Ok, all, I went a bit to the Dark Side of the Force (aka Politizoom) so I’ll be working on improving this. Senators Gary Peters (Michigan), Senator Tina Smith (Minnesota), and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) are retiring next year. I hope that Democrats can retain those seats. I had to do some hard thinking when I found this out. They say there’s no middle anymore. You can’t come to have anyone meet you in the middle anymore. You can barely negotiate anymore. They have decided to spend their twilight years with friends and family. The Senate has become a body where, too often, a willingness to negotiate and compromise is attacked, and senators’ incentives to be louder and more partisan have only grown. There’s no deal-making to be found. People are coming in ready to fight instead of willing to work on a compromise from both parties.
And they have become a Congress where all they do is rubber stamp legislation that tRump wants, instead of thinking for themselves and working together. Part of the change is that their constituents have become more polarized, and I can see that. You have some Republicans, MAGA, aka far right, Republicans, and Democrats. How can you get together with that? I would think that Republicans would work with Democrats to balance the legislation coming through. But “regular” Republicans are being shouted down by MAGA Republicans, and it’s the same old song and dance. Perhaps if Democrats take back the seats in Congress at midterms, we might have a chance at balance again. We might have a chance for bipartisan input again. But there are a couple of bad things to consider.
If we don’t get a clear majority, just a majority of a few seats, we’ll be in the same position Republicans are now. That won’t be helpful. And if the Republicans get their majority back, well, that’s all she wrote. We have another 2 years to survive after that, and can only hope that the country will have had enough by then. We need to wipe out the MAGA Republicans and get some cooler heads in so that actual thinking will prevail. I’ve asked my reps to start thinking about midterms *now* so they can figure out what to do and how to do it and *when* to do it with clear plans in mind instead of “winging it”. There *has* to be a way to win.
From CNN: “The departures of incumbents also come at an uncertain time for the party at large. Democrats have struggled in the minority to combat Trump’s rapid dismantling of the federal government, his tariffs, his mass deportation policies, and even his plans to renew massive tax cuts in his second term. Democrats have little leverage to fight back as the party’s base is growing more and more impatient with their inaction.” Ouch. I suppose I’m part of that chorus about inaction. We are all frustrated with ‘poor, poor pitiful me.’ Yes, we have *very* limited options right now. But we can still stand up and have our voices heard.
Our country is going to hell. Every day, there’s another piece of news about something insane Traitor Tot has done. Every day it gets worse. We’ll have to try to survive until midterms and try to turn it around. I’m hoping the country will rebel and we’ll pull off getting sanity back in Congress. I’m tired of MAGA Republicans. They need to go away, and quickly. We need cooler heads all around. We need to remember the amazing speech by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. We need to remember there’s always hope.
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