I’ve just about had enough of this United States thing.
Bunny Ranch legal brothel owner Dennis Hof (R) won a seat in the Nevada legislature despite being deceased. Chris Collins, another Republican, was indicted on insider trading in the months before the election and won his battle to be one of New York’s members in the United States House of Representatives.
The party tried to get him off the ballot but found they couldn’t replace him so he re-launched the campaign and won, because who doesn’t want an insider trader representing them?
Duncan Hunter, another House Republican, was also indicted for misusing about $250,000 in campaign funds in August but was re-elected in California while suggesting that his opponent – who is a Christian – is a Muslim with ties to terrorism.
The lesson in all of this is simple. People, at least in the United States, don’t give a flying fig about the character or status of living of who they vote for, as long as they promise less taxes and less government and blah blah, etc. Good luck implementing all those plans, Mr. Hof. And rest in peace, as well.
Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, had his federal corruption trial end in a hung jury, but managed to win re-election. At least he faced the music, somewhat.
We’re probably less than one full election cycle from seeing a member of the House easily re-elected despite serving jail time at the time.
While the United States midterm elections provided some form of sanity when it came to the House in other races, we still have Nazi-retweeting Steve King re-elected in Iowa’s fourth district.
Anyone who campaigns beside U.S. President Donald Trump and then complains about the interference of east coast billionaires only on one side of the election, as King has done, is failing any test of self-awareness.
Then we get to the state of Georgia’s gubernatorial race, where Republican Brian Kemp declared himself the winner over Stacey Abrams despite many outlets refusing to call the election in either direction. Even as his lead narrowed, he resigned as Georgia’s secretary of state, awaiting his coronation. As of late last week, at least 20,000-22,000 of provisional ballots waited to be counted and if Abrams gets enough of a swing from that, a runoff election would be forced.
However, hundreds of ballot machines were in storage and in one African American neighbourhood, one poll had only three machines and it was a four-hour wait in a line for those who wanted to vote. Kemp was in charge of the vote, legislating strict voter identification laws that were making it tougher for voting applications for African Americans to get through in time for the election.
It’s power at any cost sometimes and the will of the people must be adhered to. But if the people aren’t able to be part of the process – or it’s more difficult for one group that might not vote for you to vote than any other group – what legitimacy does anyone who wins these elections have?
Situations like this are a grab for maintaining power at any cost, a shot in the arm for the traditional powers-that-be to make sure they always stay powers-that-are. I wonder if Kemp even remembers why he wanted to be elected.
His website says he wants to make the state tops for small business, reform state government and strengthen rural Georgia. Republicans have been governors of Georgia since 2003; maybe some of these sweeping reforms could have happened at some point since 2010 when Kemp was first named secretary of state.
In any event, races are clearly set along colour and income lines, perhaps more so than ever before. I don’t even know what the average Georgia voter would be, but I would be able to venture a fairly accurate guess as to what an average voter for either side would be.
The midterm elections in the United States show fairly convincingly that the two sides have never been further apart. There is no middle ground right now; there is nothing that can possibly bring together the United States from here.
My fears that America might be totally ungovernable in the very near future might come to light. We all lose if the United States aren’t united anymore but I just don’t see any way to bridge the chasm between the two sides.
So if we get a say in what might join Canada from this U.S. collapse, I’ll personally invote North Dakota (Truthfully, I’ve yet to meet a bad North Dakotan), Minnesota, Washingon state, Michigan and New York. Wouldn’t it be awesome if New York City was suddenly Canadian?
