YOUNG GUNS MARCH TO THE MIDTERMS

Before I give you my two cents (in approximately two minutes) as to why David Hogg, Emma González, Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, Alex Wind, and the rest of their gang of superkids have exactly the right stuff to turn red districts blue in November, I need to give you a depressing statistic to help explain my optimism about changing the political landscape.

In the 2014 midterm election, according to TIME, only 14% of eligible voters between the age of 18 and 20 bothered to go to the polls to cast a vote. They must not have been chomping at the bit to exercise their brand new democratic privilege.

These post-Millennials left it to every other voter group to decide which representatives should continue to make decisions (or continue to avoid making decisions) on budget priorities, foreign wars, personal freedoms, saving the environment, reversing the soaring national debt, and passing sane gun laws.

One common explanation for the 86% who decided to stay home and play video games instead of going to the polls goes like this:

A few decades ago, young people got married and started families in their early twenties. Today, the tendency is for them to get married and start families in their thirties. So, it takes having to deal with taxes, mortgages, and raising and educating their children to make them feel they have something tangible at stake when it comes to electing their leaders.

If that feeling of having nothing tangible at stake was the reality, then that reality changed after 6 minutes and 20 seconds of murder.

On February 14, 2018, an all too common event took place when 17 students were shot to death by a deranged classmate at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – just another case of murder in the classrooms of America.

But then, in the immediate aftermath of this entirely unextraordinary mass school shooting, something extraordinary happened. New leaders stepped from the wreckage and introduced themselves.

They handled interviews with ease and honesty. They said that they had no use for the usual chorus of “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” They announced that they would be taking matters into their own hands, and they knew they had the power to deliver on that promise.

Now, we know too.

They are fluent in the language of social media and are connected nationwide to a largely untapped army of eligible and soon to be eligible voters who are all involuntary members of the post-Columbine generation.

I had intended to use this space to share with you my admiration of the sound strategies supporting their mission – organizing the school walkout, cementing their bond with students in cities and towns across the country; organizing the March that took place in Washington and in 800 other locations that showed off the discipline and organizational skills of student leaders from every participating school.

I had intended to point out the lessons wisely learned from the Women’s March. Just as the women knew that their protest could not be limited to white suburban women, but had to include black, Hispanic, and Muslim women, the students knew that their movement could not be mostly about white suburban kids. Their platform needed to include inner city students, who lived where gun deaths earned little if any national attention.

I wanted to applaud them for continuing to build on their successes and sustaining their momentum. Parkland student leaders are now in the midst of two major bus tours. One is covering all 27 districts in the state of Florida. The other is making 75 stops in 20 states. They are registering voters who will tip elections.

I wanted to make this post all about strategy, execution, and measurable progress, in order to reassure myself and you that there will be a critical Victory on November 6^th.

Instead, I will use the remainder of my time to recall the pure poetry of one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard:

“6 minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15, and my friend, Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice.

Aaron Feis would never call Kyra Miss Sunshine,

Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother Ryan,

Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp,

Helena Ramsay would never hang around after school with Max,

Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch,

Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball with Sam or Dylan.

Alaina Petty would never,

Cara Loughren would never,

Chris Hixon would never,

Luke Hoyer would never,

Martin Duque Anguiano would never,

Peter Wang would never,

Alyssa Alhadeff would never,

Jamie Guttenberg would never,

Jamie Pollack would never.”

Emma González brought each of her fallen classmates back to life for barely a second, just long enough to sear their images into the minds and hearts of millions of high school students, college students, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, and anyone else held captive by her gut-wrenching words.

She could not possibly follow-up that magic trick with one even more mesmerizing, but as you know, that is exactly what she did.

She held her place on stage and on camera, fought back tears, and remained silent for an excruciating 4 minutes and 26 seconds.

It was the silence heard around the world.

It was the silence that, along with the silence of cowardly lawmakers, will help cost Republicans the United States House of Representatives.

You can take that to the bank.

WOMEN AND THE MARCH TO THE MIDTERMS

For the first time in U.S. history, a woman was on her way to becoming President of the United States. Her opponent’s view of women was revealed to the world in the now famous Access Hollywood Pussy-Grabbing tape.

Hilary turned out to be more unpopular than almost anyone would have predicted. Still, she was eminently qualified to hold the office and she was running against a famous misogynist.

Women would help her make history.

Even women who did not love Hillary would surely support her over the detestable alternative.

Wouldn’t women turnout for Hillary the way Blacks turned out for Obama? And, wouldn’t Blacks and Hispanics turnout for Hilary because the misogynist was also a proud racist?

Well it began with this: according to the United States Election Project, 46.9% of eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. I am sure they had their reasons – some understandable and others inexcusable.

I watched an interview before the election. A college student, eligible to vote, announced that he would not be exercising that right and that he was actively advising other students to do the same. His reason: There is no difference between the candidates. They are both products of a rigged, corrupt system. To vote would only help validate that system.

Overall turnout among women was only 1% higher than in the 2012 election. How many women who sat out the 2016 election did so because they also believed that there was no real difference between Clinton and Trump?

Without a doubt, if any one group of voters would carry Hillary over the finish line it would be college-educated white women. After all, Hilary was being held to a higher standard than her male counterparts, and those who were leading the charge against her, beginning well before she won her party’s nomination, were white male, Benghazi-breathing Republicans.

The image of grandstanding Republican men skewering Madam Secretary of State should have been a sharp poke to the inner Feminist of all women who had an inner Feminist.

So when you hear that only 51% of white women college graduates cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, while 45% voted for Trump, you begin to get at the heart of the problem. Winning this group was supposed to be a slam dunk.

