This month, Texas Senate Republicans passed three bills allowing religion into public schools. From Vox:
“The first, SB 1515, would require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in a “conspicuous place” in classrooms. The other bill, SB 1396, would permit public schools to set aside time for students and staff members to pray or read the Bible and other religious texts. The third, SB 1556, would give employees the right to pray or “engage in religious speech” while on the job.”
Some of this sounds unconstitutional. You can be certain that plenty of Texans will be happy to comply as maliciously as possible next fall.
The three bills now go to the Texas House for approval. They follow Texas’s SB 797, which took effect in 2021 and requires schools to display “In God We Trust” signs.
When the Texas Right say they want to bring religion back into public schools, they mean they want to make public schools more Christian. This flies in the face of America becoming noticeably less religious over the past 20 years: Weekly service attendance and religious self-identification are both down 20% overall, which translates to about 50 million fewer Americans than two decades ago.
This is ironic: If religious identification is to increase, it will have to come from “importing” traditional believers from the global south. But few of them are white. So that’s a problem for Trumpism and the reactionary Right. On to cartoons.
State-sponsored religion is hard to swallow:
Biden announces he’s running:
How do young voters fit in the race between these geriatrics?
Crab Apple tree, Fields of Wrong, CT – May 10, 2013 photo by Wrongo. This year, the trees are in full bloom two weeks earlier. The petals will be long gone by May 10, 2023. Climate change?
The new Democratic governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, appears to be on the wrong foot with her take on food safety. The NYT reports that she vetoed a bill that would have allowed Arizona’s informal network of home cooks to sell perishable food legally:
“Though the state promotes itself as a low-tax, low-regulation haven for private enterprise, it does not allow the sale of perishable foods made at home. So for years, a thriving economy of working-class, mostly Latina home cooks has operated underground, selling tacos, tres leches cakes and chile-dusted corn illegally from living rooms and outside laundromats and soccer games.”
Earlier in April, Republicans who control the state legislature came together with Democrats in a moment of bipartisan accord to pass a bill that would let Arizona’s home cooks register with the state to legally sell perishable foods like salsas and tamales.
And Hobbs vetoed it. Naturally, there was a backlash. Why would the new governor alienate Arizona’s large Latino population? Even a few Democrats have criticized her for killing what is widely being called the “tamale bill.” More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“They said her move was a slap in the face of Latino constituents who voted for Ms. Hobbs, and whose support was crucial in a politically fractured state that is about 32% Latino. Critics said her veto would hurt the working-class immigrants that Ms. Hobbs had championed during her campaign.”
We can debate the merits of Arizona’s food safety laws. You might say, “I’ve seen my kitchen, and I’m against it.”
But when we debate the merits, it ought to be in the context of a) the minimal acceptable standard for public safety, and b) what the people want. Arizona’s informal food network is very popular. People aren’t stupid: They know that eating food purchased from the trunk of a car or from a roadside stand carries a risk of a possible night on the toilet, yet no one complains. And if something happens the city or town can always trace it and shut someone down.
BTW: You haven’t lived until you’ve bought tamales from the trunk of a nice lady’s car in a Home Depot parking lot.
The Arizona food safety reform bill appealed to both Parties: Republicans could stand up for fewer regulations, while Dems could show that they understood and supported the working class. This is particularly relevant in Arizona, where working people have a long tradition of making money through selling food informally.
So, what was Hobbs thinking? The selling of home-cooked food is primarily practiced by people of color or immigrants. Banning sale of their cooking could be seen as institutional racism, something we might expect in Arizona, but from a Democratic governor?
Maybe roadside vendors could display a warning sign saying that the Office of Food Inspection isn’t inspecting their garage BBQs, or their kitchens, or their basement bakeries, so you’re on your own. Besides, the Feds allow Big Food to put pink slime in our ground beef.
Enough about Katie Hobbs, someone who we were thrilled to see beat Kari Lake last November.
It’s time to forget about politics and whatever Ron DeSantis was doing in Israel. Focus instead on finding some relaxing time before the week starts all over again. Here on the fields of Wrong, the spring cleanup continues, along with our working to convince a pair of house finches that building a nest under the walkway to our door is – well, wrong. Wrongo expects to prevail as he has in prior years.
But now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother!
Let’s start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Ethiopia Basha Bekele coffee ($23/12oz.) from Virginia’s Roadmap CoffeeWorks, an award-winning artisan roasting company based in Lexington, VA. It is said to be chocolaty and fruit-toned in the very long and satisfying finish. Who doesn’t like a long finish?
