Post-Election Day Thoughts

Hi everyone!

Taking a quick break from NaNoWriMo shenanigans to come in with a few thoughts after the results from election day.

Apparently, one of the major takeaways from this election, outside of the Democratic House majority, is that the election turnout was simply staggering. A nearly unheard of number of people were energized to head to their nearest polling station and go to work. That’s the most welcome news I’ve heard almost all year long.  One of the biggest reasons that we are in our current situation is that too many of those my age (or younger) have been inactive in exercising our civic duties.  To see so many who have worked so hard turn that effort into such a staggering show of voting is wonderful.

That’s about it for the good news, however, because as much as I want to draw hope that we can work towards a fair and just electoral system, the fact remains that several really frustrating realities seems inescapable now.

The GOP controls the Senate.  The Senate controls the appointment of the Federal Judiciary.  The Federal Judiciary has increasingly been loaded to the gills with right to hard-right leaning appointments, many of whom lack the experience or qualifications for their positions.  This process will continue unabated.  If anything, the losses in the House will goad those within the Senate and those within the Whitehouse to ramp up their current appointment and approval schedule.

While I would normally not be so depressed (or opposed) to appointments of those who simply think differently than I do, the second grim reality of this election is that gerrymandering of districts is brutally effective.  They allow those with control over the redistricting process to create situations that are almost impossible for a true representative vote to overcome.  Time and again, judges at the federal level have supported or legitimized such conduct, and the current landscape of the GOP has shown that they care about nothing but maintaining and exerting political authority.  That this comes at the cost of having a true representative democracy is no concern of theirs.  They simply wish to keep their authority and push through their agenda.  They will do so by any means necessary.

It simply frustrates me that the means in this case both make it more likely that voting won’t matter, as well as creating a situation where they can continue to push their agenda via channels that are outside of public input or control, despite the fact that most of those decisions are horribly unpopular, and against both the common will and the common good.

I don’t mind losing if that is a true representation of the will of the American public.  I absolutely despise losing because someone has stacked the deck.

Civicfully,

The Unsheathed Quill