters seem to have since decided that, unlike the Braves, he won’t be emerging with the win. While the AP has not called the second runoff berth and Reed has yet to concede, Bluestein tweets that some of the former mayor’s allies admit that his comeback has failed.
Moore’s wide lead in the first round makes her the favorite to win the contest to succeed Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who shocked Atlanta in May when she announced she wouldn’t seek a second term, but she’s likely to square off against a very different opponent than she may have expected to. Reed, who spent years as a rising star in Georgia Democratic politics, easily won a second term in 2013, and he’d amassed a huge war chest for his campaign to retake the post he was termed-out of in 2017.
The former mayor, though, spent the campaign dealing with questions about a federal corruption probe that resulted in the convictions of three former officials in his administration and the indictment of others. The candidate’s attorneys said weeks before Election Day that federal prosecutors told them their client was no longer a target of their investigations, but that did nothing to deter Moore and Dickens from arguing that Reed still bore responsibility for what happened under his watch.
Reed was again at the center of headlines in late October when Richard Rose, the head of the local NAACP, released what he called “a rare repudiation” blasting Reed’s eight years in office. Rose argued that well-off residents and well-connected interests benefited from policies that brought affordable housing “to a screeching halt.” He further took Reed to task for accepting the backing of the city’s police union.
Rose apologized days later after the national NAACP leadership publicly told him that he could face removal for violating the organization’s rules against making a “public partisan statement,” though he didn’t actually back down from his criticism of Reed. Instead, Rose said only that he’d erred when he decided “to issue the repudiation of Kasim Reed on NAACP letterhead, in my position as president of the NAACP Atlanta Branch.”
Dickens, for his part, looked like an underdog going into Election Day. Most polls showed Bottoms and Reed advancing, while just a lone late survey showed the city councilman beating out Reed for second.
Bottoms, who is the second woman to ever lead Atlanta, said Wednesday she would be endorsing a candidate in the runoff herself, though she didn’t indicate which one. She may not be inclined to support Moore, however, as the city council president launched a campaign to unseat her months before the incumbent announced her retirement. Dickens, by contrast, didn’t enter the race until Bottoms had already left it.
Redistricting
●GA Redistricting: GOP leaders in Georgia’s Republican-run legislature have unveiled draft maps for both chambers that would lock in wide majorities for their party despite the fast-moving demographic and political trends that led to Joe Biden’s victory in the state last year. Lawmakers convened for a special legislative session on Wednesday to take up these plans, as well as a congressional proposal that Republicans released in September.
●NC Redistricting: North Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps are making their way through both chambers and could become law this week. On party-line votes, the Senate passed the congressional plan on Tuesday and a map for its own districts on Wednesday. The House, meanwhile, passed a map for itself on Tuesday, again on a party-line vote. Once the maps pass both chambers, they’ll immediately become law, because the state constitution explicitly removes the governor from the redistricting process.
Republicans have also made proper assessment of these proposals especially difficult: The Senate only released a tiny image of its map and none of the normal data files that would make any sort of detailed analysis possible. The House did little better, providing a data file that would normally be in spreadsheet format as a 5,882-page PDF instead. Fortunately we were able to convert the House’s PDF and obtain proper data files for the Senate.
House
●CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, who made a name for herself as one of the Colorado GOP’s most extreme members during her eight years in the state House, just became the first notable Republican to enter the race for the state’s new 8th Congressional District, a swingy seat in the Denver suburbs. A somewhat less incendiary Republican, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, also says she’s considering a bid and last month promised an announcement “soon” after the state Supreme Court gave its approval to Colorado’s new districts (it did so earlier this week).
●MI-03: Conservative commentator John Gibbs, whose nomination to head the Office of Personnel Management under Donald Trump failed because of his conspiratorial ravings, has filed paperwork ahead of a possible primary challenge to Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. Among other things, Gibbs repeatedly amplified the batshit conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, had partaken in some sort of satanic ritual, based on personal emails stolen by Russian hackers. Trump named Gibbs to run the OPM in 2020, but the Senate never acted on the nomination.
Meijer already faces intra-party opposition from Army National Guard veteran Tom Norton, who ran for the GOP nomination last year, and so-called “MAGA bride” Audra Johnson (quite the cast of characters, huh?). It takes only a simple plurality to win a primary in Michigan, so Meijer might benefit from a split field.
●OH-01: Former healthcare executive Kate Schroder, who was the Democrats’ nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot last year, has announced that she won’t seek a rematch. Schroder ran a competitive campaign but lost to Chabot 52-45 in Ohio’s badly gerrymandered 1st District, which voted for Donald Trump 51-48. Republicans are likely to try to shore up Chabot further in redistricting (see our separate OH Redistricting item above).
