The horror; the horror.
After a restless sleep, after a 4:59 am checking of the headlines, I keep hearing dying words of Kurtz from The Heart of Darkness. I am feeling the despair which comes from the realization that the civilized shell of human behavior is just that – a shell, which thinly and ineffectively cloaks our capacity for barbarism.
Anguished thoughts, racing through my brain. I am filled with rage…and also, with nothing. Hollow, and numb. Is this what being in shock feels like?
Tuesday night I went to bed, determined not to check the election results (and believing that it might take days for the final counts to be tallied). One of the meditation apps I have on my phone is called Calm, which moiself needed more than ever this morning. But it’s gonna take way more than an app to fix my feelings of isolation and dread, and visceral disgust with so many of my… I can’t bear to use the word “fellow”… Americans.
Too many Americans were willing to put aside any notions of personal integrity; Americans who, by their vote, condoned a candidate’s vile and bizarre behavior and hate-filled, despotic rhetoric; behavior and rhetoric which they would not tolerate from friends, family, and coworkers – indeed, they’d likely report it to the police or a psychiatric institution or both. And for what reasons? What justifies making a literal deal with the devil? Because they think it may benefit them personally, as in, financially? Or is it the puerile, stick-it-to-“the man”/to the status quo? [1]
There are no good answers to these questions.
I don’t know which is worse, hating the motivations of so many other Americans, or hating the fact that I am filled with loathing for so many other Americans.
I am trying to remember, as MH is reminding his distraught wife and daughter, [2] that the blue and red electoral maps do not accurately represent the votes. The winner-take-all, electoral college debacle is one of the U.S. constitution’s (relatively) few but most pernicious evils. [3]
My immediate circle is composed of rational, intelligent, long-term thinking, compassionate people. I despair venturing out of this circle. What do I say to those others? How do I pretend not to seethe? How do I handle the lip-curling revulsion that makes me want to spew, You did this ?!?!?!?!?????? [4]
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Here is what I was going to write, earlier this week, when I thought we might not have the election results before my blog publication deadline: [5]
Department Of Waiting For The You-Know-What Results
Sub Department Of If The Cheetos Mussolini Wins We Are All Fucked
We, all of us. Even, and especially, those who think that their guy “won.”
Since as of this writing we don’t know the outcome for certain, here is a bit o’ my fears, if it comes to pass, of why Harris lost:
Dateline: 10-25, watching the first game of the Dodgers-Yankees World Series. A MAGA ad came on between innings, the ad showing an edited interview between Harris and…(?), with Harris explaining an answer re whether a prisoner could have sex change/affirming surgery, which would of course be at taxpayer expense, if performed while they were imprisoned (Harris seemed to be fumbling – I have no idea of the context of the interview, and of course it was edited by and for the MAGA ad – but she answered yes.) The ad’s voiceover went on to say how Harris
“…is for they/them, while tR___ is for *you.*
I loathe the use of wedge issues and exploitation of those on the lower end of the power totem to provoke the fear response. I despise the fact that such tactics are often effective, which is why the ethically-deficient Right uses them. And as I watched that ad, thinking of the wide audience it was playing to, I thought to moiself, re the election: if Harris (and therefore the USA) [6] loses, it will be because of things like this.
Things as in, not necessarily that particular issue, but because too many of my well-meaning liberal brethren and sisterthren have shot themselves in the foot with their psychological tone-deafness…and Those People ® who feel lectured to and put upon are exacting some kind of social revenge.
It’s the only theory moiself can think of to explain (not to excuse – there is no excuse for voting such an openly vile and dangerous, totalitarian-doctrine-proclaiming creature into office) the behavior of someone who would vote for such a man. Yes of course, it is a poor reflection upon human motivation and behavior, ( Here’s your machete, cut off your nose/spite your face ) but pay attention: there it is.
How many times have people (usually but not always from the lower economic and education strata) felt silenced or intimidated because they didn’t toe the “progressive” political and cultural lines? Maybe they have questions on certain social issues; maybe there are things they just don’t understand and therefore, instinctively, tend to fear.
Maybe they don’t actually *hate* people of different genders and sexual orientations and ethnicities and religions and social classes and political opinions. But that’s what they get labeled as ( haters; ____ -phobics ), and then they don’t feel as if they can even voice their questions and concerns in certain situations and when speaking with certain people, because if they don’t use the *correct* terminology of the moment, the focus will be on *how* they asked their questions/offered their opinions, rather than on the content of those questions and opinions. They will be shamed and lectured to if they “misgender” or “dead-name” or “mis-pronoun;” they will be condescended to and corrected when they reference a person’s “race” or ethnicity and use the terms black and white instead of Black and White, or Latino/Latina instead of Latinx…. [7]
And if the actions and attitudes of aggressive Lefties pushes some centrists or moderates more to the Right, then those Lefties dismiss the migration with their purity-testing mantra: “Well, it’s no loss, they weren’t really allies in the first place.”
Sadly, as our species has proven time and time again, humans are petty enough to have things like that serve as motivation: Yeah, it’s possible that, maybe, ultimately, I will be voting against my own self-interest, but that is then…and this is NOW, and watching those self-righteous liberals squirm in the NOW will be worth it.
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [8]
* * *
May you call your allies in, and not out;
May you join me in hoping that Melania takes poisoning tips from Putin
nature takes care of this before Inauguration Day;
May…oh, what the bucket of slimy, festering herring farts do I know?
May we all, somehow, hang on….
…and, some day, may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Daughter Belle notes that a large amount of people in her age group refused to vote for Harris, “…because both her and Biden have been refusing to stop assisting/arming Israel, let alone acknowledge that they are actively committing genocide in Gaza.” She also speculates that which I have heard from/about other young(er) people, that they have no faith in the Democratic party, as they anticipate that the Democratic leadership is going to look at this and think that they need to swing even further center/right to win votes from the Republican side, when one of the big the reasons Dems are losing is because they’re swinging center and leftists are rightfully losing faith in them and either refusing to vote, or protest voting for ridiculous 3rd parties.
[2] Commiserating on our family chat site; we have yet to hear from son K, whom I imagine is as angry and confused as the rest of us.
[3] And, more happy news, here is someisappointing historical information about Senator Joe Biden’s complicity in this http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/the-unpopular-vote/
[4] No footnote here, except to pause to utter the kind of curses that would knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.
[5] There will be no Friday blog post this week. Because…This.
[6] And the rest of the world – no one wins when a hateful, megalomaniacal, racist and sexist ignoramus holds power.
[7] Despite the fact that the majority of Latinos do *not* use Latinx, and are even bothered and/or offended by that label of generalization.
[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
