Nov 3, 2024 | Personal, Politics
To be clear: there are only a couple of days left. The election is now; it ends Tuesday.
I’m trying to remember not to hold my breath about what’s coming, but the anxiety that accompanies presidential elections in the US is not to be trifled with. So I often have to remember to breathe, as ridiculous as that sounds.*
Every time time I see the news about another Trump rally things get worse. Like him fellating a microphone in Milwaukee? What?
Now can we talk candidly about his increasingly uninhibited behavior? How ’bout now?
Can we agree that his rhetorical weaving is concerning? Sure, it’d be funny to me… if I weren’t terrified he’d sell the US to Putin for a tank with his name painted on it, some cryptocurrency, and a half a cheeseburger.
This is one of the problems for me personally and perhaps the nation politically: Donald Trump is so morally repugnant that he has made himself visually repulsive. In addition to turning the orange face and weird hairdo into a caricature of evil, now I’m revolted by the news because I have to look at his ugly face and hear his ugly voice constantly.
Eleven thousand seven hundred and EIGHTY.
Every time I say “eighty”—and that’s the year I was born, so, side note: there are a ton of triggers in a doctor’s office—I hear that phone call from 2020’s biggest, sorest loser in my head. There are things you can’t unsee, and things you can’t unhear.
I would be lying if I said I don’t wonder how much easier It would be to deal with my GAD if Trump and JD Vance were exiled.
I’m also still reeling from reading that piece in The Daily Beast where Jeffrey Epstein is reported to have said that Trump has no moral compass. I mean holy shit. If Epstein is saying that about you?
Cuckolding has (re)entered the political chat, by the way. I had to look up the definition because I couldn’t believe my ears, what with the brain tumor and being gaslit a few too many times.
But there’s the pettiness of the garbage truck thing and the McDonald’s thing too. Like, my dude, I don’t think you want to be drawing attention to the word garbage right now or showing the world you think fries are stuffed in the container by someone’s bare hands.
Trump’s claim that he’ll protect women raises more red flags for me—being promised this by a marriage counselor who did no such thing—too.
I am confident Trump will lose again, I’m less confident that he’ll acknowledge it. And that’s what makes me anxious.
* It’s not strange once you understand the fight flight and freeze response.
Oct 29, 2024 | Personal, Politics
With a week left to go until the General Election, I have to be careful about how much news I consume. Especially after the cowardly decisions of enablers like Bezos and Soon-Shiong, there’s a great deal of anxiety that comes with being disabled and navigating the political hellscape here in the United States.
I do plan to watch VP Harris’s speech at the Ellipse tonight, but I have been very diligently managinging the time I spend pondering the political. I avoid social media sites or meter my time on them. Even the one site I enjoy using most (Bluesky) is abuzz with triggering truths.
Striking that perfect balance where being informed doesn’t mean being exhausted with anger eludes me most days. And for me, anger and anxiety are inextricably linked. At least temporarily. That’s a problem for someone trying to manage her GAD.
Here’s how I see it: Republicans didn’t do shit until it was way too late, and that is rage-inducing.
If I’m frank, their belated arrival to the table of empathetic humanity reads to me like they’re only now moved by the realization too few voters prefer what they’re selling.
And for a bunch of Unfetter-the-Capitalism! types? Well. Doesn’t seem like they understand the marketplace of political jobs, now does it?
Too bad the words ‘conservative’ and ‘Republican’ are soggy after steeping in that basket of deplorability for so long.
Anyway, I saw a link to this Flux article on Substack where a conservative talking head got booted from CNN for being too racist:
“The sheer difficulty in identifying qualified, respectful conservative voices without ties to extremism was astonishing.”
Conservatives of conscience* relinquished a decades-long commitment to bad economic policy (trickle down is the best idea they’ve had) for an openly racist and misogynistic platform that’s now synonymous with the word ‘Republican.’ From my vantage point, the assholes thought they were God’s gift to the American flag.
The spectacle at Madison Square Garden Sunday shocked some, but for plenty of us it would have been more shocking to see Trump’s campaign acknowledge its use of unforgivable rhetoric.
I expect a rebrand of Republican conservatism as some of them realize this is a stink that will live in our collective scent memory for at least four score and seven years hence.
I don’t feel up to the task of assessing whether these blatantly racist tactics are more helpful in the long-term because they’re undeniable or more harmful because they’re shouted unapologetically to the masses. They are vile, regardless. And writing that out loud feels important in the wake of ballot box fires, disenfranchising bullshit from NC’s Freedom Caucus Chair, and whatnot.
Whoever wins, I’m sure that violence is imminent. The kids who didn’t get presents on their sibling’s birthday and had violent meltdowns are all grown up, and they are miltant fascists now. I want to believe we can elect Kamala Harris and deliver sweeping majorities of sincere public servants to Congress, but I am low on hope.
When hope is low, I take refuge in action.
* I’m told they exist.
Jul 22, 2024 | Politics
You know me, I can’t not post about Joe Biden withdrawing his nomination and endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
This whole election cycle has been a shitshow, but this is the most coordinated I’ve seen the Democrats look in, well, ever. And I am enthusiastic about that. Very much so.
I will never fawn over a candidate, because they all have to be human and whatnot. However, I believe a couple of things about Joe Biden: 1.) He acts in good faith, and 2.) He genuinely cares what happens to Americans.
I don’t want to be misunderstood. When it comes to his dealings with Netanyahu, for example, I’m appalled.
I also have to admit, though, that there are foreign policy issues that are much more complicated for him than they are for me. And so while I think he’s wrong, I don’t think he’s self-serving in his wrongness.
He abdicated yesterday, not because he was tired of serving us peasants and wanted to golf, but because he was asked to step aside and understood his oath.
In leaving the race, he’s pushing the reset button on our government. Not entirely unlike George Washington did when he got this whole peaceful transfer of power thing rolling—in the interest of something bigger.
And I’ll stop there. This is not a founding fathers stan account.
The show of unity from Democrats endorsing Harris and the $50M grassroots donations in the wake of my shock? It calmed and quieted my anxiety in the midst of upheaval. (Something frequent readers know is no easy task.)
That all of this comes in the wake of the RNC’s unserious, unnerving spectacle of a convention makes it so much sweeter. Anyone can call for unity, but it’s pretty clear who says “unity” when they’re actually demanding everyone fall in line. And it’s pretty clear who is actually trying to make unity happen.
Not everyone is happy about the idea of Harris becoming president. I have my own (relatively slight, considering) misgivings about her. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The way I see it, if I don’t have issues with a candidate, I might as well tape a sanitary napkin to my ear.
Anyway, I could turn this into something way longer than you want to read and way longer than I want to write. But I actually don’t want to turn this into a whole-ass US election cycle. I’ll just finish with this for now:
I think we’re better off than we were four years ago; I think we’re better off than we were four days ago, and I’m looking forward to the next presidential debate.
