In November we think about giving thanks, but there are other important days on the calendar. November is election month. Our local election was on the 7th, and Republicans in Virginia took a trouncing. I will give thanks that our governor, now without any legislative support, will not get to track women’s menstrual cycles. Nor will he get his abortion ban. Democrats now control our legislature, and that is a fine thing. Voters across America realize that this election was between the party that wants to take away our rights and the party who wants all citizens to have the right to control their -own lives without governmental interference. Most Americans know that we, the people, should be in charge of what we do with our bodies and who we love, not politicians. Another - often overshadowed by the others - holiday in the November calendar is Veteran’s Day. It used to be called Armistice Day, to celebrate the end of WWI and pay homage to the many who gave their lives in that war. W
We have an ingrained myth in America that people persist in believing. During the 2016 presidential campaign, a friend told me that one of her coworkers hated Donald Trump with a fiery red hate but was going to vote for him anyway. Why? “Because,” he said, “I care about my IRA.” This man, presumably, went through the recession in 2008 during the George Bush presidency, where IRAs were demolished and house values plunged. But even having a damaging Republican recession didn’t dislodge the myth from that man’s mind that our economy does better under Republicans. This is something he, and way too many other Americans, believe. And yet, by every single indicator — gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices — America’s economy booms when Democrats are in the White House. This has been true for nearly a century now, and it’s certainly true for the Biden White House. Republicans have been calling President Joe Biden’s policies “Bidenomics,” which they think