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Last night was not a great night for the most popular, most legitimate political team of all timeness.

I think you are witnessing what some are calling a Woke-Lash.

Wow, an “Off Topic” post that I agree with LevelUP about!  

The two axioms of the Democratic Party today really do seem to be more/bigger government is better and that progressive social policies (I don’t like the term woke, but we will use that here for simplicity’s sake) are unquestionably and unlimitedly good. 

There are still some of us who look at the New Deal and it’s ability to lift millions out of poverty, to foster the development of the middle class in the United States, and to check the virtually unlimited power and wealth of a tiny sliver of the population as the model for what government should be. I describe myself as a liberal, not a progressive. 

I live in a red state in the middle of the United States. Progressive social policies play well in a handful of areas, primarily on the coasts, but not so well in the middle. I do actually agree with LevelUP that even in the places where these social policies have played well in recent years, yesterday was a bit of a rejection.  

To me, Virginia wasn’t that surprising. McAuliffe wasn’t super popular when he was in office the first time. He won his first election by the smallest margin of any VA governor in recent years. His opponent spent a LOT of money on the race. The stuff with the school board in Loudon County really hurt McAuliffe, etc, etc, etc. New Jersey was much more surprising to me. 

Personally, I hope this was a wake up call. I hope the National Democratic Party starts to think about the vast swaths of this country they have largely abandoned. And, when Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are two of the four most prominent faces of the party, that is really hard to do. When the party is more concerned with the politics of bathrooms than the politics of labor, that is really hard to do.  

The GOP is REALLY good at appealing to people’s emotions. They are, frankly, better communicators than the Democrats today. It is easy for people where I live to get fired up about things like the Second Amendment and protecting Confederate monuments. The Democrats have a harder time. I have heard very dismissive things from national Democratic leaders that basically say that people in middle America are too stupid to get it. No, the party leaders don’t actually know how to communicate and don’t talk about the right things. 

As an example: Elon Musk the other day went on a rant about how a wealth tax was bad. What I did not hear: somebody on the left pointing out that Musk is a billionaire because he has sold his electric cars to people who received tax incentives. He and his companies have received well over a hundred million dollars in tax incentives to help with development and production of his vehicles. He is a freakin welfare queen!  He is an immigrant who came to this country, took advantage of our educational system, participated in the most dynamic wealth generating economy the world has ever seen (in no small part due to government action), and is now refusing to acknowledge that anybody except the great Elon Musk had a hand in his success. And if somebody on the left did say that, the Republicans would call it the politics of envy and THAT is the message that would carry the day. Not because they are right, but because they are better at communicating their message and they actually want the support of middle America.