We’ve heard for days now that early voting is uncommonly heavy for a midterm election, demonstrating how eager many people are to give Trump his comeuppance. Proving yet again the adage about giving people what they want.
John Mayer released this, his first foray into politically inspired writing, as the lead single from his third album, “Continuum,” in 2006. By then it had become clear that Iraq was a quagmire, so George W. Bush’s approval ratings had dropped into the mid-30s.
Mayer’s lyrics drew a good bit of criticism. Lines like
Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it
and
It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
struck a lot of people as passive and defeatist. He defended himself by noting that a lot of people in his age cohort – he was 29 at the time – felt powerless. Nevertheless, the 2006 midterms got a bump in turnout and marked the last time a midterm election switched control of both chambers of Congress.
BTW, turnout in the 2018 midterms was 54.4%, the highest in a century. This year looks poised to top it. There’s something about voting against the Republicans when Trump is in the White House.
