Patrick Leahy Is 82 And Not Well, If Leahy Dies, Mitch McConnell Is Senate Majority Leader…

There are not many Democratic Governors and Mayors in red states, but there sure­ly are Republican Governors and Mayors in blue states. I nev­er under­stood the dynam­ics of Democrats choos­ing Republicans in the bluest of states like California, elect­ing Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or New York, elect­ing George Pataki, and New York City, elect­ing and re-elect­ing Rudolph Guiliani and Michael Bloomberg.
I’ve con­clud­ed that the American elec­torate is one that basi­cal­ly votes on their own per­son­al needs, not on seri­ous issues that affect the coun­try’s direction.

For exam­ple, in 1980, after eight years of the Michael Manley régime in Jamaica, the elec­torate rose against the People’s National Party and vot­ed them out in a tidal wave of anger.
The PNP was only able to retain nine seats in the then 60-seat leg­is­la­ture. The PNP retained nine seats arguably because of mas­sive bal­lot stuff­ing in the gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties of both parties.
Conversely, after the Bill Clinton pres­i­den­cy, which brought pros­per­i­ty to mil­lions of Americans, the coun­try elect­ed George Bush, a polit­i­cal and per­son­al goof­ball, instead of elect­ing Al Gore, Clinton’s Vice President.
We all know how that turned out for the United States: mas­sive eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, two ille­git­i­mate wars, and the Patriot act result­ing in the ero­sion of rights Americans pre­vi­ous­ly held dear.
Again after the eight years of rel­a­tive peace and pros­per­i­ty of the Obama years in which Obama pulled the econ­o­my back from the brink of col­lapse in 2008, the coun­try elect­ed Donald Trump a car­ni­val bark­ing clown and con artiste, for­ev­er sul­ly­ing the majesty and mys­tique of the presidency.
“Winston Churchill once famous­ly observed that Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried every­thing else.”
I am not so sure there is the intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty to do the right thing these days.

Other than North Carolina, a red state that elect­ed Roy Cooper a Democrat, there are no red states with a Democratic chief exec­u­tive. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, so there is a case that North Carolina may not be as red as some would like us to believe.
On the oth­er hand, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia, all blue states, have Republican governors.
Many Democrats and inde­pen­dents fall for the lies that Republicans are for low­er tax­es because they do not take the time to fig­ure out the math. Republicans do low­er tax­es for her rich cronies, which is, by default, a tax increase on every­one else.
Yes, these tax cuts have to be paid for by some­one, usu­al­ly the poor­est Americans.
The poor­est peo­ple in the coun­try live in states run by Republicans, and though I am for low­er tax­es, I am also aware that it requires mon­ey to pay for stuff. Democrats and Independents in blue states do not cal­cu­late the risk of elect­ing Republicans to run State gov­ern­ment while send­ing Democratic Senators to Washington, DC, to ensure a pro­gres­sive agen­da where all Americans’ rights are guaranteed.

One such risk is that if a Democratic US Senator is inca­pac­i­tat­ed or dies, the Republican Governor gets to send a Republican to Washington to fin­ish that Senator’s term or until a by-elec­tion can be organized.
Vermont is a blue state with two Senators. Democrat Patrick Leahy is 82 ‑years old, and Bernie Sanders is 81 years old.
Any per­son can fall ill or die at any time. However, Senator Leahy has fall­en ill before and is again not feel­ing well and was tak­en to the hospital.
If any­thing hap­pens to Patrick Leahy, Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott will send a Republican to Washington, and Mitch McConnell will be the major­i­ty leader. That would effec­tive­ly mean the end of the Biden pres­i­den­cy legislatively.
And God for­bid there is anoth­er vacan­cy on the supreme court; that vacan­cy would not be filled until there is anoth­er Republican in the white house.

Present-day pol­i­tics requires a sophis­ti­cat­ed and informed elec­torate. The Republican elec­torate may nei­ther be sophis­ti­cat­ed nor informed, but they vote as a mono­lith. Democrats and Independents claim to be more sophis­ti­cat­ed and informed, but when they vote the way they vote by elect­ing Republicans in the Blue States, there is a strong argu­ment against those claims.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.