What about white non-college educated women? Surely we could expect 51% support for the first woman president. Wouldn’t they want their daughters to grow up knowing that one day they too could be President of the United States?

Well, that group went for Trump 62% to 34% -- an absolute thrashing. The education gap among white women is a huge part of this story.

Remember when the Republican Party was going to become a big tent party? That was when they thought they would lose the presidency and Congress, and that their future beyond the 2016 election looked bleak.

Well black women obviously figured out that the tent expansion project was designed to accommodate mostly white men. College educated black women voted for Hilary 91% to 6%. Non-college educated black women voted for her 95% to 3%. No education gap here!

College educated Hispanic women voted for Hilary 65% to 28%, and non-college educated Hispanic women 70% to 20%. 

I have a funny feeling that between arresting and deporting hardworking, law abiding fathers in front of their horrified children, continuing to refer to Mexicans as murderers and rapists, separating babies from their mothers at the border, abandoning Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and referring to shithole countries, Hispanic women are now more unified when it comes to choosing the more hospitable tent.

The Woman’s March on Washington stole the thunder from Trump’s inauguration – not just in Washington D.C., but all over the nation and the world. Crowd counting is an inexact science, but best estimates place the attendance at over 4 million marchers in at least 653 U.S. cities and towns, making it probably the largest one-day protest in U.S. history.

As the marches played out, in multiple cities, viewed on split screens, commentators said again and again that though the march was impressive, it would amount to very little unless it produced practical, ongoing results. Would it? For most of us, that question will be answered by the midterm elections.

The marchers were multi-racial and multi-generational. They marched for their own causes – health care, social justice, gun control, the environment, immigration, women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights – all things targeted by the Trump agenda.

The organizers had successfully formed a broad big tent coalition, but did they create a movement?

And should any of this reassure us that Democrats will retake the House in the midterms?

Here is what reassures me:

So far, state primaries have produced 73 female nominees in 67 districts. 63 are Democrats and 10 are Republicans. As more state primaries take place, more Democratic women will be added to this list.

At this point in 2016, only 41 women had been nominated in those same states.  At this point in 2014, the total was 36 women.

Where did these women candidates come from? The majority of them had never before run for office.

Do you think they might have looked at the 4 million marchers and said to themselves:

This is different! If I run, with a positive message, I will have a constituency of energized voters waiting for me!

I am sure of it.

BACK ON THE ROAD TO 1776!

A lot of you are discouraged, disheartened, and may I say scared?

I get it.

The tyrant has engineered a bloodless coup on our checks and balances democracy. He began by demonizing the free press. He has silenced Congress and enlisted their leaders in his takeover. He continues his move on the Supreme Court, putting settled law in jeopardy. He has alienated our allies and given shelter to our number one sworn enemy.

There is nothing he will not do or say.

And every day he begins to appear more unstoppable.

There is something I would like tell you before I go any further. I am an optimist. But I am not a foolish optimist. I will not tell you that Democrats will take the Senate in November. I believe it is possible, but unlikely. The map to victory favors the Republicans. There is no polling that I can find which suggests that the Senate might go Democratic.

But polling told us that Hilary would win the election. Polls are not infallible. We are learning that people are less likely to tell pollsters who they plan to vote for, but they will answer general questions that give us strong clues as to what kind of a candidate they are inclined to vote for.

So it might be worth reminding ourselves that just because 43% of all registered voters tell us that they approve of Donald Trump, that response does not mean that all of those 43% approve of him so much that they will dutifully vote for a Republican this November.

When pollsters asked:

Do you prefer that this year’s congressional candidates be MORE or LESS like Donald Trump? Only 32% answered: MORE like Donald Trump.

When pollsters asked:

Are you proud of having Donald Trump as your president? Only 31% answered YES.

So, the reasonable optimist in me believes that Donald Trump has a hardcore base of about 30% that will stay with him no matter what. These include some of our friends and neighbors. We may still like them, but not nearly as much as we used to.

And that reasonable optimist in me believes that the remaining 10% to 15% of Trump supporters have become kind of squishy about riding his wagon into the insane asylum of history.

But let’s not argue numbers, which can be questioned and manipulated to support opposite sides of any debate. Instead let’s focus on what we witness, but may not believe what our eyes are telling us.

Please do not feel insulted by the simplistic bumper sticker messages that I am about to offer you. This president has created an alternative reality based completely on bumper sticker messages that are taken as gospel by his hardcore followers.

Here are a few of the classics:

Without strong borders, we don’t have a country!

Our allies have been treating us like a piggy bank!

The mainstream media is Fake News!

Democrats are soft on crime!

There is no collusion!

They are simple, strong, easily parroted, and slightly nauseating.

So for us – the 52% of registered voters who tell pollsters that they view this president “unfavorably,” and for that 10% to 15% of the “favorable” group, who sound squishy, I hereby offer you these GREAT LAWS OF REALITY, HUMANITY, and PLAIN OLD HUMAN NATURE to reassure us that Democrats will at least take back the House of Representatives in November.

I hope you are okay with my heavy handed alliteration.

Drum roll:

Marches magnify messages and messengers!

Tariffs turn terrified tycoons!

Chainlinking children chills cheerleaders!

Cool candidates clobber the clueless, comfortable, and corrupt!

Pissing-off prosecutors puts pals in prison!

These two minutes will not allow for elaboration, but my next two minutes will. Today is the Fourth of July. I will not tell you to enjoy the day. Instead I will ask you to feel the revolution, and help someone else feel it too.