The Paradigm Shift And The Upcoming Elections

I developed this web site and began posting to this blog in the summer of 2016 for one reason: I felt that the upcoming Presidential election was the most important in my lifetime, and I wanted to do the best I could to ensure that as many people as I could reach would understand how significant their vote would be in that particular election. Given the outcome of that election and what has transpired since then, I now believe the mid-term elections coming up this November may be even more important.

A Quick Review — November 8, 2016 To Now

My opinions are those of one person among millions, and each person reading this can make up his/her own mind on which if any of these points he/she agrees or disagrees — so without elaborating, here’s my synopsis:

- We have a President who I don’t like, personally — but I can be encouraged by the fact that this would have been true regardless of who won in 2016.
- We have a President who doesn’t fit into any of the molds into which traditional politicians [in both parties] and talking heads in the media [both liberal and conservative] — to whom I’ll hereinafter refer collectively as “The Swamp” — try to put all elected officials, particularly the President. In my opinion, that’s a good thing, and would clearly not have been the case had the 2016 election gone the other way [Hillary Clinton is a standard, run-of-the-mill, traditional politician who would easily have fit into a set of standard molds].
- We have a President who has “rocked all of the boats in all of the lakes.” Rather than just taking each day/week/month as it comes and at least allowing for the possibility that there could be a sensible rationale and pattern behind his seemingly knee-jerk actions, The Swamp spends all its time doing two things: 1) insistently attempting to sort all this out and either force him into an established mold or come up with a new mold that can make it easier for them to “classify” him; and 2) doing everything possible to paint him in a negative light and block everything he tries to do.
- We have a President who has accomplished a tremendous amount in his first sixteen months in office in spite of what is clearly the heaviest resistance ever for an incoming president — and who realizes the simple fact that a generation from now, it will be his accomplishments, not his personality, or his Tweets, or how many feathers he ruffled while in office, that will dictate how his presidency is viewed.
- We have a Swamp — most but not all of whom, are Democrats — that will not rest from its efforts to block literally everything President Trump attempts to do until he is out of office by whatever means is necessary to unseat him.

Why The 2018 Mid-Terms Are Crucial

Given where we are, we, the people, have the capacity this November to decide whether or not we are OK with governmental deadlock for at least two more years. Of the outcomes that are possible on November 8, only one will express our desire to continue on the substantially altered path on which we decided to embark in 2016, and only one will express our desire to totally reject that path and [by implication, whether intentionally or not] go back to the previous path. Any of the others will result in [probably not our desire, but nonetheless the path we will have chosen by wasting our votes or choosing not to vote at all] — you guessed it, at least two more years of deadlock. We all need to be thinking about that now — not a few days or even hours or minutes before we go to the polls not only in November, but in the primaries leading up to November.

The Paradigm Shift’s Progress Will Be Key

If you “go with the flow” and assume that the Paradigm Shift I keep writing about either isn’t happening or is taking a lot longer than folks like me predict, you’ll look at polls, listen to media talking heads and panels, and conclude that the probability the Democrats will regain majority status in the House is high and that there’s a good chance they’ll regain majority status in the Senate as well.

But if you look at the pieces of evidence that show how rapidly the Current Paradigm is dying and recognize that the upcoming elections could quite possibly defy conventional predictions and historical precedents [as was the case in 2016], you’ll conclude that the possibility that the Republicans will maintain and possibly even strengthen their majorities in both chambers is by no means just a long shot.

At some point this Summer, I intend to go into a mode with my posts very similar to the mode I was in when I first started them in 2016 — focusing on the November 8 elections and trying to make as many people as I can reach understand that their vote counts, and that by moving the Legislature either toward stronger Republican positions or stronger Democrat positions, they will be making a big difference in the future of this country. In many ways, the same logic applies to these midterms that I stressed so much in the Presidential election: each voter needs to understand that by voting a “protest vote” for somebody other than a Republican or a Democrat — or by not voting — he/she will be unwittingly voting for either the Republican or the Democrat [these voters — or non-voters — simply won’t know which one they voted for].

Possible Scenarios

When I shift into that mode, I will, as I did in 2016, outline the possible scenarios and what the resulting environment would be if each of them plays out as the chosen path when the voters have spoken. Some of the outcomes look very encouraging, but some could create even worse governmental deadlock than we’ve had for the past four years. Stay tuned …

…

Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.