2022 Midterm Elections & Individual Gubernatorial Races this November

I think the abortion ruling in June is really going to fire women up. I’ve been feeling some real Venus PMS energy lately. The ladies of this planet are getting pissy.

I'm getting the feeling (not intuitive just observations) that a lot of the "by historical patterns, Dems stand to lose ground in the midterms" is historical pattern not linked to any objective fact.  2022 is different than previous elections.  People honestly thought without Trump in power the Q nuts would go away.  Instead, they're emboldened.  This is worrying to swing voters who in a normal election would vote to continue the trend.

The biggest indicator I have is my brother who has been Republican most of his life.  He's also in healthcare.  He said recently "This crap won't stop until every last Republican is voted out of office." - he's been trending bluer but in my mind is indicative of the average "independent" voter who could swing either way.

Meanwhile my conservative evangelical sister (I don't know how two union Dems could raise three offspring, two of whom went off the rails for parts of their life, but then...I don't know how my former union president teacher mother could have voted for Trump outside of indoctrination) is moving further towards the Qs of the world, voting Republican and then "praying for the crazy to go away."

I know more people like my brother, who thought this would be over in January of 2021, who are so deeply troubled by the number of things still happening.  

I will also add now from an intuitive sense (because I felt bad not doing that with the previous post) given how crazy specific this forum was in nailing date, time, and topic for the whole Clarence Thomas thing (admittedly he hasn't stepped down yet but how crazy in general) I'm always going back to the general collective's intuition that we hold the line in 2022 as well.  And @Fran what you identified is definitely part of it.  (coupled with the whole "done with Q" thing)

@dannyboy 

Interesting observations about Q and independents and...all of it really.  Thank you.

You're on to somethings with your observation about the predictions. 

Yes, there is much greater accuracy with our collective "tuning in".  Sometimes we all seem to get a piece of the puzzle and if we put them all together, trends and patterns emerge.  That happened with covid when  many of us had parts of what was going to happen, even some had a pandemic and illness, but there was so much more predicted on it.  Even economic aspects and transportation.

Looking at the same timeframe of RTFN's over different years is also interesting.  Multiple RTFN's often reveal similar trends and predictions.

No matter how accurate someone is as an individual, I believe we are better as a collective.

My 92 year old stepmother and her friends have sent 1,000 letters to voters in Georgia to alert them to the fact that they do not have, but will need voter ID in order to vote in the upcoming primary later this month. Although she wonders about the efficacy of this endeavor, she enjoyed the company of like-minded ladies and says she sleeps better for making the effort.

I recall a story about a 17 year old boy in Georgia who led the effort to register more than 30K voters for the 2020 election perhaps changing the outcomes in the Senate races there. One never knows what sort of difference a small group can make.

If this sort of effort is of interest to members of this forum here is a link: https://www.voteriders.org/

@fran 

I agree.  What Republicans fail to understand is that their party (on average) is a whiter, older party that is predominately male.  The Democratic party is more diverse, younger, and has more females. (Note: there are obviously exceptions, but I am speaking generally about demographics).

Now, Republicans will find out that their actions against women will result in their own end.  No, I am not talking about just abortion, but their acts against women generally.  If Republicans were TRULY pro-life, then why are they so against measures such as equal pay for women and men?  Would it not benefit children if their parents were paid the same for the same work?  Also, why are Republicans against common-sense measures such as child care?  You would think that single parents (male and female) would benefit from this service in that is allows them to work and to ensure their children are being watched in a safe environment.

There is only one reason I can think of.  Basically, Republicans want to turn back the clock to when men were the ones working at a job site and women stayed at home and watched the children.  Now, there is nothing wrong with "traditional" family ways.  I personally think that one parent working and one parent staying home is fine.  It is not my cup of tea, but I don't look down upon anyone who does it, so long as they CHOOSE to do it.

What do I mean by that?  If a woman wants to stay home and run a traditional household, that is fine.  She is no less a feminist than a female CEO running her own company.  But if a woman is forced, out of necessities to outside pressures (such as she can't get paid as much as if she were a man and/or there was no affordable child-care) to become a stay-at-home mom, then the situation is ripe for abuse.

Now, I know that there are many good men out there.  But I personally know many women who have been trapped in unhappy relationships and forced to endure all sorts of abuse (cheating by a spouse, physical and emotional abuse, and even one instance of marital rape).  And the one common thread to all of instances that I have personally witnessed is that the abuser is able to make his victim financially dependent on him and thus makes it all but impossible for her to leave him. 

Millions of women know this.  And they will see attacks on abortion as yet one more step to make women into subservient puppets who are put back in their place if they even so much as leave their knees.

Sorry, Republicans.  But I, and millions of other women like me, had our strings cut years ago.

