Election Post Mortem and Looking Forward
We took a week to calm down and let things blow over, now lets look back, and look forward to where we're going from here.
What a Ride…
2022, another election year in the books. And boy was this one a rollercoaster. There were definitely a bunch of ups and downs, wins and losses, and a good deal of fun along the way, but I can’t lie and say I’m not glad it’s over. Having decided to dedicate my life to political activism, the past 8 years, I’ve spent every cycle intimately involved in a campaign at some level. This year, I was Jeremy Kauffman’s campaign manager as he ran for US Senate in New Hampshire. I have a lot of thoughts about things we could have done better, things I wish we could do over, and feelings about how things went, but those are all for another time. At the end of the day, we got over 12,000 votes and hit 2%. At least we had fun doing it, reached a lot of new people, and made some of the best political video ads of all time.
But we certainly were not the only ones disappointed at the end of the day. Heck, for weeks leading up to election day, all anyone could talk about was the coming Red Wave.
Well…
Subversive #90: “Red Wave, or Blood Clot?”
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Summary
After letting tempers cool for a week, Justin sits down for an election post-mortem, to discuss how things went from a 1000-foot view, and to provide some perspective for the future of libertarian activism.
The Blood Clot
The red wave turned out to be a blood clot, or maybe a miscarriage would be a better way to put it. Turns out that the question of abortion was the deciding motivator for the election cycle. In the wake of the Roe v Wade decision, Democrats saw record fundraising and turned out record numbers of young voters for a mid-term election. Even with higher than normal undervoting rates down-ballot, this translated to democratic wins up and down the ballot across the country. Some races were more interesting to watch than others, and some of the results are indicative of possibly the end of Trump-era populism as the driving force in right-wing politics.
Here are takeaways from just 5 states to highlight my impression of the current state of US Federal Politics.
New Hampshire
The polls were wrong. Dead wrong. They’ve probably never been further off. Every trusted source was reporting that the senate race was tied in a dead heat, with Republican Challenger Don Bolduc pulling ahead as election day closed. Instead of getting a close race with a slim republican margin and a decent Libertarian showing, we were instead treated to a bloodbath and a blowout. Incumbent Maggie Hassan not only strolled back into the senate with a 10-point victory, but Republicans lost most of the major gains they had made in the state legislature the previous session as well.
I door knocked myself, I talked to voters, and at the doors, the only issue we were faced with was inflation, the economy, and lockdowns. It felt like we were getting ready to see a red wave. The voters willing to speak up were strong in voicing their disappointment with the status quo of the Biden administration. I’ve never been so wrong, and so surprised at the result of public sentiment before. It turns out, 6 months of non-stop ads claiming that republicans were intent on banning abortion and eliminating women’s rights that went unanswered by the right, and ignored as unserious messaging, was the pill that was needed to turn out white women under 35 to turn the tables of the election.
Georgia
Another race tossed to a run-off, another delay in determining the balance of the US Senate. Libertarians once again take credit and rejoice in “spoiling” the race. But is spoiling the race even a worthwhile goal in a state that has runoffs? At the end of the day, Chase Oliver won’t have actually had an effect on the outcome of the race, as yet another Democrat wins a seat in the US Senate, just delayed a bit. In the meantime, more money will be spent on campaigns, more tax money spent to hold another statewide election, and Georgian voters will be asked to cast a ballot on their preference without Chase in the race.
Don’t get me wrong, Chase ran an incredible race, and his 2% is nothing to shy at, but when the dust settles, he won’t have had any meaningful impact on the outcome of the election, and peaked at the same percentage as Jeremy Kauffman in New Hampshire, even though Chase was included in the televised debate where he absolutely destroyed the policy positions of both his opponents for all voters to see. But Libertarians will continue to hold him up as the poster boy for losing in a respectable fashion, even though his progressive leanings and respectable presentation gathered no more of a vote percentage than Jeremy Kauffman’s outlandish advertisements and provocative campaigning.
Pennsylvania
Picture this, The Republican candidate is a carpetbagging, anti-gun, snake oil salesman whose claim to fame is shilling fraudulent weight loss scams to Oprah’s audience as a guru. Should have been easy, no contest, walk away win for any competent democrat, right? Enter John Fetterman, the brain-damaged everyman who’s built like an offensive lineman but hasn’t managed to remember leg day in a decade. His casual approach and demeanor made him seem approachable and relatable, with a Carhartt hoodie being his signature campaign outfit. But then he went and tried to speak.
After suffering literal brain damage following a major stroke, Fetterman continued to campaign, doing his best to assure voters that his doctors said he was fit to serve, in between incoherent mumblings and non-sequiturs. His debate performance could have been generously described as embarrassing but in reality, it was offensive. Offensive to the informed voters being asked to consider his candidacy as viable. And at the end of the day, Pennsylvania voters gave us a fantastic reason to distrust the democratic process, and rethink our system of government entirely, as they decided to elect a retarded stroke victim to represent their state in the US Senate for the next 6 years. Well, at least the memes will be hilarious…
Arizona
What do you get when you cross a principled but naive libertarian candidate, a former libertarian who’s embraced state violence as necessary running as a Republican, and a stand-up comedian who thinks he’s the next coming of the messiah for libertarian political strategy? Well, we’ll call it the biggest embarrassment for the Libertarian Party since Bill Weld thought he would fit in. But let’s back up a few steps here. Blake Masters is no libertarian. He used to be, but now he advocates for war-hawking postures against china that would make John McCain blush, as well as advocating for increasing the police state to fight the failed war on drugs and tripling the size of border patrol to increase immigration crackdowns. But to hear Dave Smith tell it, the Peter Thiel acolyte with connections to the Palantir intelligence and domestic surveillance apparatus stood a chance of being the 2nd most libertarian member of the US Senate if he won (low fucking bar if you ask me)! And following an unfortunate PR mishandling of a debate question by Libertarian Marc Victor, Smith and others decided to abandon their principles and go all in on the war horse in true post-libertarian fashion.
