I see this a lot, and I am guilty of having done it earlier in my voting career. People vote only for the president, and just make it a party line vote all the way down the ticket. President is important, but more important is the offices of representative and senator. These are the people who make the rules they want us to live by. If we as voters do not start paying more attention to those two offices and what they are doing or not doing, then we deserve what happens to us.
QUIT voting for the incumbent because it is convenient, read, listen, and question those running. If they do not do what they “promise” boot them and vote for someone who will.
I once heard someone say both houses of Congress should be required to open each session by repeating in unison and loudly, “We are servants, not masters.” All in all not a bad idea.
I agree with what you’re saying, but I do think this time it is different. Now that the primaries are past we are stuck with whoever the primary winner is. Then the question becomes what we do about a member of the R party who is not a good choice. Do we vote for them anyway?
In this particular year I say yes, and the reason I say that is because what we most desperately need is to get rid of the Deep State that is using its “six ways from Sunday at getting back at you”, surveillance, etc to corrupt any good guys we put in anyway. The first step has to be to get rid of the Deep State. To do that we need President Trump, we need an AG who will be serious (somebody like Ken Paxton or Kash Patel - or if they couldn’t be approved, somebody like Matt Whitaker as an interim who will shake the place up and then move on), and we need a R majority so the current committee chairs who have been investigating can hand the AG criminal referrals from Day 1. We have to have all 3 things if anything is going to happen.
I am not impressed with Mike Flood, the R Congressman who represents my district. But I would walk over broken glass to vote for him because that is the only way I can put Jim Jordan, James Comer, Barry Loudermilk, and Clay Higgins in the positions they need to be come Jan 20, 2025. If we can’t achieve that, all the crimes they’ve uncovered will be for naught.
We have to play this game very strategically. Things need to be done in the right order. The first step is to get Trump, an effective and lawful AG, and R House committee chairs all in place at the same time. Whatever it takes to do that, we need to do.
It’s the only way we can get ourselves out of this terrible mess of lawlessness we’re in.