There are lots of harbingers that change is in the air.
You just don’t read about them.
If you look at polls, or headlines from various states, you’ll think Democrats are on the run and Republicans have absolute impunity. Polls are mostly statistical noise it takes an expert to understand. It’s what a party does with its impunity, and how folks in a democracy react, that decides the future.
I don’t care that Trump was indicted, or that Jean Carroll won her suit, or the George Santos was indicted. I don’t care about the latest stupidity from Meatball Ron or the chair-bound governor of the Great State of Texas.
I do care about what people think after shit gets dumped on them. Do they get up on their hind legs or do they say, “Please sir, may I have another?”
That’s why I was so interested in yesterday’s Arkansas School Board results. This has been a right-wing stronghold for years, and officials there (like everywhere they hold power) have been busy trying to deny everyone an education, or access to any facts that put them in a bad light.
So welcome to Conway, Arkansas. It’s an exurb of Little Rock, 30 miles to its northwest along I-40. While it’s the home of the University of Central Arkansas (go Bears) it’s Trumpy territory. Sarah Sanders got 63% of the vote last year in Faulkner County, of which Conway is the county seat.
Over the last school year, the incumbent board has banned books of LGBTQ romance, limited what teachers could say in class, and attacked transsexuals specifically. The usual. Well, they held an election yesterday and both incumbents lost, 55-45. In Conway, Arkansas.
The point is there’s a limit. When any politician gets ahead of their skis, people rein them in. That’s happening to Republicans across the country, when they act with impunity, when they treat their people like dirt, when they decide certain folks are human and others are not.
All Democrats must do is scale that. Repeat it on a national scale and we’ll be fine. I think it’s possible. Even likely.
You may now resume your doomscrolling.
