The time is here once again for the midterm elections, and wee doggy, what a quagmire we find ourselves in. When I sat down to write this piece, I told myself I wasn’t going to make it about Donald Trump, but, in the current political climate, it’s difficult to find anything politically that doesn’t have his sticky orange fingerprints on it. Many moons ago they used to say that Richard Nixon was Hunter S. Thompson’s white whale. I may not have the prestige of our dearly, departed doctor of all things gonzo, though I may be (at least for the moment) in a clearer state of mind. I don’t have a white whale, but I sure as hell have an orange one, and God damn it, THAR SHE BLOWS!!
In a nutshell, the midterm elections are the general elections that happen every two years on the first Tuesday of November at nearly the halfway point of the President’s term. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs as well as 33 or 34 of the seats in the Senate. Out of 50 states, 34 of them elect their governors for four-year terms. There are also elections on the municipal level.
Voter turnout for midterm elections are generally lower than that for presidential elections. While generally averaging about 50 to 60 percent over the last 60 years for presidential elections, the voting average for midterms hovers around 40 percent. These numbers are based on the number of people who are eligible to vote. As a rule, the incumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats during the midterm. Historically speaking, most of the time, the opposing party usually gains a majority in the House, the Senate or both.
Going into this election, Republicans hold the edge in the House with 218 seats vs the Democrats 214. They also hold the majority in the Senate 53 to 47. There are governor races in 39 states as well as legislative seats in nearly every state up for election.
Now, I want to throw a number at you to show how ludicrous American politics have become. According to watchdog group Ad Impact, 3.8 billion dollars has been spent so far on political ads by both sides. This, in layman’s terms, is fucking stupid. Any ad that a Democrat puts out is not going to change the minds of the MAGA faithful, just as any ad for a MAGA candidate is not going to change the minds of those that find the movement loathsome. Christ, Republicans were supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility. (I’m not even going to get into our bloated deficit created by them), Democrats are supposed to be the party for social programs that actually aid people in need. Now imagine, if you will, that instead of that money going to blowing unnecessary smoke up people’s collective asses, it actually went to helping them. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. THEY CARE ABOUT POWER OVER YOU. Say it louder for the people in the back.
Think about what these ads actually are. They are a bunch of people in no financial danger, prancing around in expensive suits promising you a bunch of shit that will never materialize. Half of them tell you what you want to hear, and the other half spend their time trying to scare the crap out of you with whatever political boogeyman is the flavor of the day. It seems we’ve circled back to communism once again. Apparently, the spirit of Joseph McCarthy is alive and well in modern America, Goddess help us all.
The people that lead us are supposed to be the best of us. Is that what we’re seeing on either side? It seems to me that the system is broken, and what isn’t broken, the MAGA movement is doing their best to incinerate. The system is a lie built to manipulate and control you. That is all it was ever supposed to be. You’ve been duped folks. You think voting actually makes a difference? How many times in the past 50 years has someone won the popular vote, and then the electoral college steps in and says, “Yeah, no.” Both Mark Twain and George Carlin said it, and I’m paraphrasing here, “If voting actually had the ability to change anything, they wouldn’t let you do it.”
Compared to the other nations on planet earth, the United States is a very young country. Do you think we got to be the most dominant country on the planet this quickly by being the good guys? Are you really this obtuse, or are you so ashamed of swallowing the lies for this long that you can’t bring yourself to admit what’s really going on here. From the beginning we were a country of predominantly white property owners that didn’t want to pay their taxes anymore. We cultivated the fields in the south through the labor of black slaves. We built the railroads across the country through the indentured servitude of Chinese immigrants that were lied to in order to get them here. Tie in the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War Two, the infection of every black male in a small southern town with syphilis, the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans, and our incessant need to “spread democracy” by any means necessary around the globe, and you’ve got a big bowl of star-spangled shit.
I’m going to take one example from the current midterm races to illustrate my point. James Talarico vs Ken Paxton in Texas is a nightmare. Talarico is a state rep and Paxton is the Attorney General. In 2015 Paxton was indicted for securities fraud and settled the case. In 2023 he was impeached by the Texas House for alleged bribery and abuse of office. In 2020 there was a whistleblower lawsuit. Several top advisors had reported him for various violations and were all subsequently fired by him. They collectively won 6 million dollars in the lawsuit. In 2025 his wife filed for divorce alleging infidelity. In 2025 / 2026 he was caught in a scandal for allegedly celebrating New Year in Dubai alongside fugitives indicted for federal health care fraud. In 2013, this frigging guy was caught on camera stealing another lawyer’s $1000 dollar Montblanc fountain pen. Crazy, right? Well, Talarico might not have that impressive resume, but he isn’t exactly squeaky clean either. After buying a house nearby, it was found that he voted in five different elections using his parent’s address which violates Texas voting laws. He was also lambasted by the right-wing press for describing God as non-binary.
Is this really the best we have to offer? It’s like this all across the country. The rule of law is gone folks. For everyone except you, that is. So, what do we do? Trying to fix this system from within is like trying to put a band-aid on a decapitation victim. It needs to GO. Now I’m not saying you should spend the next few weeks making Molotov cocktails in your basement. (To be clear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t either.) But people need to get angry and stay that way. Not at each other, but at the system that promises everything and gives nothing. Take to the streets. Go to the polling places and take them over. Don’t let anyone vote until we’re sure that the votes will actually count. Now you may tell me that people will get hurt. My response is this; people are already getting hurt. People are dying because of this system. And people will continue to be hurt and continue to die beneath this system. I would rather suffer and die for freedom, than suffer and die to keep the few scraps our masters toss us from time to time. The revolution is waiting. It is ready. The rest is up to you.
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