The big day has come and gone. I've got to say I thought things would be a lot closer.
But they weren't. For the most part, that is a good thing. The national repudiation of Trumpism was almost complete. The secret sauce that makes our country great--diversity--was embraced and celebrated nationwide. Traditional red states went purple or, like Texas and Georgia, pretty darn blue.
The force of democracy carried the day and it was beautiful to see Americans come out in force.
What I've noticed in my 50 years of voting is democracy works best when there are candidates to choose from. Our two party system has flaws but it doesn't work at all if there aren't two parties with candidates. As best as I can tell, the party that just took the national House and Senate with miraculous wins from sea to shining sea can't find eastern Kentucky with Google Maps.
Yes, there was a blue trickle in Kentucky downstate. The dems flipped a house seat and a handful in Frankfort, but our capital is still run almost exclusively by Trump's party. In our U.S. Congressional district, the 90 year old former disc-jockey who voted to take thousands of Kentuckians off Medicaid and cut Medicare benefits for thousands more received over 70% of the vote against an attorney who represented Eric C. Conn victims for free.
I kind of thought it'd be closer. It should have been closer. But how can it be when there's no party to actually support the candidate? How do I know there's no party? For the first time, there is no Democrat representing eastern Kentucky in Frankfort. That's how.
I guess it wouldn't be a problem if the Trumps weren't wrong about literally everything. But they are and they still seem pretty proud of it. Around here anyway.
Ain't nobody gonna tell them what to think.
Since the Dems seem to have abandoned the field, there's a golden opportunity for another party to take their place. Are there any Wobblies around?
It's time for the return of the Bull Moose party. You could do a lot worse than Teddy Roosevelt as your forebear. What better place for the Bull Moosers to flourish than where the elk roam free.
It might be premature to aim for the governor's race next year, but I bet we could have a strong slate of local Bull Moose candidates in '28. We'll at least have two to choose from for positions like state representative and county judge and any of the other races that had only one candidate on this year's ballot.
The icing on the 2026 election is called Elon. The foreign agent dropped over 400 million dollars on Republican candidates this cycle. He backed 99% losers. In politically motivated hissy fits in the last few years, he's moved both Tesla and SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas. The newly elected Texas Attorney General has indicated he'll investigate allegations of illegal payoffs between Musk and state officials since Musk is now a resident.
And you know there's a congressional investigation on DOGE on the way. There are a lot of big days to come soon.