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.
I don’t pretend to be able to wipe out racism and xenophobia in my social circles, but I can call it out.
On August 20, 2024, Michelle Obama gave a fantastic speech at night two of the Democratic Convention. In it she said many poignant things, but the quotes I’m thinking about today are, “We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort [Kamala Harris’s] truth” and “for years, [Donald Trump] tried to get people to fear [Barack and me].” Those words sparked my memory.
***
I remember when the morally devoid pundits among us attacked First Lady Michelle Obama for wearing sleeveless clothing at the White House.
And I remember how they didn’t mutter a similar word of disapproval when Melania did the same damn thing.
I remember how when Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 (and only the Electoral College, I feel duty bound to remind the world) they delighted that Melania was going to “make the White House classy again.”
The reason I remember those things so clearly is because members of my extended family said them or shared them on Facebook. I was disgusted, ashamed, and appalled by the double standard and obvious racism then. But I was naive, even though I thought that impossible at my advanced age.
I understand now that racism isn’t obvious to everyone. I don’t have the will or the energy to discern what’s in every person’s heart, but I saw something today shared by a newer member of my extended family that was so viley racist and xenophobic, I can’t get it off my mind.
Like Laura Loomer’s disgusting remarks, the intent was so grossIy obvious I think even Marjorie Taylor Greene would call it out.
Which has me asking myself if I can stay silent.
I cannot.
I think some people are so isolated from others’ perspectives they don’t know when something is racist, and it’s up to others to state it for the record.
It’s hard to assign ignorance to the family member who posted the meme when malice seems to be his modus operandi, but it is entirely possible that someone I love saw it and laughed quietly in ignorance without fully comprehending the depravity of its presumptions.
So in the hopes a single witness to that “joke” is still reachable, I have to say: it is racist and xenophobic to suggest a group of people are committing crimes simply because they’re from somewhere you are not.
If racism is what you choose, that’s your burden. But know that racism and xenophobia will not be welcome or tolerated here. Ever.
I watched the presidential debate last night between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and I was not sorry. I had some reservations about exposing myself to Trump’s lies again, what with my anxiety.
But Harris’s oft-repeated line that she “knows Donald Trump’s type” was never more evident to me. She eviscerated his fragile strong-man persona without breaking a sweat.
As a rule, I think it’s a bad idea to gush over politicians. I think debates as we know them are entertaining but largely unhelpful. I think it’s immoral to let Donald Trump spew lies into a camera.
But last night I set all of that aside and basked in the public display of someone with actual authority plainly saying what needed to be said to a huge audience.
Harris provoked Trump at every turn by masterfully inviting him to repeat his favorite lies, but when she baited him with crowd size and reminded him that people left his rallies early?
That’s when I personally knew it was time to stick a fork in him. His meltdown was proportionate to his ego, and his narcissistic rage was in full swing.
When he repeated the lie about people stealing and eating pets in Ohio, I gasped and pictured his debate team throwing up into buckets as they watched in horrified anguish behind the scenes.
When Trump (who also thought WWE drama was real) argued with the moderator that the pet eating story was true because he had seen it on TV, I lifted my jaw off the floor and briefly felt embarrassed for him.
Then I remembered how I used to feel knowing (my now ex-husband) Rodney would be despised on his birthday and at Christmas. I had to remind myself I was projecting my own humanity onto a person who had chosen hate, chosen loneliness, chosen estrangement.
No one cared enough to come get Orange Pop Pop because he has prioritized his ego at the expense of everyone else decade after decade.
No one was there last night to keep Trump from desperately wandering into the spin room when the debate was over. It was one of the saddest displays of self-aggrandizing impotence I have ever witnessed, but it was absolutely avoidable.
Before cancer, I held a couple of jobs where I was praised endlessly. To this day, I believe I came off looking so great to my coworkers because I was being compared to my objectively horrible predecessors. A juxtaposition like that might be going on here too. I mean, Harris has now been endorsed by Taylor SwiftandDick Cheney.
Anyway, I’m going to practice some fancy breathing and eat some pumpkin roll while I enjoy this morning’s debate commentary and scour the internet for presidential debate memes.
My new adjustable bed platform and our new recliners came yesterday. My mom is the bomb y’all. We ate subs and watched the Kamala Harris rally coverage from the living room. It felt good to not be in bed. It also feels good to imagine Tim Walz as VP.
I think my next goal will be to save up for one of those bedside tables on wheels. Maybe I will be able to Zentangle again. I added some $10 gift cards to my wishlist and my GoFundMe is still out there too, if you’re interested in helping on that front. (I anticipate it will cost less now that I’m not doing the lung biopsy, but I can’t afford what I’ve already racked up.)
Anyway, Tim Walz as VP feels to me like a great choice, not just a good one. It’s like Harris was picking a running mate based on what would be best for the country not who would get her over 270 electoral votes. (I do feel obligated to note how immoral the Electoral College is.)
I think that puts the Harris-Walz ticket over the top in a lot of states, not just swing states. We’ll see.
God I almost enjoy talking politics again with Harris and Walz in the picture. It’ll take some time to deal with the trauma, though.
My in-kind campaign donation is a meme to help us all get her name right.
As I said yesterday when Mom, Dan, and I were watching the Philadelphia rally, Joe Biden did a really good thing for the US, and I think it’s reminding people we all have choices. I’m excited to choose something better than the government so small it could fit in my uterus.
Tim Walz is the straight-talking white male that Trump and Vance pretend to be. For those of us who are long sick of the “political outsider” bullshit, it’s glorious to see two candidates—who both know what the hell they’re doing—apply for the job, not demand we enable them to commit new crimes and atrocities while evading consequences for the ones already behind them.
I wouldn’t let an untrained mechanic under the hood of my car, and I wouldn’t vote for a candidate who needs Project 2025 to tell him what to do. And that’s not even broaching how abhorrently anti-freedom Project 2025 is.
The desire to punch down must be really real for some, but it’s not something I understand outside of a playground setting.
My favorite parts of Walz’s speech were when he made the couch joke and asked the crowd if they “saw what he did there” and when he said the Golden Rule was to “mind your own damn business.”
It doesn’t hurt that all those kids hugged his neck when he and the Democratic state Congress in Minnesota essentially said they didn’t think kids should be worrying about or distracted by hunger at school.
I’m voting for the candidates who see the way forward. Been down more than two times, Mr. Buckingham. But also never going back again.
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.
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.
