I'll update this post as things wind down and results become more concrete, but for now...good job America. After nearly a half-decade of insanity, we're starting to right the ship, and that's a very good thing.
Update, 17 November, 2022:
(after virtually attending an enjoyable weeklong workshop on Floer Homotopical Methods in Low Dimensional and Symplectic Topology at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute)
Oregon-specific:
I was over-all pleased with how the elections turned out here. Am I super stoked on Tina Kotek? Meh.. it's a "wait and see" for me.. But compared to the alternative? I'm perfectly happy with my governor-elect. I think she'll be an improvement on Kate Brown.
As I said in a previous post or two, I voted all Dem strictly as a protest against the Trumpist extremism that runs kind of thick in their waters right now. It's not just about Trump himself, but that willingness of non-extremists to go to bed with that kind of extremism to further their own ends. Anyway, I wasn't necessarily enthused with all my votes, but I'm content with my choices and glad they almost all got in. To be honest, in another timeline I probably would have voted for Alek Skarlatos. Although I did think it was kind of weird how term-limits all of a sudden weren't an issue for him. But right now it's just too hard to back any candidate who stands behind a party that can't police itself. At least the Dems weed most of the toxic elements from their ranks, and generally don't run career celebrities as major candidates. (I'm cool with Al franken never being in any office again.)
Anyway, my hope is that both parties will stop trying to conquer the other one in some corny game of "vanquish thine enemy". I hope they come together and find a way to fix the uses most pressing to the citizens of the state: homelessness, addiction, race and gender relations, affordability (rent/wages/costs of living/etc), education, and finding a way to make an Oregon that's truly inclusive in a state that feels very fractured along the political divide. We have to accept that Oregon is purple, and find a way to make that work for everyone. Inclusivity includes people you don't agree with. You just have to find a way to make it work while minimizing compromise and potentially unbalancing the scales. "Greater Idaho" is about as likely to happen as "The State of Jefferson" or the whole "Cascadia" secessionist movement. A movement like that comes up every few years, and nothing happens. Because it's all but impossible. So let's make what we have work while infringing as few rights as possible.
For me, the big excitement came from the four major ballot measures that went through. All of those have been called, best as I know. They all passed, and I voted "yes" on all of them.
Measure 113 being passed by the widest margin was not surprising. Most Oregonians agree that they're paying politicians to work for the people of Oregon. And the measure helps by acting as a pre-emptive measure against childish melodramatic, made-for-virality extended political stunt walkouts and such.
I wasn't surprised by Measure 112 passing, but I was sort of surprised by how close it was. I was sort of dismayed by it, tbh. I mean even if you're an anti-black racist or whatever, you have to admit...allowing slavery as an option for criminal punishment means you can be sentenced to slavery, too. It just sort of seems like an obvious choice, even if you're a racist. Voting against it on racist reasoning is very....naïve. But believing race implies some sort of superiourity implies naivety anyway, so there you go.
I was genuinely surprised the other two measures passed. And they were both very close.
I liked Measure 111 because I felt it provided something that could be a foundation for addiction treatment. The decriminalization (NOT legalization) of personal-use amounts of all drugs is here and tis is a way to deal with it. It leads a way to sufficient addiction treatment. Getting people who are addicted clean is an important step in combating the homelessness crisis in Oregon. Drugs, and their role in Oregon's homelessness crisis, were a problem state-wide well before decriminalization. One of the problems of decriminalization was that there wasn't really a roll-out plan on what to do beyond stopping enforcement and having people check in by phone. I'm off-and-on working on a post about decriminalization, so I'll stop talking about it here.
Anyway, I think it's, theoretically, a good system to have in place. I hope the roll-out is good and that there's an actual plan behind it. I'm guessing most people who voted no were against the inevitable tax hike for something that (tbph) sort of feels more. like a slogan than an actual plan at the moment. I don't totally disagree with people who voted "no", but I felt that, at the end of the day, the good that a "yes" vote could do outweighed the bad.
I was super happy to see Measure 114 pass. I am perfectly fine with people owning guns. I like that people can legally own guns. Most Oregonians who own guns use them to hunt or to go out with the crew on a weekend and shoot some cans responsibly in some wooded area off some logger's access dirt road deep in the woods. Some have a gun in the house in case of intruders. A few really insist on letting you know they own guns. But they're still usually responsible. The only intention of someone who absolutely refuses to have any paperwork tied to them and a gun is a bad one, imo. If you're doing legal stuff with your gun, there shouldn't be a problem with having paperwork. If you're worried DarkBrandonsJewishLazerBLMLapTopNWO666 Surveillance is after you to erase your existence because you want to own a secret gun, consider looking into Measure 111, and then finding an affordable mental health provider.
