Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
A couple of nights ago, the city council in my city (Iowa City) voted against budget amendments to freeze the police budget and cancel unfilled positions in the police department. The vote took place in the broader context of the slogan ‘defund the police’ and activist movements since the summer of 2020.
I’ll say a word about all this. But, first, some recent remarks from Cedric Johnson provide us with a useful way to frame the discussion.
With the 2022 election a couple of days behind us, it’s time to take a look. And the look runs parallel to last time: the GOP blew it.
They more or less had a House and a Senate majority in the bag. And while they probably (barely) managed the former, they’ve probably missed the latter again. In most parts of the country, they performed worse than the polls suggested and far worse than they could have done with better candidates and messaging.
I won’t say much else about national elections in the rest of this post. But read on for ballot initiatives and the state of things in Iowa!
Here we are again: another election. Like all other recent elections, this one, of course, is the most important in our lifetime.
I guess that with another one around the corner, it’s time for a new round of election predictions! And as much as we had to discuss Trump in 2020, he remains a big factor in this one, too. Since 2015, we haven’t been able to discuss U.S. electoral politics without placing Trump near the center.
Imagine traveling back in time to 2008 and telling someone that.
Today I have a very brief Halloween post before we head into November with more discussion of elections.
Anyway, I don’t know about the rest of you, but my house was pretty busy on Halloween before the pandemic. We never saw hundreds of kids visiting. But usually at least 50 or 60 stopped by for candy.
All that changed in 2020, when no one stopped by. Even last year, no more than 4 or 5 kids in total came around the neighborhood knocking on doors. We live in Iowa City, where people took the pandemic very seriously. In previous posts, I’ve described Iowa City as a liberal bubble and elaborated on some of the details of its activist scene.
To be clear, I’m not complaining about any of that in this post. It’s good we took the pandemic seriously. But all that had the unfortunate side effect of taking away the kids and their costumes on Halloween.
I have to admit – I’m hoping to see the return of the kids and their costumes this year. It’d be nice to get back to handing out candy to 50 or 60 kids each year. Here’s hoping!
Here’s the short answer to the title of this post: No.
But for a slightly longer answer, I’ll point out that many things could happen. Kim Reynolds could get caught driving drunk while cheating on her husband. Chuck Grassley could die from old age. And so on. But assuming nothing outrageous happens, Democrats won’t win the major federal or statewide races this fall. They will lose Iowa in 2022. Normal campaigning and GOTV efforts won’t be enough to win.
Incidentally, wealthier Democratic donors and party officials already know this. It’s a big part of why donors haven’t given as much money as usual by this point. A few progressives in the state have even criticized Democrats for ‘throwing in the towel.’
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