Let me get this right. Buttigieg, who’s got a snowball’s chance of winning the nomination (just wait for South Carolina) and Sanders (who could win the nomination) tie in the first contest of the primary season. AND EVERYONE’S FREAKING OUT. And the beneficiary is . . .
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG????? Are you freaking kidding me? Democrats have railed against the 1% and the faux billionaire in the White House and now they’re fawning over a once-upon-a-time Republican-turned-Democrat who backed stop-and-frisk, who has an abysmal record on civil rights and criminal justice, as the savior of the Democratic Party and the “only one” who can snatch back the White House from the Tangerine Tyrant?
After ONE (failed) caucus in a state with a population 3.2 million people? (!) By comparison, there are 7.6 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area. Think about that. Iowa doesn’t represent the socio-economic or racial makeup of the rest of the country. It is predominantly white and rural. And we’re having a party meltdown because of Buttigieg and Bernie? Deja vu 2016.
Slow down and BREATHE! 49 more states have yet to weigh in. The 4 states holding contests before Super Tuesday will award a whopping 155 delegates at the convention:
- Iowa (41) on February 3
- New Hampshire (24) on February 11
- Nevada (36) on February 22
- South Carolina (54) on February 29
On Super Tuesday 1,439 delegates will be awarded (out of the 1,885 delegates needed to secure the nomination at the convention) as follows:
- Alabama (52)
- American Samoa (6)
- Arkansas (31)
- California (416)
- Colorado (67)
- Democrats Abroad (13)
- Georgia (105)
- Massachusetts (91)
- Minnesota (75)
- North Carolina (110)
- Oklahoma (37)
- Tennessee (64)
- Texas (228)
- Utah (29)
- Vermont (16)
- Virginia (99)
Fall in love! Vote with your heart in the primaries! If enough people do that, rather than trying to play the long game, maybe just maybe we’ll wind up with someone that the whole country can get behind–with their heads AND their hearts–who will win the election and take back the country from the party that is doing its best to destroy democracy.
FACE IT. It doesn’t matter who Democrats nominate for president. The Republican base won’t vote for that person. People don’t want the status quo. People don’t want a government that is headed by (another) billionaire businessmen who represent the old ways, who favors the 1% because they are part of the 1%.
People want change. People want to feel safe–in their homes, on the street, at work, and in the places of worship. People want clean air, drinkable water, to preserve our wilderness, our waterways, and to save our planet from climate change.
WE CAN’T DO THAT if we stay the course, if we don’t put a democrat in the White House AND if we don’t take back the US Senate where we can not only block the continued appointment of litmus test federal judges (Trump, with the assistance of McConnell and his henchmen, have appointed 180 right-leaning judges to the lower federal courts and two unqualified Justices to the Supreme Court to date), but we can reverse course, stabilize the judiciary, reinstate the filibuster, pass the more than 100 bills passed by the House that are sitting on McConnell’s desk, dying.
Whether you want broad, sweeping change or incremental changes that nibble around the edges, the word of the day is CHANGE.
People don’t want to put brown children in cages at our borders, people don’t want to separate children from their families, people disagree with banning Muslims from entering the US and erasing protections of people based on race, religion, sex, economics, sexual orientation and gender.
People want the government out of our sexual lives and health. People want common sense gun reforms including universal background checks, plugging the boyfriend and gun show loopholes, and the imposition of red-flag laws.
People want to abolish the Electoral College because the candidate who receives the most votes should be elected president of the United States. It is, after all, the only elective office in the country that is not decided by the people who cast ballots.
We must end voter suppression by re-implementing the Voting Rights Act. We must go back to paper ballots. We must recognize the threats to our democratic government and our elections that are posed by foreign governments and take strident actions to combat those threats.
We CANNOT do this with a Republican in the White House–particularly this Republican, nor can we do it with Republicans in control of the Senate. Having Republicans in control of even one of these will result in nothing more than stagnation.
If ever there was a time to find our voice, to stand up, be counted, and take action, THIS IS IT. The future of our democracy and our republic depends on it.
In case you were wondering . . .