●TX-08: Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, who hadn’t ruled out a bid for Texas’ open 8th Congressional District, has said he’ll seek re-election to the legislature instead.
Legislatures
●Special Elections: Here’s a recap of Tuesday’s key legislative special elections. For a full rundown of Tuesday’s action, along with a look at other special elections from earlier this cycle, check out our big board here.
ME-HD-86: Democrat Raegan LaRochelle defeated Republican James Orr 56-44 to flip this seat for Team Blue. Democrats now control this chamber 80-65 with five independent/third party members and one other seat vacant.
MI-SD-28: Republican Mark Huizenga defeated Democrat Keith Courtade 61-37 to hold this seat for his party. This chamber is now at full strength with Republicans in control 22-16.
TX-HD-118: Republican John Lujan defeated Democrat Frank Ramirez 51-49 to flip this seat for Team Red. This was the runoff from a September all-party primary where Lujan led Ramirez 42-20 and the GOP candidates narrowly outpaced the Democratic candidates 50.3-49.7.
Items in this section and the one following it are organized alphabetically by state.
●FL-20: It’s going to be some time before we know who has won the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings in this safely blue South Florida seat. With 49,000 ballots counted, Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness holds a 9 vote lead—a margin of 23.76-23.74—over businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who badly lost primary challenges to Hastings in both 2018 and 2020. Another member of the Broward County Commission, Barbara Sharief, is in third with 18%.
Florida requires an automatic machine recount in races where the margin between the top two candidates is within 0.5%, and this contest definitely qualifies. The vote totals could also shift before the recount takes place: Politico’s Gary Fineout wrote Wednesday that military and overseas ballots could be received for another 10 days, while voters had two days to fix any signature issues that caused their mail-in ballots to be rejected.
The eventual Democratic nominee will have no trouble in the Jan. 11 special election, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled to take place nine months after Hastings’ death, effectively doubling the length the seat will remain vacant compared to other recent Florida specials.
●NJ Legislature: There’s no question that Democrats will keep control of both the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly, where they went into Election Day with majorities of 25-15 and 52-28, respectively, but the GOP has netted seats in both chambers. And in a true surprise, state Senate President Steve Sweeney trails Republican Edward Durr, a truck driver who spent all of $153 on his campaign, 52-48 with 63,000 votes counted.
However, the likely fall of the conservative Sweeney, who has run the Senate since early 2010, may leave plenty of powerful Democrats less than upset. In 2017, the last time he was on the ballot, the New Jersey Education Association took the unusual step of backing his Republican opponent, though that didn’t stop Sweeney from winning a very expensive campaign 59-41.
The Senate president has often come into conflict with Gov. Phil Murphy, and he didn’t rule out launching a primary campaign against the governor when asked back in 2019. Politico adds that Sweeney “was until recently talked up in Democratic circles as a likely 2025 candidate for governor.” Barring a big vote shift back in his direction, that chatter probably won’t pick up again anytime soon.
●Nassau County, NY Executive: With 257,000 votes tabulated, Republican Bruce Blakeman holds a 52-48 lead, a margin of close to 12,000 ballots, over Democratic incumbent Laura Curran in the race to lead this large Long Island county. Curran said early Wednesday that she wasn’t conceding, declaring, “There are many thousands of absentee ballots that still must be counted, with more coming in.” Newsday reports that the Nassau Board of Elections had received close to 20,000 uncounted absentees as of Monday.
●VA State House: Republicans, as of Wednesday evening, lead in 52 of the 100 seats in the Virginia state House, which Democrats had held with a 55-45 majority going into the election. The Virginia Public Access Project reports that there are three contests where the margin between the candidates is less than 1%: HD-21, where Democratic incumbent Kelly Fowler holds a 234-vote edge, and HD-85 and HD-91, where Republicans Karen Greenhalgh and A.C. Cordoza have advantages of 202 and 272 votes, respectively.
VPAP adds that on Friday, local election officials will tally any provisional votes as well as ballots received through noon Friday that were postmarked by Election Day; VPAP continues that “it’s hard to say how many mail ballots might come in by Friday.”
Election Recaps
●Hialeah, FL Mayor: Steve Bovo, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner who lost last year’s general election for county mayor, decisively beat his fellow Republican, ex-City Council President Isis Garcia-Martinez, 59-22 in the race to lead this conservative Miami-area community. Bovo had the backing of Donald Trump and other Florida Republican bigwigs like Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
●St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch defeated Republican City Councilman Robert Blackmon 60-40 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed his fellow Democrat, termed-out Mayor Rick Kriseman. Welch will be the first African American to lead a city that was run by GOP mayors for decades until Kriseman’s 2013 win.
