THE REPUBLICAN MARCH TOWARD EXTINCTION

2045 will be a landmark year, because if current population trends continue, that will most likely be the year the United States becomes a majority-minority country. To spell that out, if you are on the planet in 2045 and you happen to be a non-Hispanic white American, you will no longer be in the majority.

And just to rub it in for those who proudly wear a MAGA cap and for whom tear gas at the border brings tears of joy, 2015 marked the year that racial-ethnic minority babies in the U.S. officially outnumbered white babies.

Donald Trump can stop a caravan, but he can’t stop reality. Of course, he can lie about reality, which is just fine for the roughly one-third of our fellow citizens who have taken up residence in Donald Trump’s alternative universe.

The MAGA in your life will tell you that immigrants, which in this case does not mean Norwegians who have overstayed their visas, but rather those dangerous brown people from poop-hole countries, who come here specifically to bring crime and disease, are the number one problem facing each and every one of us.

I know a few of you who have placed your faith in Donald Trump. I know many more of you through your posts and comments on social media. I hear your anger.

You happen to live in one of the many cities, towns, or neighborhoods across the country that has already shifted from white majority to white minority, leaving you surrounded by others, who speak English with odd accents, or speak languages that are not American, or attend services of a dangerous religion, and these non-white invaders now live in homes where the friends from your childhood once lived. I get it. I do.

You used to ask yourself: How did this happen?

Now you tell yourself and anyone who will listen: This country is being taken from us!

So, when Donald J. Trump arrived on the presidential scene, after he had already convinced you that the first Black President was actually born in Kenya, thereby making him an illegitimate POTUS, there was no question about it. Trump was your candidate.

And when he came back to you in 2016 and told you to support his war to save the real America, you absolutely had go to the polls, and you absolutely had to vote against every open border, soft on crime, caravan loving Democrat on the ballot.

You answered the call. Of course you did! You voted Republican.

As the exit polls told us, 75% of Republicans believed that the number one issue facing the country was Immigration.  Fox News told them that the caravan of invaders was within striking distance. There were Middle Easterners and tough hombres hiding amongst the innocent looking families and they were carrying diseases like small pox. Troops had been sent. Barbed wire was being strung. Tear gas had been fired. This was a national emergency!

But angry Hillary-loving, Trump-hating Democrats just didn’t get it. 75% of them believed that Health Care was the most serious issue facing the country.

Propaganda won Republicans, but would it win the midterms?

Democrats won back the U.S House of Representatives with a 40 seat advantage, flipped 7 governorships, 6 state legislative chambers, and over 300 House and Senate seats.

Not only did Donald Trump’s phony caravan politics lose the midterm elections by a landslide, but it may well have lost the future for what has become a party of cowardice, hypocrisy, and unconscionable opportunism.

How is the party of Old White Men, currently owned and operated by Trump, going to survive until 2045 when the midterm exit polls tell us that 76% of non-Hispanic white voters voted Democratic and only 22% voted Republican?

How is the party selling fear of the future going to stay in business when their most important potential customers – young voters – are not buying the necessity of putting children in cages?

67% of voters age 18 to 29 (aka: the future) voted Democratic while 32% voted Republican. And, if we add early-middle agers to that group, we see that voters age 18 to 44 broke for Democrats 61% to 36%.

Donald Trump was never really a Republican. He was just a loud mouth celebrity, who mainlined notoriety. Even he was probably shocked at how easily the Grand Old Party turned over the keys to the car. With their permission, he has taken the nation on a terrifying joy ride.

  

However it ends, they are as guilty as he is, and they should never be forgiven. Just going out of business is not punishment enough.

Until it ends, I will continue to survive Trump two minutes at a time.

THE MIDTERMS: DID HEALTH CARE ANXIETY TRUMP CARAVAN CRAZINESS?

The 2018 midterm elections are now history (except for results yet to come in), and the exit polls tell quite a story.

Actually, they tell many stories, so you may want to examine the results for yourself and pick the ones that mean the most to you. I will tell you what resonates most with me.

Voters were asked: What is the most important issue facing the country?

For months, the opinion polls had been telling us that the answer would be Health Care. And it was.

41% of voters answered: Health Care, making that the number one issue, by a wide margin. Democratic candidates had already figured that out from hearing the fear and rage coming from those lost in the cracks of a badly broken system.

In the United States of America, 62% of bankruptcy filings are due to medical bills. Health Care anxiety has become a middle class disease. Quite simply, you might have to lose your house to pay for your child’s cancer treatment.

Meanwhile, Republicans have worked tirelessly to repeal Obamacare, shrink Medicaid, undermine the health exchanges, and return to insurance companies the right to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of non-elderly Americans with some kind of pre-existing condition may total 130 million. That number alone just might translate to an awful lot of high anxiety health care voters.

As the midterms grew closer, Republican candidates realized that they would likely pay a steep price by being on the losing side of this issue. So they shrewdly put together a two-pronged strategy to save the House, increase their numbers in the Senate, and save their governorships.

First, they would proudly present themselves as the true champions of Health Care, especially when it came to protecting pre-existing conditions. Not hard to do! It just required using alternative facts in the context of an alternative Trump-Fox News reality.

