It's also pretty safe to say that a woman's right to reproductive autonomy drove the voting this year. Several states had abortion on the ballot itself. The New York Times reported the following:
California, Michigan and Vermont will ask voters whether to add explicit protections to bolster abortion access, especially in Michigan, where a ban on the procedure is blocked in court. Kentucky will ask voters whether to reject protections, opening the door to further restrictions.
Montana’s ballot measure is unlike the others. If approved, it would criminalize health care providers who do not attempt life-saving care when an abortion results in a live birth, a very rare circumstance.
the measure would enact a law making any infant “born alive” at any gestational age a legal person, a protection that already exists under a federal law passed 20 years ago. It would criminalize health care providers who do not make every effort to save the life of an infant “born during an attempted abortion” or after labor or C-section. Doctors say they are concerned that the law will limit palliative care for infants who are born but will not survive.
An amendment would state there is no right to abortion, or any requirement to fund abortion, in the State Constitution.
I had to think this one through a bit. Voting YES means there is no right to an abortion but voting NO means there is. Language like this is purposefully meant to deceive voters. But hey! This is Kentucky, the state that brings you Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell. Deceiving voters is their stock-in-trade. It's just what they do.
But here's the thing: MAGA unleashed a wave of hate in the US that in our naïveté We, the People, did not believe could or would happen here. But it did. And it will continue to writhe between the sheets of this comfy little bed we've created for ourselves. That's because we are, to be blunt, a nation of ostriches; our heads remain firmly in the sand. Just like the nice Germans who drew the drapes, we think if we can't see it it can't hurt us, but it can and it will. Pretending the bullet we dodged in this midterm election will last is just plain poppycock. If you believe it's all over, well, it's not.
Of course, we will have to wait a few days to see what Feckless Toddler decides to do. There was no small amount of repudiation last week, but was it enough to make him go away? Probably not. The right wing loyalists will continue to gather in dive bars and elegant halls to whisper plans. Hey! Not all of this cabal hangs out in seedy pubs; we know a fair number of them drift through the halls of the capitals of every state. There isn't a city without a hidden cadre waiting for orders from somewhere up that food chain. Face it, they had a dry run with the insurrection. They now have a better understanding of the weakness and pressure points of the Capitol itself. Trust me; notes were taken and passed along. These things don't wither and die; they hunker down, self-nourishing and waiting for the right moment to emerge. And it will be a slow process, so slow you might not even notice it in your neighborhood. But it's there.
While the GOP party scoopers are congratulating themselves on their teeny-tiny victories and whispering that it might be time to sidle away from their current position, I don't see them making any moves toward an interest in We, the People. In all the years since the 2016 election, I've yet to see one viable health care proposal offered. In this last cycle, they bitched about inflation, but did anyone see anything that looked like a sane counter proposal from them about how to repair the problem without enriching their own pockets? The real problem is not just the oligarchical puppeteers hovering in the background...it's that the rest of the GOP has yet to devise or present a program that positively impacts all of America, including the stewardship of the planet. Their continued ability to place the entire human race in harm's way is rather alarming.
The short story is that they have lost the ability to govern a country. The GOP no longer sees itself as for the people, it's more like buy the people. And evidenced by the Georgia run-off between Warnock and that paragon of intelligence and manhood, Herschel Walker, it's clear they want no dissent from within, no thinking human who might put the good and welfare of Americans ahead of their self-interest.
As Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, posted Monday on his Facebook page:
They do not have an agenda that goes beyond self service. Have they moved away from supporting tax cuts to the rich or imposing laws designed to suppress the vote of minorities? Have they suddenly decided to respect the rights of women or adopt policies that will expand the middle class?
No, their love of self is far greater than service to the general good.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
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