The mid-midterms
Nov. 8th, 2017 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistWe didn't even need a word for this until yesterday.
Andrew was listening to the 538 podcast when I got in last night and said they were discussing what to call this: the mid-midterms, the off year, what? I thought I'd invented mid-midterm myself!
I woke up at 4:30am to pee, unwisely looked at Facebook, and saw a friend (who lives in Virginia) had posted:
But the tweets, oh they were so good.
Because it wasn't just Virginia where progress, hope, civil rights and diversity had won the day. It was everywhere.
Danica Roem was the headline in a lot of ways, for being trans and for beating the transphobic author of a bathroom bill who wouldn't even debate her or call her "her." (And she had the best line when she was asked about him after she won: "I don't attack my constituents. Bob is my constituent now." I'm sure she practiced it; I'm glad she got to use it.)
Virginia also allowed felons to vote for the first time this election, and this video of people who were able to vote made me cry.
But in other trans lady news, Minneapolis elected Andrea Jenkins, a bi trans woman of color, to its city council, (She read out a poem at the White House's bi event in 2016!)
Here's a tweet listing newly-elected black mayors in places that have never hard them before:
Ravi Singh Bhalla is the first turbaned Sikh mayor, of Hoboken NJ, who beat an opposition calling him a terrorist in their flyers.
In other places, horribly racist mailers also weren't enough for Republicans to beat the people they were being racist about.
Maine voted for healthcare for 80,000 more people, by voting to expand Medicaid.
Philadelphia elected a District Attorney who hates the death penalty, had Black Lives Matter campaign for him, and knows fascism when he sees it.
Here's a tweet listing LGBT people who won:
I saw a tweet about that woman-of-color mayor in Milledgeville, Georgia, and I thought about what a great world I live in where I just learned the name of the mayor of somewhere I've also never heard of. I've never seen election-night excitement like this outside a presidential year, and thinking that also made me think of "If Hillary had won we'd be at brunch right now" signs from the Women's March and whatnot: we shouldn't have been at brunch. We should have been out here volunteering and voting for these women and people of color and queers and refugees anyway. Only because Hillary didn't win, more of us who used to be fine with the status quo are having to turn up and to care like people of color and other marginalized groups whose lives depend on this have always had to do.
May we be able to atone for our apathy. May we not let our new representatives at all these levels off the hook because they're Democrats or because they're queer or whatever. May we hold their feet to the fire, and remember and appreciate how much of what matters in our lives happens thanks to these people elected last night, the mayors and the city councilors and the governors who don't get the attention in non-presidential voting years but who have as much or more impact on our lives as the impostor signing executive orders in the Oval Office. He's not getting anything done, but my governor and my state reps are making sure Minnesota's still aiming for its Paris agreement targets, still trying to insure everyone...Minnesota's a great example of how much gets done at the state level because it's so different from Wisconsin right next door.
Before the 2016 election when assholes cushioned by their privilege said it'd be good if Trump won because it'd shake up some complacent people and maybe, I dunno, bring about the revolution or something, they were rightly lambasted for thinking the inevitable suffering would be worth it in some sunny future. But he did win, by hook and by crook, and that means we have to shake up the complacency not in hopes of a perfect future but just to get by. We have to overcome the gerrymandering and the illegal voting restrictions to take advantage of this annual-at-best opportunity to fire these bums, get them outta here. And I think we did about as well as we could have.
It doesn't stop the deportations, the climate change, the fear, the misery, the suffering that Trump has wrought and is still trying to further, at all. We can't kick out those assholes who are trying to take away healthcare in order to give the richest tax cuts, but we can realize there are a lot of other assholes at a lot of other layers of government, and a lot of other good people with good ideas that the assholes would never be able to think up because they don't have any way to know what a bisexual trans woman of color or a Liberian refugee care about.
We've got such a long way to go to make America safe and fair for everyone who lives there, but last night was about as good a start as we could have hoped for.
Andrew was listening to the 538 podcast when I got in last night and said they were discussing what to call this: the mid-midterms, the off year, what? I thought I'd invented mid-midterm myself!
I woke up at 4:30am to pee, unwisely looked at Facebook, and saw a friend (who lives in Virginia) had posted:
Democrat Ralph Northam wins VA Governor✔I tried to get back to sleep, I swear.
Democrat Justin Fairfax wins VA Lt. Governor✔
Democrat Mark Herring wins VA Attorney General ✔
Democrat Danica Roem becomes nation's first trans member of a state House of Delegates ✔
Democrat Elizabeth Guzman becomes VA's first Latina member of House of Delegates ✔
Victory for civil rights ✔
Victory for healthcare ✔
Victory for progress ✔
Victory for hope ✔
But the tweets, oh they were so good.
Because it wasn't just Virginia where progress, hope, civil rights and diversity had won the day. It was everywhere.
Danica Roem was the headline in a lot of ways, for being trans and for beating the transphobic author of a bathroom bill who wouldn't even debate her or call her "her." (And she had the best line when she was asked about him after she won: "I don't attack my constituents. Bob is my constituent now." I'm sure she practiced it; I'm glad she got to use it.)
