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.
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.
When I finally rid myself of my ex-husband (“Rodney” if you’re a WYGB fan) it’s because I let that shit go. I accepted that he would never admit he was wrong, that I would never recoup the attorney fees it took to get his ass out of my house, and that he would continue to lie about me being a “deadbeat” to anyone who would listen.
His bullshit didn’t matter, any of it. Because what he saw as the truth was so easily disproven. His lies were meant to protect his ego. And though they caused real harm to people in his orbit, the collateral damage would never mean more to him than his own opinion of himself. Eventually I accepted that the truth didn’t require Rodney’s approval, and I just let go.
But if 12 people had unanimously agreed on the record thirty-four times that I was right about Rodney? I wouldn’t have hated it.
With the latest verdict in a Trump trial just a few hours old, there are already people hedging. Cautioning others to stifle their joy. Doubting whether or not Trump will go to jail. But if meditation has taught me anything, it’s taught me to be fully present in THIS moment. Right now.
I’m not gloating, exactly. But it’s a hell of a comfort knowing even people who sometimes get news from FOX are capable of acknowledging the truth under pressure.
Also? Truth on the record does more for me, personally, than whatever sentencing awaits. Turning the light on Trump’s scattering cockroaches is Trump’s private hell. You can tell by how vehemently he disparages everyone who flips the switch to ON.
You can also compare Trump to your own Rodney, if you’ve ever dealt with one.
I once said that Rodney was Trump with less money and political clout. Nothing I’ve seen to date has given me a reason to change my estimation. They’re liars with the frailest egos and the feeblest self-awareness.
Anyway, if you’re invested in this outcome, and you likely are if you read my blog, know that your racist uncle isn’t mad because he thinks Trump didn’t commit a crime. (Most of the ones he committed this century have been recorded.) Your uncle’s mad because he thinks Trump should be allowed to commit crimes.
My advice: I know it’s disturbingly hard to watch villains evade justice, but if you let that part of this MAGA saga go, you can more fully appreciate the present moment. It’s a big deal, what’s happened. It’s solidarity and validation not everyone lives to see. Maybe don’t let that shit go.
