On April 3, 1968 Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. spoke:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would love to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do god’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything! I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

A day later he was assassinated.

Today his birthday is a national holiday and we have elected our first black president.

On November 18, 1978 San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk said:

“I cannot prevent some people from feeling angry and frustrated and mad in response to my death, but I hope they will take the frustration and madness and instead of demonstrating or anything of that type, I would hope that they would take the power and I would hope that five, ten, a hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up, and let the world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights, … All I ask is for the movement to continue, and if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door…”

Nine days later Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Muscone were assassinated.

Since then we have elected thousands of gays and most of our population is protected by gay and trans inclusive human rights laws.

On June 14, 2025 Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, husband Mark, and their Golden Retriever Gilbert were assassinated. The same assassin wounded Minnesota Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette.

In his deluded mind the assassin thinks he is single handedly changing the course of history. In reality history teaches us that the assassin is the rear guard of decadent and dying totalitarian regimes. Fascism’s strongest weapon is fear and fascism dies when we deny it authority.

Noticed how the republicons have their memes all cued up to blame any random chance event on us democrats?

Weathers been a real shit show this winter, started with Hurricane Ian making thousands of Floridians homeless and filling up the motels and campgrounds down there in the swamp to the point I couldn’t afford to go down for the winter. Then Trump’s understudy gave me a whole bunch of other good reasons to avoid Florida. Winter hit Minnesota and points west early, hard, and repeatedly to the point I was using more diesel fuel in my tractor moving snow than my car, seems like we plowed snow 6 days a week and maybe got lucky on the 7th and ran out to restock.

Again our weather is challenging and breaking century old records faster than they can be updated, and much of Minnesota is a few snowflakes away from breaking all time seasonal snowfall records. But we democrats, especially the progressives, seem to think that talking about weather is beneath us- A preoccupation reserved for less intelligent republicans who can’t understand climate.

But for rural folks of all political persuasions, the message of wack’d weather is real and powerful- Pictured above is a township road in South Dakota that two days after the latest blizzard ended still hadn’t been plowed out, looks like a desperate farmer down the road cut a tractor wide path through snow on their own. For city folks climate change is an abstract concept, out here it’s real and can kill you.

That drift was taller than a jacked up pickup, and just past it the road turns to mud that’s probably damn near as deep- I turned around. These rural folks are living the real life consequences of climate change, but they call it weather. Weather is just climate change that hasn’t aged yet… Let’s talk weather and turn these folks into the most powerful claim activists!

And that may be a good thing.

To recap 2022, Despite the expected midterm election headwinds we democrats held on to just about everything, save for losing what will now definitely be the “lower house” and gaining the odd U.S. Senate seat, governorship, and now the senate as well as the house and every statewide office here in Minnesota. This has been taken as a vote of confidence for our President Biden and he’s rising in the polls too, so the usual pilgrimages of democratic presidential hopefuls to neighboring Iowa will be down and on the “down low”, especially with Iowa’s lead off position in jeopardy.. Same on the republican side where even on the continual eve of indictment Trump’s reign of terror keeps any serious GOP candidate’s Iowa travels to plausibly deniable social calls and support at Iowa GOP fundraisers.

So this year you and I will be spared the joy of chasing democratic hopefuls in the candidate rich environment that is Iowa the year before caucuses. As for the GOP, they’re packing firearms and now COVID too, so I’ll give them a wide berth. Not much lost there- Used to be fun to record the republican hopefuls saying crazy stuff in deep red western Iowa where they thought no mainstream media was around, now they put their wacky Neo-nazism out for all to see on their websites and social media. So looks like I’ll spend 2023 riding motorcycles and watching the races and blogging over at http://www.GearheadGrrrl.com instead of here.

Out here in rural Minnesota 2024 doesn’t look real exciting either- The Republican Party has lost every statewide election since 2008 and the only statewide races will be for president and senator, which Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar should win easily. Minnesota’s 8 congressional seats are devolving into an even 4 to 4 DFL to GOP split, so few surprises likely there. Down ballot the state senate gets a bye and while our DFL doesn’t quite have a supermajority in the house yet, the GOP is unlikely to win it back in a presidential election year. And out here in rural Minnesota the GOP is wasting almost as many votes “running up the score” with 40% and bigger victory margins as the DFL does in the cities.

