<The Gift: LP cover, 1982>
"Get the trans-global express moving
And see our marvelous leaders quiver
They know if that happens
Their lazy days are over
The day the working people rise together...
"We'll all rest much more easy
The responsibility you must bear
When it's your own future in your hands
The responsibility you must bear
When it's your own future in your hands
Maybe a hard one to face up to
But at least you will own yourself!"
The Jam, "Trans-Global Express" (The Gift)
<i.>
The bats are back in the belfry, the red wave fizzed into a red ripple, the Republicans' hostile electoral takeover has crashed and burned, and best of all, I don't have to howl, "The long arc bends, my ass!" That's one way of summing up our now-bygone midterm election ritual, which we'll discuss shortly.
I dreaded that November 8 date more than most, as I was scheduled to report election returns for the Associated Press, a gig that I've held for nearly a decade. If the elephant party was really enjoying a big night, I'd be one of those suckers stuck \watching it. Though I doubted all the "red wave" ballyhoo, like many progressives, I struggled to contain the many anxieties playing tricks with my mind.
So many unknowns loomed. Had the pollsters somehow missed a hidden appetite for autocracy lingering at the ballot box? With so many nail-biting races predicted, how would the Democratic coalition hold? Would voters buy into the Republican kayfabe about inflation and income, or the mainstream media's narrative that cast Biden as the pinata of the hour?
As it turned out, none of those things happened, and I've honestly never felt more grateful for a particular outcome. The Highwayman's cartoon, published here on the eve of the big day, won't haunt my dreams after all. I won't have to draw on a different Jam song ("Funeral Pyre") for inspiration.
Instead, I'm leading off with lyrics from "Trans-Global Express," one of the keynote songs from The Jam's final studio outing, The Gift (1982), which soared to #1 UK on its March 1982 release, and spent 25 weeks on the charts there. In the US, it peaked at #82, marking the band's second best position (after Sound Affects, which topped out at #72, in 1981).
"Trans-Global Express" outlines a theme that Paul Weller often expressed, as he prepared to wind down The Jam that year. The lyrics call for workers to push back against oppressive political elites for a more equitable world, and gain a stronger say in their own lives. Now 40 years old, "Trans-Global Express" also contains lines that seem eerily prescient for today, as well ("All the things you ain't got no more/Keep us divided with their greed and hate/Keep you struggling to put food on your plate"). Or maybe that's just a nice way of saying, "Same shit, different day," right?
In any case, Weller felt strongly enough about the "Trans-Global Express" concept to tweak it slightly, as the title of the Jam's final world outing (the Trans-Global Unity Express Tour), and closed side one of the original album with it. Unfortunately, I don't think the production does the song justice. For the most part, I find it claustrophobic and cluttered, with most of the lyrics lost in the murk of an otherwise fine funk-dub track.
Hell, for years, I didn't even know what the lyrics were, until I researched them online, after being asked to deliver an invocation for my local church. But I figured they'd work a treat, as the opposite of the far right's nostalgic paradise. You know the scenario: some hellish mixture of the 1950s and 1980s, when America made no apologies for kicking ass, with those pesky minorities kept firmly in their place, with the little woman always expected to have a pot of meatloaf humming on the stove, black eye be damned.
As usual, Bernie had it right.
As usual, the punditocracy missed it.
What else is new?
"In dreams begin responsibilities."
<W.B. Yeats>
“By preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except the steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.”
<George Orwell>
<ii.>
As midterm fizzles go, this one proved pretty spectacular, though some faceplants loomed larger than others. Here in Michigan, the entire Republican ticket bottomed out, starting with Tudor Dixon's 10.6% loss to Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who won re-election by nearly 470,000 votes.
Voters dished out the sharpest electoral humiliations to Republicans Kristina Karamo, and Matthew DePerno, two of the creepiest, most unhinged wannabe authoritarians imaginable, whose respective campaigns for Secretary of State and Attorney General focused on one simple premise: "Just give us the levers of power, and we'll beat the hell out of our enemies, real or imagined, with them.""
