There is no question that this has been an election of firsts, and some very fine firsts, indeed. The first black congresswoman elected from Massachusetts, Alyanna Pressley. Sharice Davids, the first Native American women ever elected to the House. And Jared Polis of Colorado is the first openly gay governor, and Jewish as well. These are glad tidings and bespeak an electorate that is more diverse than ever before, and that bodes well for a nation where all have a voice.
On the down side, and it is a considerable down side, Ted Cruz is still a senator. Ouch. The only way to look at that situation positively is to realize what a great race Beto O’Rourke ran, and how O’Rourke’s doing so well at the top of the ticket brought much needed votes to Texas House races. Texas is getting more and more blue.
So far we’ve had the good and the bad, now it gets down to the ugly. Trump fanatic Ron DiSantos is Governor of Florida. If you didn’t catch Andrew Gillum’s concession speech, do so. The man is an inspiration and a class act all the way. Stacey Abrams’ race for Govenor of Georgia has not been called as of the time of this writing, but she was 12 points down. Brian Kemp went into uncharted territory even for a Republican, when as state attorney general he was literally in charge of administering an election that he was running in. This would not happen in Great Britain or Germany, it simply would not. It’s no surprise that there were issues with polling places not being open, or not having electrical cords for the voting machines, or what have you. Many people walked out of line in frustration. The racist robo-call wherein a male voice aped Oprah Winfrey’s voice took dirty pool in politics down to heretofore unplummeted depths. Georgia and Florida are the deep south and racism will die there last. Sad but true.
So far conventional wisdom has played out and in the big picture the Democrats have regained the House and the Republicans have retained the Senate. This is disheartening because as unimaginably awful as the past two years of Trump has been, one would have thought that both chambers of congress would have gone to the Democrats, with a supermajority, even. But, alas, that is not the case.
Remember that we are in the middle of a cultural war. Bear in mind what Obama said, “Trump is not the cause [of a nation in turmoil] he is the symptom.” We have a long ways to go before all the old hatreds die off, evidently.
We can only be glad for the gains that we have made. Some perfectly awful people, such as Kris Kobach in Kansas, are now out of political life. That is a blessing and we should be overjoyed. Martha McSally was down several points at the time of this writing and so she may be finished in Arizona politics as well. Another blessing. As they go deservedly into footnotes in history, the leaders that we have elected, or kept in place, go on to do the much needed work of making this a better country.
Keep looking at this as a glass half full proposition and all in all, it’s been a pretty damn good night.
