The victories were a clear rebuke of Trump’s politics, but also a referendum on the Democratic party’s own centrism that is complicit in the violence of masked men hunting immigrants, the funding of a genocide and the denial of healthcare to citizens of the world’s wealthiest country.
…Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for speaker of the House, will not commit to holding a vote on abolishing ICE. He opposes Medicare for All. He has said he will not hold Trump accountable for the human rights violations committed, portraying it as a question of “getting even” rather than achieving justice where it was denied. Chuck Schumer, who holds similar positions, has an extraordinarily low approval rating – yet plans to run for majority leader in the Senate. Electeds are questioning whether these men should hold these roles.
But the dissent must also come from us, as it has been. We need to demand an end to the fast violence of guns on our streets trained on our neighbors, bombs dropped from the sky and the slow violence of people dying because their healthcare was denied or their food stamps were cut.
We need to organize, and mobilize, to demand the multi-racial democracy we were promised – not a playground for the rich to get richer on the time and labor and lives of the poor.
According to voter polls only 39% of voters chose the economy as their most important issue in the election, and they broke 50/50. In second place was the state of democracy at 33%, and those people split 80/20, meaning that a plurality of Democratic voters had the state of democracy—not the economy—as their most important issue. People are more varied than you give them credit for.
I’ll say pointedly that it felt gross going through the fox website, despite the fact that they generally perform accurate polling. However, they seem to have neglected and jumbled independents, making up a third of the US. Independents came out in droves for a midterm, which was peculiar and auspicious. In a few weeks, I’ll be able to assess based on complete turnout whether I need to rethink. That was a valuable, but disgusting thing you offered me, though.
Relatable, but unfortunately their exit poll is the most detailed.
My understanding is that the Democrat/Republican sorting is about who a person voted for, not their party affiliation. They have questions that separately ask about party affiliation, and there they usually say “including leaners.” See: “No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a: (including leaners)”. Which is to say: It’s not that a plurality of Democrats had the state of democracy as their most important issue; it’s that a plurality of people who voted Democrat (including quite a few Republicans, both including leaners) did.