WHAT THE 2018 ELECTION IS REALLY ABOUT
Donald Trump says that the 2018 election is about Kavanaugh, the Caravan, and a promise of a middle-class tax cut. In this, as in many other things, the president is wrong. The 2018 election is about four things: Healthcare, Corruption, Collusion, and perhaps most importantly, Courage.
Healthcare. When Donald Trump was running for president, he promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better. The Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare, but more importantly, they did not even try to replace it. The simple fact is that they do not have, nor have they ever had, a better alternative.
Instead, we have politicians who voted dozens of times to repeal coverage for pre-existing conditions, and who currently are suing to end coverage for pre-existing conditions, proclaiming that they, and they alone, can be trusted to preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions. If you, like most Americans, think that healthcare is the most important issue in this election, there is only one way to vote.
Corruption. The broken promises on health care are only one symptom of a bigger problem – corruption. The Republican position on health care is guided not by more coverage for less cost, but by the campaign contributions of big Pharma. Similarly, Donald Trump campaigned on a middle class tax cut, but once he got into office, he passed a tax cut designed to help not working families but wealthy real estate investors. Who could have seen that coming? Now, days before the election we get another promise of a middle class tax cut. As the saying goes: “Trump me once, shame on you. Trump me twice, shame on me!”
In this administration, corruption is not just run of the mill political hypocrisy. We have a Secretary of Environmental Protection who is undoing regulations that protect the environment, a Secretary of Education who is undoing efforts to make college affordable, and a Secretary of Energy who thinks the department should be abolished. One thing they all have in common is that the policies they adopt favor rich people and large corporations.
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “Drain the Swamp”, but public corruption is worse than ever. Time and again we see Trump administration officials using taxpayer dollars to benefit themselves, while the administration looks the other way. Trump also promised election reform but has done nothing to end gerrymandering, voter suppression, or the other tricks incumbents use to keep themselves in office. It is clear that if there is going to be any real change in oversight and accountability, it will have to come from the Democrats.
Collusion. There is abundant evidence that people involved in the Trump campaign colluded with Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Anyone who says differently clearly doesn’t know what evidence is, and probably doesn’t know what collusion is. But that is not the collusion issue voters need to focus on now.
The critical question for 2018 is whether we will ever find out how Russia interfered in the 2016 election. At some point in the near future Robert Mueller will issue a report, not to the American people, and not even to Congress, but to a Department of Justice official appointed by Donald Trump. Congressional Republicans have proven themselves all too willing to collude with the Trump administration’s efforts to limit or bury the Mueller investigation. The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh means that the courts will not prevent a cover-up. Only Democratic control over one or both houses of Congress will provide some leverage for us to learn what really happened.
Even if you normally vote Independent or Republican, and will continue to do so in the future, you need to vote Democratic in this election to create checks and balances against collusion of the Republican leadership in a Trump cover-up.
Courage. Above all, this election is about Courage. Donald Trump is a frightened little man. He is afraid of Muslims. He is afraid of immigrants. He is afraid of dark-skinned people. He is afraid of women – with blood coming out of wherever. He deals with his fears by trying to make other people afraid.
Right now his favorite boogie man is the Caravan – a few thousand refugees, many of them women and children, trying to escape from poverty and gang violence in Central America. The fact that they are a thousand miles away, and will not reach the US border for months, if at all, does not diminish Donald Trump’s fear.
He imagines Middle Eastern terrorists trying to enter the country hidden in the Caravan. But any terrorist worth worrying about would catch a first class flight from Riyadh, buy a couple of AR-15s and a thousand rounds of ammunition at a gun show, rent a big truck from Hertz, and kill a few hundred Americans the next day. In Trump’s imagination, terrorists would instead fly to Guatemala and spend a few months walking a thousand miles though Mexico surrounded by murderers, rapists, and MS-13 members. Any terrorist that dumb should not be much of a threat, assuming they survive the trip.
Almost 2 Million people enter the US every year; the Caravan presents a negligible additional burden. But Donald Trump is still panicked, so he sends the army to the border. In the minds of his supporters, this conjures the image of soldiers gunning down the invading army of terrorists as they try to scale Trump’s massive wall. But as General Mattis made clear, about all the Army can do under the Constitution is to set up a tent village to house the refugees when they arrive. One might wonder why the Army needs to get to the border months before the Caravan, but the real deadline is not the arrival of the Caravan, but the arrival of Election Day. That Trump is willing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars in an effort to stoke baseless fears in order to turn out his base tells you all you need to know about the man.
For years, Democrats and Independents have been afraid of the Republican base. It is about time that they were afraid of our base. Because there are a lot more of us than there are of them. And the evidence is everywhere that they are, finally, afraid. In state after state, voter suppression efforts are at an all-time high. The false promises of Republican support for pre-existing condition protection and for a middle-class tax cut show how desperate they are, as does Trump ramping up the white nationalist rhetoric in the face of an attack on a synagogue.
To deal with these desperate measures from Republicans, the American people need to have courage, take a deep breath, and vote. We won’t be overcome by hatred, by fear, or by corruption. We are better than this. We will vote. Even in states where it looks like we don’t have to. Even in states where it looks like a lost cause. In troubled times, the good people of America don’t resort to violence, or even to violent rhetoric. We are better than that. We vote.