Incumbent Jocelyn Benson crushed Karamo by a 13-point margin, while incumbent Dana Nessel made do with a smaller margin (7.6%), that reflected a bitter, hard-fought campaign, as her victory statement suggested: "For all the LGBTQ kids out there who were demonized, and whose lives
were weaponized by sad and broken adults during this election cycle:
You are good enough. Your lives and stories matter. God loves you
just as you are. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise."
Trump had endorsed them both, of course. Still, I'm glad that neither Karamo nor DePerno will get a shot at engineering an electoral victory out of thin air for the man who elevated them to prominence. Nor will DePerno get to enforce an archaic 1931 law that criminalizes abortion, which also fell by the wayside, after Proposal 22-3 passed by a 13.3-point margin.
Women here regained their reproductive freedom, and other significant protections, such as freedom from prosecution, in case of miscarriages. Michigan's story mirrored similar measures that passed in California, Kentucky, Montana, and Vermont. The results came as a sharp retort to the Supreme Court's call to let state voters decide on what they viewed as right.
Michigan Republicans also lost their 40-year hammerlock on the State House and Senate, too -- an outcome that lifted Democrats to power in unlikely places. For example, Joey Andrews became the first Democrat to represent his Southwest Michigan district since 1964, when Floyd Mattheeussen rode the Lyndon Johnson landslide to a one-term tenure in Congress. Hopefully, Andrews will get to stick around a bit longer than that.
Nationally speaking, just one of Trump's gubernatorial picks won, in Nevada. Most of his Senate picks also tanked, with the notable exception of JD Vance, in Ohio. Even then, Vance had to campaign hard for his five- to six-point victory margin, while his unassuming counterpart, Mike DeWine, romped to a 25-point re-election win as Governor. You know it's a weird night when that happens, but there you go.
By and large, Trump's cadre of election deniers also flamed out at the ballot box. I'm gratified that the bug-eyed likes of Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania) and Mark Finchem (Arizona), or cooler counterparts, like Kari Lake (Arizona), and Jim Marchant (Nevada), won't get to try their hand at turning our democracy into a far right hellscape.
In the end, the Democratic coalition held together and then some, driven by outsized turnouts among young, Latino and independent voters, something the pundits never saw coming, either. As Obama's former campaign manager, David Plouffe, succinctly put it: "This should teach us a lesson, that voters always have the last word." Quite!
<Promo Poster, 1982:
Featuring the individual shots
of (L-R) drummer Rick Buckler, bassist Bruce Foxton,
and guitarist/frontman Paul Weller,
that showed them in running poses
(hence, the red, green and yellow shades
selected for the original album cover).>
of (L-R) drummer Rick Buckler, bassist Bruce Foxton,
and guitarist/frontman Paul Weller,
that showed them in running poses
(hence, the red, green and yellow shades
selected for the original album cover).>
<iii.>
So what should we make of all this, exactly? For me, the biggest takeaway is the canyon-sized gap between all breathless predictions of a Democratic rout, and how Election Night actually played out. That had been the mainstream media's prevailing narrative until June, when the Supreme Court's dunking of Roe v. Wade -- followed by the eagerness of GOP-dominated state legislatures to pile on, with so-called "trigger laws" -- suddenly made it seem unthinkable.
The narrative changed again this fall, when these types of headlines began carpet bombing my inbox: "Dems Are Suddenly Playing Defense On Abortion" (10/21)."Democrats Aim to Hold the Line Against Heavy Midterm Losses" (11/4). "Democrats Warn of Massive GOP Turnout In November" (9/23). "Democrats Worry They're Being Overshadowed In Arizona Governor's Race" (10/15). "Did The Democrats Peak Too Early?" (10/7). "Inflation Shifts Midterm Momentum Back To GOP" (9/30). "The State That Could Doom Democrats' Senate Chances" (9/27).
And those were just the headlines that I kept in my email! But just imagine the effects on an undecided voter who hadn't paid much attention. Had you read any of these headlines, you might have decided the whole shebang was already over, and stayed home. Thank God it didn't play out that way.
The same goes for a similar onslaught during those final weeks of negative poll stories, that showed mostly Democratic candidates in some dire strait or other. The problem? Much of the sourcing came from Republican-affiliated polling firms, like Trafalgar or Rasmussen, whose numbers have always raised eyebrows. Or should have raised more eyebrows, in this case.
