Steps forward — and back

Well friends, we’ve survived another campaign season, more or less. Whether America can survive what comes next is another question.

Here in Massachusetts, Tuesday will be short on suspense when it comes to elected offices. But what it lacks in excitement it will more than make up for in significance.

Polls have continued to show what we’ve known since primary day: Democrats Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll will almost certainly cruise to victories over their Republican opponents to become governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. Former city councilor Andrea Campbell is expected to best a Republican lawyer to become the state’s next attorney general. The women at the top of the ticket, and many incumbents, have run smart, safe, and oh, so sleepy campaigns, bereft of the nitty-gritty and controversy that make for October surprises and turned-off voters.

So, no fireworks.

But holy moly, what a revolution we’re looking at in Massachusetts. The state is set to elect its first woman governor. (Republican Jane Swift became acting governor after Paul Cellucci left the post.) There will now be two women leading the state, one of whom, Healey, is a lesbian. In Campbell, the people of the Commonwealth will have as their chief advocate a Black woman, another first. If Diana DiZoglio wins the state auditor race, five out of the state’s six constitutional offices will be held by women, all of whom will have blazed impressive trails to get there.

It was unimaginable, until it wasn’t.

But let’s not skip straight from the grind of the campaign to the stodge of governing: The ascension of so many talented women is a moment to celebrate, a testament not just to them, but to the fact that the world has finally changed, or at least Massachusetts has. There’s plenty more work to do — women are still way underrepresented in the Legislature, for example — but this is a massive leap forward.

Lord knows, we need to take comfort in something as we look beyond our state’s borders. At this writing, Republicans, including hundreds devoted to the former president, are favored to make gains federally and locally on Tuesday. A terrifyingly large share of them have no stomach for abortion rights or even contraception, gay marriage, fully funded Social Security, aid to Ukraine, fiscal sanity, or democracy itself.

And they’ll likely ascend by running campaigns that have appealed to voters’ baser instincts, conjuring an us vs. them America in which criminals, people of color, and immigrants take power from white people.

We’re not immune to that ugliness here, of course. Just look at the effort to repeal a law granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

The state’s law enforcement leaders overwhelmingly agree that licensing undocumented immigrants who are going to drive anyway is best for public safety. There’s absolutely no evidence for opponents’ claim that undocumented immigrants are more dangerous drivers, or for their assertion that allowing them to get licenses will lead to more road fatalities.

Unable to win on the facts, the people opposing the law have had to resort to the same ugly racism and fear mongering used by the GOP and their cheerleaders nationally.

“A storm is headed straight for Massachusetts,” warns the main opposition group, Fair and Secure MA. If Question 4 passes, they say, the state can look forward to “murder, sex trafficking, fe[n]tanyl, voter-fraud, robbery, theft, and burglary.”

It’s ugly, deeply illogical stuff, led by a state Republican party emulating its demigod Donald Trump.

The outcome of the electoral contests at the top of the ballot in this state might well have been decided long ago, but Question 4 is still very much an open one. And what it is asking is not just whether we should grant licenses to undocumented immigrants, but also whether we reject the racism that seems to be winning elsewhere in this broken country.

The answer, on both counts, should be a resounding yes. Let’s make it a landslide.