Virginia also allowed felons to vote for the first time this election, and this video of people who were able to vote made me cry.
But in other trans lady news, Minneapolis elected Andrea Jenkins, a bi trans woman of color, to its city council, (She read out a poem at the White House's bi event in 2016!)
Here's a tweet listing newly-elected black mayors in places that have never hard them before:
Statesboro GA, Jonathan McCollarCollins is an amazing story: the first black mayor in the state of Montana, a Liberian refugee, unseating a four-term incumbent on a "progressive ticket."
Georgetown SC, Brendan Barber
Milledgeville GA, Mary Parham Copelan
Helena MT, Wilmot Collins
Cairo GA, Booker Gainor
St Paul MN, Melvin Carter
Charlotte NC --> Vi Lyles, 1st Black female mayor
Ravi Singh Bhalla is the first turbaned Sikh mayor, of Hoboken NJ, who beat an opposition calling him a terrorist in their flyers.
In other places, horribly racist mailers also weren't enough for Republicans to beat the people they were being racist about.
Maine voted for healthcare for 80,000 more people, by voting to expand Medicaid.
Philadelphia elected a District Attorney who hates the death penalty, had Black Lives Matter campaign for him, and knows fascism when he sees it.
Here's a tweet listing LGBT people who won:
Danica Roem - trans woman in VirginiaI don't have time to verify all these now but I know they're not all LGGG and they're not all white, and that is already pretty awesome.
Andrea Jenkins - bi trans woman on Minneapolis city council
Ravi Bhalla
Elizabeth Guzman
Hala Ayala
Tyler Titus - trans man on school board in Pennsylvania
LaWana Mayfield
Lydia Lavelle
Jenny Durkan - lesbian mayor of Seattle
I saw a tweet about that woman-of-color mayor in Milledgeville, Georgia, and I thought about what a great world I live in where I just learned the name of the mayor of somewhere I've also never heard of. I've never seen election-night excitement like this outside a presidential year, and thinking that also made me think of "If Hillary had won we'd be at brunch right now" signs from the Women's March and whatnot: we shouldn't have been at brunch. We should have been out here volunteering and voting for these women and people of color and queers and refugees anyway. Only because Hillary didn't win, more of us who used to be fine with the status quo are having to turn up and to care like people of color and other marginalized groups whose lives depend on this have always had to do.
May we be able to atone for our apathy. May we not let our new representatives at all these levels off the hook because they're Democrats or because they're queer or whatever. May we hold their feet to the fire, and remember and appreciate how much of what matters in our lives happens thanks to these people elected last night, the mayors and the city councilors and the governors who don't get the attention in non-presidential voting years but who have as much or more impact on our lives as the impostor signing executive orders in the Oval Office. He's not getting anything done, but my governor and my state reps are making sure Minnesota's still aiming for its Paris agreement targets, still trying to insure everyone...Minnesota's a great example of how much gets done at the state level because it's so different from Wisconsin right next door.
Before the 2016 election when assholes cushioned by their privilege said it'd be good if Trump won because it'd shake up some complacent people and maybe, I dunno, bring about the revolution or something, they were rightly lambasted for thinking the inevitable suffering would be worth it in some sunny future. But he did win, by hook and by crook, and that means we have to shake up the complacency not in hopes of a perfect future but just to get by. We have to overcome the gerrymandering and the illegal voting restrictions to take advantage of this annual-at-best opportunity to fire these bums, get them outta here. And I think we did about as well as we could have.
It doesn't stop the deportations, the climate change, the fear, the misery, the suffering that Trump has wrought and is still trying to further, at all. We can't kick out those assholes who are trying to take away healthcare in order to give the richest tax cuts, but we can realize there are a lot of other assholes at a lot of other layers of government, and a lot of other good people with good ideas that the assholes would never be able to think up because they don't have any way to know what a bisexual trans woman of color or a Liberian refugee care about.
We've got such a long way to go to make America safe and fair for everyone who lives there, but last night was about as good a start as we could have hoped for.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-08 09:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-08 10:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-08 01:25 pm (UTC)https://www.buzzfeed.com/seesomethingsaysomething/how-michigan-muslims-voted?utm_term=.rvDOOo6e07#.dxaVVEp8Y6
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-09 09:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-09 11:20 am (UTC)Yippee and also QFMFT
Date: 2017-11-09 05:44 pm (UTC)Thanks for this PSA. (My news fast means you were the first to tell me.)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-09 06:31 pm (UTC)Re: Yippee and also QFMFT
Date: 2017-11-09 06:32 pm (UTC)(And I'd either forgotten or not heard "QFMFT" before, so thank you for (possibly re?)introducing me to that one. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-09 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-09 08:07 pm (UTC)https://twitter.com/pwcdanica/status/928344109378670592
"For the record, I didn't say "Bob." I said Delegate Marshall. I respect the office and he serves in it until January."
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