The Price of Gas & the Urgency of Voting
PLUS- More than two dozen guides to help you make ballot choices
Ultimately, everything is interconnected. Ballots will be arriving in mailboxes next week for Californians and there are real world reasons why you should take the act of voting seriously.
OPEC voted to make oil more scarce this week, just in time to raise gas prices before the midterms. Of course the price at the pump will be blamed on Biden, even though what’s going on are the Saudis, et.al., doing a solid for Russia (which benefits from higher prices) and waving their left middle fingers at nations resisting the siren call of autocracy.
From USA Today:
Wednesday's decision by an alliance of oil-exporting countries to significantly slash production could boost Russia's war efforts, as the expected rise in oil prices helps replenish the country's coffers and blunts the impact of efforts by the U.S. and its allies to cut into the Kremlin's leading source of revenue.
The upcoming midterm elections were not looking as good as the disciples of Trump would like; the “victory” at the Supreme Court enabling state policies on forced birthing came before their voter suppression campaigns bore results. If women and their allies turned out in sufficient numbers at the ballot box, Congress won’t be as compromised as the right would like.
So, the hope is that screeching about the economy will drown out concerns about personal freedoms. And, just in case, the threat of imaginary Satanism is being revived in the hope that persuadable suburban women will be swayed by accounts of demonic homosexuals waiting to possess their children’s souls.
I’d laugh at this, but I remember the widespread acceptance of the moral panic in the 1980s based on the claim of 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse. Some of this gobbledygook lives on as part of the QAnon belief system.
Colorado gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl is claiming that elementary schools are being equipped with litter boxes to accommodate students who “identify” as animals.
In Texas, mother of three Jamie Gooch, is warning parents everywhere about the dangers of letting children watch Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2, a movie about the harvesting of the purity of children’s souls.
Add these claims to the common GQP attacks alleging that Democrats are “grooming” children to become homosexual and understanding their usefulness in “otherizing” political opponents makes the anti-democracy essence of this insanity obvious.
According to a report at Axios, the GOP is counting their chickens before they hatch, with various contenders for the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee preparing to hold the nation hostage in a debt limit showdown in the fall of 2023, with the price of a functioning government being President Biden’s signature on legislation rolling back the Democrats’ “radical socialist agenda.”
Making government not work is a commonality of all the world’s autocrats/wannabes, especially in the quest to undermine democracy. Economics blogger Noah Smith calls these types Mussolinoids, a group that includes the former president of the United States:
Fortunately the U.S. booted Trump in a way that Russia and China haven’t been able to eject their own Mussolinoids. But some Republicans are trying to continue Trump’s ideological legacy with something called “national conservatism.” This ideological project, which takes many of its cues from Hungary’s Mussolinoid leader Viktor Orbán, combines traditional Republican culture wars with an admiration for authoritarian rule, which they see as necessary to save America and the world from the terror of wokeness.
But when it comes to their plans for actually governing the nation, the natcons’ ideas are simply disasters waiting to happen. Their strongest idea is to cut off immigration, which dovetails with their desire to slow or reverse demographic change. But immigrants are the lifeblood of the American economy, especially of the high-tech industries that keep us a step ahead of rivals like China. Meanwhile, natcons rhetorically attack universities as hotbeds of wokeness, ignoring their crucial role as the drivers of scientific research. And natcons want to defend the suburbs as a way of life, defying the need for greater density and the fiscal unsustainability of the infrastructure that supports sprawl.
In other words, America’s own authoritarians want to use economic policy primarily as a tool to prosecute culture wars, which are what they really care about. The result, if they ever get their way, is incredibly predictable — more of the dysfunction and stagnation that have plagued Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, and other nations unlucky or foolish enough to come under the sway of Mussolinoid leaders.
The Washington Post says a majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election
Scholars said the predominance of election deniers in the GOP bears alarming similarities to authoritarian movements in other countries, which often begin with efforts to delegitimize elections. Many of those promoting the stolen-election narrative, they said, know that it is false and are using it to gain power.
“Election denialism is a form of corruption,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and a historian at New York University. “The party has now institutionalized this form of lying, this form of rejection of results. So it’s institutionalized illegal activity. These politicians are essentially conspiring to make party dogma the idea that it’s possible to reject certified results.”
California’s crop of 18 election deniers running for office includes likely-to-win Rep. Darrell Issa and likely-to-lose-to-Juan Vargas in the 52nd, Tyler Geffeney.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this rundown of the latest moves by the anti-democracy set:
Your vote matters, no matter how inconsequential the contests on your ballot may seem.
This election should be treated like a referendum on democracy if for no other reason than a shift in the axis of political power will accelerate steps by pro-autocracy forces being taken worldwide.
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Want some help voting?
Click on the titles below to see previous voter guides
(Endorsements coming Monday, October 10)
California State Officials
California’s DC Delegation
State Senate Races
State Assembly Races
SD County Supervisors
County Sheriff, Assessor, and Treasurer Races
SD Measure B: Cash Meets Trash
SD Measure C: Reach for the Sky! Or Else?
SD Measure D: Righting a Wrong to Build a Future
SD Measure H: It’s for the Children (And Their Parents)
CA Proposition 1: It’s About More Than Abortion
CA Propositions 26 & 27: Betcha Can’t Pick Just One
CA Proposition 28: Arts & Music for a Sane Future
CA Proposition 29: Regulating Dialysis Clinics and the Definition of Insanity
CA Proposition 30: A Poison Pill Concealed by Sweet Promises
CA Proposition 31: Tobacco Company Lawyers Are Scum
SD Democrats’ Scandal Inside a Scandal: Board of Equalization
SD City Council Races: District Two - Is Voting Republican a Mortal Sin?
SD City Council Races: District Four - No News Is Good News for Incumbent
Montgomery-Steppe
SD City Council Races: District Six: It Depends on Your Definition of Neighborhood
SD City Council Races: District 8 - Nothing to See Here
A Dozen Key Races for Progressive Goals in San Diego
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Boards of Education Contests:
Analysis by Thomas Ultican
2022 School Board Contests, Part 1
The County Board, San Diego Unified, Sweetwater Union, Poway Unified
2022 School Board Contests, Part 2
Chula Vista, San Marcos, Vista, Grossmont
2022 School Board Contests, Part 3
Oceanside, Escondido, San Dieguito
2022 School Board Contests, Part 4
Coronado, Carlsbad, Escondido Union
2022 School Board Contests, Part 5
Encinitas Union Elementary School District
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com