Thirty Days
It is one month exactly from Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022.
There is no doubt where I stand. I make that declaration at the right on this screen every time I’ve published since March, 2009.
I am a Democrat, and I always vote, well informed, on all races from local to national.
I have been voting age for over 60 years, and this is the first year, ever, in my opinion, when there has been such a huge difference between the approaches of the respective parties leadership. At this time in history, there is only one party that gives a damn about the country – all of us, together – as a community, and that is the Democratic Party.
No, my ‘side’ is not perfect – no family is – but there has now been six years of experience, including near two years including Jan. 6, 2021, to learn from experience some life lessons of today’s “T” party infatuation with authoritarianism.
(Of course, there is “Republican” on the ballot this year, not “T”; but there is no longer a Republican Party as it used to be. There used to be some attention to that quaint notion called “truth”. No more. Consolidation of Power is all that matters. Traditional Republicans do not support the current version of their party.)
Having said that, I am only one vote, in one community. As are you. As is anyone in this endangered democracy called the United States of America.
At the minimum, Vote Nov. 8.
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I have been watching the ‘game’ in my town of 70,000 all summer. I’m in Minnesota SD 47. (The link is the Democrat website.)
There is the usual array of candidates. My focus is on Mn Senate and House of Representatives candidates.
My party, the Democrats, have two women running; there are two men listed on the Republican sample ballot.
None of the four have ever actually held elective office. I know my two candidates. They will well represent this district.
What I have found exceedingly odd this time around is that the so-called Republican candidates campaign lawn signs and literature basically hardly reveal any party endorsement, or even the Republican ‘colors’ (red), and the one mailer thus far received had nothing of substance. To get on the ballot, each person had to have official party endorsement, but in the R case, this apparently is not viewed as a positive. At the same time, if elected these folks will not be free agents. This is not how politics works.
POSTNOTES:
Information for a Minnesota voter can be seen here (our early voting began on Sep 23). National information here. NBC has a Plan Your Vote site as well.
January 6 Select Committee hearing will broadcast on October 13. Information here.
COMMENTS (note others at end)
from Annelee: (Annelee is a long-time friend who grew up in Nazi Germany from age 7 to 21. She knows of what she speaks.)
The Democratic party is not what it used to be. Whitney Webb has a new book coming out. We need to act locally because both the Dems and Repubs have sold us out. Here is a link to the review of webb’s book: https://home.solari.com/coming-thursday-special-report-one-nation-under-blackmail-with-whitney-webb/
I understand your position, I think. What I’ve observed for years is that the essential tension is that this country is progressive-socialist-conservative (contradiction intended). Any party to succeed has to appear to ‘sell-out’ the purists on both ends of the spectrum. Just my opinion – note I call myself ‘pragmatic’, which flows from a career when I had no choice to deal with all sides of all kinds of petty and profound issues to try to reach some kind of consensus that people could live with. Wasn’t easy…. Thanks for the comment, by the way.