…about the November 8th election.
Obviously…
BEWARE… POLITICS!
It’s Friday the 11th and as of today, we still don’t have a total tally or knowledge of who “won” either the House or Senate.
We can make some guesses and it appears the Republicans will take over the House but with a very slim margin and it appears, at least so far, that Democrats will indeed keep the Senate, though their number may be the same, ie 50 seats, or one extra to 51 (plus the Vice President who can vote in the Senate would make them have 52 votes).
What I find most intriguing today, apart from still being quite pleasantly surprised by most everything that happened (save to my state of Florida) is that it appears there’s been an awakening with the youth vote.
I believe, like many others, issues regarding the Dobbs decision, which invalidated Roe v. Wade, is going to keep haunting the Republican party for a very long time. Already there was a report that the party leaders in Florida are looking to further limit abortions and… I just don’t see that helping their -or Ron DeSantis’- cause.
For so many years the issue of abortion was played well by the Republican party as an instrument to draw in people but now that the Supreme Court has taken away Roe, the sleeping tiger (as the old cliche goes) has awoken and it feels like this may be the start of something quite bad for the Republican party.
Of course, we’ll see.
Either way, the decision may well have led to this non-Red wave, which so many pundits were predicting…
Here’s the thing that must be stressing Republicans out even more: They still have Trump hollering from the sidelines and many of them are only now, after this election, starting to talk openly on (finally) leaving him…
Worse, Trump has begun to bad mouth Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and who many of the right wing pundits feel is the best choice to run for President in 2024…
Trump, I do believe, wants desperately to be President again and realizes this may well be the one -and only- way to avoid all the many, many legal problems he is currently facing.
Which will, I believe, make things incredibly hard for DeSantis and those who hope the Republicans will somehow help their cause by the next election cycle.
I wonder.
Ron DeSantis may have surprised many by his win in Florida, but I have grave doubts he will be able to project himself well to the rest of the country. Much as I don’t like Trump, I can’t deny he has a great deal of charisma. He talks big and very confidently and for some, that was enough. Even when whatever he said made no sense.
DeSantis doesn’t have that charisma. If anything, he is a black hole of emotion, a guy who looks awkward in public and when he talks you almost expect him to start screaming that those darn kids get off his lawn.
He may, in time, be able to smooth his public persona, but I wonder.
Either way, the big takeaway in the days following the election, apart from how poorly the Republicans did/how well the Democratic party did and how it appears the Dobbs decision will continue to reverberate throughout the country, is how now there are those in the Republican party who are willing to do the unthinkable and denounce Trump.
Too bad they didn’t show any of that kind of bravery when he was being impeached.