Since there’s rain in Litchfield County today, grab a chair by a large window. Now watch and listen to “Simple Gifts” from Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In 1942, Martha Graham commissioned Copland to write a ballet with “an American theme”. It premiered at the Library of Congress on October 30, 1944, with Graham dancing the lead role.
In 1945, Copland was commissioned by conductor Artur Rodziński to rearrange the ballet as an orchestral suite. “Simple Gifts” was a Shaker Hymn that Copland brought to life. He called the piece “Ballet for Martha”, and Graham gave it the title “Appalachian Spring”, after a line in a poem by Hart Crane:
Mountain Park in Globe, AZ – April 2023 photo by Karen Coffelt
(Earth Day was yesterday. Wrongo was at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 in NYC. Then-mayor John Lindsay closed Fifth Avenue from 59th Street to 14th Street. Nearly one million people marched downtown. It was an upbeat and friendly crowd. In July of 1970, Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order.)
Today let’s return to talking politics. Axios had an interesting chart from Gallup on the distribution of voters by party preference:
We spend our days listening to politicians who’s Parties, individually, now represent a minority of Americans. This trend means there are serious challenges ahead for our two traditional Parties. It also adds some context to our evenly split politics.
Here’s an analysis of the vote share of independents by Party in recent elections: (the numbers do not total to 100% because voters who chose “another” or didn’t vote aren’t shown)
Interestingly, the Democrats have lost 10 points of independent support from 2020 to 2022, but the GOP only gained 1%. At the time, the Associated Press reported:
“Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s [2022] midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018…picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain why Republicans flipped just nine seats…”
Going back to the trends in the first chart, Axios reports that Gallup analyst Jeff Jones says a big reason for this change is driven by the younger generation:
“It was never unusual for younger adults to have higher percentages of independents than older adults….What is unusual is that as Gen X and millennials get older, they are staying independent rather than picking a party, as older generations tended to do.”
So who are these independents? Krystal Ball explains in a YouTube video that most of these “independents” are younger voters, millennials and Gen-Z. They’ve also stayed more disillusioned than their elders.
This means that the nation is evenly split between those who think that one of our two political parties is telling the absolute truth, while the 49% majority basically don’t trust either to have their back.
The question with independents is whether they are truly a part of some mythical center or if they are a segment (half) of the population that isn’t politicized, meaning they don’t believe they have a personal stake in elections.
Or are independents simply that half of the US electorate that just doesn’t bother to vote?
The American political system is dysfunctional. That’s making people opt for being independent rather than Democrat or Republican. They see the choice between the Parties as choosing between the red shit sandwich and the blue shit sandwich.
Time to wake up America! Democracy is our country’s feedback mechanism, but just 46.8% of us voted in the 2022 mid-terms. So it’s clear our current brand of democracy isn’t working. More of us need to vote, and that means we have to help our Parties change. We don’t need a third Party; we need our two Parties to reflect what grassroots America needs. More about this tomorrow.
To help you wake up, and in honor of Earth Day, watch and listen to Neil Young perform “After the Gold Rush”, live at the Shoreline Amphitheater in 1993. He’s playing a pump organ, which generates sound as air flows past the vibrating reeds. Also, he’s wearing Uggs:
Sample lyric:
Look at Mother Nature on the run In the twentieth century
Look at Mother Nature on the run In the twentieth century.
Sunset, Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend NP, TX – March 2023 photo by Rick A. Ludwig. Cliff on left is in Mexico, the one on the right is in US. The Rio Grande is in the middle.
Signs that we’re starting to think about the 2024 election are everywhere. Wrongo wants to connect a few dots regarding Biden’s recent efforts to move the Democratic Party more to the middle on crime and immigration while staying left on financing the country’s social and military needs.
Biden proposed a budget to reduce the deficit, protect Medicare and Social Security, and raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. From the NYT:
“In a speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, Mr. Biden said that his budget was designed to ‘lift the burden on hard working Americans’ and drew sharp contrasts with the proposals that Republicans have offered, which the president argued would threaten the nation’s social safety net programs and benefit the rich.”
