Tuesday night was a victory.

American media tends to overcorrect in the name of a false balance that caters to the endless caterwauling of conservatives, and there were some rumblings that the much ballyhooed “blue wave” washed out in spite of a torrent of good results for Democrats.

A forthright victory in the House, combined with some significant ballot initiatives and governor’s mansion pickups in various states, added up to a repudiation of reactionary politics from coast to coast. In a media-cycle dominated by hand wringing and pseudo even handedness, there is a temptation to cast the election results as a “split decision.”

But the real story of November 6th, 2018, was a tale of conviction triumphing over cynicism. In all 50 states there was real cause for hope, and, at last, a legislative bulwark was thrown up against Trump’s heinous agenda.

But let us first deal with the night’s disappointments.

It would be the height of foolishness to read the losses of Andrew Gillum and Beto O’Rourke — as some have suggested — as an indictment of values-based campaigning. They fought extraordinarily close races, with O’Rourke winning votes in places Dems haven’t been competitive for a long time and his coattails were long enough to contribute to that House victory that we’re all celebrating.

“Moral victories” don’t win close votes in the legislature, but there’s a lot to be said for how close these races were fought and what they portend. In Florida, Gillum’s campaign almost certainly buoyed a voting rights initiative that restored the ballot to felons, ending a uniquely American injustice in that state. If that battle was winnable, even as Gillum himself fell short, that portends victory down the road.

But the real story of November 6th, 2018, was a tale of conviction triumphing over cynicism.
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Leftists and progressives always face stiff headwinds. Status-quo bias isn’t merely psychological, it distorts political trends as well. Our road is always uphill, always rock-strewn, always stormy; what we face is never easy to overcome.

But what 2018 demonstrates is that we are winning an argument and winning allies in the long fight against reactionary politics; even where we lost, these were narrow losses that spooked those in power, losses that came perilously close to pouring over their ramparts.

And then there are the many, many places we did win. Convincingly, and with ideals and identities that put the lie to so much conventional wisdom. The Democrats’ victors on election night managed to run the extra yard that candidates like O’Rourke couldn’t; that we’re so close to the line in either direction is a portentous victory in its own right.

We must never forget: a close race in a hitherto Republican state or district is still something to celebrate. In the U.S., which doesn’t make “swings” a critical feature of election reporting, ordinary voters may not be informed of important trends in their electorates—trends that are lost in winner-take-all reporting.

The swing against Republicans was convincing, dampened only by gerrymandering, partisan chicanery (especially in states like Georgia), and a Senate-electoral structure deliberately designed to thwart sudden changes in the popular mood.

But there is so much more to celebrate: Native American women taking their seats in a House that legislated against them for centuries, Black women marching to Congress for the first time in certain districts, Muslim women greeting us in Arabic as our representatives, trans people decisively defeating an initiative that would have curtailed our rights in Massachusetts, voting rights restored to millions, marijuana and nonpartisan districting legalized in Michigan; this all matters in profound, life-changing ways.

We must never forget: a close race in a hitherto Republican state or district is still something to celebrate.
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The Democrats flipped districts across the country—to the point where Ann Coulter declared Kansas to be “dead to me.” No less than noted fascist zombie Steve Bannon wondered aloud on his lightly-watched election stream if his side’s “constant barrage of racism, nativism and all that, has that worked?”

It is worth remembering that, by design, the race for the House constitutes a national referendum in a way Senate races cannot. To be sure, all elections were local this year — many Democrats triumphed by aping Danica Roem’s focus on local issues, district by district, state by state — but the House, by its very nature, also reflects a national mood. As I write this, The New York Times had the Dems winning the popular vote by over 7 percent, and turnout was breaking records.

As hard-right Republicans from Kansas to Wisconsin fall, it feels like there’s a convincing answer to Bannon’s agonized question. Trump’s nakedly nationalistic and racist appeals have profound limits when the public is organized.

That brings us to election night’s ultimate lesson — and the words I’d have written no matter what the results were.

What the hour demands is power: the building of it, the securing of it, the wielding of it. I had no patience for the cynicism of those leftists who, with an unbecoming eagerness, all but pissed on the utility of voting. But the more reasoned among their number were quite right to say that a ballot was a beginning, not an end.

