After the shellacking voters gave Republicans in the Nov. 4 general election, it was a surprise when Senate Democrats on Nov. 9 offered to join the GOP in opening up the federal government before Congress takes up renewal of health insurance subsidies for working-class families under the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats had their spirits up when they swept statewide offices in Virginia and New Jersey by much wider margins than were expected, as well as winning three state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, and a gerrymandering referendum in California that would offset Republican gerrymandering gains Donald Trump had ordered in Texas in his desperate hope to maintain control of the House of Representatives.
Republicans focused on the victory of Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City whom Trump and the GOP mischaracterized as a communist because he believes in free bus rides, universal childcare, controlling apartment rents, increasing the minimum wage and opening city-operated grocery stores in neighborhoods where there is a lack of commercial grocery stores.
Speaking in Washington, D.C., the morning after the election, House Speaker Mike Johnson played down the Democratic wins as predictable, given the recent voting histories of New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
“There’s no surprises,” Johnson said. “What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night’s election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what’s to come, that’s what history teaches us.”
But, despite Johnson’s claims, Democrats on Nov. 4 won by wider margins in the blue states and also won major victories in two southern states that supported Trump in the 2024 general election, and those cases have given the GOP pause.
Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson ousted incumbent Republicans serving on Georgia’s Public Service Commission, which is responsible for regulating utility prices in the state.
This is the first time any Democrat has served on the Georgia commission since 2007, and it came after the commission approved six rate increases for the state’s largest electricity provider over the past two years.
Georgia Republicans are worried that the Public Service Commission results could spell trouble for GOP hopes to oust Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) in 2026.
In Mississippi, Democrats broke the Republican supermajority in the state Senate for the first time in over a decade by flipping two seats. According to Mississippi Free Press, losing the Senate supermajority will make it significantly harder for Mississippi Republicans to “override a governor’s veto, propose constitutional amendments, and execute certain procedural actions.”
Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor warned the Democratic gains could be undone if the US Supreme Court strikes down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that has been used to create majority-minority districts to ensure Black voters in southern states have proper representation.
Democrats can celebrate their success in establishing that Republicans are responsible for eliminating subsidies for health insurance, and the leaders of the Greedy Oligarch Party were willing to let children go hungry by suspending the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and they let federal workers face the risk of eviction after going two months without a paycheck, even though some were still required to show up for work.
At this point, Democratic senators have done all they could to nudge Republican senators to support the Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, which will double or triple many workers’ premiums. With 47 Senate votes, including two independents, Democrats can’t pass anything in the Senate, but they could stop the funding bill, since at least seven Democratic votes were needed to beat the filibuster, which requires 60 votes. (Republicans actually needed eight Democrats because Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., opposed it.)
Senate Republicans agreed to hold a vote in December on restoring those Obamacare insurance subsidies for 22 million Americans who face huge premium hikes in January. Those Obamacare beneficiaries, who live disproportionately in red states, saw on Nov. 1 how much their premiums will rise, when the new ACA marketplace went online, and they need to let their senators and congressmembers know Republicans can forget about getting their vote again if they don’t restore the ACA subsidies.
If Republicans in either chamber refuse to extend the ACA subsidies, Democrats should own the health insurance affordability issue and hammer that issue every day until the 2026 midterm elections, pushing to expand Medicare to cover everybody, because health care should be a human right in the United States.
In your exchanges with Republican obstructionists, feel free to bring up to those who claim to be Christians the red-letter words reported in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25, 31-46. In the “Judgment of the Nations,” also known as “The Parable of the Sheep and Goats,” Jesus told his disciples the nations will be judged based upon how they treated the “least of these,” the poor, the hungry, the sick, prisoners and strangers among them. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” Jesus said, and the righteous will go to their heavenly reward while those who denied the “least of these” will be sent into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
(For more instances of the misuse of the teachings of Jesus Christ to promote hate instead of compassion, see “Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds,” by comedian and Biblical scholar John Fugelsang, published by Simon & Schuster.)
While Jesus did not mention Trump by name, there is no doubt where the Lyin’ King is headed, along with his bitches in Congress who refuse to make health care affordable.
Meanwhile, Mike Johnson, the laziest House Speaker in U.S. history, kept the House in recess for a record 40 days before the general election, which allowed him to avoid swearing in Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) who was elected in a special election Sept. 23 to the seat that has been open since March 13, when her father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who served 22 years in the House, died at age 77 after a long battle with cancer. Ms. Grijalva would provide the deciding 218th signature on releasing Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case.
In conclusion; Feed the hungry, heal the sick and house the homeless or Go to Hell. And release the Epstein files. — JMC
From the December issue of The Progressive Populist.
