Our Beautiful Rainbow Earthquake

Good News from the Resistance: We did it. 317 of 435 Congressional districts are bluer today than they were on November 5. Yowza.

This week, Congressional freshmen are storming D.C. for orientation, and our class of newly-elected lawmakers looks like no class that’s come before it. Forget the “Blue Wave,” last week a Rainbow Earthquake rumbled across the country, toppling statues that have been lording over America for way too long. Replacing them will be more people who look, pray, and love like us: female, black, Latinx, Muslim, Native American, Somali-American, Palestinian-American and LBGTQ. This is not identity politics (can we please retire that term?); this is what America looks like. Trump’s Angry White Man Strategy, followed lockstep by the GOP, is unraveling. Our goal is nothing short of indivisible, and with justice for all.

The Rainbow Earthquake brought many big wins, but a few stood out as being particularly sweet. And so much fun. Minnesota GOP Congressman Jason Lewis, who complained about not being able to call women “sluts,” was flipped by Angie Craig. Virginia GOP Congressman Dave Brat, who whined that angry women were all up in “his grill” about saving Obamacare, was flipped by Abigail Spanberger. A GOP lawmaker in N.J. county government who asked during the first Women’s March, “Will the women’s protest end in time for them to cook dinner?” was defeated by 32-year old Ashley Bennett, who was inspired to run by his sexist remarks. And perhaps the one win that most aptly encapsulates the entire 2018 Rainbow Earthquake: In Kansas (!), Sharice Davids, a Native-American lesbian beat 4-term GOP incumbent Kevin Yoder, chair of the Congressional committee in charge of allocating funds for Trump’s border wall. To Lewis, Brat, Yoder, and all their pals, we say:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Lately, the mainstream press has been full of Good News – a rarity over the last two years — but here’s some more that you may have missed: