The Blue Trickle

“The three richest Americans now have as much wealth as 50 percent of the population -- some 160 million people.” Katrina vanden Heuvel

Although voter turnout for last Tuesday’s midterm election was the highest it has been in nearly half a century, millions of eligible voters didn’t bother. The Blue Wave didn’t materialize -- journalist Abby Martin called it a Blue Trickle -- but the Democrats will assume control of the House of Representatives come January, which means they will have the power, if allowed by Nancy Pelosi to wield it, to issue subpoenas and investigate Trump’s financial records. This possibility may be the reason Trump attacked reporters at a White House press conference on Wednesday and demanded Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ resignation. The country isn’t on the brink of a Constitutional crisis -- it’s immersed in one and has been since Trump repeated the oath of office and then began to make a mockery of it.

Some positives came out of Tuesday’s election results, with the detestable Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, being booted from office, and Mr. Voter Suppression, Kris Kobach, losing his bid to become Governor of Kansas. Stacey Abrams is still in the Georgia governor’s race. Millions of ex-felons in Florida got their eligibility to vote back, a fact which will have implications in the future. And perhaps most significant of all, more than 100 women will serve in the US House of Representatives.  

But Tuesday also told a story about America’s utterly decrepit and corrupt voting system, which isn’t a system as much as it is a patchwork that differs from state to state. My polling place here in California was busy, but I had my ballot in less than five minutes. No lost voting machines, missing power cords, my polling location wasn’t mysteriously changed the night before. My name hadn’t been purged. When a local or state government actually wants people to participate in democracy, it’s not that complicated a process. But when a state government, like Florida, Michigan or Georgia designs to make voting as tedious as possible, it’s not that hard to disenfranchise people. Ironic that the United States, which for decades lectured other nations about democracy and fixed elections, needs the United Nations to observe its elections to insure they are fair and free.

The 307th mass shooting in the US in 2018 happened on Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, south of Santa Barbara. The shooter was an ex-Marine. We hear the usual “thoughts and prayers” sentiments, but I have yet to hear anyone propose a link between the shooter’s military service in a bogus war and his murderous actions. Our endless, unjustified wars have consequences.

Imagine the outcry from the Right if Barack Obama had treated the White House press corps the way Donald Trump does? Mitch McConnell and Sean Hannity would be absolutely apoplectic, screaming about the First Amendment and the sanctity of a free press in a democracy. They would demand apologies, make the circuit of the TV news gabfests talking about the need for civility in our political discourse; they would accuse Obama of being divisive, of undermining the Constitution, of destroying the nation.