As a blue wave swept across the country, a red tide overtook big Shelby. What dO DEMOCRAts IN wASHINGTON DO TO KEEP THE MOMENTUM?
WHAT does NEW REPRESENTATION mean for the state’s largest Democratic County?
First, and most importantly, congratulations to all the Democrats nationwide who won yesterday.
Here’s a HUGE SHOUTOUT to all the the folks who flipped red TN State legislative districts blue.
All the major wins nationwide were much bigger than I thought they would be.
As of this writing, we’re still waiting on the MS Senate race, where Senator “Alternative Proteins” is down by about 50 votes to Scott Colom, a man who would be the first African-American Senator from MS since Reconstruction.
And the Senate race in AK is still about 75% counted. Democrat Mary Peltola is up by about 600 votes in the first round of their Ranked Choice Voting election. She needs to gain about 2 points to avoid a second round.
With the current count in the US Senate coming to 54 Dems to 44 GOPers. This is one of the most impressive Blue Wave elections in my lifetime.
Unfortunately for Shelby Co. TN, we lost any Democratic representation in the US House after the State Legislature split the county into 3 districts to try and bolster GOP numbers in the mid-terms.
So here’s how we’ll go. First I’ll talk about how the results could impact Shelby Co. Then I’ll talk about what Democrats have to do to: 1. Be a check on an irrational President, 2. Get meaningful shit done for Americans.
Big Shelby’s Red Tide
A Red Tide is an explolsive growth of unwanted waterborne plant life.
They are often caused by runoff fertilizer mixed with favorable weather conditions.
Long and short, they can be toxic, and they are often caused by human interference.
Back in May when the State Legislature took steps to further gerrymander the TN Congressional map, most of us in Shelby County knew we had the makings of a Red Tide.
The County got split across three districts.
Our incumbent Representative got drawn into a district that was very rural.
His Primary Challenger got put in another district that stretches nearly 200 miles across the southern border.
The districts were RED.
District 5, which stretches from the southwest corner of Memphis to Spring Hill in Williamson Co. was a +23GOP district. Molder got the margin down 18 points to +5, but it wasn’t enough.
District 9, which stretches from Whitehaven to Franklin was a +21 GOP district. Justin Pearson is trailing by about 1% right now.
Finally, District 8, which lives in the gap between Dist. 5 and 9. This was a +20 GOP district that dropped 15 points to +5.
Even with a HUGE wave year, flipping these three districts would be hard.
Pearson got the closest, but there was too much rural vote to overcome.
Now there’s a red tide over Memphis. The best we can hope for is that they don’t suffocate us.
Memphis is about to see what happens when it doesn’t have a Congressman going to bat for it in appropriations. It will be a rude, and painful, awakening.
We won, what now?
We have a Blue Wave. Its a great feeling. What do we do now?
I’ll tell you what we DON’T DO. We don’t do legislation as performance art and then forget about oversight…which is, unfortunately, exactly what House leadership is pointing to.
This morning on MSNOW, leader Jeffries offered the false choice of getting even vs getting things done.
That’s bullshit framing. Oversight isn’t about “getting even”. Oversight is about the Congress doing its Constitutional due dilligence.
We have to do both.
That means probably changing some rules in the Senate to a talking filibuster.
But we can’t get talked out of doing both, because that’s part of why the election turned out the way it did.
Order of Operations
So what do we do first?
- Bring back ACA premium subsidies.
- Reverse the Medicaid and Medicare cuts
- Raise the minimum wage.
- Vote down the war in Iran.
- Remove the income cap on Social Security contributions.
- Hamstring random acts of Tarriffism.
- A real stock trading ban for members of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.
Do that in the first month and make the GOP vote against it. Make Trump veto it.
Send out your subpoenas too. Oversight hearings are part of Congress’ duty.
But when the press tries to say you’re being divisive or getting back at the opposition, stop them and ask why they didn’t report on all the things they passed that the public wanted?
Ask them why they didn’t report who voted against these popular ideas.
Ask THEM why they’re focused on calling oversight division rather than an appropriate function of Congress?
Because we can’t stop a rogue executive branch WITHOUT subpoenas.
Sen. Rev. Warnock sums it up well…
Note: As soon as this video is up, I’ll post it here to provide more context.
WE HAVE TO DO BOTH. And if current leadership doesn’t have the stomach for that, they don’t need to be leaders.
New Narratives for a new majority
We need new narratives.
To get them, we need better messengers.
One of the things I love about Al-Sayed and Talarico is they challenge the conventional wisdom that is mostly repeated nonsense or logical fallacies we’ve internalized over decades.
We don’t need people who are going to parrot that old tired bullshit on TV.
So if Jeffries is too chickenshit to call bullshit on a known logical fallacy, he doesn’t need to be out there talking.
Same for Schumer. I don’t want to hear ONE FUCKING THING about any strongly worded letters.
ACTION. We want action.
Get the new blood out there talking about the things Congress is doing, while the old hands do the investigations.
Let them challenge the press to learn to walk and chew gum too.
Let them call a lie a lie, and ask why the press is too chickenshit to do it too.
Because oversight isn’t just for the Executive branch.
And if some dickhead reporter from Axios or the NYTimes wants to misrepresent what Democrats are doing, call them out by name.
Stay in it
This isn’t going to be easy.
Too many times, Democratic voters get big wins, then sit back and let the Congress fuck it up.
That can’t happen this time.
I hope the organizations these campaigns built lead to a slew of local organizers keeping the pressure on.
That is how we really get things done, by loudly demanding it over and over again.
Take a little break. You’ve earned it.
But next week the pressure has to build back up to get the things done that we voted for.
You fought for it. Now go out and get it.
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