Turning Point?
April Fool’s Day was a good day for Democrats and anyone who has a mind to save the country. The results in Florida were just as expected: two wins in blood-red districts for Republicans. Those were can’t-win races in the wrong part of the country where Democrats are still facing tornadic headwinds.
An electorate that put Matt Gaetz in the House was hardly going to pivot to any kind of Democrat. Its enough that Republicans are now devouring each other. Governor DeSantis actually labeled his fellow Republican, Randy Fine, a “repellant,” disloyal, untrustworthy candidate, claiming that people couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him. So much for the ironclad discipline of MAGA zealots.
On top of that, Democrats narrowed the gap. It wasn’t quite enough to win the elections, but it gave me hope that help is on the way. Last time round, both districts broke crushingly for Republicans. This time around, not so much. As Stacey Abrams says in elections like this, if you’re going to lose, lose better each time, meaning narrow the spread, run up the vote, and position yourself for a stronger outcome in the future. Josh Weil and Gay Valimont are nicely teed up for that.
But the real star of this week was Judge Susan Crawford, the no-nonsense cheese head who seemed to embody Wisconsin. Go Badgers! Forgive me for my exuberance and hyperbole, but I love every last thing about her, especially her ability to frame the election as a David-and-Goliath fight to the death between a small-town Midwesterner and the richest, most disturbing man in the world. Watching him cavort in front of the cameras, only to be defeated by people who would not be bought was one of the great electoral satisfactions of my life. It was for moments like this that they invented schadenfreude.
And if you’re one of those people who can’t get enough doom-scrolling, remember that Wisconson did not enact a voter ID law, it just (perversely) strengthened one it had. There’s a little soupcon of perversity in all of us. The karmic offset took place in….Mississippi (?!), which actually turned back four bizarre ballot initiatives that would have strengthened MAGA and hurt the people we love. That actually happened in the epicenter of lynching. Cue the music for dancing in the streets.
And cue the music for Corey Booker. In troubled times we need national heroes who manifest strength, self-sacrifice, and mortification of the flesh. Senator Booker didn’t eat for four days running. He stopped drinking so that he wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom. The result is that he gave us a man to root for, who denied himself to make a powerful point about the muck and mania pouring out of the White House. He has never been my favorite standard bearer, but he rose to the occasion on April 1, and reassured us all that our party has a pulse. Sometimes that is entirely sufficient.