As the 2024 election creeps in at its petty pace I thought I would put down a few of my thoughts.

The mid-terms have happened and the inevitability of a new direction for the Congress and the nation has passed.

I read an article that thinks there is a new direction for the congressional Progressives….

The much predicted and by some feared red wave turned into, as people are saying, a splotch of ketchup on the wall at Mar-A-Lago. Instead of overwhelming Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, the November 8 election produced a return to Democratic Senate control with prospectively a one-seat gain depending on December runoff results in Georgia. As of this writing, the House is still up in the air, but the best the Republicans can expect is a several-seat majority. It was a better result for Democrats than almost anyone expected, running against the tide of high inflation and the usual losses of a first term president’s party in the midterms.

It is clear Roevember happened, that women enraged by the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade abortion rights came out in numbers not captured by polls. In addition, younger people, also underrepresented in polls, swung heavily toward the Democrats. Trump’s presence in the election turned into a minus for Republicans, as extreme right candidates endorsed by him were defeated across the country. This election very likely signals that the kind of far right politics signified by Trump has reached its high water mark and is receding in a demographically changing nation.

Midterms Reveal Progressive Possibilities in a Changing Nation

To be honest I do not see it.

First of all I am old and I am NOT a liberal! To me that is an insult. I am not necessarily a Dem either…to me most are just as sick and lazy as the GOP….when in power they accomplish little and bitch a lot.

I am a Leftist or better these days a Progressive. I believe it should always be about the country and its people. The government should not be held captive by the oligarchs that want it all and give nothing in return.

As a Progressive I am very disappointed in our country and its people we have such potential and we never build on that potential…..so what is it that I and others like me want?

Given his political leanings, Ellinger described himself as a “Silent Generation progressive.” But that’s not the norm for voters his age. In fact, Americans in Ellinger’s age group — those over the age of 65 — were the most likely of any age group to say that they approved of former President Donald Trump’s job performance, and registered voters from his generation were the most likely to favor Republican candidates, according to the Pew Research Center. And among registered voters, Silent Generation men were more likely than women of the same age to favor Republicans as well.

This is in line with the conventional wisdom that there’s a consistent age gap in our politics today, where older voters vote red and younger voters veer blue. And there are myriad reasons why this is the case. For one, older Americans are more likely to be white and religious — two demographic groups that also tend to vote Republican. They’re also more likely to favor less government intervention and are more prone to believing that increased diversity isn’t a good thing for the country — which is in line with many Republicans’ way of thinking.

But these sentiments weren’t shared by the four voters older than 50, including Ellinger, whom I spoke with for this piece. In fact, many were closer to younger generations — like Gen Z or millennials — when it came to their political beliefs; climate change, racial justice, abortion access and higher wages were among some of the top policy priorities they listed, even if they were skeptical that Congress would address these things in their lifetime. Moreover, even though almost everyone I talked with said they wished the Democratic Party would go further left and support policies championed by, say, members of “The Squad,” a progressive group of Democratic lawmakers made up mainly of women of color, they didn’t begrudge President Biden for not pushing forward a more progressive political agenda, as he once promised. Rather, several applauded him for the work he’s done in office post-Trump, but wished the Democratic Party itself would invest more in building a younger, more liberal bench of successors. 

“I do feel like the lack of constant generation change has left Democrats a little stuck,” said Pamela M., a 52-year-old from rural Maryland who preferred to use only her first name and last initial for privacy. “They don’t know how to advertise and haven’t had a great ground-game strategy in a way that a wide swath of people respond to.”

What Do Older Progressive Voters Want?

My political views have not changed since I was 17 years old…that is damn near 60 years I have held my principles and have been for the most part disappointed by the lack of progress for this country.

What is it that you want in this coming election?

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