That election you forgot about

Matt Bevin

Backwoods of Tennessee, – It was that election you probably didn’t even know was happening, or if you did, you were more concerned about college football than whether a straight talking rich, conservative guy who some say can’t regulate his mouth was doing well in the polls. His name wasn’t Donald Trump, it was Matt Bevin.

 

It is the year of the outsider, we already know that. From Donald Trump’s wild words to Ben Carson’s softer, although no less controversial comments. And Bernie Sander’s pronouncements that women want to be raped and the government should own the media, those who open their mouth and say what they believe, and those who are outside the system, are doing well in the opinion polls. But in Kentucky, in an election where the seat was up for grabs, Matt Bevin, a straight talking outsider who won the Republican Party Nomination by less than fifty votes rode in to win the governorship, proving that in Kentucky at least, people aren’t just willing to shout that they like Donald Trump, but when the rubber meets the road, they are actually willing to go out and vote for outsiders.

Bevin took the governorship from the Democrats, becoming Kentucky’s second Republican governor in four decades. Elsewhere, Republicans were victorious across the country, the governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi easily won reelection for the GOP. In Houston, the city rejected a balloted ordinance that would have established “nondiscrimination protections” for gay and transgender people in the city, and Ohio voters rejected an initiative that sought to legalize the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana.

Some might say that of course the Republicans won across the country; there is no big election going on right now, no national referendum, and conservatives care more about local stuff than liberals do. And while that may be true, this was a referendum of sorts, when it comes to ideas, as Americans, (not just Republicans) once again consistently rejected non-capitalistic non-progressively conservative ideas, and decided instead to continue to long march to the right that is necessary if our country is to continue on its course of being the greatest nation our world has ever seen.

With the Democrats continuing to be a fractious group with no leader other than Hillary Clinton, who is under five government investigations, the nation seems to be growing tired of the last seven years under Barack Obama and the dysfunctional Democrats. With 364 days remaining before we choose the next president of the United States, there are still many mile markers to go before we reach that election. But this mile marker anyway, bodes well for the Republicans.

Andrew C. Abbott