Transcription
The last few days, there is one issue that has had folks spiraling really, really hard in the comment section of my videos, both on TikTok and on YouTube. And it's not the big, nasty, bloated budget bill. And I want to take a few minutes and explain what's really going on because I think y'all are whipping yourselves up into a complete panic, totally unnecessarily. I promise y'all that this is going to be gentle handholding and not stern mom scolding. I really want to help y'all bring the temperature down about 20 notches on this issue.
And specifically, I'm referencing how last week on Thursday, the city commissioners from Miami voted 3 to 2 to postpone the mayoral elections from 2025 to 2026. Y'all, I am getting dozens and dozens of folks in my comments who are saying that this is proof that the Republicans are going to cancel the congressional midterm elections in 2026. I have gotten dozens and dozens of people saying what has happened in Miami is proof that we are not going to have elections in the United States going forward. I I really want to encourage y'all to stop catastrophizing and to stop writing fictions in your head. And when you see a headline or somebody's 15-second TikTok video about an issue, I really want to encourage you to take the time and thoroughly understand what's going on rather than extrapolating a whole set of predictions that are completely not founded in reality.
So, what happened last week? Okay, this is according to the Fidian Press. I got to put my glasses on so I can read. So last week on Thursday, there was a 3-2 vote for the city commissioners for Miami where they voted to cancel the 2025 mayoral election and move it to November 2026. And basically, as soon as this happened, people said, "This is proof that we're not going to have the midterms. This is proof that they're going to suspend elections all across the country. This is proof that Donald Trump and the Republicans are are going to indefinitely suspend elections." I I need y'all to pump the brakes.
Okay. So, my position is whenever possible, um, we want to make sure that we are giving time for these breaking stories to evolve. We often need 24, 48, or more hours to understand how things are going to shake out. Right? I've said since November, if a story feels really big and overwhelming and it is a breaking story and we're just starting to get information, please don't draw conclusions from that. And really, you should just reserve judgment for a couple of days and see what happens. The Trump regime is using this shock and awe technique. They really want you to believe that what they're doing is inevitable. They're big and powerful. They can do whatever they want. You can't stop them. They make all kinds of very big, bold claims. They are trying all kinds of illegal things. And they want you to believe from the second you hear the headline, from the second the autopen signs the executive order that Chat GPT wrote, you know, for the project 2025, guys, the second that Republicans try some hanky-panky, they want you to believe that it's a done deal. They want you to believe that there's no opposition, there's no check, there's no ability to stop what they're doing. And overwhelmingly from the Trump regime, we're seeing that that's not true, actually. And in fact, more often than not, they lose. And now you've just spent a couple of days really, you know, winding yourself all up, losing sleep, so much tension in your body, so much anxiety, you've wasted time and valuable energy you could be spending organizing for the resistance or like just enjoying your family and living your life. Who have worried unnecessarily. And I think that's what a lot of people are doing with this story out of Miami.
So, please understand that while city commissioners voted to suspend elections, that doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen. In fact, there has been a sweeping, vigorous response to this attempt for them to illegally halt the elections and delay them one year. On June 25th, Florida's attorney general, James Umeer, told city leaders, he told city commissioners in no uncertain terms that if they moved forward with suspending or delaying the mayoral election, they would face repercussions from his office. According to South Florida NPR, the attorney general's office issued this legal opinion: "You should immediately cease the process of enacting the ordinance to move the date of the municipal elections and change the terms of office for elected officials in the city of Miami. If you nevertheless move forward with the proposed ordinance, my office reserves the right to consider all available actions to prevent this violation of law from occurring."
Now, the Miami city commissioners are claiming that the reason they are delaying elections by a year is that they want to increase voter participation in local politics. So, if they align their municipal elections with the federal midterms, they'll have a larger voter turnout. That's their claim. I mean, off-year elections for local offices tend to have very low turnout. So, I understand that. Secondarily, they claim that it would save the city a lot of money because instead of having to send out a separate round of ballots in 2025 and then midterm ballots for Congress in 2026, they could just do one round of ballots for even-numbered years. Obviously, the opposition says you you can't do that. You're going to cancel this November's election. And that would give the incumbent mayor effectively an extra year in office.
Now, on the surface, those two claims for wanting to move the election from 2025 to 2026 and then subsequent mayoral elections will also be on even-numbered years. That that makes sense, right? Increase voter turnout because you are aligning it with congressional elections and then save money because you are having to print half as many ballots. Cool. If you think that's a swell idea, then according to Miami City ordinance, you have to have the voters decide if they want to make that move. That's not something that the elected officials can just unilaterally decide. It's up to the voters. And in accordance with the law for Miami, they cannot move the date of the elections without voter approval. The city rules require a vote of the people to change the date of the elections.
And it's not just the attorney general who is saying this. Governor Ron DeSantis, who in a million years I never thought I would agree with on a single issue, has said the city can't just make up its own rules. So already the attorney general and the governor have said that what is happening is illegal and that they plan on taking action against the Miami commissioners. And then yesterday, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Miami mayoral candidate Alio T. Gonzalez. The commissioners who voted in favor of moving the election back one year, Damen Partardo, Ralph Rosado, and Christine King, are all named defendants in the complaint along with Suarez, who is the current mayor. The lawsuit calls for a declarative and injunctive relief. According to attorneys for Emlio Gonzalez, in passing Ordinance 17723, the city of Miami commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami Dade Charter, and the city's charter expressly prohibit. They went on to say, "This repugnant and deliberate act was done without a single electoral vote and in defiance of Florida Attorney General James Utmire's clear warning that doing so was illegal. Miami voters are the only ones who can decide to change the election date." The lawsuit goes on to claim that this action by the defendants disenfranchises the voters of Miami, undermines our democracy, and robs citizens of their voices at the ballot box.
This is just getting going, y'all. We've got to give people time to respond. I also just want to point out here, cuz I've seen this repeated in my comments several times, that people think that this is going to be a lawsuit that is going to get appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court and the um unitary executive theory Supreme Court with its six, you know, essentially Christofascist just justices going to use this as an excuse to cancel all elections. When when people say that in my comments, and y'all keep saying it a lot, I understand that you don't know how the court system works. You don't understand how the constitution works and what powers are granted to the state and what powers are granted to the federal government. Elections are controlled by the states, y'all. And not only that, this is a citywide Florida issue. It may potentially go up to the Florida Supreme Court, but this is a matter of state law. I I'm not an attorney, but I would love for any attorney to explain to me where the federal government could possibly step in here or how this could possibly go to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Please, please, please stop catastrophizing, y'all. It's not good for you. It doesn't help us in the fight against fascism. It doesn't change the future. All you are doing is spinning out in your own anxiety. You are letting negative emotions, fear, and anxiety run you. You are playing fortune teller, forecaster, pretending that the future is written and you're often ignoring significant and important facts in the story that you're crafting. I don't understand this desire to want to create apocalyptic scenarios and then completely panic over them. I understand that's something that everybody is doing right now, but you just give the fascists power. When you do that, you waste your energy and your time. Please keep your eyes on the prize. If you hear negative stories like this, wait and see how they shake out. Don't give those stories more power than they have. Don't use them as the prompt from which you write a fiction. And also, please, please, please, when you see some headline or short little news clip on social media, take the time to do due diligence before you draw any conclusions. And also, just take some time. The real stories are hard enough, y'all. You don't have to borrow trouble.