The second prong of the midterm strategy would be to go full-Trump and scare voters into believing that nothing would endanger life and liberty more than lax border control, and for that, the caravan presented them with the opportunity of a lifetime.

Without stopping the caravan at the border, MS-13, ISIS, a loose collection of bad hombres, and of course people carrying diseases, including smallpox, would be spreading through America, raping, murdering, dropping babies, collecting benefits, and illegally voting Democratic.

So, did the Republican strategy work?

On some level, did genuine Health Care anxiety trump manufactured caravan craziness?

Well, of the 41% of voters who told exit pollsters that Health Care was their number one issue, 75% were Democrats and 23% were Republicans.

And, would you care to guess which issue finished second to Health Care, as the most important issue facing the country? 23% of voters answered: Immigration.

That party breakdown was the exact opposite of the Health Care answer. 75% were Republicans and 23% were Democrats. Of course, for some of those “Immigration” Democrats, the threat of deporting a family member would likely outweigh even severe Health Care anxiety.

I guess you could say that the Republican strategy worked on Republican voters.

Republicans made a good short term bet, but a bad long term bet when they first vowed to repeal and replace “every word of Obamacare.” Remember when Ted Cruz was willing to shut down the government to stop Obamacare from becoming law?

He warned his Tea Party friends that by getting subsidized health insurance, Americans would become “addicted to the sugar.” But that was back in 2013, when Ted had job security. He had no idea that one day he would get battered by a guy named Beto, running around deep red Texas, championing health care for all.

Texas will never be the same, and neither will Ted.

Besides electing leaders and policies, elections tell us a lot about who we are as a nation. Sometimes those answers are perplexing, but sometimes they are loud and clear.

The 2018 midterms delivered a big blue wave, but they also provided some answers as to what we have become in the last two years. 

The exit polls have a lot more to tell us, but I am at the end of my two minutes.

WILL DIRECTION DEFECTIONS TILT THE ELECTIONS?

We will have to wait for the opinion polls to tell us how voters are processing the revenge of Omarosa, the guilty verdict against Manafort, and the guilty pleas of Michael Cohen, the revelation of thirty hours of testimony given to the Mueller team by White House counsel Don McGahn, and the granting of immunity, first to Trump Organization CFO, Allen Weisselberg, and then to National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker.

And to all of that, we now add the death of John McCain.

Barring a crazy event (which you can never discount in the age of Trump), John McCain will dominate the news, and the comparisons between the American statesman and the man who pledges allegiance to himself will be unavoidable to any thinking person.

We can expect that some or all of those recent developments may have nudged some Trump supporters to slowly drift away, but not the ones who attend his rallies, where Trump does what Trump does best --stir the inner fires of the faithful, prompting their tried and true chants of “LOCK HER UP!”

But the numbers indicate that the desertions have already begun.

I tell everyone who will listen that Donald Trump’s favorability ratings of 40 to 45% do not reflect his hardcore loyalty numbers -- the devoted ones who will support his presidency, regardless of what he says or does.

I do not dispute the accuracy of those poll numbers. I think that about 43% of our friends, neighbors, and family members continue to support Donald Trump. I just happen to believe that it is only 30 to 35% of those individuals who would stick by him if he actually does shoot someone on 5^th Avenue.

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll tells us that only 31% of voters say they LIKE Donald Trump. I am certain you know one or two of those people. We all do. They still respond to evidence of incompetence and criminality with “Anyone but Hillary,” and they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Obama’s mother faked her newborn baby’s birth certificate, so that he could one day be President of the United States. The woman had vision.

That Quinnipiac poll also tells us that 43% of voters approve of Donald Trump’s policies, but only 30% approve strongly.

That squishy 13% gives me hope – a lot of hope, and if your inner optimist hasn’t thrown in the towel, that 13% should give you hope too.

Speaking of optimism, when the Trump supporter you know and love (or used to love) starts looking glum, you can take that as a hopeful sign. Has he stopped saying that Trump is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers? Has he or she stopped insisting that alienating our allies, starting trade wars, and standing by his pal in the Kremlin are going to make us great again?

Maybe he has finally decided that the country might be on the wrong track. Maybe she is worried about how her children and grandchildren will be affected by opening the door to more dirty air and rising sea levels.

There should be major opinion polls that measure optimism and pessimism.

Actually there are, and one of them is now in. The Monmouth University poll for the month of June told us that only 40% of voters believed that the country was headed in the right direction, while 53% believed we were on the wrong track.

But under this runaway presidency, June is now ancient history. What do we know about optimism and pessimism in August?

This is what we know.

The Monmouth poll conducted between August 15 and August 19 tells us that only 35% of voters now believe we are headed in the right direction, and 57% believe we are on the wrong track.

And need I remind you that a lot has happened in the few action-packed days since August 19?

And, do you doubt that a lot more will happen in the many action-packed days before the November 6^th midterm elections?

Speaking of the midterm elections, the exit polls will be revealing, to say the least. The answers to those poll questions will tell us how many Americans voted to change direction.

I hope voters are asked if character and integrity influenced their vote. We might assume that those who answered YES voted for the candidate more like John McCain and less like the phony who disparaged his heroism.

And now my optimistic two minutes are up.

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.