Election Day Preview
Red Wave, Blue Bounce Back, or Some Other Cliche?
So I’m going to cover a few things here.
First, starting at about 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) Tuesday, I’ll be live-blogging state and national election commentary, quips, and impoliteness along with the California Globe team. Special guests like author Joel Kotkin - https://joelkotkin.com/ - will be chiming in as well. You can check out the fun at: https://californiaglobe.com/ .
Speaking of the Globe, we’ll be running an in-depth national and California election preview story tomorrow - I’ll send out the story, along with any other updates, after it posts there Tuesday.
Also speaking of the Globe, I did two versions of the “Vote Angry” piece - one focused on the national situation and one for California (and just to mention again, keeping an eye on California is a good idea for everyone anywhere because many many many bad ideas start in the Golden State.)
In other words, I “localized” the story, something we would do when newspapers were still a thing by taking wire copy about an event somewhere else, wandering down to the supermarket, asking someone wheeling their groceries out the door “what they think of…X,” cut it into the main story and then run it as a local piece.
Here, as a reminder, is the national story:
And here is the local version (eagle-eyed readers may notice certain similarities):
Vote Angry – Proudly
The angry voter is good for politicians, but bad for democracy.
The angry voter is too stupid to understand the issues and must fall back on blind rage to make a decision.
The angry voter is coming from a place of hate, not calm consideration, and is therefore, by definition, their vote should be seen as less valid.
The angry voter is a red faced, red assed, red hot, red meat, red-blooded retrograde redneck, and therefore incapable of making a rational decision.
The angry voter is a child throwing a temper tantrum, disqualifying them from the right to participate in their own governance – the famous 1994 tirade of Canadian ninth-grade drop-out Peter Jennings can be heard here: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2021/11/20/flashback-famous-abc-journalist-mocked-gop-landslide-toddlers .
Those are the bigoted dismissive degrading tropes and memes and cliches tossed about by the greasy Sacramento Blob and its media enablers whenever it appears an election might not quite go their way. It is part of an effort to explain any result that doesn’t reinforce their power – we’re good but they’re too consumed with irrational primordial hate to see that. To whit:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/politics/political-violence-voter-anger-what-matters/index.html
If you vote angry when it comes to the issue of abortion, you are a determined fighter of the good fight: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/18/abortion-counteroffensive-california-dems-00032174 . If you vote angry for any other reason it is the equivalent of screaming at your four-year-old in the supermarket for not being able to solve differential equations; in other words, it is an unrespectable anger that is at best grossly misplaced if not entirely unhinged.
Well, to be blunt: To hell with that.
California voters have the right to be angry and the duty to vote angry. In other words, if you are not angry you are not paying attention. A brief look at the issues facing the once-golden State shows that to be true:
· Purposefully imposed energy scarcity and unreliability: https://californiaglobe.com/articles/robbing-grandma-to-pay-gaia/ and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/gov-newsom-will-address-the-people-wednesday-on-extreme-heat-and-wobbly-electricity-grid/
· Rampant corruption at all levels of government:
and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/dnc-member-california-democratic-party-leader-melahat-rafiei-resigns-over-bribery-allegations/ and, well, just google Attorney General Rob Bonta and his wife Mia’s names if you need more background info.
· Gross incompetence: https://californiaglobe.com/articles/californias-edd-same-as-it-ever-was/ and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/californias-electric-high-speed-rail-no-power-no-money-no-high-speed/ (though to be honest this could easily fit in the “corruption” category, too.)
· The pandemic: from the devastation caused by Governor Newsom’s still-extant emergency powers order actions to the simply evil actions of the state’s teacher unions to the economic destruction to severed friendships no one can possibly argue that COVID was properly handled.
· Crime: ballooning criminal activity tied in part to purposefully lax district attorneys, the defund the police movement, a legislature hell bent on making sure no one goes to jail for anything to local law enforcement agencies being put in an impossible bind by politicians telling them to stand down to the LAPD telling people not to wear fancy watches in public to organized gangs of looters to the horrible thing that just happened in your neighborhood (crime is so rampant we just know this is true without having to be more specific.)
· Drugs and the Border: Chinese fentanyl (and criminals and gangs and human traffickers and terrorists) coming over the open border with Mexico is flooding the streets, fueling a massive spike in overdose deaths.
· Homelessness: Allowing people to literally die in the streets and/or letting people destroy neighborhoods and kill random people because the homeless-industrial complex does not want to solve the problem – they just want to keep getting paid: https://californiaglobe.com/articles/sacramento-shelters-for-the-homeless-not-accessible-yet-but-million-spent/ and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/sacramento-business-owners-protest-dangers-of-homeless-drug-addicted-mentally-ill-transients/ and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/the-real-cost-of-permanent-supportive-housing-for-californias-homeless/
· State censorship: The creation of a state “disinformation” program and the unconscionable limiting of the speech of doctors - https://californiaglobe.com/articles/biden-admin-embraces-californias-alarming-disinformation-control-plan/ .
· Woke Culture: The knowledge that if you happen to say what – that day – happens to be the wrong thing your entire life could be upended by an internet mob.
· Voting systems: Using “making it easier to vote” as a cover, election offices around the state have become cesspools of conflicting interests, ballot harvesting, dark money “donations,” and brazen manipulation are all plaguing the system and destroying the trust of the voter - https://californiaglobe.com/legislature/dmv-enables-massive-voter-fraud-in-the-golden-state/ .
· Schools: Public schools have become a toxic breeding ground for previously unimaginable concepts, local school boards call the police on (and report to the FBI) parents who have the courage to stand up and say that detailed sexual how-to manual may not be appropriate for fourth graders, on-campus crimes are viewed through the lens of intersectionality, the unions run the show for themselves, not the kids - https://californiaglobe.com/articles/opinion-education-lawmaking-in-california-is-overshadowed-by-teachers-unions/ and, unsurprisingly, the education offered - https://californiaglobe.com/articles/politicized-education-explains-steep-academic-declines-and-big-achievement-gaps-in-california/ - is still awful.
· Gas prices: Nothing I can possibly add…
All of these – or even just one of these – are issues that justify righteous and proper and considered anger.
But the Sacramento blob and our Bay Area overlords react to the public’s concerns with a repellence only matched by that of a cheating spouse who simply stares at you and says “So what? What’s the big deal?”
The justifiable anger afoot in the state is dismissed with a contemptuous “get over it – we know best – and we’ll probably win anyway, so shut up” wave of the hand.
Anger is not inherently bad. Anger can be a warning of danger, a reaction to a particular threat. Harnessed anger can be a very positive thing for a society and should not be rejected out of hand or denigrated as a meaningless sign of neanderthal thinking.
Anger can be a force for good, especially when it is targeted appropriately at people and institutions that are causing such bedrock damage to the state.
And – no matter how it is portrayed by the media and the Blob - angry voting is not random or incoherent. Voting is a specific intentional act intended to change the body politic. It is the direct expression of the will of the citizenry. It is a core ability of the people to shape a better future for themselves and their family.
And never forget, the Blob and the San Francistocracy only pretend to dismiss angry voting because they cannot control it and, more importantly, because they know the anger is directed squarely at them and are terrified something might actually change.
So proudly vote for change, proudly vote for accountability, proudly vote for transparency, proudly vote for a better future.
Proudly vote angry.