American Politics…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

Is it don’t lose faith time? I think it might be.

With the news arriving over here that Republican Glenn Youngkin won in Virginia, we can start to believe that the Republican Party may well be on their way back. Mid term elections for ruling parties can be sore. They serve as a plebiscite on the progress of the incumbent leaders so that people get a chance to give them a hint or a bold statement over how they are doing. The electorate are fickle like that.

In any two party system, you can find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place – democracy asks you often to pick the lesser of two evils. Voting for one side because you don’t like the look of the other never really feels like a positive choice – it ain’t.

The American system, however, does not give much scope for democratic pluralism. We know that come Presidential elections there are other candidates for libertarianism, socialism and the like but they get little coverage and are treated like Side Show Bobs rather than main events.

Looking at what happened in Virginia is chastening. The Republicans, with the specter of an Orange Glow in its shadows, took the Governorship, Lieutenant Governorship and the post of attorney general. There is talk they might win over the Virginia House of Delegates.

Then there was the closely run result in New Jersey at the same time where the Republicans came close.

In Virginia they seem to have called once more upon rural Trump supporters but also eaten into the urban voters that turned out for Joe Biden last year. It ended with an alliance which worked for the Republicans to come back. They have not stormed back but they have returned. Voter turnout was down against the presidential election and that turnout may be because the cause of defeating a Republican in a Governorship race is far from as vital to people as defeating a Presidential candidate who threatens democracy.

But it is.

The Republican Party, as long as it has an association with Donald J Trump, remains a threat to what people have worked hard to achieve in America. The need to grow into a tolerant and inclusive nation is still to be realized and the more there are threats to the Presidency with votes being cast against it, the more vigilance we need. Any slender control of any legislature needs to be tightened, not lost.

In Virginia a long standing politician stood for the Democrats, someone of heft and authority. And lost. Is there something in there? Were they complacent and thought all they needed to do was to simply put their names on a ballot paper? It would be folly of the most exceptional kind if that were true. There may be volunteer fatigue where the greater cause used up most of the goodwill and the battle, having been won, is now to be left behind. Why battle again – we won? Didn’t we?

There are elements of the Democratic Party which will not sit right with many of the populace within the United States because it will not. The fact is that there are few political parties in any democracy who snugly suit our own firmly held beliefs unless we create them. It is often chastening for those people who do to find that they don’t always attract overwhelming support. Democracy and voting is often the ill perceived act of voter compromise. We vote for the one who is most likely to do the most things we mostly want. 2022 mid terms are upon the US very soon. It shall be a time to take a temperature reading of where the country is at with Trump and the rebuilding program under Biden. If Trump comes back for 2024, shall we see the volunteers returning to stave him off?

Perhaps not.

Right now, Biden’s popularity is waning, the legislature is logjammed with issues over his plans and votes are knife edged as people jockey for position. Their maneuvering is the clichéd deckchair reassembling on the Titanic if they find themselves out of a job come 2022. One of Trump’s great and effective slogans was all about draining that swamp. The fact that all he did in four years was change the water is lost if he can return to it and show that the bickering in Washington is how ineffective management of a system leads to inaction. He, in his own mind, was a man of action.

Don’t even bother arguing.

The distance of his pronouncements from the truth are not relevant to his supporters and they have as many votes as you do. What you need is action, agreement and progress. If we do not see that soon, the dark days may be on their way back.

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

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