So what’s a rural Minnesota democrat to do? Build up the party, run for and win “non-partisan” down ballot seats and take over every township, city, county, and conservation district. Better yet, become the “deep state” and go to work for the government and get paid for making Minnesotan’s lives better!

This was supposed to be a “shellacking”, with Republicans taking over pretty much every body up for election this year. The last runoff for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia now decided in Democrats favor, it’s time to answer the question:

WTH?

The Republicans failed to wrest a single U.S. Senate seat from us Democrats and despite winning about 3% more votes in U.S. House races than the Democrats which should translate into about a 13 seat majority, they won only 8 more seats than us Democrats. We flipped 3 Republican held governorships to the Republicans 1, and 1 Secretary of State to the Republicans 0. Here in Minnesota we held every statewide office on the ballot and the state House while picking up 3 seats to gain a thin 1 seat majority in the Senate.

Again, WTH?

We didn’t win this election, the Republicans pretty much lost it by running unqualified extremist candidates they must have scraped up off the internet’s skid row. Despite Reverend and Senator Warnock’s well earned win in Georgia, the easy survival of a bunch of Republican candidates there proves that Georgia is not a purple state and candidate quality still matters a whole lot. Same thing happened in the Minnesota Senate races when a poorly vetted Republican candidate got himself in a scandal, our wise DFL Senate caucus vigorously campaigned in that Republican leaning district and won it. Republicans winning only about half the U.S. House seats there overall vote predicted suggests they’re having the same “wasted vote” problem as the Democrats, as rural Republican voters uselessly “run up the score” by their huge victory margins while their extremist candidates turned off even 3rd tier suburban voters. Here in Minnesota’s congressional races we Democrats won 4 seats with 329 thousand more votes than we needed while the Republicans won 4 seats with 281,000 more votes than they needed, figure in the lower voter turnout in Republican districts and that’s pretty much as wash. Thus the “political wing” of the Neo-Nazis AKA the Republican Party will struggle to govern in congress and well earn the title of “lower house” while in our Minnesota legislature they’ll engage in tiring floor theatrics while our Democrats govern.

WTH happens next election?

I’ll discuss our political future ’round New Years…

Political Science 101 teaches us that in a mid-term election, the party that doesn’t have the presidency tends to win Senate, Congressional, and lots more seats on down the ballot. Throw in inflation that the party in power really has little control over and this should have been a wave election for the Republicans, and they totally ignored that script. Was all the Trump worshipping and posing with assault rifles just a pilot pitching a series to the Comedy Channel while real political parties aim for prime airtime on CSPAN?

Having failed at domestic terrorism and elections, is the GOP even a serious political party?

If you were creating a political themed comedy you’d start with a plot line where your candidates make the wackiest statements possible- Accusing our most trusted guardians of our democracy of fraud and worse, feigning outrage over non existent trans athletes and immigrant workers, denying scientific facts en masse, supporting brutal dictators, and militant demonstrations against… Face masks? As for casting… What could be more comical than a carpetbagger TV Doc from New Jersey invading the proud rival Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to run for Senate, an unfaithful pro-lifer who virtually had a charge account at the abortion clinics, a top narcotic pusher and COVID denier who somehow still has a license, a hoard of extras decrying our fair elections while running for the offices that conduct our elections, Attorney General wannabes who’ve never tried a case, and self appointed military heroes who’ve never seen combat.

Nice try, republicans… If the Comedy Channel adds another channel or three and needs some cheap late night non union filler programming, they might maybe give you a call, and the couple minutes of disclaimers, trigger warnings, etc. that would have to precede and follow your poor attempts at comedy will kill even more time- A good thing because no advertiser would want to be within an hour or channel of your sick “humor”. Your sheepish concession speeches today said it all- You’re a damn poor excuse for a political party and ya ain’t funny either!