Either of these candidates, who each identify as Democrats, would have been both the first woman and person of color elected to this post; acting Mayor Kim Janey became the first woman of color to hold this office when she ascended to the job in March, but she lost the September nonpartisan primary to keep it. The Chicago-raised Wu also marks the first time in over a century that Boston will be led by a mayor born outside the city.
●Minneapolis, MN Mayor: City election authorities announced Wednesday that Mayor Jacob Frey won a second term after a second and final round of ranked-choice tabulations.
Frey led activist Sheila Nezhad 43-21 among voter’s first-choice preferences, while a third Democrat, former state Rep. Kate Knuth, was in third with 18%. Enough of the other 16 candidates’ supporters listed Knuth as their second and third choice for her to edge out Nezhad and reach the second round, but Frey ultimately defeated her 56-44. We also learned Wednesday that, for the first time in Minneapolis history, people of color will hold a majority of the 13 seats on the City Council.
●Minneapolis, MN Ballot: Minneapolis voters approved Question 1, which will greatly strengthen the mayor’s executive powers by, among other things, “consolidating administrative authority over all operating departments,” by a 52-48 margin. At the same time, though, they rejected the far more high-profile Question 2, which would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety and shifted more control of the department to the City Council, 56-44.
●NJ-Gov: The Associated Press has called this contest for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli after a shockingly tight race. Counties can receive ballots through Nov. 8 as long as they were postmarked by Election Day so we won’t know the final margin for some time, but Murphy, who began Wednesday narrowly trailing, leads 50.0-49.2 with 2.4 million votes counted.
●NY Ballot: Three statewide election-related ballot measures have all lost by double digits. Proposal 1, which would reduce the threshold for lawmakers to approve a redistricting plan, failed by a 56-44 margin. It’s a similar story for Proposals 3 and 4, which would respectively allow the legislature to create a same-day voter registration law and remove the excuse requirement to vote absentee. Proposal 3 lost 58-42, while Proposal 4 lost 56-44. It’s unclear how many absentee ballots, which are likely heavily Democratic, remain left to count and could thus narrow the margins, but the Associated Press already called all three contests.
●Buffalo, NY Mayor: Mayor Byron Brown looks to have won a fifth term as a write-in candidate months after losing the June Democratic primary to India Walton, an outcome that Walton acknowledged on Wednesday was likely. Walton, who was the only candidate on the general election ballot, secured just 41% of the vote, while a 59% majority selected a write-in option. Election officials won’t actually start to examine the write-in votes until Nov. 17, but there’s little question that the vast majority of them were cast for Brown in a race without any other serious write-in candidates.
Walton herself said on election night that she wasn’t conceding because it wasn’t clear whom the write-ins were going to, but she admitted the next day that “it seems unlikely that we will end up with enough votes to inaugurate a Walton administration in January.” Brown’s apparent victory makes him, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the rare incumbents to win a write-in campaign after losing a primary.
●Nassau County, NY District Attorney: Republican prosecutor Anne Donnelly flipped this post 60-40 by defeating Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky in a special election to succeed Democrat Madeline Singas, who resigned in June to join the state’s highest judicial body, the Court of Appeals.
●Syracuse, NY Mayor: Independent Mayor Ben Walsh overwhelmingly won a second term in this very blue city by defeating Democratic nominee Khalid Bey, a longtime member of the Syracuse Common Council, 61-27.
●OH-11, OH-15: Ohio’s two special House elections unfolded exactly as expected, with Democrat Shontel Brown easily dispensing with her Republican opponent 79-21 in the safely blue 11th District, while Republican lobbyist Mike Carey defeated Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo 58-42 in the solidly red 15th. According to Daily Kos Elections’ calculations, the 11th went for Joe Biden 80-19 and the 15th voted for Donald Trump 56-42. Once Brown and Carey are sworn in, the only vacant seat in the House will be Florida’s 20th.
●Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval defeated his fellow Democrat, City Councilman David Mann, 66-34 in the race to succeed termed-out Mayor John Cranley, an accomplishment that makes him the first Asian American to lead the Queen City. Pureval was the 2018 Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in the 1st Congressional District, while Mann lost his 1994 bid for re-election to Congress to none other than Chabot.
