What the midterms are really about

The punditry has been proclaiming for months that the 2018 midterm elections are a referendum on our domestic Dear Leader, Don Trumpone. (Whether you pronounce "-one" like "Capone" or "Corleone" is up to you.)

And so they are a referendum. We've lived through over eighteen months of his actual presidency, and we slogged through an additional year (or was it more?) of his candidacy. Figuratively speaking, he's on the ballot for every House and Senate seat.

However, Trump isn't just the president. He's a symbol — and a symptom — of our body politic.

Don Trumpone has a lot of enablers, most notably the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate. However, our domestic Dear Leader's enablers start and end with the people who voted him into office, the ones who continue to show up at his campaign rallies.

Most if not all of these supporters are die-hards who cannot be persuaded to abandon their support. So the question for 2018 now becomes, will those who oppose Don Trumpone come out in sufficient numbers to create the Democratic-dominated House that is the only hope of beginning to contain our domestic Dear Leader?

In other words, will the body politic of 2018 look like that of 2016, or not?

That's up to us.

If you're sickened by the stench of corruption in the executive branch ...

If you have had more than you can stand of the continuous, shameless, even prideful lying by this administration, driven by the liar-in-chief at its head ...

If you loathe the cruelty and viciousness rained down by our exceptionally thin-skinned domestic Dear Leader on anyone who dares criticize him ...

If you hate Don Trumpone's embrace of white supremacy and his full-throated race-baiting ...

If you despise the craven fealty our domestic Dear Leader shows to autocrats, dictators and the very wealthy ...

If you weep for the environmental damage our ignoramus-in-chief and his cronies are encouraging in the name of an imaginary rejuvenation of polluting industries ...

If you want to reclaim our nation from the backwards-looking troglodytes who claim that patriotism is theirs alone, and show them that a truly great nation finds strength in its ideals, not in emptyheaded boasting and posturing ...

... then you have one civic responsibility this year.

You must vote for Democrats.

The heroes of the civil rights movement endured water cannons and police batons. Journalists in other countries are imprisoned and killed for telling the truth about their repressive regimes.

Your job is trivially easy by comparison. Whatever obstacles are placed in your way, you must vote, and cast that vote for a Democrat.

Only those of us in the true Silent Majority can make a Democratic Congress happen.

That's what the midterms are really about. They're a test of our patriotism.

Don't blow it.