This contrasts with Biden’s right-leaning position on the recent DC crime bill. Since DC is controlled by the Congress, it’s legislation can be vetoed by the US Senate. Also from the NYT:
“The Senate…voted overwhelmingly to block a new District of Columbia criminal code that reduces mandatory minimum sentences for some violent offenses, with Democrats bowing to Republican pressure to take a hard line on crime in a move that underscored the rising political potency of the issue ahead of the 2024 elections.”
By an 81-to-14 vote, with 31 Democrats voting with the Republicans, the Senate passed the Republican-written measure to undo the District’s law. It now goes to Biden, who after initially opposing it abruptly changed course and said he would sign it.
So, Biden’s tacking left on spending but to the center-right on crime. He’s making a series of calculated moves to position his Party to compete successfully in 2024. Still, it’s disappointing that Biden and 31 Democrats joined with the Right to deny DC residents the right to govern their own city.
But this shouldn’t be surprising. Last year, Biden and the Democrats turned their backs on labor during their contract battle with the railroads.
“[Biden has]…begun to tiptoe toward the center lately on another major Democratic liability, immigration…..Centrist analysts…have warned Biden and his Party that their political viability depends on escaping the…“cultural bubble” in which an unsecured border is treated as a civic good.”
And last week Biden changed his immigration policy. He’s requiring asylum seekers to seek refuge in nations they pass through rather than waiting to do so in the US.
These new policies bring Biden closer to public opinion. Among Democrats, a plurality want to see the number of asylum applicants increased rather than reduced. Among the overall public, it’s the opposite. Biden is tilting toward the latter.
Biden wants to be seen as strong on crime. Democrats walk a fine line of being against crime but not wanting to wholly support the police. Doing that would risk looking anti-Black in cities that are so important to their political success. Dems support compassionate justice and not retributive justice, so they get tied up in knots when violent crime increases, which is rising in America. The problem of course is that the descriptor “violent” isn’t consistently applied.
Biden’s idea is to try to win more votes from people who are not fanatic MAGA types. That means picking off White suburban voters, Asian voters and Hispanic and Black voters, all of whom are concerned about crime.
Tom Sullivan points out that while the moderate-to-conservative White population is in slow decline, their votes remain significant, and that Democrats shouldn’t ignore them over the next two years:
“Sadly, Democrats often do. Campaigning in concentrated urban areas that tend to vote your way is simply easier and more cost-effective. What it means for largely rural states like North Carolina is that while it remains possible to elect a Democrat like Roy Cooper as governor, Democrats’ urban focus bequeaths him a Republican-dominated legislature…”
Sullivan says the Democrats need to start acting like the big-tent party that they used to be.
And that’s what Biden is attempting to do.
Time to say “enough” to war-gaming the 2024 election. It’s time for our Saturday Soother. The daffodils have sprung through the snow, a sure sign of spring. We turn back the clocks tomorrow night, another win for those who hate dark days.
So, it’s time to take a few minutes to center yourself. Start by sitting in a comfy chair and watch and listen to Lili Boulanger’s “D’un matin de Printemps” (On a spring morning). She wrote this piece in 1917 when she was 23. Boulanger battled bronchial pneumonia throughout her short life, dying a year later at age 24. Here, it is played by the Seattle Symphony conducted by Cristian Măcelaru.
Listen and think about her writing this during the darkest days of her life:
Early blooming Bradford Pear trees, near Cana, VA – March 2023 photo by Lee Ogle
North Carolina is in today’s news for two reasons: First, North Carolina Republicans, who control the state legislature, announced a deal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina would be the 40th state to expand Medicaid after a decade of Republican resistance.
“The deal marks a stark turnaround for Republican leaders that played out over years in North Carolina and in states across the country, as more and more governors and legislatures expanded Medicaid to low-income residents.”
NC’s governor, Democrat Roy Moore will sign the bill if it gets to his desk. Passage would extend Medicaid coverage to 600,000 of the state’s poor citizens. Dozens of rural hospitals in NC closed during Covid, so maybe it dawned on NC’s Republican Party that dead constituents have a difficult time voting for them.
As with other states, this will allow North Carolina, at no cost to the state government, to give health insurance to the state’s working poor. The federal government will pay for 90% of the cost, and the rest will be covered by a new tax on hospitals and insurance companies.
Wrongo wrote about how the Medicaid expansion was a great source of revenue to state governments here. The NC House Speaker, Republican Tim Moore said that since the federal government will pay North Carolina a $1.8 billion bonus if expansion passes, the GOP was motivated to sign on.
