Editor, The Beacon:
The 2022 election results have many of my Beacon friends perplexed. They were promised a “red wave” and got a ripple.
Immediately, the media framed the result as a Democrat win. Biden, to hear them tell it, is a more powerful president in his first term than Clinton or Obama.
These days, I’m more interested in politics that really infringe on my freedoms. I used to think “D.C.” controlled my life. I was sure of it. But that’s no longer true for me.
Washington, D.C., is a long way from my home. I live in Orange City.
Anyone who reads The Beacon knows that “local” is The Beacon’s game. I wore out my welcome as a Beacon Opinions columnist (for more than 17 years) talking about Bush, Obama, Trump, and the usual cast of characters in Washington.
I now know they have the least power over my life going forward. Sure, they make tax policy and they push the monolithic leviathan that is our government in ways that appear to promise calamity at every turn. But they are impotent in their partisan hate for each other.
I won’t tell you that I think the current crop of politicians are more dangerous than those from the past. I will tell you that they matter little to me now. I’m on, what my golf friends call, “the back nine” in life. And my life is local.
My analysis of the most recent election, as if anyone cares anymore, is simple. As you walk away from my house, you have to walk a long way to get to Democrat country. A long way, my friends.
In a recent Beacon article, the head of the local Democrat Party (not democratic) deflected blame in a less-than-artful response. She said Republicans suffering the same crushing defeat would have been protesting the outcome claiming they were cheated. A little “Jan. 6” humor, I suppose.
The truth of the matter is that Democrats in Florida need to put their entire political infrastructure out to pasture. They haven’t won much around here for a long time.
Now they are losing School Board races in former Democrat strongholds, all the way up the ladder to the governor’s office in Tallahassee. And they’re losing big-time.
It’s my hope that they ignore their failures and leave their leaders in their positions of power. The Red v. Blue map in Florida is something I’m getting used to. I think there were four Blue counties, and I wouldn’t buy a piece of bubble gum in any of them.
I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column more than a decade ago challenging Democrats to pick any 25 states in the Union and leave the Republicans the other 25, with access to both oceans, and we’ll see who prospers. Looks like that is happening naturally, and Florida is the prime example.
Republicans might be floundering in Washington, D.C., but we’re winning beautiful and prospering states we can live in without much radical Democrat intervention. I’m good with that.
You might want to start walking, if you want to live in a Democratic stronghold. DeSantis is the president around these parts. Think …
David Rauschenberger
Orange City
