#2022 midterms

USIA poster, 7/30/1953, NARA ID 5730043.

VOTE ON TUESDAY!

The 2022 midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, November 8, and there's still time to ensure you're registered to vote. The National Archives supports Executive Order 14019, which promotes voter registration, participation, and access to voting. See Vote.gov for more information.

USIA poster 10/8/1951, NARA ID 5730163.

American Forces Information Service poster, 1/1/2000, NARA ID 10488372.

Office of War Information, WW2 poster, NARA ID 515775.

More online:

Civics for All of US the National Archives new education initiative promotes civic literacy and engagement.

Voting Rights Special Topics page.

Presidential Elections & Inaugurations Records in the National Archives and Presidential Libraries document elections and inaugurations through history.

Black Americans and the Vote This research portal highlights National Archives holdings that relate to the long struggle for equality in voting rights.

Women's Rights: Suffrage Discover an array of records related to the long quest for women to gain the vote as well as education resources, articles, and blog posts.

Online exhibit: Records of Rights presents records in the National Archives that document the ongoing struggle of Americans to define, attain, and protect their rights

Because the Republican Party is so terrible, I want Democrats to win any seat they can. That said, I am often leery of the tactics of some Democratic candidates, particularly from the party’s more centrist bloc. Many of those tactics failed this week — which should ensure that they don’t spread within the party.

Rep. Tim Ryan, running for a Senate seat in Ohio, sharply criticized Biden’s student loan cancellation and implied (inaccurately in my view) that the Democratic Party is writing off states that don’t have lots of college graduates.

If Ryan had won in this red state, his approach would have been hailed as what Democrats must do to win, even though it’s really just pandering to moderate and conservative-leaning White men. But Ryan lost to Republican J.D. Vance by about 7 percentage points.

In Florida’s U.S. Senate race, the Democratic candidate, Rep. Val Demings, emphasized her tenure as Orlando’s police chief and repeatedly rebuked activists who have called for defunding the police. I hope Demings’s crushing defeat (by more than 16 points) shows Democrats that whatever electoral problems they have related to crime, policing and race, those aren’t going to be solved by trying to out-cop the Republicans.

Democratic policies did even better than Democratic candidates

South Dakota voted to expand Medicaid. Kentucky rejected an antiabortion amendment to its constitution. Missouri voters legalized marijuana. Democratic candidates resoundingly lost in these states.

There were a lot of progressive ballot initiatives this year adopted on those issues and others, in both red and blue states. This continues a pattern — Democratic policies were passed by referendums throughout the 2010s even as Republicans kept winning elections.

I would trade in a heartbeat Michigan and Minnesota going blue at the state level and all of those successful progressive ballot initiatives in exchange for Democrats keeping the House and Senate. Congress is just hugely important. I’m not sure a party can consider it a good election cycle if it loses a house in Congress, as still seems very possible for Democrats.”

— The 2022 Midterms in Review (by Perry Bacon, Jr.)

In some states, the midterm elections are already underway! 2022 is a hugely important election year.

Abortion is on the ballot. Joe Biden just promised to codify Roe v. Wade in January 2023 - but he can only do that if there’s a progressive Democratic House and Senate.

Local and state races are also more important than ever. Election deniers are on the ballot, and you can guarantee that plenty of Republicans are going to show up and vote for them. If we don’t show up too, our democracy is at risk in 2024 and beyond.

LGBTQ+ rights (especially transgender rights), education, gun control, immigration policy, climate change, and more are also on the ballot.

Republicans know that voting works. That’s why they try so hard to stop us from doing it.

They will show up to vote… so let’s make sure we show up too!

Helpful links:

Learn how to vote where you live - votesaveamerica.com/beavoter

Such a painless utopia *is* impossible- But it’s also impossible to overstate how many things that are afflicting everyone in today’s society are completely created, fabricated, and controlled & dictated by humans in power (the 1% that controls it all) in a capitalist society

Debt, bills, exorbitant costs on literal-lifesaving health care (and prescriptions like insulin) credit scores, homelessness, joblessness, complete abuses of natural resources that we *need* to survive (abused for profit)- and even money itself are all just complete man-made concepts, controlled by a very minuscule yet overtly powerful rich and economic class. Are any of these “fair challenges” in life that are just here to stay forever and are ordained by nature itself? God no. It’s all something that can be ended and replaced with something better- even if the process and transition may be complicated & difficult, it’s worthwhile- no matter what capitalist propaganda the rich push out.

Pain and suffering will still exist even in a freer, post-capitalist, post-class, post-money world: Death will still loom over everyone, natural disasters and new diseases will test us in different ways, etc, challenges that are ACTUALLY ordained by nature. And *work* itself will still be needed to feed the population, build housing, and care for the sick- not in the capitalist way for profit with a boss spying you at all times, but for the betterment of community, no matter your background, race, gender, and the like.