The extra money is part of the 2021 stimulus package signed into law by Biden, that offered signing bonuses to states that expanded Medicaid. In NC’s case, $1.8 billion. Biden reacted:
“This is what I’m talking about….That’ll be 40 states who’ve expanded. 10 more to go.”
It’s doubtful that any other states will sign on this year.
Shouldn’t Red states be taking care of their residents? Instead of wasting time with anti-trans bills and anti-woke bullshit? But that’s too much to expect.
A second North Carolina story involves a case in front of the US Supreme Court, Moore vs. Harper. Last fall the Supremes heard this case about the “Independent State Legislature Theory“. The case started out as a challenge to a Republican-gerrymandered voting map that the NC Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutionally partisan.
NC’s GOP then appealed to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution’s election clause gives state legislatures freedom to do whatever they decide about their own elections, and that no court can intervene in that. A decision was expected in June, 2023.
But the Supremes may not get a chance to weigh in, since the case is back before the NC high court. Why you ask? Well the NC Supreme Court is elected. And in November, the Republicans won a majority of the seats on the court.
Unsurprisingly, the court decided to review two cases that were decided against Republicans. What’s remarkable is the extent to which NC Republicans are willing to go in order to take control over the outcome of elections away from voters. And they’re not even trying to be covert about it.
On February 3, the NC Supreme Court granted a petition to rehear the case. That means the state supreme court may reconsider a case that is already in front of the US Supreme Court.
On March 2, the US Supreme Court asked for a supplemental briefing. They’re asking the NC Republicans, (the plaintiffs that originally challenged the maps), and the Biden administration to submit supplemental briefings about what effects the state court’s reconsideration might have on the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision.
So the legal jousting about voting rights in North Carolina continues. Maybe the state’s decision to embrace Medicare expansion after a decade means that we simply have to wait for the GOP to come around to an idea that most Americans favor. In the case of voting rights, Wrongo suggests continuing the fight, not waiting.
Time to wake up America! The Biden administration won’t be sending free money to the states to get them to embrace universal voting rights. That may have worked with Medicare, but not with voting rights.
To help you wake up, watch, and listen to Roy Rogers play “Walkin Blues” from his video “Slide Guitar For Rock & Blues” on a 12 string resonator guitar. Rogers makes it his own, and the playing and vocals are terrific:
This is dedicated to our friend Rene S, who also plays a mean guitar. “Walkin Blues” is a blues standard that’s been recorded countless times, often with different lyrics. Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and the Grateful Dead all have their own versions.
“The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain confirmed Thursday that it will not dispense abortion pills in several states where they remain legal — acting out of an abundance of caution amid a shifting policy landscape, threats from state officials and pressure from anti-abortion activists.”
It seems that Republican state attorneys general in about 24 states wrote to Walgreens in February, threatening legal action if the company continued distributing the drugs in their states.
These abortion pills are the nation’s most frequently used method for ending a pregnancy.
The company subsequently told the states that it will not dispense abortion pills either by mail or at their brick-and-mortar locations in those states.
This is where America is at: Large corporations are doing more to obstruct access to abortion than the law requires. On to cartoons.
Women’s history month at the Supreme Court:
Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the Oscar-nominated movie “Women Talking” last night. It’s message is that women should no longer accept things they cannot change; that it’s time to change the things they can’t accept. Like the Dobbs decision.
Tennessee outlaws drag. And they’re so pro-life that they want to execute any woman who gets an abortion.:
Some of you may have heard about a study called “The Hidden Tribes of America” by the group More in Common. It’s trying to understand the forces driving political polarization in America today. They classify the American electorate into seven distinct groups, they call “Tribes”.
But their key conclusion is that most people don’t belong on the far left or far right: (brackets by Wrongo)
“…the largest group that we uncovered in our research has so far been largely overlooked. It is a group of Americans we call the Exhausted Majority…representing a two-thirds majority of Americans, who aren’t part of the Wings….most members of the Exhausted Majority aren’t [simply] political centrists or moderates. On specific issues, their views range across the spectrum.”
More:
“But while they hold a variety of views, the members of the Exhausted Majority are also united in important ways: They are fed up with the polarization plaguing American government and society….. [they] are so frustrated with the bitter polarization of our politics that many have checked out completely….. they aren’t ideologues who dismiss as evil or ignorant the people who don’t share their exact political views. They want to talk and to find a path forward.
