Balkanized
Whelp, yesterday’s midterm election didn’t exactly shape up into the nationwide Red Tsunami people were expecting, did it? I suspect the country has become too balkanized for any kind of national “wave” election to happen again.
That’s not to say there weren’t any statewide Red Waves yesterday. Even at a time when the country is balkanized, wave elections can still happen on the state level.
Take the staggering Red Tsunami in Florida.
Florida’s midterm election was one for the history books.
Just four years ago, Ron DeSantis barely eked out a victory over the Democrat candidate, that gay-romping meth-head Andrew Gillium.
Four years later, DeSantis crushed his Democrat challenger Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points.
DeSantis even carried the traditionally Democrat stronghold of Miami-Dade, getting over 55 percent of the vote in that reliably blue county.
But he wasn’t alone. Senator Marco Rubio also beat his Democrat opponent Congresswoman Val Demings by over a million votes.
On top of that, Republicans gained four Florida congressional districts.
That, my friends, was a Red Tsunami.
Then again, Florida has balkanized. Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents are flocking to the state, fleeing equally balkanized Democrat strongholds like New York and California.
This is one reason Republican Lee Zeldin lost in New York to that odious fishwife Kathy Hochul. The New Yorkers who would have joyously voted for him were casting their votes for Republicans like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Brian Kemp, or Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
We’ve become balkanized to the point where America is no longer 50 united states but 50 disparate states, with some hating our values and others embracing them.
For at least a year now, Jesse Kelly has been urging people to balkanize. Get the hell out of states that hate you and move to a place that shares your values and culture, and then vote in every election — local, state, and federal — to make sure it stays that way.
Jesse describes this as a “tactical retreat,” protecting what you can and abandoning what you can’t.
Sure, there are still small minorities of people that remain behind that don’t share the majority’s values. But with our politics growing increasingly contentious and the division between Right and Left expanding, I’ve no doubt that those who held out hope that things would change in their state are now considering a “tactical retreat” as well.
In states like New York, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and California, the battle is lost. I don’t see any of them shifting away from the radical Democrats in my lifetime. The Democrats are dug-in, and they will fight like hell to keep it that way.
Republicans have to be just as viciously committed to protecting their states as the Democrats are.
On a related note, I have concluded that polling outfits are about as reliable as gas station sushi.
Boy did they get this one wrong.
Perhaps this is part of our balkanization, who knows?
My only other takeaway from the election is that Ron DeSantis is the future of the Republican Party because he has mastered fighting like hell to protect his state. He is a model for every other Republican governor and elected official.
I’m sure both the NeverTrumpers and ForeverTrumpers won’t like that since so much of their life’s meaning is wrapped up in Donald Trump.
But it is what it is.
The paradigm has shifted.
Donald Trump isn’t the epicenter of the GOP and likely hasn’t been for the better part of a year.
Aside from the ForeverTrumpers, Donald Trump has been losing support among Republican voters since he left office.
And his attacks on Republican candidates running in the midterm, along with his refusal to shut the hell up about 2020 and his greedy need to place loyalty to him above being a team player have all hurt his standing with Republican voters.
And I’m not just talking about Republicans who never liked or voted for Trump. He is losing ground among the people who voted for him both in 2016 and 2020.
And if Donald Trump does follow through on his endless teasing and announces he is running again in 2024, I doubt the news will be met with the level of excitement he is expecting.
—
Hit the Tip Jar!
Every dollar makes a difference! Hit the DONATE button in the sidebar. Or, set up a recurring monthly contribution by choosing SUBSCRIBE.
Books by Dianny
Check out Dianny’s collection of ebooks available at all of these fine stores: Amazon Kindle Store, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble Nook Store, and smashwords.com.
I live in Washington State and for my lifetime (76 years) the motto was “38 counties can be wrong” (39 counties in WA, Seattle being in King County — the only county that thinks correctly). I’m not sure we’ve ever had an honest election here. The great gubernatorial steal of 2004 (3 recounts needing votes found in the trunk of a car to get Gregoire-D over the line versus Rossi-R) was the biggest stressor on the cheat system. But the election fraud “tradition” of Seattle/King County goes back 132 years, at least, to the general election the year after statehood. As The Tacoma Ledger reports (8 Nov 1890, pg 4):
King County’s Stolen Votes
2000 were added to the population of Seattle in telegraphing the figures to the governor for the use of the legislature, after 3008 bogus names had already been added to the original count by the census office. This error gave King County two representatives in the legislature more than she is entitled to and is of course a fraud on all the rest of the state.
(This was when state legislatures selected senators, prior to the XVII Amendment.)
Too old to move…so I just keep fighting at the local level: school boards, city councils, precinct officers, etc. Incredibly, there are younger people who recognize that like disasters (hurricanes, floods, etc.) all elections are local — our votes count here.
It’s much the same here in Illinois. The democrats have run things since at least the 1920s. There are 106 counties in Illinois and the republicans can win 104 or 105 and still lose. Cook County and the late Mayor Daley cost Nixon the 1960 election and they’ve honed their cheating skills since. They just reinstalled the billionaire pig that shut us down for two years and has decided to mask schoolchildren again. He’ll probably try to declare an “uptick” in Covid cases and order everybody to wear face diapers again.The democrats passed a law that goes into effect Jan. 1 that allows 1/2 the dangerous felons in the state to be released. We,too, are too old to move, but I weep for what my grandchildren will have to endure under this tyranny.
I’m ashamed to say I live in PA.
A couple of comments re: this election. First, there should never, ever be early voting, especially before a debate. In PA, hundreds of thousands dopes voted early for The Ghoul before the debate. Even before the debate, The Ghoul’s inability was front and center. That’s a problem right there. Election Day is Election Day, just like Christmas Day is Christmas Day, etc., etc. I can accept absentee ballots with credible reasons, not some BS that “I don’t feel like standing in line that day”.
Second, the Democrats’ constant TV barrage was all about abortion. The Republicans never counter attacked them. They never once explained that R v W was sent to the states since it’s a states rights issue. The issue was completely ignored. And they never explained that abortion is nowhere in the Constitution, contrary to the leftists’ scream about “losing their rights”.
Third, in PA, the pathetic RNC/Republican Party gave practically no money to Mastriano. While I didn’t vote for him in the primary (I thought McCormick would have been a stronger candidate), I voted for Doug in the general. I voted for Oz, too, even though I never cared for him. There was no way in hell I was voting for The Ghoul and his Lump or that sneaky little creep Shapiro.
Apparently, things aren’t “bad enough” for some people. I am just so ashamed of my state.
People are beginning to jump off the trump bandwagon because they see how the trump ‘bubble’ is about to burst…in a bad way. Trump, in many ways, is his own worst enemy. When he starts openly and publicly skewering those who have been supporting and backing him, then his days are numbered. All his rally’s and his talk, talk, talk will all be for not.
That’s no bubble bursting. I’m fairly sure it’s a vein in his head.
Might be considered a smaller deal than Florida, but check out the Red Wave in Iowa in 2022. I adhere to Jesse’s advice. I spend my year in FL and IA.
You’re right. Iowa was a wave.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I am not so sure that what we witnessed in Florida was a “red tsunami”. I would like to think it was simply what happens when elections are carried out with a minimal amount of theft. If only the rest of the nation would follow the same voting guidelines, perhaps we would have gotten the results that every pre-election poll suggested. Fair and honest elections – what a concept!