The meaning of Tuesday’s election
Lines drawn in the Cape and Islands sand
In Tuesday’s intriguing, locally satisfying election, the mystifying moment surfaced by early afternoon, when it became apparent that turnout was much bigger than the “experts” had predicted; even with a large slug of pre-day and mail-in votes, the polls (in a relative way) were jamming.
Why?
Driving from town to town with our next District Attorney Rob Galibois, thanking all hearty stalwarts willing to stand on sidewalks in front of polling stations who exercised a wonderful democratic tradition and held signs for Democrats and Republicans alike, plenty were wondering but no one had a sure answer until after the voting ended at 8 pm and results started trickling in.
It wasn’t the top Massachusetts race; Maura Healey had that wrapped at 8:03. It wasn’t high-profile down-ballot races like Congress or State Senate; no suspense there either. And it wasn’t the four ballot questions, important and varied as they were.
Here’s what drove a turnout that in a non-Presidential year reached 60 percent:
A deep desire to protect and support democracy, to express (with a ballot, not a fist) that we must repudiate the Donald Trump-inspired ugliness that has hijacked the national Republican Party.
Whether witnessing an insurrection on January 6, a frontal attack on women’s reproductive rights, insidious attempts to undermine free and fair elections, theft of national security documents, the Big Lie used over and over to manipulate opinion, it all added up to a sense that we must take a stand.
And that stand became local.
Do local Republican candidates, all of whom lost who weren’t already in the contested office, realize how Donald Trump and his sycophants have betrayed them?
I am not thinking about Ron Beatty, who served time in federal prison for threatening to assassinate a Republican President of the United States, whose idea of political discourse is planting signs on public property, who once again lost a county race. I’m not thinking about some of the other fringe, oddball candidates either.
I’m thinking about solid citizens like Tim Whelan (a multi-term state representative who ran for sheriff), Tracy Post (a multi-term Yarmouth selectwoman who ran for rep), and Dan Higgins (a longstanding assistant DA who ran for the top job).
I didn’t support or vote for any of them, I don’t agree with many of their perspectives, and I’m glad their opponents won. But these are decent people, drawn to public service.
Point is, none were willing to disavow Trump or the so-called “United Cape Patriots” who spout Trump lies, and whose name is itself a multiple falsehood. None expressed shock and outrage that the Republican candidate for governor, Geoff Diehl, would not promise to abide by the election results. None talked about how the most popular governor in the nation, Charlie Baker, apparently decided to step down in part because the Republican Party will not accept his idea of a big, rational tent.
Had they been willing to do any of this, their races might have gone differently. But we are at the point when accepting this so-called “Republican” Kool-Aid is a disqualifying act.
It’s not really Republican, of course, not as in Abraham Lincoln or Dwight Eisenhower let alone Frank Sargent, Bill Weld, Mitt Romney, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, Charlie Baker or (around here) Henri Rauschenbach. And it’s easy to forget that the Cape has long been a Republican bastion, in many areas still so; when Hyannis guy John F. Kennedy ran for President in 1960, Richard Nixon carried Cape Cod.
But Tuesday night said something else:
A real threat to democracy overshadows all else, and you need to take a stand, take a side. Here on the Cape and Islands, we know about lines in the sand, and many voters drew one.
Haven’t subscribed yet? Please keep seeing a Voice (a good trick), and support this local expression:
Hi Seth. I agree that Cape Democrats and Independents and moderate cape Republicans said enough was enough.
For the past .8 years those same voters have forgotten that the republicans they put in office( the Cape used to have a solid democratic state delegation, only the DA and Sheriff were Republicans and everybody knew Phil Rollins and Jerry Bowes were R in name only)- they both had strong ties to Mass House and Senate Dem leadership.
The past 8 years local Republicans became wolves in sheep clothing. And Dem and Indie voters told themselves they were decent people. I began to notice years ago Local Republicans would always avoid mentioning on their signs they were Republicans and they used the Democratic color Blue prominently in their signage.
Not this year. Not this time.
No more participation trophy, deputy sheriff badges for friends and big contributors. No more .
The Cape once was, up until the late 70’s, entirely Republican- it even had some serious John Birch Society Republicans, back then. I remember the Goldwater rally in Boston at Fenway park 1964. As the buses from the Cape drove through the Roxbury section of Boston to get to the Park, the busses were met with stones and beer bottles. 1964.!
In the 80’s and 90’s the Cape state house delegation was almost entirely Democrats.
Then came The Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus and Trump. And those Republicans went stealth silent except when they met at local watering holes like Trader Ed’s or Tugboats- there they could let their trump freak flags fly! There, the vitriol toward Mass liberals and their Howie Carr descriptions of their fellow cape codders could be spoken freely.
And you wondered why the Sheriffs dept had a big boat.? Who was going to protect the Trump boat parades?
It all finally came to an end and good people, who don’t accept the Republican blindness and lies will now serve the voters of the Cape. The two remaining republicans will be held accountable in 2024.
I always enjoy your insight, Seth. Thanks.
Billy Snowden
Thanks Seth;) “All politics are local”
I look forward to your ‘voice of sanity’ at a time when truth has been hijacked.
Cate Dooley