This chart from the study graphically illustrates the seven tribal groups of the American populace. As you can see, there is a left-wing group that is about 8% of the US population. And there are two right-wing groups that equal about 25% of Americans. That leaves four groups in what the authors call the “Exhausted Majority”. They are 67% of the American populace.
Here are some demographic characteristics of the seven groups:
Wrongo identifies as one of the Traditional Liberals, their description rings true.
The authors say that in their research, this tribal membership predicted differences in Americans’ views on various political issues better than demographic, ideological, and partisan groupings. You can read or download the whole study here.
An “Exhausted Majority” may be a positive political development. Wrongo spends nearly every day thinking that there are just two opposing camps. And that they each view each other with fear and loathing, refusing to listen to anything that doesn’t fit their existing narrative. As we’re entering the next presidential campaign, it’s good to know that Wrongo’s view of our polarization might be well, wrong.
Is the “Exhausted Majority” merely a new response to our dysfunctional politics? Wrongo isn’t alone in thinking that what’s wrong with our country will take decades to overcome. Faced with that, people start to look for quick fixes, or a way to stop listening to the wrangling. And you don’t have to be unaligned with either Party to share this sense of exasperation.
The people described in the “Exhausted Majority” are similar. It’s also true that for most people, politics isn’t the be-all-end-all of their lives. They’d prefer that the business of government didn’t require their involvement. They’re trying to get their kids educated, and to keep them safe. They prefer to see political compromise happen without needing to be involved.
But if you can walk away from politics when it frustrates you, then you’re in the lucky minority:
There are large numbers of parents who have discovered that their child is addicted to opioids.
There are many people who had lost their health insurance when they were laid off.
Many sent their daughter to college in the South only to learn that she no longer has any reproductive rights.
Many are worried that books are being taken from public school libraries.
Some fear that they may lose the right to vote.
These people can’t simply throw up their hands and walk away. Only political action will help them. We all know that the political radicals are irredeemable. We also know they make the most noise, but they’re a minority.
The fed-up people on both sides and in the middle have to find a way to take the country back from the radicals, instead of allowing ourselves to be herded into existing opposing camps.
Time to wake up America! We can’t simply drop out. There’s too much at stake. Democrats need to find candidates and a message that can motivate an additional 5%-15% of the “Exhausted Majority” to vote with them. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to the RedMolly band play a very nice cover of Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightning 1952”. It’s a surprise how beautifully it adapts to a bluegrass idiom, and the dobro work makes it:
“Vincent Black Lightning” is one of the most perfect songs ever written. We saw Thompson perform it live at Tanglewood last summer.
On Saturday, Wrongo and Ms. Right went to a dinner party with friends and two generations of family. The after dinner talk turned to how quite a few of the kids and grandkids weren’t planning on having children.
We tossed around ideas about why they were unlikely to procreate, and somethings stood out. First, they see climate change as an existential threat that society is unwilling to solve, even though the technology already exists. Why bring a kid into that?
Second, society seems broken. Our group meant that we face simultaneous crises, layered on top of each other. This situation involving simultaneous global challenges, for which we have few solutions, is called Polycrisis.
And a crisis in one global system can spill over into other global systems. They interact with each another so that each new crisis worsens the overall harm. The Polycrisis environment weakens every individual’s sense of security and their place in the world.
One impact that seems related to the simultaneous climate, health, economic and geopolitical challenges are the effects on children. The needs for special education and special services for the very young has never been greater in America. It’s forcing big changes in public school budgets across the country.
No one is really sure why this is happening.
Wrongo isn’t proposing a solution, just suggesting we need to think more about how the problems of declining birth rates, coupled with the growing issues our young children are facing, might be interrelated.
“In the past, our communities were primarily horizontal — they were simply the people we lived close to….Increasingly, though, new technology has enabled us to construct communities that I’ve decided to call vertical — groups of people united by identities, interests, and values rather than by physical proximity.”
Smith says that in the past few decades, Americans became disengaged from their local communities, hunkering down in their houses, and failing to interact with the people around them. That led to a well-documented decline in Americans’ participation in civic organizations, local clubs, etc. Our neighbors can also be stifling and/or repressive because they impose uncomfortable community norms on us.
We’ve always had Smith’s vertical communities: “the Jewish community”, “the LGBT community”, and many others. But in the past, an identity grouping wasn’t a true community. We all have identities that connect us with faraway people — other Irishmen, other Taylor Swift fans.