Well, Marc wasn’t far behind when he decided to drop to his knees and fellate the opposition in a cry for relevancy and increased liberty on short-time preference. At the end of the day, all the time, manpower, and money sunk into supporting Victor’s third-party run for US Senate in Arizona were tossed to the wayside when he caved to the pressure of those with no horse in the race to drop out and endorse Masters. And again, at the end of the day, even that was for nothing, as Masters positioned his campaign to rely on a red wave of populism following the endorsement of President Trump, only to find out that Arizona voters were sending his smarmy ass and crooked smirk back to the bench in favor of an establishment democrat.
Florida
It wasn’t all embarrassing losses by republicans last Tuesday though. Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida won reelection by a double-digit margin, cementing his place as the new face of the Republican Party moving forward. And it immediately set the stage for 2024 to become a showdown between Trump and DeSantis, or DeSanctimonious as Trump has taken to branding him. It isn’t just the heart and soul of the Republican party at stake, it’s a fight over whether or not there’s a place for Trump’s brand of unprincipled outsider populism in politics moving forward.
It isn’t like DeSantis is any less bombastic in his campaign approach than Trump was, even though he does it with a little more gravitas and professionalism. In the final days before the election, DeSantis’s campaign released a video ad claiming that DeSantis was sent by god to fight for the people of Florida. Now, I’m not a Christian by anyone’s definition, but I sure as shit recognize blasphemy when I see it. It will be interesting to see how such a battle between two narcissists plays out in the Republican Primary. Will the religious right choose the guy trying to portray himself as a messiah, or the guy who mocks the disabled and brags about sexually assaulting women? Either way, it will surely be another fantastic opportunity for The Libertarian Party to flush down the drain.
Balance of Power in New Hampshire
Back home in New Hampshire, we saw Republicans take heavy and unexpected losses at the local level in our state legislature. At the time of this writing, the current balance of power seems to be only 202-198 in favor of Republicans in the New Hampshire House, with one election having been overturned by a recount on Monday morning, and more than 15 additional recounts to go this coming week. While the state Senate finally broke its 12-12 gridlock in favor of Republicans due to recent gerrymandering, and the Executive Branch is firmly in hand for a moderate Republican governor who loves to use his veto pen, we actually aren’t all that worried.
In fact, the balance of power in the state house shifting more towards parity creates a unique opportunity. Because while Republicans took heavy losses, libertarians running under their banner had more wins than ever before, with over 50 libertarians getting elected to the state house. And with such a tight majority, It’s likely that the disposition of every bill will rely heavily on attendance and the swing of the libertarian block of the republican party. This may be exactly the opportunity Free Staters have been waiting for to use their acquired political power to push through some of our more left-leaning political objectives, such as full legalization of cannabis to include home grow, the decriminalization of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, and election law reforms like ranked choice voting.
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance Summit
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance hosted its annual post-election summit last week. Approximately 50 newly elected state reps and die-hard activists got together for dinner and networking to discuss legislative priorities for the coming year. We first heard from Veteran State Representative Dan McGuire about involvement in the processes for determining the state budget, and the difficulties and opportunities our new legislators will have to make an impact on the state’s budgeting process. After Dan spoke, Ross Connoly from Americans For Prosperity spoke about the legislative priorities this year, and at length about the proposed cannabis legalization measure’s being pushed for the year by his organization. The video from this event is available on my YouTube Channell if you’d like to give their talks a listen.
Legislative Priorities for Me
Now that the election cycle is over, it’s time to refocus my activism from campaign management and elections, towards lobbying and legislative progress. There are over 1,200 bills being presented to the legislature this year, and each and every one of them has the potential to have an impact if it passes. But the two bills I’m most focused on helping this year, are the push for Defend The Guard, and the reinforcement of Jury Rights and Jury Nullification. I will be working with state legislators and other lobbyists and activists to help these two measures pass and will have longer posts discussing them at length in the future.
Bill Reviews
As I mentioned, there are over 1,200 pieces of legislation being submitted and presented to the New Hampshire House of Representatives this year. In order to know which ones will have the greatest impact, and which ones will promote liberty as well as which ones need to be opposed, it’s important to review each and every one of them. This process is incredibly time-consuming, and none of our state legislators have the time to do it themselves. So The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance organizes activists to get together and review the legislation and write recommendations on whether or not they should be passed, to help our liberty-minded legislators make the best voting decisions they can.
Moving forward, for at least the next couple of months, the focus of my time and activism will be on reviewing these draft bills, writing reviews and recommendations, and helping this organization lobby for increased freedom and liberty in New Hampshire. And I’m taking you all with me! We’ll be doing bill review sessions live on the air, sometimes joined by state reps and other activists, and publishing the reviews in this newsletter!
If you want to get involved and help out, consider becoming a member of NHLA today at NHLiberty.org!!
Live Free and Thrive!
My latest book is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback versions! It actually debuted as a #1 Bestseller in the relevant categories! Head on over to amazon today to grab your copy of Live Free and Thrive!: 101 Reasons that Liberty Lives in New Hampshire, and So Should You!
What makes New Hampshire so special? Well, I wrote a new book about that, available in kindle and paperback formats in mid-November. We’re also going to be producing a brand new documentary about it as well! And we have a great crowdfunding campaign started to help produce it so we can publish it for free!
All donors will be thanked in the credits, and there are producer credits available still if you are interested! Reach out to me with any questions!
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Copyright Justin O’Donnell, 2022
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