Happy Thanksgiving!
A thank-you to all my readers and a prelude to a 2022 retrospective
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all are staying safe and doing well. I am thankful that so many of you take the time to listen to my thoughts, and to have had the privilege of advocating for a more just economy for nearly two years now.
This month, I just want to briefly address a few topics which are frequently featured in my articles, and to let you know my plans for the rest of 2022.
Midterm Elections - Successes and Setbacks
Last month, I voiced concerns about the U.S. midterm elections, and it does indeed appear that we will once again have a divided Congress; Democrats retained control of the Senate while Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives.
In many ways, Democratic candidates outperformed expectations with the help of increased rates of young voter turnout. However, many voting districts still faced adversity in the face of voter suppression. Congress should have also done more before the election to bolster voting rights, and to combat gerrymandering and the influence of dark money.
A silver lining of a divided Congress could be that voters can once again be reminded that Republican politicians have no intention of proposing any meaningful legislation, and that they only want to sow “chaos and inability to get stuff done” in order to seize power. Still, this could mark the beginning of yet another lost decade, just as the 2010 midterms marked the beginning of a period during which little meaningful progress could be made at the federal level.
Despite the challenges we face, we must continue to advocate for progress. We must advocate for free and fair elections, and a functioning democratic republic.
We must continue to demand that the influence of dark money be removed from our elections.
We must take steps to remove politicians’ financial conflicts of interest, and continue to support candidates who would work to form a more perfect union.
We must continue to advocate for workers’ rights, protections, and dignity.
And we must prevent an authoritarian movement from gaining traction; it still can happen here.
But to wrap up this November edition of the Economic Justice and Progress Newsletter, I’d like to share my plans for the rest of the year and throughout 2023.
Newsletter Plans for 2022 and 2023
Next month, I plan to release a similar article to the one I released late last year, reviewing the progress we made and the missed opportunities throughout 2022.
Because I have had to focus on other projects lately, and will have to continue doing so for the foreseeable future, I am going to discontinue posting monthly articles and will only post sporadically once I have a detailed article to share with readers. Since I no longer plan to post regularly, I plan to discontinue paid subscriptions throughout 2023. If I am once again able to resume posting regularly, I may once again offer paid subscriptions, but most of my content will remain free to read as always.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this newsletter with a paid subscription, and to everyone who has listened to my thoughts.
Thank you for reading my newsletter and taking the effort to learn about making the world a better place. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on how we can make progress towards a more just economy.
-JJ
Another great read! I enjoy your prospective on different subjects. I’m very concerned about the republicans in charge of the house. It will most likely be investigations about nonsense.