Prior to the internet, we couldn’t have much contact with them. These loose vertical communities weren’t efficient ways to exchange ideas. Before email, text and streaming video, getting the word out was very slow, and our horizontal communities would decide whether what we wanted to share was worthwhile.
Now, we’re no longer isolated. The internet brought us a world of human interaction: social media feeds, chat apps, and so on. Suddenly we’re surrounded by people through their words, their pictures, and their videos.
Now we organize much of our human interaction around virtual vertical communities. Former occasional connections became Facebook groups, subreddits and personal networks on Twitter. And like our small towns back in the day, vertical communities use social ostracism to punish those who deviate from consensus norms.
But vertical communities can’t provide things like public education, national defense, courts of law, property rights, product standards, and infrastructure that we all depend on.
These require a government to administer them. And governments are organized horizontally; mostly defined by lines on maps. But what if we socialize, cooperate, and fall in love with the people from our vertical community? What if we grow apart from the people next door and the relationship is irreparable?
We see this every day in America when citizens go to a PTA meeting and discover a bunch of strangers saying things that they despise.
Wrongo isn’t saying that vertical communities are another enemy. But they can and do exacerbate the polycrisis by making truth harder to see. And by making effective action more difficult.
If you doubt this, remember how powerful the anti-vaxx vertical was at the height of the Covid pandemic. Today’s vertical communities are strong enough to keep our government from getting much of anything done. How can we work together with neighbors when we share few common bonds?
America today is a predatory society. We predate on politics, ideas, values, and culture. Biden’s trying to change this, but can he succeed? How many of us are trying to help? Changing a society that’s this broken, one that’s moving deeper into vertical communities will be a very heavy lift.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
To help you wake up, listen and watch the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 2022 cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” with Larkin Poe (Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell) on vocals and a fabulous slide guitar solo:
Sample of Lyrics:
Standing next to me in this lonely crowd
Is a man who swears he’s not to blame
All day long I hear him shout so loud
Just crying out that he was framed
She is now registered as an Independent. Her announcement comes just after Sen. Warnock won reelection in Georgia, securing the 51st Senate seat for the Democrats. It’s difficult to figure out what Sinema’s intent is. The most charitable view may be that no longer being the 50th vote freed her to follow her conscience.
This raises two political questions. First, does this change the balance of power in the Senate? With the current makeup of the Senate, Wrongo doubts her decision changes anything. Like in the past, Sinema will vote the way she wants to vote. She has said she will caucus with the Democrats, but she rarely attended Democratic caucus meetings before, so there won’t be a change there.
Sinema has been a reliable vote for confirming Biden’s judicial appointments, for women’s issues and for LGBTQ+ issues. She was a lukewarm supporter of Biden’s infrastructure plan and is fervently against changing the Senate filibuster rules or increasing taxes. She voted against a $15/hour national minimum wage.
Sinema’s move is a reminder that every single Democratic Senator can control the Senate, and along with it, control every committee assignment and whatever remains of the Democratic agenda.
Sinema did say she expects to retain her current committee assignments, which makes it sound like she’s had discussions with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer before making her announcement. So, situation normal, more Dems in disarray.
Second, will this throw the 2024 Arizona Senate race to the Republicans? Voter registration in AZ is split nearly evenly into thirds among Dems, Republicans and “Other”, with the GOP in first place and the Dems in third.
Its no secret that Arizona Democrats aren’t fond of Sinema. Below is a year-old poll from the progressive think tank Data For Progress showing how big the climb would be for Sinema to win a Democratic Senate primary in 2024:
Sinema’s options in 2024 are:
Not to run for reelection.
To run as a Democrat and lose in the primary.
To run as an Independent and try to cobble together a centrist coalition.
She would fail if she tried to run as a Republican. She would probably face Kari Lake, the bat-shit crazy election denier who nearly won the AZ governor’s race. Sinema would be cast as a RINO with no chance to win a Republican primary as a former Green Party, former Democrat, and former Independent, who has finally seen the Conservative light.
However, it’s most likely that Sinema left the Democratic Party to maintain her political viability.
If so, the best strategy for Sinema is to run as an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Arizona’s Democrats would then either have to accept her as the less horrible choice in a two person contest, or reject her for Gallego, a talented politician who would have trouble winning in a three-way race if Sinema stayed in as an Independent.
That would leave Democrats in a difficult position. They could either support an Independent who mostly agrees with them and votes with the Democratic majority or run their own candidate, thereby possibly splitting the anti-MAGA majority and handing the seat to a Republican.
