An editorial…
I live in Florida.
My friends and I watched the 2018 Midterm Election results last night, with some disappointment. By 1:00am, everyone had gone home. I went outside, and listened to an audio book on my tablet while playing ‘Fishdom’ — but actually ruminated — until 6:00am.
I live in Florida.
So Close, Yet so Far
Progressive Andrew Gillum missed becoming Governor by one percentage point. The Governor Elect is a racist and hate-monger. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson lost his seat to infamous Medicaid fraud CEO, Rick Scott, current Governor of Florida, by one percentage point.
I live in Florida. I am heart-sick.
I figure Hillary Clinton may have cost Andrew and Bill a precious point or two. It was shocking to learn, just after influential progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders had endorsed and campaigned for Andrew Gillum, that Hillary Clinton was scheduled to do the same. Why??? I gave Gillum my vote, despite the weirdness, but had feared he would lose support. Who can say?
If Hillary didn’t handicap voter turnout, maybe election fraud is the culprit. Extremely close races; hackable voting machines; a little American interference. Who knows?
Mentally & Morally Challenged
I live in Florida. Half the population is mentally and morally challenged.
Think I’m exaggerating? An example (other than mass-shootings)…
The last time I attended church was Pentecost Sunday, which celebrates The Holy Spirit. The pastor enhances his sermons with projection slides. An image of the beautiful, blazing, life-giving, purifying Sun was anticipated — as time-honored metaphor of The Holy Spirit. But not this year. Rather, the congregation was treated to a snapshot of a… power plant… with vaporous clouds billowing from the smokestacks.
It was a “first” in my personal experience; seeing a man of God avail himself of something man-made and polluting — no, poisonous — to illustrate the power of The Holy Spirit. Abominable. (Not to mention, a clumsy artifice.)
When did the United Methodist Church become a member of the Far-Right Christian conglomerate? It didn’t. But never-the-less…
Unprecedented. Crazy. In Florida.
Oh yes… Dems Regained the House. Barely.
Progressive Graffiti 
I supported Andrew Gillum. Saddened to see him come so close to winning.
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Thanks for your commiseration, Rosaliene. I didn’t see too many progressives win in California, mainly just incumbents. I was rooting for Ammar Campa-Najjar. Progressive groups, as well as Obama, endorsed him — yet he lost.
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I live just north of you in Atlanta. A progressive, Stacy Abrams, lost the governor’s race here by only 64,000 votes. Her opponent was Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Secretary of State. The Secretary of State’s office is in charge of elections in Georgia. That meant he got to verify that the voting machines here were “calibrated” properly. Is it any surprise he won? (I voted for Abrams anyway)
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Right. “Calibrated.” I loved how former President Carter confronted Kemp. So sorry about Abrams. I was rooting for her.
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DeSantis made a lot of glowing promises in his acceptance speech. If an automatic recount isn’t triggered and he remains our governor elect, we have to hold him to them all. Elected leaders and church leaders are to be of service to their constituents and parishioners, and some just will lead us every which way if we let them.
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Right, Susan. If we ever do make some headway, we must never allow ourselves to relax our guard.
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I honestly feel after this election that Broward, Dade , and Palm Beach County should secede and form their own state apart from Florida. What do you think?
Over 50% of regsitered voters in Broward County did not vote in the midterms. Then I read there stacks of election offices there that were never counted.
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Those counties may go under water faster than they could secede!
Voter suppression is rampant and election fraud is another glaring problem our nation has not addressed. In any case, Sen. Bill Nelson is demanding a re-count. Maybe he really won — and wouldn’t it be nice if the recount uncovers any tampering that may exist.
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Been a long time since we’ve gotten any good news out of Florida on election night.
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Too true.
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First part: Hillary Clinton may have affected a few votes, but probably not too many. Election fraud? Definitely. Many people in this country don’t realize that the GOP commits election fraud every year. They just rarely get caught. In any race in which it isn’t a Democrat blowout the GOP can have the voting machines (all manufactured by hardcore GOP supporters) flip the election to a close GOP win. That’s why we get either excuses or silence when sane journalists ask why we don’t make paper ballots mandatory as a backup.
Second part: HOLY shit. (Pun intended)
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Second part: You’re the only commenter who referenced the “HOLY shit” part. Thanks very much for reading the entire post. 🙂
First part: Yes, election fraud is a problem. You really have to wonder why the Democratic Party doesn’t insist on election safeguards — or ranked choice voting, for that matter, since they really detest any outlier who might split the vote. Professors, researchers, and policy experts devise solutions to such problems, but none are implemented. As you note, media discussion about election fraud is certainly discouraged.
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The GOP is still the favored party of wealthy people, the corporate manipulators, so many media outlets are “encouraged” not to print stories about “outlandish conspiracy theories” with no merit. The echo chamber feeds on itself and that type of story rarely gets positive attention.
Even the democrats, who could potentially benefit from sane changes in our election process, have become too corporate and have been infiltrated by a number of “crossover” conservatives. These fake democrats use deception to help keep both parties in power to prevent a third party from gaining popularity. They want to keep the status quo to continue pulling in corruption money from corporate predators.
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Yup. The two-party system, or as some people call it, the single-party system, doesn’t provide balance or the healthy kind of competition that spurs progress and improvements — thanks to the interference of powerful, wealthy special interests. Change will only come from the bottom, The People.
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