51. Warning

It is 51 days until the next U.S. congressional midterm election. There was no post yesterday.

An article appeared on The Associated Press’ website this afternoon. Written by Julie Pace, Catherine Lucey and Zeke Miller, it was headlined, “Grim warnings for White House, Republicans ahead of election.”

Don’t buy into it.

I’m not discrediting their work, which outlined cautions from “top Republican pollster” Neil Newhouse that things are not looking very good for the GOP in the election 51 days from now.

He said the economy and jobs would not sway voters in midterm elections as much as how they feel about Trump. And, according to the presentation (as if we haven’t all heard it) is the majority of Americans, including a “sizeable percentage of Republican-leaning voters,” do not feel good about a president who is making a mockery of the country he’s supposed to be leading.

OK, so if I believe their story, why do I say, “Don’t buy into it”?

They touched on that, too, writing that the warning appears to be a strategic move by Republicans to scare their diminishing base into voting lest those nasty Democrats take charge and start doing Congress’ job of providing checks and balances against the White House, maybe even impeaching the president if he hasn’t already resigned, not to mention protecting marginalized people and fighting against the rising tide of white supremacists. (Most of those words are mine, by the way; they were not quite that direct.)

Don’t buy into the warning of a Blue Wave. The Republicans are already spreading lies and stirring up fear to drive their voters to the polls. I don’t know how it works, but even after they screamed for eight years that Barack Obama was coming for all their guns, not a single gun restriction was put in place. Yet, they’re crying again that the Democrats are going to take your guns.

And the sheep believe it.

That’s why you and I must keep up the fight, continue to educate voters, encourage folks to register and then to show up and vote.

We must finally remove the stain of the far-right experiment before our country is further damaged, before it is shunned by the rest of the world, before it becomes illegal to have dark skin, to worship in any way other than the radical Christians, to be gay, to come from another country.

Don’t buy into the suggestion that Democrats have the elections wrapped up. We must press on to gather new state seats, to win an astounding majority in the House, even to flip the Senate.

Support and vote for Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Bill Nelson in Florida, Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona, Jacky Rosen in Nevada, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, and the rest of the Democratic candidates to help swing the Senate. (Each name links to that candidate’s Twitter page.)

Tomorrow, we’ll look at some of the House races that are particularly important. Leave a comment or otherwise contact me with suggestions for that list.