Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #2

Even a kid from 4th hour Trig class can beat this crowd

(A daily series to counter the myth that the Republicans are going to win the House and Senate)

Here’s a small moment, largely unnoticed and unreported by a mainstream media committed to the narrative that the Democrats are going to lose the Midterms in November. Like I said, it’s a little local story, but it speaks volumes about the massive defeat the Republicans are about to suffer. 

This month, in Boise, Idaho, one of the top 5 reddest states in the country, Steve Schmidt, an incumbent member of the Boise Board of Education, was up for re-election. An engineer, Schmidt was well-liked in a city that Trump won with 50% of the vote, to Biden’s 46%.

But Schmidt was endorsed by a local, far-right extremist group called the Idaho Liberty Dogs. Citizens in Boise called upon him to reject the endorsement from this mob — which had led a campaign against the local library, calling their LGBTQ+ and sex ed materials “smut-filled pornography.” The Idaho Liberty Dogs showed up at the local Extinction Rebellion climate strikes brandishing AR-15 assault rifles. Schmidt refused to forcefully denounce their actions. 

As a result, the Boise daily paper, The Idaho Statesman, decided to endorse his opponent — an 18-year-old student in his final year of high school — progressive activist Shiva Rajbhandari, co-founder of the Boise chapter of Extinction Rebellion. Shiva is also the Youth Director of Babe Vote, an organization dedicated to youth voter registration and engagement. He decided to run after leading the fight against Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s “Education Indoctrination Task Force” which she convened to protect “young people from the scourge of critical race theory, socialism, communism, and Marxism” in Idaho schools.  

Here’s what The Idaho Statesman had to say about Schmidt refusing to turn down the endorsement of the extremist group:

“We were strongly disappointed when Schmidt did not forcefully rebuke the endorsement of the Idaho Liberty Dogs, a group of extremists who have promoted library censorship and lob horrible rhetoric online. That is the type of endorsement a candidate has to disavow forcefully to demonstrate that they can stand up for what is right. Schmidt’s failure to do so tipped the scales. We have no fear that Rajbhandari would make a similar mistake.”

And with that, plus an aggressive door-to-door campaign, on September 6th, Shiva Rajbhandari won.

That is the kind of shellacking the Trumpster Republican Party is about to receive in November. Please take this small example of how even an 18-year-old young man of color could defeat the establishment in a place like Boise, Idaho. 

Feel good, my friends. Victory awaits us! If you believe. If you vote.

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