One of the things I have missed about regularly posting on our blog has been the ability to really work out my thoughts in writing, which is ordinarily not something I get to do much anymore. We don’t use social media much these days, especially since Elon Musk bought Twitter and then proceeded to wreck it. I am still on Twitter (I steadfastly refuse to call it X), because there are still good people on there and I refuse to let Elon and his troll mob chase me away. Kelly is on Instagram a good bit. But Twitter is not designed to really let you express yourself eloquently when you have to pay Elon money to write anything more than 140 characters long. And he has enough money, he doesn’t need any of ours.
The 2026 midterm elections are now less than a month away, and I am admittedly a bit apprehensive about what will happen. All hyperbole aside, this election is going to be immensely consequential because it may present the only chance the American public has to stop Trump and his enablers in Congress before the 2028 presidential election. Without even going into whether or not the 2028 election is going to happen and whether Trump will put himself on the ballot, I am just not sure how much damage will be done to the country by November 2028 to be confident that we can wait until then. Trump’s first term was bad enough. But after having four years to plan how they would do things differently if they returned to power, Trump and his supporters have been rapid and methodical in their destruction of America’s reputation on the world stage, in the erosion of our civil liberties, in the sheer scale and variety of the virtually open public corruption now happening, and in the reduction or elimination of countless Federal programs and departments (much of it through DOGE) that were designed to serve the public good. It will take decades, possibly generations, to repair all of the damage that is being done, and I think we don’t even know or understand the full scale of it all yet.
The Republican party essentially no longer exists except to support Donald Trump. It has become increasingly authoritarian and even less willing to tolerate dissent than before, which hardly seems possible. I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that Trump’s popularity of late has weakened considerably, but I worry that the Democrats, particularly among their leadership, may not measure up to the crisis that is building. Supposedly they are planning for all sorts of possible problems that may happen concerning the midterms. I sincerely hope so. I have great confidence in local and state officials here in Vermont. My confidence in the Democratic party at the national level is less than I would like. And I worry that there will be voters that, although they don’t like or trust Trump and his party, they may not feel great about the Democrats either. And that needs to change. People desperately want to see real results. I know we do. People need to feel like it is still possible to save our democracy and that the Democrats are able and willing to do so. I think that is what people want and need to hear.
-Geoff