●Cleveland, OH Mayor: Nonprofit head Justin Bibb beat City Council President Kevin Kelley, a fellow Democrat who had the backing of retiring four-term incumbent Frank Jackson, 63-37. Bibb, who is 34, will be the second-youngest mayor in the city’s history.
●PA Supreme Court: Republican Kevin Brobson defeated Democrat Maria McLaughlin 52-48 to hold an open seat on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court for the GOP. Democrats, however, still retain their 5-2 advantage on the bench, and barring unexpected vacancies, the soonest Republicans could retake the majority would be 2025.
●Bucks County, PA District Attorney & Sheriff: Republicans bounced back from their 2017 drubbing in this competitive suburban Philadelphia county by sweeping all of the so-called “row offices,” the local name for the countywide offices other than the commissioner.
District Attorney Matt Weintraub, who was the one Republican row officer to prevail four years ago, turned back Democratic rival Antonetta Stancu 59-41. Fred Harran, the Republican who is Bensalem Township’s director of public safety, retook the sheriff’s post by scoring a 53-46 victory over Warrington Township Board of Supervisors member Mark Lomax, who unseated incumbent Milt Warrell in the May Democratic primary. Team Red also picked up lower-profile offices like prothonotary, a post that administers civil court documents.
●Erie County, PA Executive: Republican Brenton Davis won the race to succeed retiring Democratic incumbent Kathy Dahlkemper by defeating Democrat Tyler Titus 52-48 in this swingy northwest Pennsylvania county. Titus, who would have been the first trans county executive in American history, conceded Wednesday afternoon.
●King County, WA Executive: Incumbent Dow Constantine won a fourth term as head of Washington’s largest county by defeating his fellow Democrat, state Sen. Joe Nguyen, 58-42.
●Seattle, WA Mayor: Former City Council President Bruce Harrell defeated his successor, Lorena González, 65-35 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed retiring Mayor Jenny Durkin in this very blue city. Harrell, who is the first Asian American elected to this post as well as Seattle’s second Black mayor, was close to business interests, while most labor endorsements went to González.
Grab Bag
●Where Are They Now?: Two former one-term congressmen were on Tuesday’s ballot, but we so far only know the electoral fate of one.
Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, who last year lost New York’s 22nd District to Republican Claudia Tenney by 109 votes, ran for a 14-year term in a New York State Supreme Court seat that had backed Donald Trump 49.2-48.7 and was defeated 54-43 by Republican Danielle Fogel. (Despite its name, the body is not the Empire State’s highest court: That honor goes to the Court of Appeals.)
We also saw a comeback attempt in New Jersey from ex-Republican Rep. Mike Pappas, who earned his brief moment in the political spotlight in 1998 when he took to the House floor to deliver an ode to the special prosecutor probing the Clinton White House that began, “Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr / Now we see how brave you are.” Pappas is running in an open state Senate seat, but, with 72,000 votes tabulated, he trails Democrat Andrew Zwicker 52-48. The Associated Press has not yet called the race for the 16th Legislative District, which supported Joe Biden 60-38.
The best antidote to hot takes is hard data, and the latest Daily Kos/Civiqs pollis here with your cure. This survey of 1,378 registered voters was conducted online from Oct. 30-Nov. 2 and reveals that 88% of Americans are dissatisfied with the state of democracy in our country.
While 53% of Americans think their quality of life now is as good or better than it was at the beginning of the year, they remain dissatisfied with major aspects of daily life, especially the prices of gasoline (78% dissatisfied), consumer goods (75% dissatisfied), and health care and health insurance (57% dissatisfied). Americans are also broadly dissatisfied with the current state of racial relations (63% dissatisfied), the amount of money they have saved (59% dissatisfied), and the gap in wealth between the rich and everyone else (58% dissatisfied).
Other noteworthy findings in this month’s poll include:
A mere 30% of Americans are satisfied with their local infrastructure.
57% of Americans are satisfied with their housing situation.
51% of Americans are satisfied with their access to health care.
44% of Americans are satisfied with their employment situation, versus only 19% who are dissatisfied.
Half of Americans are dissatisfied with their “freedom” to live life the way they want.
Additional issues surveyed include viewership of Fox News, Newsmax, One American News Network, and MSNBC.
This poll’s numbers highlight the major issues causing distress to Americans today—even as Democrats in Congress work to pass bills that would improve these issues for everyone.
Civiqs is an award-winning survey research firm that conducts scientific public opinion polls on the Internet through its nationally representative online survey panel. Founded in 2013, Civiqs specializes in political and public policy polling. Results from Civiqs’ daily tracking polls can be found online at civiqs.com.
