Don't blow it.
Brian Fitzpatrick is off marrying Fox News journalist Jacqui Heinrich this weekend. Congratulations. Best wishes and all that. And if we get our best wishes, Fitzpatrick will have a lot more free time to enjoy his wedded bliss come November. There is so much that should outrage us with Fitzpatrick and his MAGA Republican party and MAGA Republican president - from the algae infested, paint peeling reflecting pool (a perfect reflection of this administration) to the Iran peace deal that isn’t, to looming cuts, conveniently timed for after the November election, to SNAP, Medicaid, and Social Security, to name a few. Yet the Bucks County voter turnout in the May primary was a mere 27.4%. 35.4% of registered Democrats, 19.7% of registered Republicans. If too many of us sit on our hands like this in November, we will get more of what we don’t want or deserve; ballrooms and arches, measles and screwworms, wars on a whim and program cuts with intention. How can we bring in the 87,000 or so independent, non Republican or Democrat voters in Bucks County who could not vote in the primary, if we can’t get our own people to vote? How can we encourage the Republicans who are horrified by Trump’s cruelty, but still figure their policy interests are better served in a “broken” Republican house if we won’t show up ourselves? Instead, Democrats are wasting energy on infighting between their own staid, entrenched and uninspiring leadership and grass roots organizations, creating division instead of embracing any energy that has traction - progressive, centrist, socialist, who cares? Anything that gets voters to the polls. This is our opportunity to gain a foothold, to win a majority that allows us to fight back. The Fitzpatrick supported Trump administration knows it is vulnerable; witness Trump’s insistence on the passage of the SAVE Act, the Department of Homeland Security's refusal to rule out sending federal agents to polling places, the USPS proposed changes in delivering mail ballots, Trump’s desperate attempts to declare “mission accomplished” on the Iran war. We have got to come together, united in our determination to proclaim the value of our policy interests, to energize and persuade our fellow citizens to show up and vote blue. Surely we can do better than 27.4%. This is our chance, we cannot afford to blow it.
