It is useful in political commentary to realize that not everyone cares about what I care about.
I overthink things.
I consider President Trump's efforts to use legal fictions and violence to stay in office to be dispositive. He crossed the line. He isn't just crude, divisive, and authoritarian. He committed the worst, most dangerous of crimes for a president. He connived to overthrow legitimate government. He attempted to corrupt democratic institutions.
Not everybody agrees. Some people cheer Trump and wish he had gotten away with it. Other people, perhaps a majority of GOP voters, just don't care very much. They think Trump was right, or at least not wrong in an important way. It was for a good cause, and no real harm would have been done if he had succeeded. I don't understand that attitude, but I observe it.
Here is a reality calibration for people like me: It's the economy, stupid. That is the big issue. It isn't Trump trying to overthrow the government. Here is the current Pew poll:
I need to learn and absorb that most Republicans still like Trump. Republicans who heard Biden talking about saving democracy by rejecting Trump's election-denying behavior felt criticized by Biden. People who would fight to stop Iran or China from taking control of our country's government by fraud or violence are still pretty OK with Trump doing it. In criticizing the attack on the Capitol, the fake electors, etc., Biden was criticizing them, they thought. And they didn't like it.
A lot of Democrats are like me, mistaking political process to be an important issue. It mostly is not, not compared to the economy and a general sense of whether the country is in good hands. As a group, Democrats tend to think that huge campaign contributions from special interest PACs are problem. A local Democratic candidate for County Commissioner, Denise Krause, had sent me this snapshot of donations:
She had a Facebook page reiterating this. She thought I would consider it persuasive evidence that, unlike her, her opponent was part of a good-ol'-boy network of business interests. She thinks that makes her a superior candidate. I know from personal experience that County Commissioners have enormous influence in directing land development, with many hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. The donors aren't necessarily bad people or organizations. They are people with skin in the game, primarily in construction and land development. I wish candidates for County Commissioner stayed clear of that web of influencers and avoided campaign contributions from them. But I suspect most people don't care.
That may be because they don't know. Contribution reports aren't visual enough for TV news. The former newspaper has hollowed out. There are no watchdogs to report on her opponent's contributions. The information is there to see. Examples:
Knife River Materials, $1,000
Chamber of Commerce PAC, $5,000
Cow Creek Band of Indians, $2,000
J.B. Steel, $1,000
Burrill Resources, $1,000
Oregons for Affordable Housing $2,000
Sidney DeBoer, $5,000
Rogue Valley Realtors, $10,000
Chamber of Commerce PAC, another, $15,000
Allen Purdy, $2,000
Adroit Construction, $1,000
Precision Electrical Contractors, $1,000
A friend of Jeff Golden's campaign for state senate sends me similar lists of the contributions sent by out-of-state PACs to his opponent. She is horrified. Look at all the money slathered onto Jeff's opponent by out of state businesses! Expose it, she asks.
I suspect few people know or care. Democratic process is a low priority concern for most people, alas. They care about the economy. Money in politics has one, simple point where it affects votes in the Golden-Sparacino race. Voters cannot help but see all the ads and know that Sparacino is a spectacularly well-funded Republican. That's it. For better or worse, voters now know Randy Sparacino is a Republican. On election day we will see if a majority of voters want an angry Republican.
People who write political blogs overthink things. It's the economy, stupid. Democrats vote for Democrats; Republicans vote for Republicans. Sometimes marginal voters show up and sometimes they don't.
That pretty much explains it.
As a fellow overthinker, I have a hard time understanding the viewpoint of those who don't prioritize the importance of saving our democracy. I have a very small income and have always found it necessary to be careful with my finances. I could easily make excuses for saying the current economic climate is the more important issue. I also make a point of educating myself about the issues, and know that our country's economic situation is not occurring in isolation. It is a worldwide problem, and a red takeover is certainly not to repair that!