That was a 1964 Nina Simone song — when few Blacks could vote in Mississippi.
After last Tuesday’s election, this felt like a different country. Back to the one I loved.
A defeated New York GOP Congressman was quoted that Jesus Christ running on the Republican ticket would have lost. No — Jesus would not be a Republican today. That’s why they lost.
Americans finally became sick of their sick shtick. Like JD Vance’s calling for unity and in the same breath ridiculously demonizing Democrats as communists, who want crime, and hate America. It’s Republicans who truly hate America — not the one they fantasize, but the country that actually exists. Where the welcoming Statue of Liberty is emblematic.
One who really hated her was Texas Governor Abbott. How delicious that he was crushingly defeated by a woman named Hinojosa, daughter of a Mexican immigrant. While in the Texas Senate race Republicans spread despicable lies about Democrat Talarico, thus trying to make character the issue — with their own candidate being Paxton? Epitomizing the party’s vile Trumpian moral corruption and confusion.
No, Jesus would not have run on their ticket.
True, it was policies, and their impacts, that were key election factors: inflation, tariffs, the Iran war, deportations. Some of those, especially ICE cruelty, did reflect Republican rejection of Jesus. Many voters also woke up to the real threat against democracy. And the deep corruption. And that behind the badness is bad people: above all Trump himself. The sort of ass who’d publicly discuss a candidate’s ass. Caring only about himself, nothing else. Totally full of shit.
The Trump-Miller regime still has two more years to shame us. But at least the American citizenry has morally redeemed itself.
Back to Mississippi, that’s the most uplifting piece of all. It’s still not final, but Scott Colom appears on track to win.* The first Democrat elected Senator from there since John Stennis in 1982. But that doesn’t tell the really momentous story. Stennis was the quintessential “Southern Democrat” — i.e., Confederate. Since then his white voters, controlling the state, mostly became Republicans. Mainly an expression of antipathy toward Blacks.
Mississippi actually elected two Black Senators — Republicans — right after the Civil War, when federal troops protected Black voting rights. Then the Klan took over.
Few people really understand the power of the vote. I’ve long said that if every eligible Black voted in places like Mississippi, we’d have a different country. On November 3, they did turn out in huge numbers. And if Colom, a Black Democrat, now represents Mississippi in the U.S. Senate, this is indeed a different country. Maybe with the Civil War finally over.
And so I say — in a good way — Mississippi goddam!
* Votes still to be counted are mostly absentee and provisional ballots which should favor him.
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