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Maybe if we throw in a free lollipop, like we do with crying children?
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 4, 2021
Note: C&J will not appear here on Monday, as we will be returning from a weekend-long seminar on how to turn a clock back one hour. Back Tuesday, unless something goes disastrously wrong and the instructor blows up the time-space continuum. But that rarely happens, usually. —Mgt.
Minimum number of people around the world who have died of Covid-19 as of this week: 5 million
Factor by which Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York City: 7-to-1
Estimated actual cost of the bullshit Arizona election “audit” by the Cyber Ninjas, 50% higher than previous reports: $9 million
Percent of Maine’s total population that’s vaccinated against Covid-19: 70%
Chronological rank of Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson among lesbians who have been confirmed to a federal circuit court, as she was this week (2nd Circuit): #1
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I say unto you, you do not know what courage is until you have sat in the basement of a Holiday Inn in Fritters, Alabama, with seven brave souls, led by a librarian, who are fixing to form a chapter of the Ay Cee Ell You.
They are always driven to this extreme by local pinheads who not only don’t get the Bill of Rights but are eager to trash it.
I have been called in through the American Library Association on some bizarre cases: say, the local Christian fundamentalists have decided talking animals are satanic, and consequently, they demand The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Wind in the Willows be removed from the town library.
—From Bill of Wrongs (with Lou Dubose, Random House, 2008)
CHEERS to happy endings. Voters in New Jersey tossed us a bit of a fright Tuesday when they nearly gave a member of The Cult the keys to the governor’s office. Happy to say the votes have been tallied and Phil Murphy has won a second term—the first Democrat to do that in over 40 years. The Cult, of course, is feeling—ironically—blue today, and to them all I can do is offer this inspiring bit of time-worn Republican wisdom:
And God Bless Us One and All.
CHEERS to sticking to your guns. Turns out “Striketober” is going to continue for 10,000 workers at John Deere (the farm implement company, not to be confused with toilet manufacturer for does and bucks Deer John). They took a vote to end their strike for better wages and working terms, and said….eh, we’re not quite there yet:
Members have demanded an end to the “two-tier” compensation system established at Deere in 1997, creating lesser health and pension benefits for new hires. They wanted to see post-1997 workers put on the same path as “legacy” employees. The contract rejected Tuesday would not have eliminated that system.
When Michael and I go on vacation, we always take two things: our Deere and the scenic route.
Many workers may also be holding out for better raises in a subsequent deal.
Also on their wish list: free use of a loaner combine for all employees when their cars are in the shop. It’s only fair.
CHEERS to #1. Here’s a little election milestone from the archives: it was 97 years ago today, back in 1924, when Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first elected woman governor in U.S. history. She ran in Wyoming in the wake of her husband, Gov. William Ross’s death from appendicitis, but was careful to avoid any public display of ambition for the job as that wouldn’t be ladylike. Her modest agenda soon mushroomed, oddly enough, into one of great ambition:
[R]equiring cities, counties, and school districts to have budgets; stronger state laws regulating banks; exploration of better ways to sell Wyoming’s heavy crude oil; earmarking some state mineral royalties for school districts; obtaining more funds for the university; improving safety for coal miners; protecting women in industrial jobs; and supporting a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would cut back on child labor.
These ideas all came from solid, Progressive thinking. But Nellie was the first governor to back them in Wyoming.
She lost her reelection, but kept plenty busy turning out the women’s vote for FDR and spending 20 years as the first woman director of the U.S. Mint. Died at 101, her life spanning presidents Grant through Carter. Currently three of our ten sitting female governors (including states and territories) are Republican. But Ross was first. And as with so many firsts in politics and civil rights, the letter next to her name was a big ol’ D.
CHEERS to a moment day of zen. Take a moment today to stop, put your brain in neutral, and take some deep cleansing breaths. Why? because November 4th is National Stress Awareness Day. Stress awareness is especially important on the road these days, I think we can all agree. To inform motorists around you who might not know this, we suggest you drive up right behind them, honk your horn several times, stick your head out the window and yell, “Hey, jerkface! If you weren’t so stupid and ignorant you might know it’s National Stress Awareness Day!” They’ll appreciate the reminder and will probably respond with a friendly wave. Thanks for doing your part. Together we can make a difference.