The same goes for a similar onslaught during those final weeks of negative poll stories, that showed mostly Democratic candidates in some dire strait or other. The problem? Much of the sourcing came from Republican-affiliated polling firms, like Trafalgar or Rasmussen, whose numbers have always raised eyebrows. Or should have raised more eyebrows, in this case.
In the end, Michael Moore -- whose predictions of a "blue tsunami" drew howls of laughter around the Beltway -- turned out to be the most accurate forecaster of 'em all (aside from Plouffe, perhaps). But, as he pointed out (see below), anyone outside the Beltway Bubble could have foreseen the outcome, if they'd applied a little common sense:
"We were lied to for months by the pundits and pollsters and the media. Voters had not ‘moved on’ from the Supreme Court’s decision to debase and humiliate women by taking federal control over their reproductive organs. Crime was not at the forefront of the voters ‘simple’ minds. Neither was the price of milk. It was their democracy that they came to fight for yesterday.”
"We were lied to for months by the pundits and pollsters and the media. Voters had not ‘moved on’ from the Supreme Court’s decision to debase and humiliate women by taking federal control over their reproductive organs. Crime was not at the forefront of the voters ‘simple’ minds. Neither was the price of milk. It was their democracy that they came to fight for yesterday.”
I agree with Moore's other key observation, that Democrats should stop adopting a defensive crouch as their default stance. Yes, to nobody's great surprise, Trump has announced a third White House run in 2024 -- underwhelming results, or not -- because he has no Plan B, beyond trying to avoid getting fitted for an orange jumpsuit. (At least it'll match his makeup, if it happens.)
But Trump won't always be on the ballot to juice turnout, as Moore points out: "They may be trying to gin up the vote through fear – ‘This is going to happen so you’d better get your butts to polls’. They may think it’s noble, but I don’t think it’s noble at all."
Yet that sort of appeal may not work so well against up-and-comers like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose 20-point re-election victory gave the GOP one of its few bright spots on Election Night. DeSantis shares many of the qualities that Trump rode to success in 2016, but make the former President an increasing liability for 2024 -- the same brittle defensiveness, blinkered, grievance-fueled governance, outsized authoritarian instincts, and willingness to push his base's darkest, most primal buttons.
Unlike Trump, however, DeSantis seems far smarter and disciplined, without any of the baggage, which will require a different approach to fend off. The type of freeze-dried machine politics that backfired in New York -- where Republicans gained new unforeseen openings, after the courts tossed out a Democratically-tilted electoral map -- don't strike me as the right answer.
John Fetterman's successful Senate campaign in Pennsylvania offers a better way forward. Unlike many of his cohorts, Fetterman leaned into economic issues, like the $15 an hour minimum wage, and the need to pry healthcare away from the profit mongers. He went on the offensive from the start, and never let up. Through creative use of social media, Fetterman kept his TV doctor opponent, Mehmet Oz, constantly off balance, and scrambling to play catchup.
But Trump won't always be on the ballot to juice turnout, as Moore points out: "They may be trying to gin up the vote through fear – ‘This is going to happen so you’d better get your butts to polls’. They may think it’s noble, but I don’t think it’s noble at all."
Yet that sort of appeal may not work so well against up-and-comers like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose 20-point re-election victory gave the GOP one of its few bright spots on Election Night. DeSantis shares many of the qualities that Trump rode to success in 2016, but make the former President an increasing liability for 2024 -- the same brittle defensiveness, blinkered, grievance-fueled governance, outsized authoritarian instincts, and willingness to push his base's darkest, most primal buttons.
Unlike Trump, however, DeSantis seems far smarter and disciplined, without any of the baggage, which will require a different approach to fend off. The type of freeze-dried machine politics that backfired in New York -- where Republicans gained new unforeseen openings, after the courts tossed out a Democratically-tilted electoral map -- don't strike me as the right answer.
John Fetterman's successful Senate campaign in Pennsylvania offers a better way forward. Unlike many of his cohorts, Fetterman leaned into economic issues, like the $15 an hour minimum wage, and the need to pry healthcare away from the profit mongers. He went on the offensive from the start, and never let up. Through creative use of social media, Fetterman kept his TV doctor opponent, Mehmet Oz, constantly off balance, and scrambling to play catchup.
