"ELECTIONS!!!!"

 “ELECTIONS!!!”

As the election results started pouring in on Tuesday, Caroline and I were feeling good, because the Democrats were doing well.  We were feeling good not because they were Democrats but because they would stand in opposition to the Trumpster, unlike his puppet party, the Republicans.  We were also anxious because we knew that the majority of Repubs vote on the last day of Voting – we call it Election Day.  In past elections we have seen Democratic leads evaporate when the results from Election Day come in.  This election was different, however – there were record turnouts during early voting here in Georgia, and indeed that early turnout was so huge that even if no one had voted Democratic on Election Day, the Dems in Georgia still would have swept the state.  Our prediction was that Jon Ossoff would win easily, but that Keisha Lance Bottoms (KLB) would lose in a close election in the race for governor.  Not only did KLB not lose – she won by 9 points and shocked everybody in Georgia!

Those two elections were stunning enough, but it turns out that the Dems won all the constitutional offices in this years’ election.  The lieutenant governor is a white man, but all the other constitutional officers in Georgia are now Black women! The Dems also won back the state House of Representatives and almost won the state Senate.  It all is a stunning surprise, and it will be interesting to see how the good ol’ boys of the state legislatures and staff react to all this.  Even the Agriculture Commissioner is a Black woman!  We had several yard signs in our yard, and we took them down on Sunday, and Caroline and I both remarked that it is the first time in a long while that all of the candidates on our signs won their races!

So, are we in a new day?  In many ways, yes – both houses of our federal Congress will no longer be rubber stamps for the Trumpster and his illegal activities.  That is a breath of fresh air.  But the Trumpster seems determined to dig in his heels and fight, seeming not to have learned much from these elections which repudiated him so much around the country.  And, his firing of Susie Wiles and installing Stephen Miller as his chief of staff boggles the mind.  Miller is a Nazi who is behind much of the rampant illegal activities of ICE, and his policies are one of the main reasons that the Trumpster lost these elections.

In her victory speech, Keisha Lance Bottoms noted her family tree.  She spoke of returning to Crawfordville, Georgia, to find the graves of her ancestors who had been enslaved, and she gave them thanks and credit for persevering, enduring so strong that she drew strength from them to make the run for governor.   She also noted that Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, was from Crawfordville.  Stephens was one of the few Confederate officials who would openly state that the Civil War was caused by white Southerners who were loath to give up the people whom they had enslaved.  All the other Confederates danced around this obvious cause of the Civil War, some calling it the “War Between the States,” some calling it the “War of Northern Aggression.”  Not Stephens – for him, it was the “War to Preserve Slavery.”  So, if his spirit is still around somewhere, I’m hoping that it is getting tied up in knots as he discovers that the descendants of the people whom he enslaved are now running the state of Georgia.

So, we give thanks for these election results.  They are so overwhelming that not even the tricky Trumpster himself is claiming that the whole election was rigged.  There are still 7 weeks until the new Congress takes office, so let’s hope that the new Nazi-in -chief-of-staff does not try any shenanigans before the end of the year.  

And, of course, it is now time to govern, to begin to work to try to get us back to some decency in the federal government, and to seek to move the arc back a little bit towards justice and equity.  Let us bring that same energy to governing that we brought to the elections!