Pat Toomey is trying to retain his senate seat for another term of Republican extremism. Toomey rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 and began his reign of deregulation and discrimination masked in terms like, “fiscal conservatism” and “family values”. Now he faces an opponent that is way more in touch with reality and champions the sensibilities of a newer and less ignorant generation. Her name is Katie McGinty and she hopes to ride the likely democratic wave of 2016 with Hillary Clinton at the helm.

Toomey is one of the few Republicans that acknowledges the reality of climate change, but refuses do anything about it. He voted against legislation that would have incentivized the use of alternative fuels and he supports offshore drilling as well as the Keystone Pipeline. His inaction on this issue may have to do with the fact that one of his main donors is Exelon Corp. McGinty acknowledges the reality of climate change, but more importantly, she proposes solutions to the problem instead of ignoring it to preserve the short term profit of oil companies. She understands the urgency of climate change just like every scientist that has studied the issue and wants to move us towards renewable energy. Toomey could care less about the environment because it would be “irresponsible spending”. Once again, Toomey is in fantasy land. If the government incentivized the use of renewable energies rather than fossil fuels, it would create millions of jobs. Toomey’s solution to climate change is more drilling, more fracking, and less regulation.

On social issues, Toomey is an absolute disaster. Toomey supports an amendment to the constitution that would make same sex marriage illegal. He also attempted to add an amendment to the employment non-discrimination act that would have made it legal for private religious businesses to discriminate against those who violate their “values”. This is the same type of rhetoric that was used during the civil rights movement against people of color. Toomey also opposes medical marijuana and thinks that crime is reduced through stricter punishment. His views on crime and drugs are both examples of beliefs rooted in the mythical belief that the war on drugs has been successful.

On regulation of the financial industry, Toomey believes that “the trend in deregulation, beginning in the early 1980’s, is one the biggest reasons for sustained expansion”. Oh you mean the expansion of income inequality that started right at the time of Reagan era deregulation? You mean the deregulation that caused the stock market to crash in 2008? Do you mean the economy that allows the top o.1 percent to own as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent? That one? Once again, Toomey is living in la la land. And finally, Toomey voted against legislation that would have reduced interest rates for student loans. We can give people at the top all the wealth they want by reducing taxes on the rich and deregulating the financial sphere, but we can’t help out college students with their student loan debt? Well Toomey does receive considerable donations from Goldman Sachs, Citi Group, and Bank of America. If only, poor college students that are the future of our country had a special interest group.

It’s going to be a tough fight for McGinty to unseat Toomey. She is already getting outraised by roughly 8 million and has to compete against a 3 million dollar ad buy from the Koch Brothers in opposition to her. With Trump becoming the face of the Republican Party, McGinty has a good chance of turning Pennsylvania’s representation in the senate entirely blue. Toomey says that he “may” vote for a racist demagogue just to keep Clinton out of the oval office. It’s “irresponsible” to invest in cleaner energy and it’s “irresponsible” to help out college students in debt, but for some reason it’s responsible to support a man who thinks a judge can’t do his job because he’s a Mexican, who thinks that women should be punished for abortions, who thinks that we need to increase military spending, who thinks we should go after terrorist’s families, and has alluded to defaulting on our debt. A vote for Toomey is vote for backwardness, discrimination, and ignorance.