Five Reasons for Optimism - Steven Beschloss

[applegrove]

Five Reasons for Optimism
There are cracks in the hateful regime's bulwark. Believe that its days are numbered.

Steven Beschloss
May 29, 2026

https://www.americaamerica.news/p/five-reasons-for-optimism

1. The Democrats can win the Texas senate seat
Trump got his preferred candidate this week, Ken Paxton, who won handily aga
inst incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a runoff. Impeached by his own party, indicted on multiple felony counts for investment fraud, a serial cheater, Paxton is a walking, talking illustration of corruption in politics. He’s running against James Talarico, a gifted speaker, a former public school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian who leans into his faith to articulate the positive values that drive his public service. “This is a spiritual battle between selfishness and service, between greed and greatness,” Talarico said at a Houston rally Wednesday.

The contrast could not be more vivid, suggesting that the Democrats have a real shot at taking this seat if Talarico succeeds at convincing Texans to reject Paxton’s corruption and extremism. If Talarico wins it would be the first time a Democrat won a statewide election in more than three decades. And even if he fails? The Republicans will likely spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hold the seat—dollars that won’t be spent in other races.

2. Trump has added to the number of aggrieved Republicans
John Cornyn is respected and popular among his Republican peers and a reliable vote for Trump. Now he sees how little his loyalty was valued by Trump, as do other Republicans who kowtow to the malignant one, even when they know he’s wrong. It’s a damn shame that it takes defeat and the impending loss of power to convince him to speak up, but we can hope he’ll follow the lead of North Carolina’s retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, who’s been sticking it to more than a few of the reckless miscreants surrounding Trump. And let’s not forget the promising words of defeated Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie about the Epstein files: “We’ve taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador, a prince, a prime minister, a minister of culture and that was just six months. I’ve got seven months left in Congress.”

3. The staggering corruption may actually have limits
It’s not like the Republicans have suddenly discovered their morality and their duty to the Constitution. But Trump’s appalling $1.8 billion slush fund to award Jan. 6 convicted criminals and others deemed wrongfully treated by the Biden Justice Department has actually triggered real criticism, not just from a scattering of Republicans but reportedly dozens. It seems there actually are Republicans who don’t think it’s a good idea to award violent insurrectionists who assaulted police officers. Imagine that.

The opposition was enough to derail an immigration bill vote, causing Wisconsin’s Trump-reliable Sen. Ron Johnson to acknowledge this as a “galactic blunder” and Sen. Mitch McConnell to call it “utterly stupid, morally wrong.” Add to this the likely fact that congressional funding for Trump’s grotesque billion-dollar ballroom likely cannot garner enough votes to go ahead.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Agree with all but the money analysis

Rethugs don't worry about what they spend. There is no finite for them. Spending in TX does not reduce the pie elsewhere.

[Lovie777]

2. Using taxpayer's money with shithole's face on a $250.00 bill?.................

WTF

[Delarage]

3. Thank you!

Every now and then I need to focus on the positives that are happening. It's easy to see just the negatives.

[Cheezoholic]

4. I may be wrong but thought I read they are trying to use some obscure 150 year old law to snag that slush fund cash

out of the Treasury side stepping Congress. If they are successful make no mistake FatFuck will be swiping his new US Treasury Debit card everywhere he can even if this Congress grows the spine of a tadpole.

[Lonestarblue]

5. I don't know that Democrats can win a Senate seat in Texas.

Republicans took over the Houston election system to protect t Ted Cruz. They'll do the same for Paxton by refusing voter registrations, sending mail ballots to Democratic voters too late to mail them back, limiting the whole country to one drop box, and any other dirty trick they can think of.

As far as the staggering corruption, voters would have to know about it to have it affect their vote. Right-wing media does not cover Trump's corruption or the staggering amount of money he has grifted in less than two years. We live in a low-information country, and Democrats need to hammer the things the media ignores, like high grocery prices, the high cost of health insurance and medical treatment, the waste of our tax dollars on needless wars. They also need to promise something better. Just running against Trump and Republicans is useless without offering effective change.

[Trueblue Texan]

8. So we know what we are up against...

Every precinct chair, every citizen that cares about democracy, should build their team with the objective of educating voters and getting them registered (or re-registered) and to the polls. This effort will be neighbor to neighbor, reaching out with a cup of coffee, a tomato plant (my plan), a plate of cookies, an offer to help with pets, yard work, inviting them over for a meal, or whatever it takes to connect. We have to start (or continue) in our own communities and reach out to build this movement and then we have to keep going, stay connected, never let the right wing separate us again. We cannot rely on MSM to educate voters, we have to do it ourselves; we have to back our information up with sources and to highlight the meaning of right wing policies into the realities of our own community members. Tedious, but necessary work.

Just the fact that we have such a great of a candidate as Talarico shows the progress Texas has made. We have to work as hard and efficiently as we can to make this happen. But I will happen. We can never give up.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. I am cautiously optimistic

[MadameButterfly]

7. So McConnel thinks the slush fund is utterly stupid, morally wrong. But I recall

Mitch saying that Trump "hadn't gotten away with anything YET."
He could have prevented all of this.

Utterly stupid and morally wrong.

[Horseshoeluck]

10. I remember that

Mitch sure did put the emphasis on the word YET, but of course the media never plays back that part.

[BigMin28]

9. Cornyn

won't fight back like Massie or Tillis. He has already said he will support the ticket.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

11. The really sad part--to me--is that in the second most populous state in the country...

...the Republicans can run the embodiment of evil against the Democrat's embodiment of good and still be more likely than not to win.

What conclusions are we to draw other than that Republicans are being willingly evil? They have seen the light and they have seen the darkness and they have chosen darkness. It's not a one-off anymore. Republicans have actively rejected morality--at least in politics if not in daily life.

And yes, I know this has been the cycle for over a decade--at least--in the presidential race.

We would unfortunately be incredibly naïve to believe that good will ultimately win out over evil.

The race in Texas between the evil person Republicans overwhelmingly chose to represent them and the good person Democrats chose to represent them should not even be a close contest in a world where good and evil actually mean something; where Republicans even cared about morality.

I guess we will find out in November where the rest of Texas stands...or if they even bother to take a stand at all.

Even that little glimmer of hope that we have been given to defeat a literally evil candidate is only given to us because the malAdministration has destroyed the good economy handed to it by the previous Democratic administration--as is usual for Republican administrations since Reagan. Without that economic anxiety would good even have a chance?

No matter what happens, the result in November will be far closer than it ever should be.