As political talk in the wake of the U.S. midterm election this year has mainly focused on the stark absence of a largely expected “Red Wave” of conservative wins, I wanted to take a moment to focus on something remarkable that hasn’t received much airtime in the mainstream media. I am talking about the growing political might of the LGBTQ+ community, who helped to usher in what again is being called a “Rainbow Wave.”
A wave superimposed on a Pride flag. Image: DepositPhotos
2022 saw greater numbers of queer politicians running — and winning! — than ever before. Back in 2019 I reported on an unprecedented number of electoral wins for LGBTQ+ candidates in the United States. At that time, we were celebrating the election of over 150 queer candidates to political office across the country, something that was considered unthinkable even just a few years before. We would elect another 100 the following year, and while that number had fallen, it was still significantly better than what we had grown accustomed to in the past, when an out queer politician was an extreme rarity.
According to the Victory Fund, a national organization dedicated to electing queer people to public office, the 2022 midterm elections saw an amazing 436 LGBTQ+ candidates winning their contests. This was 100 more than in 2020, which had held the previous record for most queer wins and illustrates a definite trend toward more queer people being able to be both out and win public office.
While there is much to celebrate, our struggles are far from over. According to the Victory Institute, queer people are still grossly underrepresented on the political stage. It is estimated that 7.1% of the U.S. population is LGBTQ+ but only 0.2% of our elected officials identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. This means that in order to reach a level of equitable representation, the US must elect an additional 35,000+ queer people to public office.
While there is still an enormous amount of work to do before we get to that point, the trends of the past several years show a growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks, which is finally being reflected in our politics. Even while far right conservatives have tried to demonize us in their efforts to link our community with grooming and pedophilia (even though the overwhelming majority of pedophiles are men who are married to women), we are largely seeing a cultural rejection of that hateful rhetoric, as more and more open queer people run for public office.
Queer politicians in the US come from every walk of life and political party, but skew heavily Democratic. As of June 2022, over 75% of queer elected officials identified as Democrat while only 3% were Republican. With so many more queer elected officials winning their contests this year, and with the confluence of several other marginalized groups, the much-anticipated Republican “Red Wave” was effectively countered, much to the delight of progressives and those who have seen a disturbing trend in recent years of the political Right to deny reality, peddle in racist and bigoted conspiracy theories, and promote the use of violence to ensure their political objectives. (It is now projected that the Republicans have narrowly won the House of Representatives, but the Democrats have maintained control of the Senate, and in general, the Republicans had a far more modest showing than to be expected in the first midterm of a presidential term.)
This isn’t to imply that queer folk alone are responsible. In particular, we also saw that Generation Z voted overwhelmingly Democratic in this election, effectively cancelling out every conservative vote cast by those 65 or older.
A comparison of votes among different age cohorts in the 2022 U.S. Midterm elections, via dellavope on Twitter.
Abortion rights have always been a motivating (and polarizing) political issue, but with the reversal of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, the political Left has galvanized support for reproductive freedom and healthcare. Seen by some as primarily a “women’s issue,” one would have expected a much larger showing of women overall at the polls voting for Democratic candidates. While more women did vote progressively, not as many did when compared to 2018, meaning more women actually voted for the GOP in this election than did before the fall of Roe. The numbers only start to make sense when broken down by race, in which it is revealed that White women tended slightly toward conservative candidates while Black women overwhelmingly voted Democratic.
While Democrats lost some voters of color overall, young Black and Latino voters countered that trend, also voting Democratic. This collection of marginalized groups whose needs and values aligned at the ballot box collectively stopped what Don Trump, Jr. predicted in his now-hilariously ironic Election Day Tweet.
In all fairness, he never said whose blood it would be. 🩸 Screenshot of a tweet by Donald Trump Jr.
After all of this, what does any of it have to do with Paganism, you might ask? Modern Paganism is a diverse subset of the populace and does not fit nicely into any one ideology or political party. While the majority of modern Paganism does tend to lean moderate or left, there is a significant portion that identifies as socially conservative. I have reported previously about factions within Paganism that espouse views that are transphobic as well as been the recipient of some pretty nasty hate mail and social media comments from conservative Pagans.
Once the shock wore off at the realization that right-wing Witches and Pagans actually exist, I decided to use my platform to once again point out that siding with a political party that regularly fawns over ultra-conservative right-wing evangelicals who literally want us dead maybe isn’t the best idea. The political Right in the US has made it their job to promote a culture war and their target is anyone other than rich white Christian men. Even just a casual perusal of their stated policies is all one needs to come to this conclusion.
While we may have been able to prevent a “Red Wave” this time around, we should not become complacent. These forces have been at play for a long, long time and will not stop unless they are thoroughly and forcibly rejected. The conservative movement in this country is fueled by religious extremism. We are just an election (or violent insurrection) away from losing the democracy that we as a country are supposed to stand for. Complacency will only hasten a descent into literal fascism. Pagans need to collectively and loudly stand for progressive social issues or else we will soon find ourselves on the chopping block.
Today, let us celebrate our very significant win. We get to live another day. But the fight is far from over.
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