Holy shit, y’all.
I was not optimistic coming into this year’s midterms. Hopeful, yes: I was feeling like there was actually a chance of getting a small majority in the House, and while it was nice to think about getting 50 seats in the Senate, I wasn’t actually expecting that to happen.
It’s so much better than that.
There’s enough being written by so many other people that I don’t need to go over it all, but the blue shift across the entire country is incredible. Texas went blue. Mississippi is too close to call. Alaska is still in the running. And so many more notable firsts and landmark victories. (Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan! Susan Collins out of Maine! Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia!)
Locally things are looking pretty good as well, with four of the five Supreme Court seats going to left-leaning justices, the millionaire’s tax being upheld, and Democrats possibly getting a supermajority in the WA House.
The one major disappointment, unfortunately, is Washington’s transphobic I-638 looking to pass (archive.is mirror of a paywalled original). This is especially painful in a pretty solidly blue state, which is generally seen as a “safe haven” for transgender people, and which has seen a recent influx of transgender people because it’s a safer state to live in than most others, and in the midst of election where transgender and other LGBTQIA+ candidates posted significant wins in other parts of the country. Votes are still being counted, of course, and even assuming it does pass, there will surely be legal challenges, so the story definitely isn’t over. It’s just sad to have that one notable stain among otherwise better-than-expected results.
Still — even with that, there are lots of good things to celebrate today.
Now for the next part: Pressure on the incoming Democratic-led US House and Senate to take an aggressive stance and actually do something to make positive change, to investigate and prosecute the corruption, and to hold the executive branch in check until (and so that) we can do this again in two years.
We didn’t elect you to “reach across the aisle” unless it’s to hand out subpoenas and indictments.
Get. Something. Done.