It has been a year. Never before in the history of our country has a president ended out the year with 17 separate ongoing criminal investigations against him (and his family) in multiple state and Federal jurisdictions. And yet, the two groups of voters that supported him have not yet wavered in their support of him and his criminal enterprise. After a year of studying everything I have been able to find on these groups, I finally understand who they are.

First, incredibly rich people with no consciences. (Pretty self-explanatory.) Second, a conglomeration of people who cannot separate fact from fiction (and admittedly, Russia did a good job of helping there), people so distressed from how their lives turned out that they clung tenaciously to a simple (false) message of turning back the clock, as well as racists, misogynists, anti-Semites, homophobes and other haters.

Will that needle move as more of the corrupt organization is found guilty? Time will tell.

The year was fantastic for Democrats being elected. The House! The statehouses and governors’ mansions! The special elections! While we didn’t win the Senate, it could have been worse, and 2020 looks good – we will be defending 12 seats to their 21, and already Lamar Alexander has decided to call it quits, meaning the first open seat will be Kentucky.

How well we do in 2020 will be dependent on three things:

• Whether the House functions as a legislative and investigative body or gives in to the cries of “Impeach”. If the former, all our candidates will have something to run on. If the latter, we will be perceived as a group of failures since conviction will not fly at this time in the Senate. IF things change, the likelihood is that impeachment can be avoided with a resignation and a deal on prison time for the family.
• How destructive our primary process ends up being. Right now, depending on who you ask, there are between 20 and 30 potential candidates. The sooner the field is winnowed, the better. As a party, we need to concentrate on policy, legislation and investigation, and not on the minor differences between candidates. And yes, those policies include “Medicare for All” (in some form) and the “Green New Deal” which is an idea without true initiatives. Hammering out the details into a policy set that can sell will be tantamount to our success.
• Whether the Poster Child of American Decline is primaried. Think of Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Jon Huntsman and a few other (comparatively) moderate Republicans. They will run from outside the party as the RNC has thrown in completely with CREEP (that, kids, is “the committee to re-elect the president, blatantly stolen from the Nixon era). The two will be sharing office space, donor lists, voter lists and activities. This marriage of party and CREEP has never happened in the history of the United States, and it provides an opportunity for “outside” Republicans, as well as yet another slow-motion train wreck for the rest of us to watch.
  

It has been an economic year of disparity. Every marker indicates that the rich are getting richer and everyone else is sliding down the Festivus Pole. It looks likely that we will be entering a recession in 2019, thanks in large part to those idiot tariffs, and the even more idiot tax “cuts”.

What does this mean for you? Likely, you’ll be able to keep your job, as unemployment is still low, and ghosting has become such a problem that it’s now being reported by the Fed Beige Book. Unless you already make more than $75,000/year, your compensation is still going to suck. But it won’t be the disaster of the last recession.

So, what else can we talk about? Before we get to 2020, we need to get through 2019, which CAN BE a terrific year for local and hyperlocal elections. Have you considered running for School Board, a municipal office or a county office? Many are up for election in 2019, and this is how we build our bench.

It used to be that people worked their way up the political ladder, gaining knowledge and experience before running for higher office. This is a GOOD THING. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if someone with absolutely no political experience, and no knowledge of governance was elected to, oh, I don’t know, president?

Please consider running. Yes, you can. And if you cannot, find a local candidate to get behind and support him or her with everything you’ve got. We need our people in place. We need them trained in governance. We need to continue moving out the bad people.

One great thing about this year has been the engagement of people who were never involved in the political process. From my little worldview here in Chester County, PA, I saw literally THOUSANDS of people canvassing, phone banking, writing postcards, putting out signs, working voter registration, working primary and election days for the county, donating time and money to candidates and causes. 

Back in December of 2017 and January of 2018, I was contacted by many people who said “You know how you’ve asked me for the past 30 years to get involved and I said I didn’t have the time? Well, I’ve got time now.” And in 2018, the work those people did throughout 2017 came to fruition in all they did. My heart swells with joy for all that I saw – from high school students who couldn’t even vote yet, through senior citizens who drew on Vietnam-era knowledge to help mentor, and everyone in between.

vulnerabilities to our democracy were a marker of 2018. In fact, Time named “Guardians of the War on Truth” as their person of the year.  They were talking about journalists; many of whom were killed FOR being journalists in 2018. Time quoted Kofi Annan in their article:

Freedom of the press ensures that the abuse of every other freedom can be known, can be challenged and even defeated.

Too many people have fallen under the spell of Social Media, and have forgotten how important journalism is to a free society. Only 13% of people in the world live in places with a free press. Currently, the United States is one of those places. Want to help? Get your news from a legitimate news source, and support them with paying for subscriptions, read blogs from authors who abide by the Code of Journalistic Ethics, as DCW does, and finally, THINK before you repeat something that is questionable, even if you think you agree with it.

Essentially, this year has been a mixed bag. For many of us, this has been a highly successful political year, but personally difficult: there seemed to be more deaths this year, too many deaths. But next year is close upon us.

It will soon be time to pick those New Year’s resolutions. And I hope that yours will be filled with loving them more than they hate us, and a commitment to making the world a better place.

Remember as you, too, close out your year to reflect on successes and failures (we all learn more from the latter than the former.) Let 2019 ring in with hope, health and promise.

On behalf of the team here at DCW, we wish you a belated Happy Channukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and Festivus for the Rest of Us.