Just when you want to forget about elections and politics, 2025 has arrived and for Cincinnati that means City Council and Mayoral Elections are this fall. Yes, I can see the joy in your face. The glee of a local election is like a melted plastic spatula stuck to the burner on the stove: You can't undue your failure, just fix your mistakes.
The mistakes with local elections in Cincinnati at this point are those who don't vote. Yes, the knee jerk reaction of many who pretend to follow politics is to opine about those in power. Whenever I hear people complain about those in power in a Democratic City, I can put them in one of two camps: 1) They are a Republican/Conservative whining about not being in power or 2) They are a leftist who wants power and can't come to grips with the fact that their extremist views are not popular.
What sucks about local politics is that most of the people paying attention are extremists or cranks. Yeah, you could call me a crank, but I am more of the nerdish observer that is content with a main stream Democratic Majority is not against Business Groups, but wants to have reasonable regulations and checks on them.
When local elections come around we tend to get lots of idiots out there. You know you are. Various fringe groups, special interests, and Right Wing assholes that are looking to get attention. In 2025 getting attention for a local election is very difficult. The public is extra ignorant these days. People under 40 will barely vote. What is sad is that those who actually turned out just a a couple months ago will not bother to vote again for years. I blame them for there idiocy.
Left leading groups want to blame Republicans for why they don't vote. Sure, there are efforts to make it more difficult to vote from Republicans. Yes, these efforts disproportionally affect the poor and racial minorities. That is not an excuse for people who can, but don't vote. The problem is with adults who don't vote. Yeah, adults, everyone who is old enough to vote is an adult. They are charged with being responsible for themselves, but they can't bother to vote. So 18-55 years old would be the age range with shitty voter turnout. People have been worried about alienating the younger voters. Well, they alienated themselves. It is time to just call them out as lazy fucking morons.
IF you can't get off your ass to vote one time a year, then I am will happily call you a lazy fuck. Yes, the lowest common denominator type defense is the first reaction that I get, but that is just as lazy. I am not talking about the exceptions. I am talking about the dumb fucks who spend their free time playing video games and smoking weed. Maybe they watch tik tok or some asshole video from YouTube, but that is such a bullshit way to live.
These ignorant fucks just whine that they can do nothing to change things. The problem: these fucks don't know what needs to be changed. They are passive shits who are feed crap and think they are making choices. They are just sheep. IT is not a surprise that an increasing number of younger men have become so intellectually lazy that they fall for sexist fascism Trumpists preach.
The only ones make an attempt to be activists are those with extremist views. They are making an effort, but are have their own problems with reality. They live in a mythical world that thinks purity is best and protest without achievable goal. They make noise and do little else. When you fail to achieve anything, other than pissing off people who could help your cause, you have no credibility. For Activists, getting attention is more important than achieving goals.
Whilst my rant continues: I must also point out those who are knee jerk against those in office. They don't have a consistent sense of ideology, but think they do when they want to remove other from power. No sense of what that will bring (See Trump), but they think change will be better. The problem is just more ignorance. They can't articulate what needs to change, just that change needs to happen. This mindset hits into populists more than leftists. When they know they can't change, they don't bother to participant and point fingers at others or the system, anything but their own ignorance.
Do not forget that the Republicans and Trumpists will do something this year to hurt the city, it is their way. COASTers or the like will make trouble and get suburban funding to make it happen. They could claim a "legitimate" effort in City politics if they get Chris Smitherman to run for mayor. Based on my observation of Smitherman over the last 20+ years in local politics, it is obvious that his dream is to be Mayor of Cincinnati. He has no realistic chance to win. He has pretended for most of last 20+ years to NOT be a Republican. This past year he sloppily danced around direct support for Trump, something he has avoided. He is surrounded by hardcore Trumpists as his core potential campaign leadership. I do not recall seeing him directly endorse Trump, but he pushed fringe issues championed by Trump and Vance. Before I left Twitter you could interpret his tweets as a bad RFKjr imitation. I think Smitherman is unhinged and delusional. As the Republican Party's sane wing has drunk the Kool Aide or gone on an ethics holiday, they could see it as a wise play to try and demonize the City with Smitherman as their voice and a ploy to gain more black votes for County elections. Exploiting black men is not new for Republicans, but what kind of man allows himself to be exploited?
Yes, happy election year, Cincinnati! This will be a clusterfuck. People will bitch about the lack of candidates that they "like." When people do that, they likely don't have a clue about the candidates. They don't know about any of the issues facing the city and are not going to make any efforts to find out. Unless outside group put shitty Charter Amendments on the ballot, no issues will be discussed. We can't have discussions on issue because any issues to be discussed will be usurped into a national debate that has little or just no relevance to the actual issue. Groups will form and demonize others who disagree with them on the issue. There will be no room for compromise.
The best thing you can do, is to ignore the assholes who are pushing you to join their cause. 98% of them are full of shit and lying about some part of their "cause." I observed this from the Rail Road sale. A bipartisan coalition of asses opposed the sale based on lies. It was sad to see people do this and join forces with extremists. Right Wing extremists and Left Wing Extremists mixed with some who in the past were not extremists and those non-extremists lost a lot of credibility. They burned so many bridges that I don't see how they get back into politics, locally. I don't suppose it matters anyway, least of all toe them.
I expect this year's election to end up two ways: 1) Democratic candidates win a fairly quiet and easy reelection or 2) Democratic candidates win a nasty election, maybe one or two less council members, but maintain their vast control of the City.
The only question at hand: Will the Republican Party OR the Charter Committee actually field any candidates for the general election? I will not be surprised if we don't see them publicly endorse any candidates. When they complain about the lack of choice, they get all of blame for that.
