The political ads on TVs across Tennessee this Thanksgiving were relentless.
My little family was at the in-laws’ house in west Tennessee for a nice turkey dinner. As we sat around watching football, though, the constant barrage of ads for Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps just kept coming.
It was the usual stuff. Behn wants to lower healthcare costs and make life generally more affordable for working class Tennesseans. Van Epps, when his ads weren’t referring to Behn as a radical, was promising to lower healthcare costs and make life more affordable for working class Tennesseans.
Wait. That Van Epps message was weird.
No mentions of Trump? No red MAGA hats? No promises to stand strong with Trump’s agenda? No reference to the tariffs?
What in the world is going on in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District?
Turns out, what’s going on is the same thing that’s been going on all over the country of late—people are finally, finally, finally starting to realize that Trump and the Republican Party that has been made over in his ideals of self-serving, billionaires-first, screw-the-little-guy are, in fact, screwing over everyone who isn’t wealthy.
No one expected Behn to challenge in this race. It’s a district that Trump carried by 22 points just a year ago.
Recent polls have her within the margin of error. And momentum is on her side.
Now, most experts don’t expect her to win. But the gobs of money being spent by Republicans in what should be a safe-as-a-baby, ruby-red district speaks volumes about the status of American politics as we head into an election year.
The average folks are pissed and looking for answers.
And for that—that oh-so-rare glimpse of sanity and hope—I am thankful. And hopeful.
That’s what the Friday following Thanksgiving should be—a day of hopefulness. While you’re shoving a lady out of the way for a cheap TV at Walmart, of course. But still hopeful.
Hopeful that even in the reddest of red states people are finally beginning to realize that they’ve been duped. And not just by Donald Trump. But by a Republican Party, particularly the one in Alabama, that has for generations now preyed upon biases and stereotypes, used anger and division, and degraded the most vulnerable among us in order to install a government that always bends towards the well-to-do.
I hate it has taken this long—if this is even the turning point that progressives have long dreamed of—to get to this point. I hate that so many people have suffered and died. I hate that at-risk kids and starving adults have been used as pawns.
Honestly, it’s fairly astounding that they’ve been able to pull it off for so long. I mean, if you’re a working class guy who lives in Alabama (or any other red state), most of you have been voting for the “conservative Republican” agenda for your entire lives. That supposed agenda has governed the state you live in.
And the state you live in is terrible by every objective measure of quality of life when compared to other states.
Health care. Education. Gun violence. Upward mobility. Children’s health care. Environmental management.
Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. And terrible.
The “woke agenda” of Democrats didn’t cause any of that. The radical liberals haven’t chased away doctors or closed rural hospitals, nor have they installed the regressive tax system that has wrecked your schools or turned a blind eye to pollution that has left you unable to eat fish from many of the state’s waters.
The conservative Republican agenda did all of that.
It resisted health care changes, including Medicaid expansion. It told you that breakaway school districts and charter schools and now private school funding out of public school dollars was the way to fix education, when every successful state simply fixed the funding. It convinced you that rolling back “unfair” regulations would keep your costs lower, except they’re not and now your favorite lake is a cess pool, too.
Oh, what a wonderful world this could be if we’ve reached the turning point. If people simply started applying common sense, started voting for themselves and the things that are important to them.
Honestly, it wouldn’t even be hard. All voters have to do is take a look around them. Consider the legislation backed by Democrats and progressives versus the legislation pushed by conservative Republicans. In Alabama alone, the Democrats gave you a five-percent tax cut on overtime pay, tried to expand your health care options and lower prices, wanted a lottery to pay for scholarships and school funding and tried to stop the massive handouts to the wealthy and big corporations.
Republicans, in the meantime, have tried to convince you that the Hispanic guy roofing in the summer sun is the real problem, and not the billionaires stealing your wages for their private jets. They’ve forked over trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the top 5 percent and cut health care subsidies to do it. And they’ve backed idiotic tariffs that have done nothing but jack up the cost of everything and allow Trump and his closest pals to cut backroom deals.
But maybe this is the end. Maybe the people have seen the light. Maybe there is a wave coming that will finally force a course correction, as it seemingly has with Van Epps in Tennessee. Maybe we can get back to a government that actually does good for the masses and lets the comfortable fend for themselves for a bit, instead of vice versa.
Maybe. Hopefully.