Combatting Trumpian fascism demands more than a willingness to wear a sticker after a state-sanctioned exercise; it commands us to honor the stranger, shelter the refugee, break unjust laws, and fight for what is truly moral, even if that fight takes you into the streets.

The work neither began nor ended with the canvassing for Election 2018; so much more remains to be done.

Trump’s troops are still at our southern border; innocents still languish in detention centers nationwide, ferried by planes that cross our vast landmass; the dignity of your fellow citizen is under threat from coast to coast. There will be dark hours that demand sit-ins and late night phone calls to make bail for the unjustly incarcerated, or nights where you may have to shelter someone in your home who is unjustly pursued by the state.

The chimes of that fateful clock will sound, and you must answer.

The Democrats have a bumper crop of officials now. A legion of new legislators, and governors who, for the first time in years, represent a majority of Americans. But voting is about choosing who you will struggle with, and the next two years will be a test; these new Democratic pols won’t mean a damn unless they’re relentlessly pressed to do the right thing.

That will, in turn, demand everything from protests to petitions. Above all else it demands your continued engagement. It demands more than the unbecoming, supine posture adopted by Democratic leadership Tuesday night; we need a willingness to fight, not adherence to spreadsheet politics.

There is no “marketplace of ideas,” as Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi would have it. There is, lamentably, only a battlefield before us.

Combatting Trumpian fascism demands more than a willingness to wear a sticker after a state-sanctioned exercise.
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On October 27th, I woke up to my partner, who sat bolt upright in bed. She didn’t speak in soothing tones, none of the kind indulgences that normally greeted my sleepyheadedness; she was glued to her phone and told me that a synagogue in Pittsburgh had been attacked. I had the unhappy task of informing my other partner by text. Both are Jewish.

I had already been reeling that week from news of the criminally underreported Kroger shooting, which saw a white supremacist attempt to massacre worshippers at a Black church. Thwarted by a locked door, he went to a nearby supermarket and killed two Black shoppers.

Now, his ideological twin murdered eleven worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue. Each was enlivened by the white supremacism that Trump has so thoroughly vivified these past two years.

We talk so often about the stakes in any given election. Days before most Americans went to the polls, I saw the stakes drawn in the blood of my own communities. People who could have been my friends, colleagues, loved ones, were gunned down across the land by Trump’s ideological children; there was never any compromising with this, never any intellectualizing to be done. This was never an election with two equal sides, much less two equally survivable sides.

I could keep trying to persuade you that last night constitutes “good news,” athwart so much media hand-wringing. But as I think back to the aftermath of that bloody week, I recall a quote — stitched together from different ideas in the Talmud — that has, mercifully, found currency among many progressives. It serves as a reminder of our obligations, regardless of election returns, and remains a polestar for our times.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

For, as a beloved reverend friend put it, “we’ve got more of a fighting chance than we had.”

Recently at a rally, the President of these currently United States called himself a “Nationalist.” White, was implied. The stomp of his followers may be deadened by the whine and duck-honk squeak of all those rubber-soled sneakers, but the goosesteps will be the same when they fall into sloppy formation. This is indeed the Upsidedown. The Big Sad. The Dark Days.

When I can get vertical, to push against gravity and perform the simplest of red-blooded American tasks, I ride waves of unmitigated heartbreak: the constant surveillance of black people, the possibility that my trans friends and all their comrades will be rendered invisible in the eyes of the government and subsequently deemed unhuman and erased from the annals of human rights. I worry that the 7,000 people walking to the U.S. border will be turned away, by force.

A Brief and Harrowing History of Our Voting Rights

My Big Sad began with the undoing of The Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down a key provision in Shelby County v. Holder. Chief Justice Roberts said that it was no longer necessary to ensure equality in voting, since the number of black registrants and white registrants was nearly equal everywhere, including Alabama, the birthplace where the Voting Rights Act was forged.

The battle in 1965 between peaceful protesters and good ‘ol Southern aggression led by Alabama State Troopers is know in modern U.S. history as Bloody Sunday. Touched off by the murder of unarmed black activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by the hands and bullets of Alabama State Troopers in February of that year, Hosea Williams and John Lewis — then a 21-year-old student and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) — attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7.

