Tag: arizona

After what seemed to be an eternity, the 2022 midterm elections have come and gone. Joe Biden saw his shadow, which means only six more weeks until the 2024 Presidential elections get underway.

Since everyone else is offering their hot, warm, tepid, and cold takes on the midterm elections, I figure I’d throw my two cents in there because I’m an unoriginal bastard. Anyway, here’s what I saw.

Neither major party seemed motivated to win. Oh, sure, Democrats and Republicans gave the impression they were in it to win it, but the feeling I got was they didn’t have their hearts (or their donors’ hearts) in it this year. When you look back at the political ads, and I did because I have no real life, they were…lazy. Republicans talked about the Biden economy and wanting to fight inflation (without any clear plans on how to do it aside from “cutting spending”) and Democrats talked about abortion, health care, and education (without any clear plans on what to do with them aside from “Republicans bad”). Oh, I heard so many uses of the word “extreme” I could have sworn we fell through a wormhole and landed back in the 1990s. Way to get out the vote, kids!

Nevada and Arizona still can’t get their shit together. As of this blog post (please check local listings for temporal references near you), both Nevada and Arizona are still counting ballots. Given the elderly population in Arizona, I can understand delays, but I refuse to believe a state where gambling and prostitution are cottage industries are having this much trouble with numbers. Something is up, and I think it’s time we take a long hard look at what these states are doing and figure out how they’re fucking up this bad.

Both major parties came out as winners, kinda. Sure, Republicans seem to have control of the House of Representatives, barring Nevada and Arizona taking over any other states’ recounts, so that’s a win for the GOP. Democrats will retain control of the Senate and didn’t lose as many House seats as recent history would have us expect, so that’s a win for the Dems. Whether you’re a “red tsunami” or “Vote Blue No Matter Who” backer, you have to feel a little disappointed your team underperformed in the clutch.

Joe Biden’s argument for reelection begins in January 2023. With the legislative branch split, the likelihood of gridlock is greater than the rate of inflation. Which is bad why exactly? Oh, wait, I’m going off topic. Anyway, if Joe Biden wants to make the case for reelection in 2 years (and if he’s even on the ticket then), a divided Congress is an opportunity to actually prove he can reach across the aisle. You know, as he claimed he could do when he ran in 2020? If he can do that, Republicans are going to have a rougher time running against him. And speaking of Republicans…

The GOP is Ron DeSantis’s party now, not Donald Trump’s. When you look at the numbers, most of the candidates Trump endorsed won election (with a couple of notable exceptions that we’ll be talking about later). Beyond that, though, there is a chunk of the Republican Party who would love to get past Trump, and the man who can do just that is Ron DeSantis. His 2024 Presidential aspirations may still be up in the air, but DeSantis has solidified his position as Trump’s heir apparent, but with fewer Twitter tirades and stupid policy and staffing decisions. How do I know? Because the Left has focused their venom on DeSantis more than Trump in recent weeks. Leftists see DeSantis as a threat, which he is, so they’re trying to undercut him as much as they can. You know, like they did with Trump in 2016. How’d that work out for ya?

The Left still obsessively hates Trump. Aside from the repetitive squawking points I mentioned earlier, I noticed a lot of campaign ads for Democrat candidates invoked Donald Trump’s name as a means to paint their opponents as evil mean nasty poopyheads. Here’s a news flash: Trump wasn’t on the ballot anywhere, but he took up so much space in Leftists’ minds he’s opening up a new Trump Casino. Even though they’re adding Ron DeSantis as a target, the Left is still full-blown Brokeback Mountain with Trump.

The Right still can’t get out of its own way. Even though the “red tsunami” was more of a light sprinkle, there was a lot of dumbfuckery afoot that hurt the party as a whole. I mean, a Trump-backed candidate lost to a stroke victim who has more hoodies than Kevin Smith. How does that happen? Herschel Walker didn’t exactly lose, but he’s heading for a runoff against Raphael Warnock, who could have been defeated with a stronger candidate. And if what I’ve been hearing is true, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spent tons of money on non-Trump candidates while leaving some Republican candidates out in the cold. I can understand party leaders (and McConnell for that matter) wanting to get past Trump, but the kind of strategy employed in 2022 shows me the Republicans keep stepping on their own dicks and have no intention of stopping, even if it means losing winnable elections.

Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams are still losers. ‘Nuff said.

And with that, there’s nothing more to be said!