Remember that both Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine run on the Democrats’ line for Senate. So could Sinema. While she almost certainly doesn’t have what it takes to make Democrats love her, she almost certainly DOES have the power to make sure a more progressive Democrat doesn’t replace her.
But let’s forget Sinema and political war games and turn our attention to reindeer games. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.
Here at the Mansion of Wrong, after a very warm fall, we’re starting a cold snap with the promise of our first real snow accumulation on Sunday. That happens to be when we’re going to hear a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” by the Waterbury Symphony.
So kick back and watch “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, from Handel’s Messiah, with a solo by Amanda Powell, backed by Apollo’s Fire. This was performed live in 2018, in the First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, conducted by Jeannette Sorrell who also plays harpsichord:
Verbena in bloom, Anza-Borrego Desert, CA – November 2022 photo by Frank Sengpiel
The midterms are over and some interesting analysis is now available. Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball has an analysis of how Republicans took the majority in the House by winning more districts that Biden carried than Democrats won districts carried by Trump. From Kondik:
“There are currently slated to be 18 Republicans in Biden seats and just 5 Democrats in Trump seats.”
Kondik reports that the overall number of “crossover” districts — seats that vote for one party for House but the other party for president — has been generally on a downward trajectory. Back in 2008, Democrats held nearly 50 districts that Republican presidential nominee John McCain carried. But many of those districts went red in 2010 and, aside from 2018, Democrats have won relatively few districts won by the other side’s presidential candidate.
And Republicans have now won more of these seats in 6 of the last 7 elections, as the overall number of crossover districts has generally declined. Kondik says:
“Overall, Republicans won 5 double-digit Biden districts…while Democrats won just 1 double-digit Trump district. If those districts had voted in line with their presidential partisanship, the Republican House edge would be just 218-217.”
Immediately post-election, many Dems focused on New York where six House seats flipped to the GOP in districts that Biden had won in 2020. Democrats may think that a weak campaign by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) hurt them. But the Albany Times Unionrecently reported that Republican turnout in New York far outpaced Democratic turnout, with GOP turnout reaching 2020 presidential levels on Long Island:
“Republican turnout was substantially higher than for Democrats, 63 to 47 percent, according to an analysis of unofficial election results obtained by the Times Union from the state Board of Elections.”
This was a problem for Democrats all across the US. Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, an industry leader in using political data, tweeted about another way to look at the poor turnout by Democrats:
The possibly flippable districts Bonier is talking about are: IA3, NY17, MI10, CA13, CO3. Add to those the other five NY districts won by Biden that flipped, and you could have had a decent Democratic majority in the House.
But instead, we’ll be listening to the presumed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy say things like he did on Wednesday. He sent a letter to the January 6th Committee demanding that it preserve “all documents and transcripts” gathered by the Committee.
You should know that his demand is pointless. The Committee had already announced it will publish all documents and transcripts to ensure that Republicans do not destroy evidence when they take over the Committee.
As you may have already concluded about this election cycle, Pew Research says that in-person voting increased compared with 2020. A clear majority of Americans who voted in this year’s Congressional elections say they cast their ballots in person. Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) submitted ballots in person, including 44% who say they voted on Election Day and 21% who voted in person before Election Day.
In the 2020 presidential election that took place during the Coronavirus, a smaller majority (54%) submitted ballots in person, including just 27% who cast ballots on Election Day.
Absentee and mail-in voting declined from 46% of voters in 2020 to 35% this year. Republicans (52%) are more likely to say they voted in person on Election Day than Democrats (35%), but the share of Democrats voting on Election Day 2022 doubled compared with 2020 (17%).
There were large differences in how voters cast ballots by age and racial or ethnic groups. Nearly two-thirds of voters ages 65 and older say they either voted in person before Election Day or voted by mail or absentee.
That compares with narrower majorities of voters in younger age groups, who were more likely to vote in person on Election Day. In addition, White voters were more likely to report voting in person on Election Day (46%) than Black (40%), Hispanic (32%) or Asian voters (21%).
Overall, the big takeaway for Democrats, both for the Warnock vote on December 6 and for the 2024 Presidential and Congressional elections, is that TURNOUT wins close elections.
And we must expect that all future Congressional and Presidential elections will be decided by razor-thin numbers in many places.
Give your money to groups that are committed to growing turnout.