If the Supreme Court outlaws abortion, then Republicans will anger the one group it can't afford to anger.  Yes, they have gotten away with abusing minorities for years, but this will be much, much different.

For one thing, Republicans have shrunk their base so much by not only driving groups away, but by also killing off its own population via their Covid denial.  Second, young, middle-class women are a very, very large block of voters.  Republicans have tried to bring them back to their side by talking about inflation and school choice.  But if abortion is struck down?  Then women like myself (young to middle-age women) will be up in arms about it.  The idea that women must raise a child by her rapist (and thus ensures that the rapist will forever be a part of the woman's life)?  The idea that a young teenager must raise a child that was conceived by another family member?  The debates raised about exactly what "risk" to a mother's life means before abortion is even allowed?

Many people have heard or read "Handmaid's Tale."  And many know that taking away a woman's right to chose is just another step towards making that story into a reality.

So, for me, the big unknown factor is whether women will be roused to wrath should Roe v. Wade be struck down.  If it is, then woe to the Republicans for ever taking up the cause.

Will Putin still be a factor?  Inflation and gas prices?  Of course, these will factor in.  But unlike abortion, there is little voters can do about it.  Republicans can't stop inflation when it is already rampant all around the world.  Republicans can't stop Putin either (if anything, they will probably support and coddle him).  But women voters can do something about abortion rights and vote out every single Republican and replace them with actual people who care about voters.

I guess we will wait and see what happens.  

@allyn I’m happy to see that someone else shares my feelings about roe v wade being challenged will backfire on the GOO. Logically and intuitively it just makes sense to me. I’ve been deep in research about abortion and poverty for my studies lately and came across some interviews with Margaret Atwood regarding her writing of the Handmaids Tale. No idea it was based on some true events she had researched. Below are one of the articles I came across about it. I wonder if more people knew about these things if they would understand how close we are to some of it happening to us. 

https://www.stylist.co.uk/books/handmaids-tale-true-story/130001

Considering that abortion access directly impacts poverty rates and especially with women and families of color, we really need to do all we can to get out the vote and convince these people (who are being targeted by new voting regulations) to do whatever they need to do to vote. 

@lyndsayt @Allyn

In preparing for a presentation I recalled the work of linguist George Lakoff, who taught at Berkley, maybe still does. I strongly recommend reading his work, the main points of which are published in easily understood short publications online.

He has long maintained that liberals need to create frames for their arguments that reflect positive values because conservatives have spent 40 years developing their quite effective frames which have enabled them to control the public discourse.  Think "socialist" "tax abuse" (ergo we need to cut taxes for the rich)

http://timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/pdfs/Explain-Yourself-George-Lakoff.pdf

I have not seen an effective frame regarding what losing the option of abortion means for women. We need to find one quickly and spread it wide and far.  Can't we find succinct language to convey the hypocrisy, injustice and cruelty of these extreme abortion restrictions?

@raincloud thanks for this! I will give it a look. 

i believe you are correct, people just see it at a politicized debate or a religious thing without understanding the nuance of what lack of abortion access means to so many Americans. These same legislatures also are against teaching sex ed and east/affordable access to contraception which, in turn, obviously reduces the rates of abortion. The GOP always seems to frame it as though democrats are being hysterical and democrats do need to learn how to counter that in an easy way to understand. 

I’ve thought about starting a tik tok or Instagram with real facts but what does this 41 year old know about creating engaging content for the youth?! 

@raincloud 

How about "China" or "mass sterilization"?

Remember, women in China do not have reproductive rights like we do.  So when the government in China implemented the "one child" policy, there was no legal recourse available to the women there.  

Technically, if you take a woman's productive rights away, who is to say that the government won't do a full 180 and decide to legally "control" how many babies a woman can bare.

Actually, this argument might work.  Republicans are notorious for their distrust of "Big Government."  They always go on and on about how they need their guns and their laws to protect them from governmental agents who are out to get their guns.  Every time anyone passes a law putting any sort of limit on guns, they use the 2nd amendment to challenge it.

So....if you take a woman's right to choose, then what can stop the big, bad government from coming in and implementing a limit on how many children a woman can have?

Also, being an attorney, if you take away a woman's right to chose, then technically you can take the next logical step and sterilize males to prevent them from reproducing.  After all, you can't take away a woman's right without also taking away the man's right to decide his own reproductive rights.  The 19th Amendment states explicitly that people can't be discriminated based on their gender.  So if a woman can't chose, then a man can't chose either. 

