Ohio votes against legalization of medical marijuana. Not the recreational use of marijuana, but its medical use. Houston repeals its anti-discrimination ordinance. Kentucky continues its gradual conversion to Republicanism by electing a GOP governor.
Here in Washington, even Federal Way turns conservative as it defeats a Democratic incumbent legislator.
To paraphrase a British prime minister at the start of World War I, the lights are going out all over America. We may not see them lit again in our lifetime.
Well, maybe I'm exaggerating. Here in Seattle -- perhaps the only American city with a statue of Lenin displayed in public -- we passed a $930 million public transportation levy, to the displeasure of our civic nanny, the Seattle Times. We passed an initiative to provide government funding for political campaigns, in return for various commitments from recipient candidates. We again elected a city council whose ideological split is between the progressives and the even-more-progressives, and re-elected an avowedly socialist councilman.
But the trend nationwide was decidedly conservative -- both in terms of partisan politics and in citizens' voting on issues.
As I pointed out on Facebook, unless liberals and moderates do a lot of work during the coming year, Seattle will find itself a small blue island of progressive ideals and rational thought, surrounded by a vast sea of red, a sea churned by deep currents of visceral and atavistic emotions.
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