Off-Year Elections Don't Always Send A Message!
By Hank Silverberg
Commentary
The results of last week's election have been analyzed, reviewed and pontificated on now for days. A lot has been made about what message they send and how it will affect next year's mid-term elections. Democrats have been applauding, celebrating and claiming it sent a good message for next year. Republicans have nonchalantly passed the election off as irrelevant. Frankly, I think they are both wrong.
Certainly the news was good for Democrats here in Virginia, where Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger's margin of victory was 15%. And she takes to Richmond a General Assembly which now has a supermajority in the House (64-36), and maintains a majority in the Senate. The win was not surprising; the vote totals and the margin of victory were.
In New Jersey, there's been much talk about Donald Trump's candidate Jack Ciattarelli, who lost to Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, ironically a former roommate of Spanberger's when they both served in the House. Trump's endorsement really didn't help the Republicans in the Garden State.
But the Democrat's win may say more about the economy and the government shutdown than about Trump.
For example: Virginia has more than 320,000 federal workers, most of whom aren't getting paid during the shutdown, and they came out strong for Spanberger.
And then there is this: The CEO of McDonald's is warning that the restaurant industry is having trouble because Gen Z doesn't have enough money to eat out. Low income consumers at the Golden Arches declined by double digits in the third quarter of this year--a trend that has lasted two years. It's not about calories, either. It's the same at Cava, the fast food casual Mediterranean chain that caters to lunchtime suburban professionals. Gen Z just can't afford to eat out.
Redfin did a survey of 4,000 U.S. homeowners and renters and found that 40% of Gen Z and Millennial renters are eating out less and have skipped meals to save money.
Add to that, data from the Federal Reserve in St. Louis, which shows unemployment among 16-24 year-olds is now three times higher than that of Millennials and Gen Xers because AI is taking on many entry level jobs.
But Congress, more so the Republicans, don't seem to get all this. They fiddle around with political rhetoric and games while the lines get longer at food banks, and health care becomes unaffordable. Voters, particularly young voters fed by the internet, are simply tired of it. In the past they would just tune out. Not this year, when they can no longer afford a Big Mac meal.
Young voters were a major factor in the win for Sherrill in New Jersey, Zohran Mamdani in the New York City's mayoral race, and in Virginia, according to exit polls from the Associated Press.
The message is familiar, and today's Republican party with all its millionaires in the cabinet and the White House, don't hear it. They need to listen to the advice from political consultant James Carville that became a mantra back in 1992: "It's the economy, stupid."
News You May Have Missed
Numbers In Dispute on Immigration
Just how many people have been deported or taken into custody since the Trump administration started its crackdown last January? The numbers are in dispute and hard to confirm.
In August, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that 1.6 million undocumented people had
But there are a confirmed 66,000 people behind fences in detention facilities-- a new record. CBS News is reporting that's a 70% increase since Trump's second term began. ICE has enough detention beds to handle 70,000, an increase in almost 30,000 since January when Trump took office for the second time. Government figures show that there have been over 520,000 arrests by ICE and Customs and Border Protection in the same time period.
ICE claims that 70% of those arrested have criminal convictions or face criminal charges, but immigration organizations say that number is closer to 53%, and many of those charges are for minor offenses like traffic violations.
Conditions at the detention facilities are not good. This past week a federal judge in Chicago ordered ICE to rectify that by giving detainees clean sleeping mats, three meals a day, showers, hygiene products and access to phone calls.
War In Ukraine Far From Over!
World attention has shifted a bit away from the four-year-old war in Ukraine, but it continues with little interruption. Ukraine has been trying to attack Russian infrastructure more often to bring the war home to the Russian population and disrupt Russia's oil exports.
Ukraine has been carrying on some long range drone strikes aimed at depriving Moscow of oil export revenue, which is funding the war.
Russia meanwhile, has hit power substations that supply two of Ukraine's nuclear power plants.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
Donald Trump says a lot of stupid things. But this week he topped them all. Before the vote, he came out and endorsed someone he has criticized often, former New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Trump did so because Zohran Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist. In an on-line post, Trump labeled him a communist, which is not correct. Trump said that if Mamdani won (which he did), he would not send any federal funds to New York City. But here's the part which made Trump sound like a complete moron:
Referring to Mamdani, Trump said:
"His principals have been tested for over a thousand years, and never once have they been successful."
Anyone who has ever read a history book knows that Communism as a theory, was born with Karl Marx in 1848 when he published his Communist Manifesto. It was not used by an actual government until the Russian Revolution in November of 1917 when the Communists took control. Not "a thousand years," Mr. Trump, just 108.
The President's complete ignorance of history is extremely worrisome.
(You suggestions and comments are welcome)
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