While Democrats buy into the nonsense, the roadmap is clear

We live in a strange democracy. When 66 million Americans vote for one candidate and 63 million others vote for another, and the man who garners the 63 million wins… what else can you call this but strange.

At the same time the American public is not stupid. Although, I’d love to delve into the mind of many of the 63 million who voted for a man who has demonstrated over and over that he is not only a buffoon, but also a liar, a cheater, corrupt, and a narcissistic danger to the planet. (But that is another story for another day.)

Any sensible American citizen who worries about the future of the planet, what type of country we leave our children and grandchildren, and what sort of “democracy” the ongoing U.S. experiment becomes, should be losing sleep about who we elect president in November of this year.

During a week where we saw House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turn over impeachment articles to the U.S. Senate, this fact should be enough to spark interest in the voting American public. Sadly that is not necessarily the case. A majority of Americans are so busy trying to make a living, that politics (and its representatives) are far down on the list of priorities of the, for example, single working mom with two children who must put food on the table, get the kids to school, pay the rent, electricity, meet car payments (or how else will she get to a job that is a half-hour away?), and find time to sleep, spend time with her kids and help them with homework, while juggling two jobs and a 70-hour work week.

In other words, there are plenty of reasons to search for a better way in this country. And surely there are a very small group who are living better than any group of people have ever lived in the history of the world, but the majority, a great majority, is struggling.

Still, Democrats (and I mean those folks who represent one of the two major political parties in this country) continue to argue during a debate whether Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren that a woman has no chance of winning a presidential election… 

Here I must lay blame on our 21st century news media more interested in this virtual reality we live in, a reality TV show mentality of news — fake or not — we are addicted to, that people today know more about Donald Trump’s sexual indiscretions than how he is rapidly tearing to tatters the country and its institutions. But the news media are owned by the large corporations whose final verdict is the bottom line and earnings for its investors. Truth and consequences be damned.

I am a registered Democrat. Although I consider myself a member of neither of the two major political parties in the United States. And I vote in every election — no matter how small some might consider them.

There’s a roadmap to winning in 2020. And by winning I mean starting to wrest power and control from the likes of the many Trumps that now populate this country. That roadmap came into plain view during the 2018 midterm elections, but not enough people have taken the time to acknowledge it. There’s also the problem of many who should be looking at the results of 2018 who worry that helping elect a new generation of American politicians — the Ocasio Cortezes of this country, for example — may not be in their plans of how they see this country developing. And these people, by the way, are both Republican and Democrat. 

But to the 2018 roadmap… As reported by the Washington Post, “Voter turnout spiked to a 100-year high in [the 2018] midterm congressional elections. Census Bureau data … finds turnout rates jumped across nearly all groups, but the shift was particularly notable among young adults who typically stay home in nonpresidential years.”

Young voters. From my conversations with the many young people I meet on a daily basis, that includes a 14-year-old daughter, these kids are smarter than my generation ever was. And they are legitimately worried about what we are leaving them. The mess they will have to clean up — if possible as time runs out on them (think climate change and the environment). 

The same Washington Post story reports, “The Census found that 36 percent of citizens ages 18-29 reported voting in last year’s midterm elections, jumping 16 percentage points since 2014 (when turnout was 20 percent) and easily surpassing any midterm election since the 1980s. Turnout also increased sharply among adults ages 30-44, rising from 36 percent in 2014 to 49 percent in 2018.”

These new young adults voting is one of several other good reasons that Democrats took back the House of Representatives in 2018. It is the same House that today is trying to show the country that they have a crook and a fraud for president.

Then there are the women voters. In the United States 53 percent of voters are women and 47 percent men. And during the 2018 midterm elections over half of women (55 percent) who were eligible to vote cast ballots; men voted at a 51.8 percent clip. 

As I mentioned, Democrats took back the House in 2018. Does it surprise you that more women voted than men? A record 117 women won elections during that year. And of the 117, only 17 were Republicans. Forty-two are women of color, and at least three are L.G.B.T.Q.

The writing’s on the wall, and it doesn’t take a genius to see it. The roadmap is crystal clear. Turn out voters — women voters and the young — and you win. 

But candidates must give them a reason to turn out. And it’s not whether Bernie is misogynist or not.