So if a state like California issues a law stating that men must be sterilized after having a certain number of children and/or for having a health condition that makes the conception of so-called "healthy" children questionable, there is little that Republicans can do about it.  After all, if Republicans harp on about the "sanctity of life," then what is to stop Democrats from using that same logic?  In Republicans' minds, if a guy and a girl have sex out of wedlock, the guy should do the right thing and marry her (or, barring that, at least support the child after birth).  However, I know for a fact that this does not occur, and that these so-called "serial fathers" continue to have multiple children with multiple women and cannot support them financially, thus leaving many women and children in poverty. 

Therefore, a law designed to ensure that a man must take responsibility for said child and is sterilized to ensure that the government does not have to have more children to support would be great, right?  Further, there was actually incidents of this in the past where the government passed bills forcing sterilization, and the Supreme Court found that it was actually ok. (See Buck v. Bell. 274 U.S. 200 (1927)).  In that case, Virginia passed a law authorizing sterilization against certain types of people (particularly those with mental conditions).  Even though the law was ultimately overturned by the state in the 1970s, the Supreme Court's ruling that laws forcing sterilization on certain individuals is not a violating of a person's rights under the 14th Amendment is still valid law to this day.  Scary, right?

So yes, if a state passes a law for certain men to be sterilized, then there is little Republicans can do about it.

Based on the BS that Republicans preach, this should be a law where they can get behind.  At least until their own sons get a girl pregnant out of wedlock and thus is forced to be sterilized to ensure that he supports the child he helped create. 

Oh, can you imagine how they would freak out?!  Instead of the good old Christian weddings they plan in their heads, these Republicans will be forced to sterilize their sons and have them take care of grandchildren from women that they probably didn't count on being their future daughter-in-laws.  So if the relationship doesn't work out, there is still no chance for the son to beget other grandchildren with another woman that said Republicans would be more approving of.

Hey, it sounds impossible.  But it can happen.

So basically, if you take a woman's voice out of making a decision as to her own reproductive rights, you (1) take away a safeguard to where, if the government decides to implement a limitation of children a family can have, there would be nothing the courts could do because there would not be a "right" that a woman can have to challenge said limitation (AKA-if a pro-abortion group came into power, what can a court do to challenge said law because it has been determined that women have no choice over their reproductive rights.) as (2) by taking away a woman's right to chose, you open the way for men's productive rights to potentially be limited and/or taken away as well.

I agree with you one hundred percent that Democrats need to be far more vocal and less timid when it comes to dealing with this issue.  Instead of having abortion being seen as a mass child murder, I would argue that by giving said right to women, you are actually protecting children from the big, bad government should it decide to implement abortion as a means to control the population.  Likewise, you also protect men from mass sterilizations as well, because justification to take away one right ensures the downfall of other rights.  It's just common sense.

@allyn 
Hi Allyn, I just find it sad, that Americans seem to be so polarised by politics. The demonisation of the other party be it republican or democrat. 

I think I am rather grateful that we all just vote, that I don’t have a clue who my neighbours, friends and family will vote for, 30% will make their mind up on the day. Will mainly think what’s best for the country and us as a whole. Know that the postal votes get counted last, so if it’s not known on the night because not a big enough swing, could take weeks before it’s decided, so just wait to hear. Life goes on, you still get a politician.

I do hope the Big Turning helps resolve your issues as a country and to reunite  Americans as a people who care about each other.

Good luck with it all.

Here’s another reason I’m not feeling as nervous as many of you are about the midterms 

this is not my senator but we are acquaintances (we know some of the same people and have followed and interacted with one another on social media for years regularly)

This senator is responding on the senate floor to an attack on her by a fellow senator who happens to hail from … well you’ll figure it out quickly. 

super proud of Mallory for her response, the way she handled it, and how viral she’s gone in a good way for sticking up for herself.

check out her video on twitter - I said the same thing about then senator Gretchen Whitmer 10 years ago but… Mallory McMorrow is going to be our governor someday 

https://twitter.com/mallorymcmorrow/status/1516453738403143681?s=21&t=2hB2ZAUji-Bxlpl7sqXUIQ

@matildagirl 

I agree.  I pray every day that one day politics can be boring and politicians quietly and calmly work on issues and compromise in order to help as many people as possible.

I also pray that politics in Europe normalize as well.  Britain has been a mess ever since Brexit.  And France is close to voting in a pro-Putin fanatic in the form of Marine Le Pen.  I don't think that Macron is innocent in this regard (based on my admittedly limited sources, it appears to me that Macron is like McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate.  Both of them act that they oppose the radicals in their midst, yet they quietly embrace the policies supported by these radicals.  In other words, Macron and McConnell play both sides.).  But regardless, I think Marine Le Pen will be like Trump and try to help Putin as much as possible.  And that will mean even more suffering for millions of innocent Ukrainians and an increase in threat to other people living near Russia.

