Tennessee's quite the target in this year's midterm elections. There's a brawl for governor, and there's Marsha Blackburn trying to hold onto Bob Corker's Senate seat for the Republicans. But, last week, in Shelby County, which is where the city of Memphis is located, there was a bit of a temblor that's worth keeping in mind as we go forward. From The Memphis Commercial-Appeal:

Of the 26 county offices up for grabs, Democrats won all but five — and those were previously Republican commission seats. Before the election, Republicans held nine of the 10 most high-profile county offices, including mayor and sheriff. Now, they hold zero...The reasons behind the wave are likely manifold, but it's hard to ignore the polarizing effect of President Donald Trump. Also, it's interesting that Harris and Republican governor candidate Bill Lee both largely focused on their visions while their opponents launched highly visible — and negative — attacks on them. Attack ads have a record of working — but in today's political climate, they seem to have backfired. However, perhaps the big reason for the wave was that Democrats fielded high-quality candidates who clearly articulated the need for new solutions to persistent problems.

Solutions. Government solutions. An amazing concept as yet largely untried in the second decade of the 21st century.

Marsha Blackburn Tom Williams Getty Images

The results in Shelby County may not mean much nationally. (If I were a Republican candidate in Tennessee, however, I'd be laying in canned goods and a bargeload of valium.) At the same time, they also may be the beginning of a long overdue general reconfiguration of the purpose of political campaigns, of political offices, and of the role of the politician.

People running for office on the grounds that they were not politicians were always idiotic. It was a straight line from them to a government full of people who didn't know how to govern, or who didn't want to govern, which itself was a straight line to the current crisis at the heart of which is a president* who doesn't know anything about anything, and who brags about it, and to his slobbering yahoo audiences who love him for his ignorance.

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This about sums up the Republican party right now. pic.twitter.com/Kh1G3QocZD — Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) August 5, 2018

I'd Rather Be Russian Than A Democrat.

Jesus Christ, we are an experiment in self-government, the boldest one in human history. Have some damn pride.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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