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What did the Democratic loss in Virginia mean?
Is it an omen of a Red Wave in 2022?
I don’t know and neither does anyone else. But we tend to grab on to isolated facts and try to make generalizations from them.
David Leonhardt writing in the New York Times today showed data that the number of Covid deaths were much higher in red voting districts than blue voting districts.
I am pretty sure you will hear that data repeated today a bunch of times.
I am not sure what you can make of it. People will try to make something out of it.
What I am absolutely convinced of is that it would be absolute folly for the Democrats to count on Covid deaths to win congress in the coming midterms. And a little creepy.
Biden’s approval ratings continue to drop.
No doubt part of reason for Biden and the Democrats fall from grace is a result of pandemic fatigue.
I’m thinking that another reason is that Biden, Schumer, Pelosi and the Democrats have retreated on so many of the progressive and popular promises they made during the election.
In some ways the worst retreat in terms of the midterms is on voting rights.
Whenever I bring up the issue of losing congress in the midterms to my Democratic Party friends, I get dismissed. “It’s all about turnout,” they tell me. “We have a majority and good candidates.”
But counting on turnout in the face of Republican voter suppression is weak sauce.
In all the talk about bargains and deal making, what happened to the voting rights act?
Why isn’t that part of the dealing.
And and an end the filibuster?
The chances of the Democrats holding on to a congressional majority means expanding voting rights.
It means passing the Freedom to Vote Act.
That requires ending the filibuster.
Today’s poem.
Democracy by Langston Hughes
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.