Most importantly, though, Fetterman defined himself as someone actually worth voting for: "I'm proud of what we ran on. Protecting a woman's right to choose, raising our wage, fighting for the union way of life, healthcare as a fundamental human right." I'm positive that posture played a critical part in lifting him over the finish line, instead of simply casting himself as the lesser, blander evil (Mainstream Democrat 101), or larger than life, "I alone can fix it" authoritarian messiah (Textbook Republican 101).
Even so, the most inspired campaigns in the world won't mean anything, unless progressives continue pushing for basic structural reforms -- like an end to gerrymandering -- that would make the system more responsive than it is now. Michigan's midterms, for example, marked the first districts redrawn by an independent citizen's commission that voters approved in 2018.
While the results weren't deemed ideal by Democrats or Republicans, they still created a more level playing field than observers had seen in decades -- forcing both parties to actually compete for the voters they desired, rather than cherry-picking them from some artificially crafted boundaries designed to keep the status quo forever.
While the results weren't deemed ideal by Democrats or Republicans, they still created a more level playing field than observers had seen in decades -- forcing both parties to actually compete for the voters they desired, rather than cherry-picking them from some artificially crafted boundaries designed to keep the status quo forever.
As I've joked to my friends, any map that ticks off Detroit Democrats and West Michigan Republicans can't be a bad thing. Without it, though, Michigan Democrats wouldn't have broken the logjam that prevented them from advancing their signature priorities. Now that they finally have, Whitmer and her allies should try doing exactly that. Showing people that government actually works is the best defense against extremism.
While there will always be some people who get some illicit thrill from marching around in camo drag, that doesn't mean the majority will join them, especially if their lot improves -- whether it means restoring the child tax credit, or passing the $15 an hour minimum wage. Combine those outcomes with an electoral and judicial system finally freed from its current dysfunction, and manipulation, and maybe then, we'll bring home some version of the Trans-Global Express, and the ideals that it represents. All aboard! --The Reckoner
While there will always be some people who get some illicit thrill from marching around in camo drag, that doesn't mean the majority will join them, especially if their lot improves -- whether it means restoring the child tax credit, or passing the $15 an hour minimum wage. Combine those outcomes with an electoral and judicial system finally freed from its current dysfunction, and manipulation, and maybe then, we'll bring home some version of the Trans-Global Express, and the ideals that it represents. All aboard! --The Reckoner
Links To Go (Raise A Glass
To The Republic, As It Still Stands):
Lucid: Instead Of A Red Wave, The Midterms
Produced A Wave Of Firsts In American Politics:
https://lucid.substack.com/p/instead-of-a-red-wave-the-midterms
https://lucid.substack.com/p/instead-of-a-red-wave-the-midterms
New York Times: Abortion On The Ballot:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-abortion.html
The Guardian: "I Never Doubted It":
Why Film-maker Michael Moore Forecast "Blue Tsunami"...:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/14/us-midterms-film-maker-michael-moore-blue-tsunami
The Huffington Post: How John Fetterman's
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-abortion.html
The Guardian: "I Never Doubted It":
Why Film-maker Michael Moore Forecast "Blue Tsunami"...:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/14/us-midterms-film-maker-michael-moore-blue-tsunami
The Huffington Post: How John Fetterman's
"Punk Rock" Campaign Defeated Mehmet Oz:
https://news.yahoo.com/john-fetterman-punk-rock-campaign-104505922.html
https://news.yahoo.com/john-fetterman-punk-rock-campaign-104505922.html
Yahoo News: Five Myths That The 2022 Midterms Demolished:
https://news.yahoo.com/5-myths-that-the-2022-midterms-demolished-215620892.html
Yahoo News: What Voters Told Republicans In The Midterms:
https://news.yahoo.com/what-voters-told-republicans-in-the-midterm-elections-212302560.html
https://news.yahoo.com/5-myths-that-the-2022-midterms-demolished-215620892.html
Yahoo News: What Voters Told Republicans In The Midterms:
https://news.yahoo.com/what-voters-told-republicans-in-the-midterm-elections-212302560.html
