Biggest Lessons from the MidTerm Elections

Biggest take away from the MidTerms? Progressive policies win. The other biggest take away? People still don’t F with the Democrats.

Andrew Gillum lost (although there were shady circumstances), Stacey Abrams lost (similarly crooked politics were played, we’ll call it cheating). David Garcia out here in Arizona lost, Beto O’Rourke lost, and you get my drift. The Democrats did indeed win back the House of Representatives by a SLIMmargin, the major thing to learn from this is what happened on the ballot initiatives.

Michigan legalized marijuana.

Florida gave voting rights back to over 1,000,000 convicted felons.

Utah (We see you Mitt Romney), legalized medical marijuana.

Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah all expanded Medicaid.

Missouri and Arkansas raised the minimum wage.

Massachusetts defended the rights of Transgender Americans.

The major point is, the Democratic Party has lost so much faith with their pro-corporate, pro-war, milquetoast policies that President Obama himself said were “moderate republican” policies. Running Hillary was a mistake that they still won’t admit to, so therefore they blame Russians, James Comey, Bernie Sanders (what the eff?), Susan Sarandon, Jimmy Dore, progressives who wouldn’t “fall in line”, racists, sexists, basically anybody else other than Hillary herself. 

I think this could truly be a teachable moment for Democrats who want to win. This is how. Be actual progressives. Richard Ojeda ran as a populist left wing candidate and overcame majorly in a district that Trump won by 49 points. He didn’t win, but the point is that if he closed such a wide gap, in a pro-Trump district, that with equal resources, he would’ve wiped the floor with his opponent. Same with Bernie in the 2016 primaries, same with basically every truly left wing candidate that lost. 

Maybe Jimmy is right, we not only need to run populist left wing candidates in the democratic party, but we ALSO need to vote and support all progressive 3rd party candidates as well, because that is the only way we can put enough pressure on the Dems to represent our interests, instead of their donors.