The timing of Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona leaving the Democratic Party and registering as Independent is note-worthy. Three days after Democratic Senator of Georgia Raphael Warnock wins re-election, she makes this big announcement on television and other media of her plan to register as Independent. My initial reaction was of surprise and to think of her as a “spoil sport.” My surprise has since faded away. I already long understood her to be a turn coat sell out. Ms. Sinema has certainly (d)evolved quite a ways, a social worker (which I am too) who once belonged to the Green Party earlier on in her political career. I remember initially having hope for Arizona and, by extension, the rest of the country when she was running for Senate. This federal legislator is such a clear, current example of corruption, yet another person who drank the Kool-Aid of power and succumbed to its addicting taste. Apparently, Senator Sinema’s campaign accepted about one million dollars in corporate Wall Street donations, for which she turned around and did good by those special interests by not voting for more fair, progressive changes to the tax code for us non-wealthy working folk. And she voted against raising the national minimum wage requirement to $15.00 an hour– with her being trained as a social worker, no less. These are only a few examples of her downward change that come to mind. It is sad and frustrating to witness a person in power move so far away from their own humble, human roots.
I sincerely hope someone who is comparatively more progressive than Ms. Sinema will run against her in 2024. I am no political analyst, but I read that one likely reason the senator switched her party affiliation is to avoid the possibility of losing her primary against a Democrat in the next election cycle. I have also read that this switch could work against her. Some Democrat will win in the primary, without Sinema having participated in it, and very possibly gain momentum against her, especially given the legislator’s very mixed voting record in the Senate. We shall see.
While I myself recently re-registered to vote as an Independent or, as it is actually called in Massachusetts, Un-enrolled, I continue to vote mostly for Democrats and never Republicans. In MA, we voters are largely Un-enrolled and tend to vote Democrat more often than not. Hence, MA is about as Blue a state as there is in America.
In the U.S.A., I, and many, long for a system where more than two parties have power and corporate interests stop dictating so much (or probably all) of national policy. So many Democrats in all branches of the federal government continue to kowtow to the corporatocracy right along with pretty much all members of the GOP. Until, and if ever, we have a multi-party system, and big money out of electoral politics (which I have not completely given up hope over this happening someday), I’ll simply vote for, donate to, and root for more progressive political candidates wherever and whenever I can.
The Practical, Fanciful Pagan 
Bravo! I think my son may have an even broader viewpoint on this one. I, for one, hate politics and the push and pull and nastiness that inevitably ensues. If it wasn’t for my son and my taking him with me to vote when he was 12, possibly younger, I probably would not vote at all! I’ve lived long enough to see the corporate greed, the Viet Nam War & 17 others after that to see the amount of money and loss of life that ensues. Someone is collecting a massive payoff from the arms deal alone, never mind all the other expenses war brings. The collective shame in sharing responsibility for voting for politicians (at all) on faith that has been broken leaves me stimied or at a crossroads of indecision. Great post! If nothing else, you surely get me thinking! Boy, the research I have to do sometimes whether it be looking up a word’s meaning or the perfect word, checkout historical dates and what was happening at the same time, or anything to help me better understand what you are trying to tell me is frankly quite amazing and very resourceful. It saves my everloving
a–. Thank you so much for sharing your posts which are a wonderful playground, to say the least, for my very active menagerie of comrades.
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Thank you for your thoughtful, well-said reply. I’m thrilled that my posts often stimulate your thinking. That’s what I aim to do as I share my thoughts on this blog.
I agree with all that you say. I view the military industrial complex as a section of the corporate oligarchy pie. I believe former president Jimmy Carter said that the U.S. is technically an oligarchy now and I agree that it pretty much is, run by conglomerates. I think this may change, though not necessarily in my lifetime (but possibly), out of sheer necessity, after whole portions– if not all– of the corporate oligarchy collapses under its own weight. There is no way that massive concentration of wealth can be sustainable for a large, complex society. How this system can and will collapse is, of course, a long, involved discussion and one that I admittedly don’t have the band width or knowledge base to deeply engage in.
I “do” politics to an extent out of necessity, namely by voting, selectively donating to campaigns, and (more rarely) phone banking. Political analysis is not a passion of mine except, obviously, on a very superficial level. I’m glad, though, that this post of mine was a jumping off ground, or “prompt,” you might say, to deeper thinking for you.
Good for your son and his keeping you engaged with voting. Clearly, you did well by him, including by taking him with you to vote when he was only twelve.
The one living elder statesman I’m aware of is Jimmy Carter. I think Eleanor Roosevelt was one (stateswoman, of course), even though she herself did not hold elective office; she was very close to high office, however, and she went on to do much good. And there have been others, here and there. (I wonder if FDR and JFK would have gone on to be further evolving elder statesmen if they had lived longer? They made their major mistakes while in high office, but I like to think they would have learned from them and shown that later in life.) I am impressed with Mr. Carter’s evolution since he left office some almost forty-two years ago now. He seems to have learned from his time as president and gone on to do so much good and speak with much wisdom and compassion. He contributes to me continuing to be hopeful that people, including politicians, can and do sometimes grow into deeply caring people and, by extension, leaders.
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If there was a “love” button instead of a “like” button, I would give your that. I have a great fondness for our veterans (my father included) who gave up so much for their service. Between PTSD, losing limbs and minds, families, etc., their homecomings were a mixed blessing. So many had such a hard time fitting in. I worked for the Air Force from the time I was 18 until I was 25 years old when I felt I could no longer work for them.
The paragraph you wrote about the oligarchy and conglomerates changing is akin to “magical thinking” for me. In the statement you wrote, “I don’t have the bandwidth or knowledge base to deeply engage in.” I’m afraid I don’t have the gumption or stamina to deal with it either.
My son reminded me that he was only 9 years old when I brought him to the polls. The reason I brought him was part of my homeschooling responsibilities (history) and he’s been the catalyst for my voting ever since.
I associate Eleanor Roosevelt with the United Nations and Franklin D. Roosevelt as a much-loved president. I thought Jimmy Carter worked very hard to “Keep the Peace” and felt very proud of his record. I remember watching an episode of the Paula Dean cooking show where she interviewed him in a little cabin with his wife Roslyn on the family farm. My fondness for him continued. I’ll have to look up his biography to see what good deeds he’s done. I do know that if he continued to be President, he could have done much more good.
Thank you again for your heartfelt posts which I look forward to each and every day in the hopes there will be another one, as does my son, who apparently doesn’t have the writing bug.
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“The paragraph you wrote about the oligarchy and conglomerates changing is akin to ‘magical thinking’ for me.” Lol! I certainly don’t mean to imply that I have any magical thinking around such a change happening, but *hope* that such change(s) can and will happen over time, even if not in my lifetime. Again, it’s more from an intuitive place, based on a very real sense that such an unbalanced hierarchical system will collapse from its own weight due to inherent un-sustainability. The erudite science fiction author Ursula K. LeGuin comes to mind here. She once said that capitalism may seem permanent and unchanging like the divine right of kings once did and was for so many centuries but eventually faded away. Human created societal structures are changeable and certainly so compared to, say, a mountain or a star, which also ultimately change, just over a much much wider span of time. Nothing lasts forever, which is a beautiful thing, even if often painful.
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Thank you for your kind post, especially for changing the punctuation in the post. The one thing I know about “magical thinking” is that it works when you are a young child, but gets you in trouble as an adult. I’ve found that so true in these times of uncertainty. Hopefully, that will change soon!
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