One district at a time

Our local congresscritter, Elise Stefanik, slithered  into the Mountain Lake PBS station in Plattsburgh several hours early so she wouldn't have to confront an angry crowd waiting for her to explain her vote for the AHCA.  She did have to face a lottery chosen live audience of about a hundred people who were able to ask her about her position on health care and why she voted for what turns out to be a giant tax cut for the rich and a big middle finger for the poor.  Did I mention that far more people in the 21st congressional district are poor than rich?   Anyway, Stefanik was heckled often by the mostly polite crowd.  But she couldn't help reminding the people who attended that Cheeto Jesus won the district by 11 points and while she didn't rub it in, she also won going away in a three person race where the democratic candidate split the vote with the Working Family party candidate.  Basically, she was saying, "I'm the candidate in a safely republican district who can do whatever I want and there is little or nothing you can do about it".  I hope the progressives in the district can make her eat those imagined words in 2018, but it will take more than hope to do it.  Stefanik is probably not a batshit crazy republican, like so many in the house, but she is going along with an agenda which hurts a majority of her constituents in favor of a tiny minority with money.  As a friend and long time republican recently said, "I want to vote republican, but I don't know how I can keep doing it".   Many more sane members of the GOP need to think about their party's position and act responsibly.  The rest of us can help by reminding them how far the party has gone down a rabbithole of racism, misogyny and ignorance.