It’s nice to wake up to election results you really like.
It’s been a while.
But progressives have lots of reasons to cheer today.
First and foremost, because voters in Ohio so decisively rejected Kasich’s anti-union law, repealing it by a whopping 61 to 39 margin.
But also decisively, and by a surprising 59 to 42 margin, voters in Mississippi rejected the referendum that would have declared that “personhood” begins at the moment of fertilization. I was worried about that one.
In Maine, voters turned back another misguided Republican missile, one that had destroyed same-day voter registration. The good people of Maine restored it, 60-40.
And then in Arizona, one of the most bigoted legislators ever to serve as the president of the state senate there, Russell Pearce, the architect of the hideous anti-immigration law SB 1070, got his comeuppance, losing in a historic recall election 53-45.
I’m happy today not only because some bad guys lost, but because voters around the country strongly affirmed key values of our more perfect union: Those values are labor rights, women’s rights, the right to the ballot, and the right to be welcomed here as an immigrant in this country of immigrants.
Rightwing Republicanism is on the decline, and progressivism is on the rise.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "Why I Got Arrested in Madison."
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