Midterm Elections Matter

This is for everyone who think elections don’t matter, and to those who only vote in presidential elections, please consider this:

Midterm elections and elections for local government are even more important and consequential than presidential elections. That’s especially true for the coming election on November 4th. Look at what happened in Ferguson Missouri. A town where African-Americans make up a majority of the population, but almost none of their elected representatives are African-American. If those voters would have turned up at the polls, that police department would have handled the shooting of Mike Brown in a totally different way. This is more than just my opinion or conjecture. I say this because there’s evidence that seems to back this up. Just a few miles away from Ferguson in the city of St Louis a very similar officer involved shooting occurred a few days after Mike Brown’s murder. Within hours of that similar incident the St Louis PD and mayor released the name of the officer. Made the police report public. Made contact with the victims family. Made the officer’s work history and arrest records public, and suspended that officer pending investigation. None of that happened in Ferguson because the elected officials didn’t represent the racial makeup of that community. The district attorney handling the Mike Brown shooting is an elected official as well. In his entire career he’s never prosecuted an officer for misconduct, and he’s never experienced the fear and humiliation that comes with racial profiling at the hands of the police. Unarmed black men getting murdered by the people who are supposed to serve and protect doesn’t seem to bother him. Black life matters… and this election matters.

We also elect judges that play a big role in how our courts and legal systems treat us. They make rulings on things like voter id, voter supression, stand your ground laws, stop and frisk, marriage equality, civil rights protections, environmental regulations, etc.

The people sitting on your local school board are elected as well. They have a say in the making of school curriculum. Teacher disputes, suspension rules, testing, etc.

All of these things directly touch your everyday life. I’m probably the biggest cynic I know but even I can see how voting in midterm elections matter. It makes a HUGE difference. I would be such a hypocrite to complain about local law enforcement and then not get off my ass and vote for someone who I think will do a better job and represent my values as a citizen.

If all of that hasn’t convinced you to vote, maybe this will. Right now the US House of Representatives has a republican majority. The Democrats have a majority in the Senate. If republicans win a majority in the Senate, they will have the power to undo everything the president has accomplished over the past 6 years. And the #1 thing on their to do list will be impeachment. Yes, they will be able to remove the first elected African-American president. I think most of the moderate reasonable republicans will be against this but they’ve spent the past 6 years telling their base that President Obama is the devil. He’s Kenyan, not a US citizen, anti-American, secretly Muslim, communist, socialist, constitution ripping, terrorist sympathizing, criminal, race bateing thug, incompetent antichrist who is bent on the destruction of America. They’ve heard this on a constant loop for 6 years straight. The republicans in office have publicly stated their desire to impeach on a number of occasions. They said the only obstacle keeping them from doing it was the fact that the democrats had a majority in the Senate, so the impeachment wouldn’t go through. If they win control of the Senate, there’s no way their base will accept anything less than what they were promised… and that is impeachment. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THIS!!!! VOTE!!!!