As for me and the mid-terms of 2022, I’m hoping for a ‘Pink Wave’—WOMEN voting in droves; more women than men voting, heh heh; and voting in candidates who support the reproductive rights we used to have instead of state by state or like here in Texas community by community, encouraging nosy neighbors, relatives and strangers by paying them $10,000 for hauling in a female resident who had an abortion.
I, like Beto O’Rourke, have had enough of Gov. Abbott’s and the controlling State Republicans’ illogical and mean-spirited abortion laws, nonchalance over nonstop mass shootings across Texas, and presiding over the unfixed and deadly-in-winter Lone Star power grid.
There used to be a saying among working-class Americans long ago who were as ‘mad as Eddie Chiles’ and weren’t gonna take lousy no-count selfish elected leaders anymore especially in Washington, D.C.: THROW THE BUMS OUT.
We don’t hear expressions by fed-up voters anymore because now elections are a blood sport; you can taste the animosity. The fangs are out. Republican candidates show themselves in campaign ads brandishing machine guns, implying, no saying outright they’ll shoot anyone who gets in their way. We just accept this murderous pledge? People are gonna vote for them? Yes, gunslingers get loads of votes. Our nation is so angry.
Americans are mad and rightfully so when it comes to inflation we haven’t seen since the disco era. Who’s to blame for the economy? Always the party in power. So President Biden, who knows this, is gonna have to take it on the chin, like President Bush in 1992 when Bill Clinton won (by sticking to an in-house campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.”)
Yes, the economy appears to be a major problem to many voters if not to everyone. It’s not my number one issue though it has been in the past. My concern as a voter is eroding 50-year rights and dismantling our form of government, these issues over economy—the latter which in reality has little to do with who’s the U.S. President, don’t you know?
Economists tell us there are many issues that impact the economy. The big picture is we are part of a global economy, and the pandemic upended business around the world. Come on, billions of people could not work for one reason or another: They were ill or dying, taking care of the ill and dying, living among the ill and dying, and quarantined—weren’t allowed to work for months. The brakes were put on every type of business … in the world. Whiplash was bound to occur. It’s painful and takes some time to heal, we’re finding out.
And wake up Americans! We just fought two wars on the other side of the world for two decades! We gotta pay for that. We gotta pay for two wars for a long, long time. Taxes were going to go up no matter which political party’s in charge.
Having spent most of my life paying attention to American politics since, say, the 1970s, and still never forgetting a day of the ’80s’ Reagan-Bush years, I find that every time a Democrat gets elected President, economic messes are cleaned up—not quickly in a year or two, but quite a bit during two terms. It’s remarkable how slow and steady wins the race. But hold on. Then a Republican gets elected President, and the formerly economic ‘conservatives’ in the U.S. House & Senate spend ALL our money like they’re drunk on … power. I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed ‘tax-and-spend’ liberals of whom Republican leaders criticize.
But I have witnessed the Republicans signing ‘American family’ pledges which master plan featured a list of filthy adjectives to ALWAYS use whenever talking about Democrats, those elected to office, at first at the national level and now all the way down to county clerks, mayors and school board members—and finally just any Democrat in the nation, half the population.
And with the free speech internet, Americans have turned ugly more than they are angry.
American anger is misplaced. Blame the national economy and inflation on all the merchandise still sitting in ships off the coast of California, the world’s manufacturers forced to stop producing for a year or so, Americans not wanting to work millions of jobs (some requiring expertise like nurses and physicians, police and teachers) and related anti-immigration policies, and yes residual effects of the pandemic leaving mostly mothers at home to care for their youngest children. And don’t ever forget about two decades of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—costing at times a billion dollars a month.
The enormous, enviable and wildly rich and prosperous U.S. economy has always appeared a mess (like finding out 60 cents of every tax dollar goes to the military), save a few glorious moments in relatively recent American history. We can vote all Republican because we’re angry Democrats haven’t fixed everything in two years. Or we can be realistic and honest and suck it up: Our nation owes a lot of debt. We can cry over spilled milk, say bitter grapes, throw a pity party, hold our breath till turning blue. But voting in an election requires the calm reasonable mind of a mature adult not an angry temper tantrum of a spoiled brat.