There's A Crack In The Universe Where The Light's About To Flood In
The nation’s attention is focused on the midterms. And the weather. And the cost of gas and cars and car repairs and food. And their kids. And mating. And some actors and songs and all the usual stuff. Also the survival of democracy against the Furious Forces of Fascism.
Do not under-rate the usual people doing the usual stuff. They know what’s up, what’s real. Pollster aggregators like Real Clear Politics have been getting a polling picture skewed by extra polls paid for by wealthy Republicans. It’s been throwing off the averages from what the majority of voters really think. They’ve been missing the heartbeat of the usual people.
Covering them well as a writer means trying to set aside my own biases and wants so I can properly observe and listen to them. Polling can complement that but it can’t replace it. This is what I’m currently hearing and sensing.
1) Some election deniers are simply uninformed about how laws work and who’s responsible for bringing order to the chaos of lawmaking and co-existing. Some are content to remain uninformed.
2) The most visible leaders of the deniers want to keep them engaged with fictional morality or fear plays so they’ll show up and vote. Instead of offering workable policy that solves problems, they offer faked outrage.
3) The usual people can see beyond the faked stuff and represent the voting majority.
In even the smallest of rural places there’s guys like the DA Phil Landrum fighting to uphold the laws despite those willing to bend the laws on a whim. A dozen people wanted a hand recount of the 2020 election which was fine with Landrum till his research made it clear that it would be illegal.
He lost childhood friends, some of whom lobbied for him to be fired, saying that he was against “community values,” to which Landrum responded by explaining what being the Pickens County attorney meant.
“My role is not to represent community values,” he told them. “My role is to tell you what the damn law is.”
It’s a good story, a Mr. Smith Goes To Podunk story but Landrum’s well aware of what he’s up against:
He thought about how he might tell the story if he wasn’t confined to the demands of a court order. In his mind, it would be a story about the fragility of the moment in America, and the importance of the law in holding the nation together.
He remembered a conversation he had with a neighbor who was talking about the need for a new civil war.
“I said be careful what you wish for,” Landrum said. “Some of the constructs you want to tear down so badly are the only thing keeping you alive.”
In his office now, he went back to drafting the order, settling on four pages of careful legal prose that ended with, “Respondents’ motion to Dismiss is hereby GRANTED.”
The judge signed it, and the county attorney got back to work, because he knew what was coming.
“November is going to be hell,” he said.
The attack on an 82 year old businessman galvanized a bit more steel in the spine of American voters, though. The guy didn’t make any government decisions. He wasn’t a bureaucrat or a peaceful protester or a Deep Stater. Hell, he wasn’t even Black or Jewish or a border crosser or a woman or a gay so there weren’t any free punches allowed.
When an old sleeping white guy had his head cracked open with a hammer, more Americans said “well, shit, that’s just about enough of that.”
And now the polls are reflecting that.
Senator Hassan will hold her seat in New Hampshire. John Fetterman will pick up a PA seat for the Democrats. Reverend Warnock will keep his Senate seat in Georgia. Mark Kelly will keep his in Arizona. Democrats will maintain control of the Senate. They might even emerge with a 51-49 majority by the end of next week.
Most of the candidates who are election deniers will go down to defeat as well. Governors, Secretary of States, Attorney Generals…. the Democrats will do okay there too.
That’s what the pulse of the people is onto. Women and Blacks and Latinos and LGBTQ people are completely over all the bullshit. And the old white guy coalition the Republicans were depending on has started leaking men.
It’s not that Democrats started messaging better. Most haven’t. But most voters are just done with Russian war criminals threatening nuclear war and the record profits of Big Oil barons and Prince Bonesaw of Sharia Arabia. They’re done with the strange ex-president thumbing his nose at all the laws and throwing empty words and empty legal challenges to stave off his day of reckoning.
They’re willing to stand up against an inevitable backlash now. They’ll take on the Flying Media Monkeys and the Wicked TeaPartiers of the West. They’re ready to handle the Romanticists with their hearts set on a civil war. The usual people are making the only decision that makes any sense: No to fascism. No to hammer attacks. No to price gouging. No to nukes. No to traitor tots and Russian bots. Yes to women’s rights and criminal prosecution of the nation’s biggest criminals.
And one of the biggest lies - that Democrats are pedophiles and sexual predators - is going down in flames as well.
The usual people retained their senses. The billionaires and mega-millionaires outsourced manufacturing that totally fucked up our supply chains. They suppressed increases in the minimum wage for a dozen years while poverty soared. The farmworkers kept on feeding us. Most of the truckers and delivery drivers kept delivering in the face of the pandemic. Most of the healthcare workers worked overtime dealing with the unimaginable mental and spiritual traumas of covid and they’re still at it, as our ERs overflow with fresh diseases attacking our kids and grandkids. The epidemiologists didn’t defeat the diseases but they gave most of us ways to survive them and did so in record time.
The billionaires and mega-millionaires aren’t going to buy a government loaded with fascists. Sure they outsourced the violence through crooked lieutenants like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and Alex Jones. The usual people understand there’ll still be crazies packing guns and hammers after the results of this election become clear.
But the usual people have had it up to here with all the bullshit and they’re not gonna take it lying down anymore.
I can hear the violent extremists now, here in Oregon, after they see Tina Kotek pulling out a last minute win to be the next governor. They’ll never understand that no one wins a civil war. But the usual, sensible people know that far more is lost when we surrender to insurrectionists and lynch-mobbers.
This isn’t wishful thinking on my part. This is what I’m hearing and observing from most of the American people and it’s starting to show up in the late-breaking polls.
Democrats may lose the House but not by the margins that Republican leaders have been salivating over. Not by the margins the strange ex-president needs to ever win a race for public office again. Even the court-packing he did isn’t going to save him. A few of his judges will buy him a little time with sketchy rulings. But he’ll eventually be forced to go on the lam because that’s what every coward eventually does once their true colors are fully exposed.
No, I’m neither drunk nor on drugs. Violence, death and destruction just lack the appeal to most Americans that the greediest in the country thought they could sell. They came uncomfortably close but this time, our frayed democracy held.
How many of you were aware of the Miracle in Maryland that’s about to happen? Stories like that are under-reported but that doesn’t mean they’re not true. It means that the usual sensible people are gonna prevail again. Because we can.