As is the case every presidential election year, there has been a lot of talk this time around about 2016 being the “most important” election ever. But as Samantha Bee argued on Monday night’s Full Frontal, that distinction may actually belong to 2010.
Speaking directly to “smug” Democrats, Bee said, “The most important election of your lifetime wasn’t in 2008. It was two whole years later and you didn’t vote in it, and you got your ass kicked.” Because it was a midterm and not a presidential election year, turnout was low, especially on the left. “And just like with our college midterms, most of America figured it was fine to sleep through this one.”
Yes, while the young and minority voters stayed home, old white voters came out in droves, “and just as you’d expect, when the voting public looks like the cast of Cocoon, they turn this country redder than Carrie’s prom dress.” Bee assumed all those conservatives must have just been mad about how “tall” President Obama is.
The new, emboldened members of Congress elected in 2010 refused to compromise with Democrats in any way and eventually pushed House Speaker John Boehner out the door, setting the country up for our current impasse on the Supreme Court.
In Bee’s words, the “conservative children’s crusade” ended up “leaving Americans so frustrated, they’re willing to vote for the first two-bit wall salesman who says he’ll stop Mexicans from raping their jobs.”
“That’s right, if you didn’t vote in 2010, you built that,” Bee said, pointing to Trump’s face.