Sixty-six percent of eligible voters voted in the 2020 presidential election. Of 158 million votes, 81 million were for Biden and 74 million for Trump. Midterm voting percentages now average around 40%. In the late 1800s, it was more like 80% for presidential races and 70% for midterms. When it ticked up to 50% in the 2018 midterms, we got a thin majority in both houses. But with that thin majority, a great deal of progress — unheard of during the disastrous Trump term — was accomplished with this thin majority.
With world-wide inflation, most of it set in motion by the pandemic, four years of the Trump trainwreck, and the Vladimir Putin brutal Ukraine war, Biden’s support lagged as did voter enthusiasm and recognition of Biden’s impressive accomplishments.
Corporate support for Democrats and also for Biden has always been weak, and their robust support for Republicans over generations only lagged for a short time after the January 6th insurrection instigated by Trump. Many of the 291 GOP 2020 election deniers, most supporting the insurrection, are on the midterm ballot and now supported by big corporate money, in effect denying our democracy.
One hundred and sixty-four corporations, including American Express, Toyota, Walgreens, UPS, Lockheed, Home Depot, AT&T, Marathon Petroleum, Valero Energy, and Publix, pledged to stop donations to the Sedition Caucus, the GOP members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election, but have resumed their support for these same GOP members for the 2022 election. Over a hundred million dollars has been poured into GOP candidate campaigns thru PAC fundings to assure Republican majorities.
Most likely, a low voter turnout in 2022 will assure a Republican majority. It seems that even with democracy on the line, we won’t even get the voter participation of 2018 for the November election. Many know the risk but don’t seem to be moved out of complacency. The consequences will most likely be GOP victory and general chaos beginning in January, 2023.
Expecting to win a majority and serve as the Speaker, Kevin McCarthy recently announced his intentions for the next session of the House. It will be characterized by a likelihood of near-financial collapse, more risk of violence, possible impeachment proceedings, enhanced acrimony, more suffering, especially among the vulnerable, and a build-up toward fascism, even if Republicans only take the House.
Mind you, we have had rehearsals of these consequences during the Obama administrations, so this is not a foolhardy prediction. In 2011, the new Republican majority, led by the Tea Party rightists brought the US to the brink of a default with the indexes losing up to 4% in value and Standard & Poor downgrading the US long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+ meaning a substantial higher cost to borrow money.
Furthermore, Kevin McCarthy already threatened such chaos to enhance his ambition of being the Speaker of the House over other would-be radicals like Jim Jordan; even Donald Trump has been mentioned as the next Speaker of the House.
If poll predictions hold, investigations by Republican-controlled committees in the House will start in January of 2023. They will include Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, President Biden’s southern-border policy, and Merrick Garland’s criminal probes of the vast evidence of Trump criminality.
Impeachments too. Trump loyalists like Matt Gaetz (probably not to be charged with child sex abuse) and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both pledged to be back with juicy committee assignments, will want to charge Biden, but also impeach cabinet members like Garland and secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, at least for starters.
Funding for Ukraine to stop Vladimir Putin’s criminal war is on the line too. This was announced by McCarthy and would be no surprise when Republican actions, pronouncements, and policies, more and more, resemble those of Putin in levels of ruthlessness, cruelty, manipulation, exploitation and violence, all taken from a fascist-like playbook.
Then by the third quarter of 2023 most likely the debt-limit ceiling will be reached. With 2011 being a demonstration of past threats, McCarthy has pronounced a willingness to shut down the government over social security and Medicare cuts while McCarthy’s radical cohorts like seditionist, Paul Gosar, speak of even cutting food benefits for the poor and dismantling programs passed by Biden this year for climate control and Medicare prescription price reductions. Republicans have already sued to stop debt forgiveness for billions in college loans.
Think about what you are risking before you decide not to vote in a few weeks. It will be worse than traveling on a bumpy road. It’s more like the prospect of a slow burial under a GOP quagmire.
Look up past evidence, including DeSantis, GOP governor of Florida and Abbott, the Texas governor, for example. Both want to be Republican nominee for President in 2024. It is there for those who care to look.
