A Pennsylvania state representative who died last month was reelected on November 8 despite that fact.

You can probably guess the representative’s party affiliation. Yes, Democrat Anthony “Tony” DeLuca, who passed away October 9, won in a landslide, garnering over 85% of the vote. At the time of DeLuca’s death, it was too late for officials to change the election ballots, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

DeLuca, Pennsylvania's longest-serving state rep, easily defeated Green Party challenger Queonia “Zarah” Livingston, who is alive. (Livingston is a far-left extremist who ran on a platform including "environmental justice," and "ending the war on drugs.”)

This is the same state that elected John Fetterman, a man who lived with/off his parents until he was 50 and who has been afflicted with severe cognitive difficulties after suffering a stroke early in his campaign.

What does this say about Pennsylvanians? And what Democrat couldn’t win in the Quaker State?

Benjamin Franklin must be rolling in his grave. Which, come to think of it, would not disqualify the former resident from winning an upcoming election there if he ran as a Democrat.

If the state were to tweak another election law or two, DeLuca and/or Franklin could serve in perpetuity!

Maybe DeLuca identifies as living—or at least “non-dead.” Maybe, like gender, existence should be considered non-binary. One could be alive, dead, something in between (that could explain Joe Biden), both, neither, or one of an infinite number of other identities.

I don’t know if DeLuca and Fetterman winning is an all-out refutation of ableism-- or an amazing example of it. In any case, it is arguably the most remarkable feat the Democrats have yet pulled off in this election cycle, and that is saying something.

DeLuca and Fetterman join a long list of old and/or cognitively impaired Democrats, including—but not limited to—Maxine Waters, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, and the Big Guy himself, Joe Biden.

DeLuca’s triumph was a bit unusual in the sense that, historically we have seen dead people vote for living Democrat candidates, whereas, in this case, the candidate was deceased. Perhaps in the future we’ll have dead people voting for dead candidates. Maybe the votes will even be counted by those no longer with us.

Now that’s “democracy!”

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License