I was most surprised the ballot passed due to the language. I thought the 10 round limit on magazines would kill it. I'm pretty sure that's the wording that made the measure such a surprise win (or loss, depending on your pov). But I think it helps in combating the issue of mass shootings. Oregon hasn't been immune from mass shootings. In my opinion, we've been pretty lucky out here. We're pretty low both in raw numbers and in rates by population. It's best not to tempt fate. Mass shootings have been a problem since before Trump or Obama. They're only getting worse, both in frequency and in severity. It's just easier to avoid a worse mass shooting if the shooter has to reload every 10 rounds instead of every 20 rounds. Anyway, I felt enough people would disagree with me so that this wouldn't pass. But it did. I'm both , surprised and happy.
National:
So, while not every office has been decided, the general outcome (who controls what) is all but finalized.
Honestly, I'm kind of relieved things ended up as they have. The Democrat (& friends) majority in the Senate will offset the Republican majority in the Senate, and vice versa. So really the only things that are going to go through are the bi-partisan proposals. In my opinion, that's good. We're still reeling from a lot of things (global inflation, the COVID crisis, 6 Jan, general divisiveness, etc.). I just feel like it's not a good time to be pushing any specific party's agenda. There are a lot of things we still have to deal with (6 January & the fallout, racism, LGBTQ+ rights, book banning, revising environmental policies, economic policy in the current local and global climates, international crises in general, international relations in general, etc.). And it's still all very contentious; passions on all sides are still high. We've been more civil i this election cycle, but it feels like we're still very much on edge. We're exhibiting a more clenched-jaw civility, you could say.
In my opinion, a "stalemate" government at this moment in history gives us the opportunity to root out the people we can ALL agree are bad. I think the bi-partisan majority agree that Trump is done. Just ignoring him doesn't work, so you have to get him on everything and render him totally unfit for even running for office. Most of our problems right now are the effects of his policies playing out.
The machine of politics and economics works on a delay scale; you rarely see the true effects of an administration's policies until the next administration takes over. For instance, domestically, I don't even think we've seen the full effects of the overturning of Roe V Wade yet. Depending on how states vote on the issue or how lawsuits play out, it could be really bad for people who can bear children, or it can be a point of optimism for a return to national protections on reproductive rights. But we don't even know which trigger laws and such will get shut down by popular vote, or which will stand and be implemented.
The above example is meant to illustrate an issue that should be approached by a "stalemate" government. The issue itself hasn't even fully played out yet. The stalemate government (henceforth, "the S.G"., because eff typing that out one more time) keeps the issue from being too influenced by one group or the other. Let states vote first. It at least gives a baseline where both sides can stat their arguments and policy influencing. We just have too many existential crises to be dealing with extremist policy making and posturing. That includes insane Green New Deal plans dependent on technological advances that aren't even possible yet.
We're facing huge issues without precedent, and it's probably a good time to kick it into neutral and really assess where we're at as a country, what we want as a country,
And maybe we need to reassess what journalism is. Because I think we can all agree that media sensationalism and bias have had a huge effect on where we're at right now. We have a significant portion of our population worried about things like Civil War Part IIL the Infinity War because it pops up on every news site in editorials periodically, then trends on social media and then gets reported on as being a massive public concern. That has real consequences. As much as Trump & Co's rhetoric and actions led to 6 January, the click-bait news articles and the "us vs. them" opinion pieces disguised as reporting did have a role in fueling the fire Trump set ablaze.
I'll write more later, but all said and done, I feel this is the perfect time and place and opportunity to get the country back on track.
Update 22 Nov: I'll admit I'm pleased with how the midterms have sort of stalled the student loan forgiveness plan. I've been thinking about it a bit, and I feel it's one of those issues that needs to be thought out a bit more. I think it's fine to have a one-time (up to) $10,000 forgiveness for loans. I think that's comparable to what was done for small businesses during COVID. The pause on student loan interest was nice, but it's not quite the same as getting actual loan forgiveness. Recently all PPP loans were forgiven, and I think you should do the same for student loans. But you have to be careful to ensure these temporary relief efforts remain temporary. In the same way the government can't just give out free businesses grants (they stop being loans at that point) in perpetuum, it can't give out free college educations in perpetuum. If we can some day find away to make it free to start a business and/or go to college, that's would be awesome. We aren't there yet. I don't even know if we're close to that point yet. You can't just flip loans (and their interest) off like a light switch and not expect really, really bad consequences for our general economy...which has a huge impact on the global economy. My hope is some people will be able to get some plans developed with some rigourously vetted models. Forgiving student loans now and now only is perfectly acceptable and hard to argue against. Students lost jobs during the pandemic, too. That meant taking out bigger loans in a lot of cases. That's pandemic related, so offer the help there. Just be sure not to word it in such a way that it becomes an "always and forever" thing. Not yet.