Personally, I feel sick to my stomach sometimes.  When will the world get to the point where we get rid of these Satanists?  Yes, I call them Satanists, because anyone who engages in policies, acts, or beliefs that a certain group of people should be discriminated against are basically engaging in acts that Satan would approve of.  White supremists, those who oppose immigrants simply because they are born in another country, racists, etc., are going against the one rule that Jesus said was more important than any other rule; "Love your neighbor as yourself."  To me, anyone who discriminates against anyone due to their gender, race, nation of birth, etc. is basically calling God's creations flawed and thus worthy of slavery, mistreatment, injury, and/or death.  If that is not Satanism, what is?

I hope for the sake of Ukraine that France does not elect Marine Le Pen into office, as I believe she will do what she can to ally with Putin and deliver Ukraine to Russia, much as I pray every day that Republicans and Trump never regain power to the point that they have control.  The mere idea of it, especially after living four years under Trump, is almost unthinkable.

If I have offended anyone with my beliefs or thoughts, please forgive me.  But my blood boils every time I see these radicals continue to get power and abuse others without limits.  It seems that nothing we do will stop them, as they just get more powerful.  What will it take for the world to finally say "ENOUGH!" and knock them down from their perches and leave them behind as we try to repair the damage they caused?

@dannyboy, I was just getting ready to post MI State Senator Mallory McMorrow's address when I saw you'd already done it.  I've watched this a few times -- she is so inspiring!  I hope all Dems follow her lead and speak with the same passion, heart and courage.

@deetoo anytime we engage, particularly on Twitter I squee like a fanboy.  She is the nicest person on the planet.  With Mallory and her partners on duty we’re going to be just fine.  The Michigan Dem party has so many strong women like her that won’t back down.  I’m excited for 2022 to see how redistricting changes our circumstances.  We’re a very blue state painted purple by an unfortunate turn in the 80s at the right moment to lock in what’s now a 40 year Republican gerrymander.  

@dannyboy, Mallory McMorrow is a gem.  And that address she gave has really gained traction.  You can't spin a heartfelt, unapologetic, direct truth, no matter how hard you might try.  There is divine power behind it.  When I heard McMorrow interviewed, she said that Theis would not look her in the eye as she spoke, and even turned her back on Mallory.

I hear you about being in a blue state painted purple.  I live in Virginia, formerly a red state painted purple and then eventually light blue -- now back to purple with the election of Youngkin as governor.  Since I reside in Northern Virginia -- which is very blue and in many districts votes like a suburb of D.C. --  I'd been spoiled and had forgotten that except for pockets of Richmond and Charlottesville, most of Virginia is still quite red. You can drive an hour from where I live and feel like you're on another planet.  Northern Virginia is primarily the reason why we had 8 years of a Democratic governor, and why Obama won two terms.  I don't know how much damage Youngkin might do before his term is up, but the only saving grace is that he can't run for a second consecutive term.  

@allyn Hi Allyn

Our elections are calmer than yours but not boring. This election there are 38 parties contesting plus independents. Clive Palmer, a mining magnate has created The United Australia Party, which he has been throwing tens of millions in advertising etc at. He wasn’t successful last election, this one he is tapping into the publics disenchantment with the major parties of Liberals and Labor, basically a pox on both, vote for me. We have 151 electorates in Australia this election and he is fielding a candidate in each one plus candidates running for the senate. Climate 200 is backing 23 independents against sitting liberal members who have small margins. Plus we have Pauline Hansons party and a slew of other minor parties. Plus other independents not linked to any party. It’s going to be very interesting, which is why they are predicting a hung parliament. We have preferential voting in which you number the candidates in your electorate in the order you can stomach them. 1, 2, 3 etc there will probably at least 6 different people/parties you can vote for in each electorate. If they don’t get enough primary votes they are knocked out and their votes go to the preferences people put and so on until the last one is standing. If they get enough primary votes preferences don’t need to come into play. In theory we end up with a politician we can all stomach. Also as an aside to get rid of gerrymandering which used to happen we now have an independent electoral commission which decides the boundaries on the number of people in areas from the census I think so that there are similar numbers and not on a party.

Not boring at all. Especially this one

Regards to all

apologies for being way off-topic

@allyn being, um, fixed after having children, I am not so sure of two things.  Why the procedure is not socially more accepted, and more importantly, why they have not figured out a way to allow the procedure to have an easier reversal.  Think like a tap such that when you're in a relationship and both parties want to have a child, you get it opened and then get it closed.  I am sure there are many medical reasons why some specialized shunt is not created for this purpose, but I don't know why.

@jackofhearts There is a sort of off-on device for women, at least: The IUD.  I know some people have trouble with them but I never did.  Some kind of temporary "shut off" for men is needed too.