The Good News Is/The Bad News Is

Texas, our Texas:

As of Friday, which was the last day of early voting in the 2020 primary, a total of 1,113,726 people voted in person and by mail in Texas’ 10 largest counties — 12% of registered voters. This year’s turnout for the Democratic primary in the 10 largest counties surpassed turnout in 2016. According to the latest registration figures reported by the secretary of state before the 2020 primary, 57.2% of all Texas voters live in these 10 counties.

That 12% breaks down to a turnout of 7.45% voting in the Democratic primary, and 4.55% voting in the GOP primary.  That is the largest primary turnout for Democrats since 2012, eclipsing the previous high of 5.12% in 2016.  For the GOP, that's a substantial drop from a high in 2016 of 6.70%, but that may be attributable to Trump running unopposed and the large (now smaller, but too late for early voting) field in the Democratic primary.

So:  massive turnout for Democrats, continuing the rising trend line from 2 years ago.  But the total turnout also underscores the simple fact that politicians now flooding Texas with campaign ads (and it's like being on the wrong end of the firehose this past week) are too little too late.  The majority of us (if history is any guide) who are going to vote, have already voted.  No doubt lots of people wish they'd held their vote until after Buttigieg or Steyer withdrew, and some might be thinking Joe Biden's bandwagon is now the one to be one: so, regrets all around.  But clearly Texas is, as one e-mail from a Democratic group I got the other day put it, poised (at least) to be a battleground state.

That's the good news; the bad news is how few people give a damn about Bernie's "revolution" or Biden's "4 more years of Obama!" or whatever it is Bloomberg and Warren are promising.  Because as the chart at that link makes starkly clear, yes, the participation line has shot upwards for both parties since 2012.  But twice nothing is still nothing.  Total turnout, so far, is only 12%.  That might inch up by a full percentage point tomorrow, but I would be surprised if it did.  12% of the public can be bothered to select the person who will run for the highest office in the land, as well as (this is Texas) every public office from U.S. Senator to Justice of the Peace (my ballot had more judges than I expected or had found on any ballot available for review on-line the day before I voted).  I'm sure the turnout in November will be higher, but still:  Sanders is poised to win 25% of 7.45% of Democrats who bothered to vote at all.  What percentage of the population of registered voters in Texas is that?  Less than 2%, by my calculations.  And frankly (can't resist a little more Bernie bashing), before South Carolina Bernie was arguing the one with the most votes (not delegates) deserves the nomination.  Right now that candidate is Joe Biden.  I'm wondering if Bernie has decided delegate count suddenly matters more.  But how do you lead a revolution in a democracy when less than 2% of the populace in the second most populous state in the union care to vote for you?  Where is the acclamation in that?

This is a fucked up system.  Not because of Bernie, but because this is the same system that gave us Trump.  And more and more I'm convinced a Bernie victory would just be Trump redux, with Bernie doing to the Democrats what Trump has done to the GOP (except Bernie won't get the deathless loyalty that Trump has).  The GOP is going down with the Trumptanic, but they built that ship and have been piloting it toward the iceberg since Goldwater.  Democrats won't follow Bernie down the rabbit hole, but the destruction of the party apparatus will be no less severe than Trump's apotheosis and destruction of the GOP.  Someone recently observed we don't have party's anymore, we just have the skeletons of them.  I think this is true:  Democrats can't control primaries in New Hampshire and Iowa, both of which insist on being first in the nation even though Iowa has never been a good place to start (caucuses) and New Hampshire's claim to fame is Dixville Notch, which chose Mike Bloomberg.  Yet 4 years ago (or was it 8?), both swore they'd move their elections back into the prior, non-election year, if that's what it took to remain "first in the nation".  And the GOP is a White House operation now.  There's no question about it.  Trump might as well stamp his name on it, it's the only thing he hasn't done.  Both parties are shells, and it's telling that Trump, never really a Republican, and Bernie, insistently never a Democrat, have taken control of the parties, or might as well have (and if Bernie doesn't win control, does he take his ball and go home?  Again?  He derides his "Bernie Bros" supporters, but he has no control over them, and even defends them against the name. It's the name that bothers him more than what they do to support him.)

Both political parties look like they are about to go the way of unions; but it won't happen quickly, and it won't happen soon.  Parties have the apparatus to get names on ballots in all 50 states (why do you think Bloomberg didn't follow Perot's lead?).  They are woven into the fabric of government.  But beyond that they no longer have any power.  I didn't really expect Bloomberg to buy the nomination (any more than Steyer did, for that matter), but he clearly bought his way into the ballot box quite easily, far more easily than would have been possible 40 years ago.  The party apparatus has been coming apart for decades, and still, even with Trump in office (where the hell did he come from?  Reality TV?  How many people actually watched that show?  Not 63 million.), we don't face that collapse.  I mean, our President is a clown who talks about "medical elements" in response to a possible pandemic, and sits in front of the TV and yells at it like somebody's demented Grandpa:

.@FoxNews is working hard pushing the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats. They want to be, unlike their competitors, @CNN & MSDNC (Comcast), Fair & Balanced. When will they ever learn. The Radical Left never even gave @FoxNews permission to partake in their low rated debates!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2020

And while I'm ranting, he's now the youngest leading major candidate in the electoral race, and how the hell did THAT happen? (except that old people still vote, and young people still don't)  We allowed 18 year olds to vote in 1972!  When does THAT revolution finally happen?