How to Lose Elections

 How to Lose Elections

 

What remains of the GOP is conducting a master class in how to lose elections. It does not bode well for the 2024 election cycle. 

 

At the top of the ticket, the presumptive nominee is going out of his way to alienate broad swaths of the electorate. After engineering the end of safe abortions and readily available reproductive healthcare, the former president continues to brag about this fiasco that alienates about half of the electorate. He alienates the law-and-order wing of his party by collecting indictments and civil judgments while undermining the rule of law. He alienates those opposed to foreign aggression against our allies by inviting Russia to attack our long-standing NATO allies in Europe. There does not seem to be a significant constituency he won’t offend as he seeks to establish a dictatorship should he be re-elected to the White House. 

 

The MAGA members of the GOP who lead the House of Representatives are not to be outdone by their party’s leader. After claiming to be the party most concerned about immigration problems at our southern border, they killed the very bill that would have given them what they sought. It is clear to everyone, that they did it at the behest of the former president so he could run on immigration in the upcoming presidential contest. How does refusing to accept what you demanded do service to the country, much less fix the immigration problem? They compounded the mistake by impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not doing what they prevented him from doing by refusing to pass the Senate bill. Their hypocrisy is patent and helped Democrats capture another GOP House seat in New York is the special election caused by George Santos’ expulsion from Congress. The loss of another seat in the already paper-thin GOP House majority was dismissed by the new Speaker as one of no importance. They will hasten the end of that majority by refusing to take up the bill passed by the U.S. Senate that provides aid to Ukraine and Israel that most Americans and even members of the House support. Hopefully, those with sense in the House will by-pass the leadership and pass a discharge petition to bring the bill to the floor and pass it.

 

Closer to home, the GOP majorities in the super-gerrymandered Wisconsin Assembly and Senate see the handwriting on the wall as the newly constituted Wisconsin Supreme Court majority contemplates drawing new districts to bring back fair and contested elections to our state. To avoid an even worse set of maps from the Court, the GOP passed a set of maps proposed during the last redistricting fight by Governor Evers. Evers may sign it but hopefully he will kill the provision inserted in the bill making the new maps effective after the next election using his line-item veto. Either way, Wisconsin voters will have new legislative maps soon which will drastically alter the makeup of both legislative bodies and strip the GOP of its hold on the legislature. 

 

Retreating from their gerrymandered hold on power will not save the Wisconsin GOP as they continue to embrace issues unpopular with a majority of Wisconsin voters. Abortion bans and limitations will strip those in favor of reproductive healthcare away from their base. Support for voucher schools at the expense of public schools and underfunding the latter will alienate those who support a vibrant public education. Stripping the University of Wisconsin system of many of its branch campuses around the state will further alienate students and the local businesses who depend upon them to fill jobs after graduation. Continued rejection of legal and taxed recreational cannabis will further alienate young people and the old folks who take it as a sleep aid. Adding more fuel to the culture war fires with the continued criticism of critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, gender affirming care for transgender young folks, and other divisive ideas will alienate more who have come up expecting just the opposite from our leaders.

 

With a strong national economy and effective Democratic leadership at all levels, the current GOP is on its way out and only hastens its own demise by staking out positions on the wrong side of just about every issue. Well done. 

 

Right On Taylor Swift

Right On Taylor Swift

No one in politics paid Taylor Swift much attention as she emboldened her millions of fans with songs of female empowerment, the need for climate change, messages on the importance of voting, and actions that turned the music world upside down. It wasn’t until she had the temerity to begin a relationship with a star NFL football player and started to attend his games that the MAGA crowd recognized how much of a threat Ms. Swift is and then the attacks and conspiracy theories started to flow.

The silliest theory yet is that she is colluding with the National Football League leadership to rig the Super Bowl in favor of her boyfriend’s team leading up to her endorsement of President Biden for re-election. The warped thinking is that she will somehow bring those in the manly world of the NFL into the Democratic fold and take votes away from the GOPs presumptive nominee using her fleeting appearances on NFL broadcasts and her relationship with an NFL star player.

Fearing the worst, alt-right pundits have gone on attack trying to diminish her fan base of young women and NFL viewers who see her having fun with the Kelce family in the stadium suites during her boyfriend’s games.  Couple that with the AI generated fake pornographic images of Ms. Swift that were recently released and then taken down and one can easily see how much of a threat she is perceived to be. 

Trying to discredit and take down a multi-millionaire feminist icon like Ms. Swift will only backfire. Millions of Swifties have already boarded the train and it has left the station. Attacking their idol will only drive more to her message of feminist empowerment. Should she choose to expressly address the looming election issues of women’s reproductive freedom and economic equality, those not already so inclined will follow her to the polls in November and vote blue up and down the ballot. It is in their self-interest to do just that. I suspect her more subtle messaging has already set those wheels turning.

From the other side of the political divide, Ms. Swift’s presence is but another affirmation that Democrats are on the correct side on the issues that matter to most Americans. 

Democrats stand for women’s reproductive freedom and the healthcare needed to ensure its success. Democrats stand for equality between men and women, including in economic matters. Remember who brought us the Equal Rights Amendment and the Equal Pay Act.

 When Ms. Swift took care of those who helped make her recent Eras Tour a smashing success by giving them substantial bonuses and donated significant sums to animal shelters and food banks in the cities on her tour, she embodied the qualities of empathy and caring about others Democrats embrace.

By her actions and songs, Ms. Swift is already separating young people from their more conservative parental generation. The recent hard right conservative attacks will only deepen that divide.

The GOP right wing is in a stuck place with Ms. Swift. They can ignore her and hope she fades away. They can continue to attack and demonize and hope her fans turn away from her and her message. Neither seems to be a winning strategy. She’s not going away, and she and Travis Kelce are having too much fun. She is resonating with young women voters and doing the right thing as she makes a lot of money.

Taylor Swift is showing the world that women can be strong, take control of what they create, make money, and take care of those around her while having a lot of fun in the process. What’s not to love unless you’re a MAGA Republican. 

I, for one, hope Ms. Swift makes it back from her concert in Tokyo in time to celebrate with the Kelce family as Travis and the Chiefs win the Super Bowl.