They were stopped by Governor Wallace, and his troops. Marchers were trampled, teargassed, beaten, and attacked with water canons and bullets. Reverend James Reeb died as a result of police action that day.

Eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress saying, “Their cause must be our cause, too.” On March 21, 1965, 3,200 people peacefully marched, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, embarking on a 54-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, over the course of five days. By the time they arrived in Montgomery, they were 25,000 people strong.

Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending legal restrictions that barred black voters from going to the polls. If you didn’t already know this history, I’m gonna go ahead and say — you should have. (Ava DuVernay’s harrowing film Selma and John Lewis’ graphic novel March are excellent places to start.) 

As soon as the ruling was struck down, Alabama began instituting new ways to stop not just black folks, but anyone else considered marginalized from voting using new tactics, like enacting the Voter ID Law, purging voter rolls, requiring proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote, failing to inform felons of their voting reenfranchisement status, and slicing up voting districts by ethnicity and income.

Maybe now it’s clear what we lost when we said nothing as the Voting Rights Act was dismantled.

Be Here, Now.

Mr. Gerrymandering has always been your neighbor, but now, he’d like to clearcut the trees in your yard so you forget where you live. Now he’s worried that you’ll actually exercise your right to cast a ballot — if you can get off the couch and stay vertical long enough to vote.

When I can’t get vertical, I watch TV. (I’m currently addicted to 9-1-1, but that’s another story.) I’ve been quite pleased with the unveiling of the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who, played by Jodie Whittaker, and recently watched episode three. On that episode, the TARDIS time machine took us to Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, a few days before she refused to give up her seat. I was relieved that, thanks to Noughts & Crosses author Malorie Blackman (you better believe this episode was co-written by a black woman, the first time in Doctor Who history), this white woman did not swoop in — intergalactic white-savior style — to save the day for Mrs. Parks.

What the Doctor did do was “nudge it.” The Doctor battled the villain, not by “empowering” Rosa Park, but by supporting the perfect conditions for dissent. And dissent, Rosa Parks did. History had already been written, but that didn’t mean small changes couldn’t make an impact.

This got me thinking about how we’re living in the eye of a dumpster fire right now, and perhaps, all we have to do to shift the narrative is “nudge it,” and by that I mean vote.

(No, that’s not ALL we have to do — we have to educate ourselves, fight for our fellow humans, visit some people’s Venmo and PayPal accounts, and get relentless about stomping out the systems that uphold white supremacy. But if you’re not actively doing any of that, voting on November 6th — or casting an early vote, or voting by absentee ballot — is a good way to start nudging the long arc of the moral universe a little closer towards justice.)

What’s amazing is that there are so many worthy candidates running for just about every level of political service, from a seat on your city council in your town, to judge to Senator in your state. You don’t have to vote for “the lesser of two evils” on November 6th. There are 435 seats in the House up for grabs, 35 Senate seats, and 36 gubernatorial races—not to mention all of the local races at stake.

You have the opportunity to vote for candidates you believe in, choose the legislation you wish to champion, and protect those you love, all with your vote.

Voting on November 6th is a good way to start nudging the arc of justice towards, you know, actual justice.
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Calling this a voter guide is a little deceptive. All the political races that affect us most acutely, most immediately, and seemingly most imperceptibly, are local. There’s no way to cover all the electoral races that are happening in the United States on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 (set an alarm, add the date to your Google calendar). But hopefully, this information will get you excited about “nudging.”

Maybe you know who you’re voting for in the big races, like for House and Senate. If you live in Texas, probably no one has to beg you to vote for the most “woke” white man running, Beto O’Rourke.  But what about all those judges?! Save yourself the guilt of skipping candidates or trying to read the extremely small print of those bond issues by grabbing a sample ballot for the election in your city.

(In most cases, you can view and print your city’s sample ballot online. Although watch out for incorrect sample ballots, as in the case of St. Louis County, which distributed over 300,000 incorrect sample ballots due to a “print error.” Uh-huh.)

And maybe don’t bother to find a sample ballot buried on the Georgia voter webpage. The Georgia NAACP is filing a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) over the 53,000 voter registrations forms submitted by majority black voters on hold. Apparently, there’s palpable fear that people will actually participate in the glory of civic duty. Kemp — who is also running for Governor — was caught on a hot mic expressing his worry about the persistent success of the campaign of Stacey Abrams, who he’s running against. “It continues to concern us,” he said, “especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.”