JEERS to little green footballs. 69 years ago this week, in 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas. We hate ’em—they’re stinky, pungent and squishy—and anyone who thinks otherwise must be a socialist Marxist commie. But we’ll say this: if you’re packin’ a spoon, they make awesome catapult ammo at the Thanksgiving dinner table. (Especially if you’re sitting across from Uncle MAGA.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 4, 2011
JEERS to the most frightening thing you’ll read all day. When I saw this in Georgia10’s Pundit Roundup, I nearly choked on my bowl of breakfast kibble. Pamela Geller, the undisputed queen of the conservative blogosphere (sorry, Michelle Malkin, you jumped the shark when you pulled out the pom-poms), plans to follow Herman Cain all the way down the disgraced-rat hole, saying: “I endorse Herman Cain. What he doesn’t know, we’ll teach him.” Yeah, that’ll come in real handy in the Situation Room: “Sorry, General, but Ms. Geller here says the only way we’ll get Ahmadinejahd to stop calling us names is a full-scale nuclear strike. Gimme the launch codes. And you better post more guards behind the moat.” Yeah. Real handy.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to all-new adventures in the galaxy far, far away. Riding high on the coattails of The Mandalorian (which helped get the sour taste out of our mouths from the frantic everything-but-the-kitchen-sink gobbledygook that was Rise of Skywalker), the Star Wars universe is set to unveil its next episodic adventure on Disney+ next month: The Book of Boba Fett. Apparently the bounty hunter who became a fan favorite all the way back in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back has his sights set on claiming the turf once lorded over by gangster Paul LePage Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine. Very exciting, especially the casting of Temuera Morrison, who played Boba’s dad Jango Fett in the prequel movie Attack of the Clones. Here’s a look…
Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post says that the voters in the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey treated Tuesday night’s elections as normal even as the Republican Party is increasingly abnormal.
Both states followed the historic pattern of the president’s party in off-year elections. In heavily Democratic Fairfax County, Va., Biden won about 420,000 votes in 2020, while Trump won about 168,000. In the gubernatorial election this year, Democrat Terry McAuliffe won about 282,000 votes and Republican Glenn Youngkin about 152,000, meaning Youngkin won 90 percent of Trump’s total and McAuliffe won just 67 percent of Biden’s.
Some voters may have switched from Biden to Youngkin, but it’s unlikely the huge McAuliffe shortfall in Fairfax was just about switching. Instead, it’s clear that lots of the people who voted for Biden did not participate in this election, while a smaller percentage of Trump voters sat out. Exit polls suggest that of those who participated, 47 percent voted for Biden and 45 percent voted for Trump. This was not the same electorate that Biden won 54-44.
There is evidence of switching, too. Exit polls in Virginia suggested that 5 percent of 2020 Biden votes backed Youngkin, while just 2 percent of 2020 Trump voters supported McAuliffe. That only accounts for a few points, but McAuliffe will end up losing by 1-to-3 percentage points, so those small shifts matter.
Steve Phillips writes for The Nation that Democratic leaders ignore the politics of race at their own peril.
For more than 400 years, many white Virginians have shown that they are willing to fight, so the notion that Democrats could succeed by ignoring the battle was always fanciful and a reflection of the lack of cultural competence that continues to plague Democratic leaders and strategists. It turns out that ignoring the racism of your opponent is actually the worst possible strategy. In her 2001 book The Race Card, Princeton political scientist Tali Mendelberg revealed how Republicans’ use of coded racial messages were less effective in swaying voters when the implicit was made explicit, finding that “when campaign discourse is clearly about race—when it is explicitly racial—it has the fewest racial consequences for white opinion.”
The problem is obviously not limited to Virginia. The people who believe that this is and should remain primarily a white nation never stopped fighting after the Civil War and have continued to fiercely resist any tentative steps toward making this nation a multiracial democracy, up to and including attacking the United States Capitol (while carrying Confederate flags) and seeking to overthrow the democratic process itself earlier this year. Since January, the white right wing has engaged in a paroxysm of democracy-destruction in states across the country, passing draconian voter suppression legislation, seeking to undermine any accountability for the January 6 insurrection, and, of course, passing laws banning the modern-day bogeyman of CRT.
For the most part, Democrats have done what McAuliffe did—ignore the attacks and hope to change the subject. Little effort and no political capital has been expended on the critical challenges of immigration reform, protecting democratic participation, and police reform. Prominent progressive strategists and writers such as David Schor and Ezra Klein have devoted copious amounts of attention to advocating for what has come to be called “popularism.” As Klein wrote in a 6000 word New York Times manifesto last month,“Democrats should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff.”
Frida Ghitis of CNN writes that the way in which Republicans won and/or lost unexpectedly tight races Tuesday night should not bode well for the undisputed leader of the Republican Party.
Republicans have shown they can win important elections, but only if they keep the defeated former President Donald Trump at arms’ length. But how long can they do that?
