Many have said the midterm elections turned America Blue last week. I disagree. America has been Blue for a long time; we just don’t always vote like it. Blue America elected Barack Obama in a landslide in 2008. In 2010, Red America took Congress back in a backslide — retaliation for the “crime” of providing affordable health care to the millions who were living without it (go figure). In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but the Electoral College handed the presidency to Donald Dunce. In 2018, Blue America took back the House of Representatives after the Supreme Court took away women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies.
In 2020, Blue America handed twice-impeached Trump his second consecutive popular vote loss, this one a landslide because … well, that list is long. Voters paid attention — to the cruelty and incompetence — but they didn’t pay enough attention to his Jan. 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow a lawful election because in 2022, Red America regained the House and in 2024, American voters ushered Trump right back into the Oval Office. Apparently they forgot how wretched his first term was. So back and forth we go, Blue to Red to Blue to Red and now back to Blue.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, points out that in 10 of the 13 national elections held so far in the 21st century, the incumbent party lost control of the White House, the Senate, the House, or a combination thereof. “This was another backlash election,” they said, rivaling the 1974 Watergate midterms and the 2006 thumping of the Great Recession Republicans. Both of those were Blue waves also.
For the past two years, voters finally began paying attention and voted in a big way, proving what Blue America can do when we get riled up enough. But we already proved that twice before — in 2008 and 2020. We are an unstoppable force when we pull, and poll, together. When we don’t, we sink.
Will this third time be the charm or will we go right back to our wild pendulum swings? I was as giddy as anyone last Tuesday, but I’m not in the mood to celebrate. Not yet. Because Blue America hasn’t fully grasped its political power, which we only seem to assert when things get bad enough. We outnumber Red America. But we aren’t yet a movement.
Blue America is a better America. Inclusive, to Red America’s exclusive. We believe in democracy and strive for equality. Red America believes in white superiority and strives for inequality. Blue America is progressive. Red America doesn’t even have a political party. They’re a personality cult.
But this time around voters paid attention — and discovered how much power we have. We also discovered our system was stronger than the Trumpists’ efforts to undermine it. David Axelrod called the results a “victory for decency.” It was that and much more. The Brennan Center noted in their report that this was the second highest midterm voter turnout since 1914, exceeded only by the 2018 midterms. It was, above all, a victory for citizenship.
Blue America, it turns out, was a sleeping giant. Trump woke us up. The Brennan Center report called it “a major triumph of the civic sector against the full weight of the federal government.” There were no major incidents on Election Day, no deployment of ICE at the polls, no national emergency declared.
But this election was not a victory for the Democratic Party. Not yet anyway. They need to show they’re worthy of the political power we have invested in them. The Democrats are the only functioning party left standing. But they have to prove they’re up to the task. And that task is reform.
The Brennan Center recommends Supreme Court term limits, enforceable restrictions on abuses of executive power, passing a new voting rights law, and ending partisan gerrymandering/redistricting by both parties.
I would add: deciding presidential elections by the popular vote (kill the Electoral College), limit filibuster abuse or do away with it altogether so whichever side gets elected can actually govern. Campaign finance reform and immigration reform. ICE goons are still on our streets. The police don’t need to be defunded, but ICE sure does. ICE needs to be destreeted.
And, of course, ending the war with Iran.
The new Democratic Congress probably can’t do it all in two years. That’s why Blue America needs to prevail again in 2028.
The United States of Blue America can be the force for good that Howard Thurman envisioned (as adapted by Rev. Barb Greve):
“When the glee of the progressives is stilled, when the posters in the yards are removed, when the lawyers and politicians and pundits are quiet, when the protesters are safely home, the work of Democracy begins: To prioritize the vulnerable, to reunite the caged children, to feed the hungry, to house the houseless, to release the prisoner, to decriminalize poverty, to provide health care for all, to educate the masses, to care for the Earth, to protect the vote, to let life flourish.”
That would be worth celebrating.