As of eight days ago, Abrams and Kemp were nearly tied in their race for governor.

Speaking of Stacey Abrams, the Georgia gubernatorial candidate would become the nation’s first black woman governor is she wins on November 6th. If you are a resident of the state of Georgia, you could be part and parcel of the — potential — blue wave that could crash upon its shores.

If you’re eligible to vote in Florida, keen to help make American history — or interested in tackling climate change, gun reform, prison reform, and expanded health care for all — you may want to cast a vote for Andrew Gillum for governor. As a bonus, he called out the blatant racism of his opponent, Ron DeSantis. Go ahead and bask this sick burn while DeSantis grinds his teeth to a fine powder.

American history can be made in Minnesota as well by voting for the first Muslim congresswoman in history — meet Ilhan Omar, who just won the democratic primary; if you’re registered to vote in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, and you want health care for all, a fair and just immigration system, and economic justice for working families, get out there and support her.  

And soon enough — fingers crossed — your autocorrect will learn the name of Deb Haaland from New Mexico. If she wins, Haaland will become the first Native American (Laguna Pueblo) woman to hold a seat in Congress. And for Haaland? It’s personal. It’s time to bring the fight to Washington, to stop the fossil fuel industry from fracking under her ancestral homeland Chaco Canyon. (Haaland also champions education, tax reform, and gender equality.)

If you’re looking to queer up the vote, The New York Times reports that there are more than 430 LGBTQIA candidates running for office across the nation, and more than 200 have advanced from the primaries to November’s midterms.

The community platform Them has a beautiful and robust data map that allows you to search queer rights, legislation, and protections — by state or by policies — and includes a 2018 midterms voter’s guide. If you live in Vermont, you could vote for the first trans candidate for governor of a major party — Christine Hallquist — who is taking on the opiate crisis in her state, as well as universal health care, civil rights, and racial justice.

Or…maybe you wish the United States had a three-party system? Well it won’t unless you start voting and engaging in two-party discourse; there are at least a baker’s dozen of candidates running as Democratic Socialists.

Kaniela Saito Ing — who supports affordable housing and tuition-free college among other people-centric issues — is running for a congressional seat in District 1 in Hawaii. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Democratic Socialist, Julia Salazar, beat incumbent Senator Martin Dilan for the nomination in the 18th district amid a hotbed of controversy surrounding her “immigrant, working-class background.”

More than 430 LGBTQIA candidates are running for office across the nation, and more than 200 have advanced from the primaries to November’s midterms.
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Perhaps the most critical voting, however, will occur in the states where fat-cat, GOP incumbents are standing on shaking ground. Democrats need to flip 24 seats in the House of Representatives to take back the House. Swing Left is a great resource for identifying the swing districts in your state where your vote could make the difference in how your daily life is governed.

And let’s not forget that midterms are just the beginning of the paradigm shift. If you’re looking for a 2019 campaign to support, start sinking your latte money into Kalyn Rose Heffernan’s mayoral campaign. Born and raised in Denver, and the front person for the internationally acclaimed band, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kalyn’s “fix this shit” laundry list is long, and the list starts with access for all.

Kalyn Rose Heffernan’s 'Fix this shit' laundry list is long, and the list starts with access for all.
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And of course, meet President Kamala Devi Harris, 2020.  Okay, the California Senator has not declared that she’s running, but she hasn’t ruled it out, either.

If you thought voting didn’t matter too much before, you might have been a little bit right. However, these midterms are different. These midterms could birth a whole new universe, and hopefully tip the Upsidedown right side up again. It’s like a supernova, poised on the cusp of galactic splendor, but it needs our collective energy to explode it.

On November 6th, 1572, German astronomer Wolfgang Schüler observed the “new star” Cassiopeia — a ruby red supernova — as it erupted in space. Often attributed to the more famous Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, this celestial event was visible by the naked eye.

In truth, it doesn’t matter who sees it first; we all just need to look to the vast opportunity right before our eyes in five days. When we vote on November 6th, 2018, we’re not wasting our time, our vote, or our lives. We’re part of a global event on the only planet we can currently call home.

Get vertical. Get relentless. Go vote.