Glenn Youngkin has given me renewed hope, and I encourage Republicans and Democrats alike to take note.
We don’t need culture wars. We don’t need lies. We don’t need Americans at each other’s throats. We don’t need to be threatened on a daily basis what the other guy plans to do to us. We don’t need the toxic politics of hatred and division.
What we need are politicians willing to put the wishes of the people they represent first.
I’m a big believer in populist political power regardless of of which way our individual politics lean, because in the end, democracy is about awarding ultimate power to the people, and not to politicians or government elitists.
Political candidates of every stripe can succeed if they simply campaign on the issues most people care about; and overwhelmingly, most of us want government to get the hell out of our families and get out of the way of our ability to parent our children.
So maybe Republicans have figured this out?
Well, maybe. We should remain honest with ourselves and recognize that historically, Republican hands have not been clean when it comes to injecting government coercion into families. Most of the family court pathology codified into law today, including Federal Title IVD incentive bonuses, and mandatory, draconian state child support enforcement requirements were installed under Ronald Reagan, and we continue to see solidly red states kicking the can down the road on immediately needed family law reforms, in no small part because every time equal shared parenting law is introduced, family law industry lobbies organize and converge on them like a pack of hyenas.
Populist power only works when we are willing to hold the people we voted for accountable for doing the job we elected them to do, because absent that, what we might believe is populism is just an illusion.
Conservative and liberal politicians alike had better respect why he won.
~ Michael