The fact is, Republicans would have a good chance of winning the White House in 2024 — if they get someone other than Trump to win the nomination.
In this last election, with Trump mostly out of sight, voters were able to focus on their frustrations with President Joe Biden, and on other issues. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Republicans seemed to be saying. It worked, but the curtain is rustling; the man behind it is restless. He won’t stay hidden for long.
For now, and the foreseeable future, however, the party is wholly subservient to the man who started his term in office with his party in control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, and then led Republicans in a reverse trifecta, losing the White House, the House and the Senate.
Rod Watson of The Buffalo News writes about some of the reasons that the winner of the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, India Walton, lost the general election.
One definition of “conserve” is to keep what you have and avoid risk, whether it’s really working for you or not. In that sense, Buffalo is the quintessentially American city in a nation in which a truly progressive agenda can’t even make it out of a Democratic Congress even though voters love the individual parts of the package.
Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that Walton couldn’t reproduce in the wider electorate her Democratic Primary upset, despite a platform that seemingly should have appealed to voters in a city typically ranked among the nation’s poorest.
[…]
During the general election campaign, Brown successfully changed Walton’s first name to “radical” and her middle name to “socialist.” While she talked about what she would do, he talked about what he had done and painted a frightening – often distorted – picture of the change she would usher in.
Emily Cochrane reports for The New York Times that paid family and medical leave has returned to the Build Back Better bill.
The announcement, which came as Democrats scrambled to iron out differences over the package, is unlikely to result in enactment of the leave program. Mr. Manchin, a crucial Democratic holdout, reiterated on Wednesday that he would not support it as part of the sprawling social policy, climate and tax legislation. But the inclusion of paid leave promised to give House Democrats a chance to register their support for a program that has bipartisan backing.
It also all but guaranteed that the legislation would have to be modified by the Senate and approved a second time by the House before it becomes law, breaking with Ms. Pelosi’s promise to moderate lawmakers that she would not force them to vote on a plan that could not clear the evenly divided Senate.
The speaker’s move amounted to the most direct challenge yet of Mr. Manchin, a centrist who has repeatedly voiced concern that the social safety net bill is overly generous, and whose objections have effectively compelled Democratic leaders to either curtail or remove a number of provisions.
Ian Millhiser of Vox sounds an alarm on upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases that could strike down many environmental regulations…and a few other things.
The Supreme Court announced late last week that it will hear four very similar cases — all likely to be consolidated under the name West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency — which could prove to be some of the most consequential court decisions in recent US history.
[…]
The cases are the latest chapter in the seemingly never-ending litigation over the Clean Power Plan, arguably former President Barack Obama’s boldest effort to fight climate change. Though the plan was never implemented, it still exists in a zombie-like state. A federal appeals court decision revived the plan last January, but the Biden administration said in February that it would not reinstate Obama’s policy.
[…]
…At least some of the parties in the West Virginia litigation claim that it is unconstitutional for the EPA to take the sort of aggressive strides against climate change that the Obama administration took in its Clean Power Plan. This theory wouldn’t just strip the EPA of much of its power to fight climate change, it could potentially disable Congress’s ability to effectively protect the environment.
Anna Maria Barry-Jester of Kaiser Health News reports that “brain drain” has seeped into public health laboratories.
“The biggest threat to [public health labs] right now is not the next emerging pathogen,” said Donna Ferguson, director of the public health lab in Monterey County, “but labs closing due to lack of staffing.”
Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to retirement, exhaustion, partisan politics and higher-paying jobs. Even before the coronavirus pandemic throttled departments, staffing numbers had shrunk with county budgets. But the decline has accelerated over the past year and a half, even as millions of dollars in federal money has poured in. Public health nurses, microbiologists, epidemiologists, health officers and other staff members who fend off infectious diseases like tuberculosis and HIV, inspect restaurants and work to keep communities healthy are abandoning the field. It’s a problem that temporary boosts in funding can’t fix.
The brain drain is sapping community health oversight in ways big and small. The people who staff public health labs, for example, run complex tests for deadly diseases that require specialized training most commercial labs lack. While their work is largely unseen by the public, they touch almost every aspect of society. Public health labs sample shellfish to make sure it is safe for eating. They monitor drinking water and develop tests for emerging health threats such as antibiotic-resistant viruses. They also test for serious diseases, such as measles and covid. And they typically do it at a fraction of the cost of commercial labs — and faster.
Finally today, Karl Paul of the Guardian reports on a study showing that climate misinformation is increasingly rampant on Facebook.
