I hailed Swamp Rabbit yesterday as he dozed with a can of beer on his chest near his shack in Bog Water Homes.
“Quit dawdling, you old lush. There’s still time to vote against Trump.”
He stood up and kicked a pile of dead leaves. “You must be tripping, Odd Man. Trump ain’t on the ballot, he’s gonna be president for two more years.”
I tried to talk sense to him. “Trump is always on the ballot. Every Republican running for office is Trump. They’ve been goosestepping for him for ten years now. A vote against any of them is a vote for democracy, not to mention sanity.”
I told him Stacy Garrity, the Republican running for governor against Josh Shapiro in our home state, approved of ICE activities and Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a gift to billionaires. Mike Rogers, the GOP’s Senate candidate in Michigan, proudly embraced Trump’s bigoted attack on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate. Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins pretended to distance herself from the criminal-in-chief but has backed his positions 95 percent of the time. Ken Paxton in Texas —
“We live in PA,” Swamp Rabbit said. “We can’t vote in them other contests.”
I took a breath. “My point is you could search for a Republican in the Senate or House who disagrees with Trump on anything and you’d come up empty. In 2020 they tried to overturn Joe Biden’s election after Trump encouraged a MAGA mob to storm the Capitol. When Trump got re-elected two years ago, they pretty much turned over control of the legislature to him.”
“That ain’t why the Dems are kicking ass,” Swamp Rabbit said. “It’s because of his stupid war and his support for tariffs and ICE goons and polluters. It dawned on some of his rank-and-file peeps that he don’t care about the price of food and gas and housing and health care and so on, and that his rubber stamps in Congress don’t care either.”
I shook my head as he finished his beer. “So will you vote today or just get buzzed?”
He flashed a yellow grin. “Keep your shirt on, bigmouth. I mailed in my vote two weeks ago.”
Footnote: The hoped-for blue wave turned out to be a blue tsunami. Even the mainstream media saw it coming. As always, the question is whether the incoming Dems are bold enough to make real changes.
