Democracy Can (Must) Win At Ballot Box In November

Yevgeny Vindman, who goes by Eugene, is the Democratic nominee in VA 7th CD

In 2020 and again in 2022, many voters understood that democracy was on the ballot.  While there was a myriad of issues that candidates talked about that were aimed to sway the electorate, a large swath of voters understood that the basic foundations of the nation were at stake. And they voted accordingly. The predictions of a red wave in the midterms resulted in a trickle with a razor-thin edge for House conservatives. The November presidential election where autocracy will be embodied in the Republican Party nominee in addition to a full array of congressional campaigns is yet another pivotal moment for our democracy.

With that in mind, there is yet more evidence to prove the theme of needing to safeguard our fundamental rights is positively received by voters.  Tuesday night Yevgeny Vindman won his primary in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District. If his last name sounds familiar it is that he and his twin brother exposed Donald Trump’s illegal attempts to strong-arm Ukraine into digging up dirt on his then likely political opponent, Joe Biden. While Vindman’s primary competitors pushed the fact that he had no governing experience, he asserted the need to be mindful that democracy is at stake in 2024. 

The reason this race caught my attention over the past couple of months is first, how his life story is the American dream writ large, and second how he faced an array of credible primary opponents.  There were seven of them, including four women of color who were all current or former officeholders.  In his message to voters after securing an impressive victory Vindman said, “Our grass-roots movement is coming for the extreme MAGA agenda. Virginia voters are first and foremost values-driven and want to elect leaders with integrity who preserve fundamental rights and freedoms and not extremists.”

He and his identical twin brother, Alexander, were born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and following the death of their mother, the three-year-old twins were brought to New York in December 1979 by their father.  He joined the U.S. Army and in 2012 Vindman became an Army Judge Advocate. In 2018, he accepted an assignment with the National Security Council. 

While the continued attacks from Donald Trump and those who yearn for an autocratic and fascist nation have ramped up since 2015, it also needs to be noted the majority of the nation, as evidenced by election outcomes, have stood up for and alongside our political institutions, the professional press, our judicial system, the right to vote, and the laws and rules that govern our nation. It is not a surprise, then, that the Republican Party under Donald Trump in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (and will again this year) lost a wide array of elections, that in other political environments and prior to the severe damage Trump has inflicted on the GOP, would have secured at the ballot box.

Why I spend a few minutes writing this post about Vindman and our democracy is that the boy who was born in the USSR and is now a shining example of American exceptionalism (yes, that is truly a working concept) is providing a real lesson to a large segment of the nation that saving democracy is not a highfalutin phrase for academics or columnists in major newspapers.  It is a real exercise that all Americans must be mindful of as we proceed to the November elections. 

Vindman stated it clearly on Tuesday night. “The voters in this district recognize what’s at stake in this next election: that it’s a crossroads for this country.  There’s a choice to be made between common-sense approaches and an extremist agenda.”

I checked this morning, and the Cook Political Report gives Democrats a slight advantage to win this seat in November. I am confident that the foundations of our democracy will be solid at the end of the balloting all across the nation, too. Americans will respond to the dire threat to our democracy, just as past generations did when fascism raised its head in Europe.

President Biden Remains a Highly Polished Politician, Knows How To Be A Winner

I gave my first campaign donation to Joe Biden in 1987 as he was seeking the presidential nomination. Thursday night as I sat, and at times bounded off the sofa in our Madison home due to the power and punch of the President’s words in the State of Union Address (at times making James wonder if I ate too much ice cream at dinner) I thought a wise investment many decades ago had certainly been started. No other politician so captured my attention or held it as long. His values over the decades remain the American ones I knew growing up in rural Wisconsin and what I anchor myself to in these trying years for the nation.

It comes as no surprise that having our President start off the address about international alliances and the high purpose of democracy at home and aboard, charting his message from the Civil War to WWII struck a chord with this blogger. The threats to democracy which were central to the 2022 mid-terms are very much at the core of the general election coming our way this November.  Biden was speaking to the themes that resonate among my friends in long-distance phone calls to the ones who sit around our dining table as guests. 

Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.

President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary moment.

Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.

Tonight I come to the same chamber to address the nation.

Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.

And yes, my purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress, and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.

Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today.

What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.

I can most accurately describe the address as a highly caffeinated offering. Biden not only threaded the issues that confront our nation today but wove in the successes during the past term and in the final third of the speech pushed hard on the hopes and needs of our future. Biden was masterful. As he mingled with members of Congress after the speech Georgia Senator Warnock said, “You were preaching tonight!’ As a preacher himself, that was high praise, indeed.

Biden all but handed the GOP the white flag they will need after the balloting is counted this fall. But here is the part that shows Biden at his political best. He did it with humor and in a conversational folksy style.  As I watched the tortured and strained look of House Speaker Mike Johnson who looked so uncomfortable I thought that many of the GOP in the chamber either forgot or perhaps were never aware that this was the 51^st SOTU that Biden had attended since he came to Washington as a senator. They may deeply disagree with Biden or just play along with their tribal partisan games for the sake of the base back home, but they would be foolish to dismiss the fact that he is a highly polished professional pol who knows how to not only play the game, but win over, and over, and over again.

As the end of the speech neared Biden took hold of his values and pressed them home once again. While there are issues that Republicans will try to use to buttress their claims to the White House nothing will resonate more with the voters than the threat to democracy which Biden feels so deeply and speaks to so effectively. From the actions of insurrection on January 6th along with the cozy relationship Congressional conservatives share with Russian President Putin, as demonstrated by the lack of passage of an aid fill to Ukraine, voters know where our country has stood throughout history and wishes that we continue to stand on the world stage. Biden interjecting Ronald Reagan’s name into the SOTU is due to polling that shows where our nation wishes to be.

I know the American story.

Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation.

Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future.

My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy.

A future based on the core values that have defined America.

Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality.

To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.

Now some other people my age see a different story.

An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.

That’s not me.

I was born amid World War II when America stood for freedom in the world.

Neil Heinen Tells It Like It Is When It Comes To Wisconsin Republicans

Home-Run.

Republicans have apparently tired of the American tenant of democracy of open government, for the people and by the people. It appears the majority party has concluded that frankly the people are just getting in the way and the most efficient way of serving the public is to exclude them from participation in whatever way necessary, and if it violates the spirit of an open meetings law so be it.

Our first concern is indeed the apparent effort to ram though legislation that affects every citizen in this state without respect for the citizen’s right to be heard. Our second is continued deterioration of our image as a state that can function effectively.

Oh, and any illusion that collective bargaining rights was in fact a budget issue? Gone.  Just gone