The study analyzed 195 pages known to distribute misinformation about the climate crisis using Facebook’s analytics tool, CrowdTangle. Of those, 41 were considered “single issue” groups. With names like “Climate Change is Natural,” “Climate Change is Crap,” and “Climate Realism”, these groups primarily shared memes denying climate change exists and deriding politicians attempting to address it through legislation.
Those that were not “single issue” groups included pages from figures like the rightwing politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, which posted misleading articles and disinformation about the climate crisis.
This “rampant” spread of climate misinformation is getting substantially worse, said Sean Buchan, the researcher and partnerships manager for Stop Funding Heat, with the report finding interactions per post in its dataset have increased 76.7% in the past year.
“If it continues to increase at this rate, this can cause significant harm in the real world,” he said.
In the news today: It’s the day after an election day, which means it’s time for each of the losing sides to explain how Actually the results vindicate whatever they believed all along. Not even the infamously “centrist” Third Way is willing to buy last night’s conservative Democratic spin, though. Ohio Republicans are mimicking Texas with a new anti-abortion “bounty” plan of the sort the Supreme Court currently claims to be flummoxed by. Meanwhile, the Court contemplates loosening gun laws even further.
You may have noticed, what with the Texas attorney general being under indictment for over half a decade and counting, sitting senators dabbling in insider trading as a side gig, and a certain pumpkin-headed Dear Leader being able to incite a crowd into violent insurrection with not a single resulting consequence, that “laws” in the United States generally no longer apply to rich people, powerful people, or anyone who has the personal phone numbers of either.
It’s no longer as much of a surprise as it might have once been to learn that things we in the general public might have just assumed were blazingly illegal are—surprise!—perfectly fine, so long as it’s mostly done by people who are richer than snot.
That may be an unfair portrayal of the news from the Federal Election Commission, but that’s what we’ll go with and the immortal and all-knowing powers that be can try to talk us down if anyone even cares to bother. In a just-reported decision, the FEC concluded that there’s technically no federal law against foreign nationals (or foreign companies) pumping money into the ballot initiatives that voters are asked to vote on each election cycle.
It’s illegal for foreign nationals to donate money toward elections. It is not, concluded the FEC, illegal to dump money into ballot measures (or, by extension, congressional redistricting itself?) because ballot measures are not technically “elections.”
Sure, fine, we’ll go with that. What it means in the specific case being ruled on is that Canadian subsidiary Sandfire Resources, an offshoot of an Australian mining giant, has the go-ahead to fund committees to oppose a Montana ballot measure tightening water pollution rules regulating the mining industry. In the general case, however, it means any foreign company can fund whatever state ballot measures they like. The Post reports that only seven states currently make that illegal; everywhere else, for now, is fair game.
So, for example, a Russian state-owned oil giant might start funding ballot measures to shut down American oil companies—not because of climate concerns, heavens no! But to prop up the price of the Russian version. (Just kidding: I’m fairly certain that the 5th Circuit has ruled that opposing an oil company is a death penalty crime.)
A foreign car manufacturer might, say, spend several truckloads of money on a ballot measure allowing a state to bust whatever unions might be causing special inconvenience when the time comes to renew labor contracts. (Just kidding: Car manufacturers don’t need to spend money to bust unions; all they have to do is ask and state legislatures will rewrite laws however they need to be rewritten.)
Any world power with a bit of spare change could, for that matter, fund pro-gun, pro-militia ballot measures in all fifty states just to screw with our national security a bit more than the homegrown versions have managed. There’s a political party who’d happily help, and a whole movement of people who would take time out from their pro-revolution and anti-vaxxer podcasts to jump on that bandwagon.
The good news is that this is near-instantaneously fixable. All that needs to happen is that Congress needs to clarify existing laws to bar foreign cash from influencing any ballot measure, rather than just races for elected office. Surely, we cough, that would be a bipartisan 10-minute effort that could be done by Christmas. Similarly, each state could close the loophole itself.
It’s not that we have anything against Australian mining companies, mind you. It’s just a bit problematic if we’re going to have not just American corporations and the American ultra-wealthy but every last billionaire and for-profit company on the planet all fighting to rewrite our laws through the state ballot initiative process that’s already been largely reduced to another propaganda playground. The opportunities for mischief here are near-endless—or would be, if the “end” wasn’t the natural endpoint of the world’s richest septuagenarians turning the world’s atmosphere positively Venusian in their bid to squeeze ten more bucks out of the end of the fossil fuel era.
Seriously, could we just fix this one without drama? Looking at you, McConnell. Looking at you, Manchin.
