Not such a great day yesterday, given the outcome in Virginia, where yet another fascist will assume a governorship. Speaking of which, why is it that Republicans bandy about the term “socialism” (if only it were true) while Democrats shy away from the extremely apt term “fascist”.
But I digress. Look at the title, I’m supposed to be talking about the bright side.
In this case, it’s sort of local. We had local elections here in Groton yesterday, and the outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Democrats, who were riven by internal disputes (which I personally kept out of and about which I do not intend to further bloviate), caught on the wrong side of a sort of NIMBY local issue, dealing with a dirty campaign (what else could be expected) by the Republicans, with our leadership constantly being attacked by an allegedly Democratic leaning newspaper columnist who preferred to hear only what he wanted to hear about the internal disputes to which I referred earlier.
A further digression about the NIMBY issue. The present town council, which consists of all Democrats, okayed a development deal for property in Mystic that was formerly the site of a school for the deaf. It is in a single family residential area, but the proposal was for pretty dense apartments, that would have increased traffic in what is already a tourist infested area. The property was essentially owned by the town,and of course the deal essentially handed the land over to the developer along with a tax break. Having been on the Town Council, I suspect the deal was presented to the councilors by town planners as a great deal. Planners love to plan and develop, they don’t really care about what people in the area might think. The Council probably didn’t vet the deal as well as it should have, and, to put icing on the cake, the town attorney advised the Democratic candidates, including those that were not incumbents, that saying anything negative about the deal on the campaign trail should be avoided as it might constitute a breach of contract. Apparently that advice applied only to Democrats. In fact, the deal is now all but dead, but that salient fact was not widely acknowledged during the campaign. Luckily, the issue resonated in only certain parts of town, since Groton is more balkanized than the Balkans.
Despite all that we came out of the election with flying colors, though admittedly we did lose one seat. We’ll still have an 8 to 1 majority, dominate the RTM (representative town meeting), and the Board of Ed. To add icing to the cake, former state representative John Scott, the Republican Town Chair, Town Council candidate and renowned plagiarist, who seems to have directed some of the nastiest attacks, got fewer votes than any other town council candidate.
So, there is a bit of a bright side, even while we trudge toward fascism.
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