I am typing this right now with my son's security blanket on my lap (he has two others, don't worry) because the anxiety is really getting to me. I've tried everything else, so this seemed worth a shot. The trauma of reliving the insanity of 2016 is crushing. I could really use some reassurance right about now. The gloating after Comey/Russia/GOP voter suppression/media complicity in sinking Hillary's campaign over fucking emails was unbearable. All the Jill Stein voters and other spoilers either slinking away without apologizing or proudly proclaiming they would fuck us all over again given a chance because "something, something, Hillary is worse" still echoes in my ears.
And eight trillion dollars of new national debt, thousands of laws broken, tens of thousands of lies told, three stolen supreme court seats, millions without health care or jobs, closing in on a quarter of million dead from a virus that could have been controlled later they are still silent. Maybe some of the Holier-than-thou leftists have learned their lesson, maybe a new generation of young people have been become politically aware and progressive, maybe a large number of white suburban women finally figured out that mindlessly voting as their husbands told them to is actually harming them.
It could all continue. I have dwelled on this Tweet for what feels like a month now:
the election is openly being discussed like a point spread in sports betting, like Biden doesn’t really win unless he wins by at least ___ otherwise the courts or whoever will just rule that he actually lost. It’s healthy to have separate thresholds for victory for the parties!
— Mass for Shut-ins (is a podcast) (@edburmila) October 29, 2020
And then the pre-gloating from people like Robert Cahaly of a partisan hack polling group called Trafalgar gets a platform in Politico to claim that people are lying en masse to pollsters, inventing a new "silent majority" level object of fascination called "shy" trump supporters. In essence, this guy tries to make money by guessing how people lie and making up a story to support his agenda.
I believe [shy voters] was prevalent. In 2016, the worst being said about Trump voters is that they were “deplorable.” 2020 is a whole different ballgame. It is worse this time—significantly worse. This year had more things where you can get punished for expressing an opinion outside the mainstream than almost any year I can think of in modern history.
I’m finding that people are very hesitant [to share their preference for Trump], because now it’s not just being called “deplorable.” It’s people getting beat up for wearing the wrong hat, people getting harassed for having a sticker on their car. People just do not want to say anything.
Where are these awful things happening Cahaly? Meanwhile republican CoD cosplayers walk around brandishing guns at political events all the time. I believe he just got lucky, there were so many variables in 2016 that had everything to do with fragmentation on the left and the racist, sexist lather republicans had worked themselves into. How many shy Democrats in red communities are there Cahaly? Do they get any weight? In the red, red town I used to live in republicans would drop threatening, anonymous notes in your mailbox if they suspected you of being a Democrat. That's a bit different than "the one guy I know who hates trump squints his eyes at the other trump voting houses". Lots of people commented how Trafalgar is setting this up to make it look like doughfacedonny is ahead in battleground states so that the republicans can challenge any results they don't like and get their hand-picked partisan judges to rule in their favor. But God, I don't even want to voice an opinion lest I jinx us all. But it is horrid to contemplate that we have to play everything exactly perfect and if we make one mistake BAM the cell door of authoritarianism can close on us.
I want to throw out a couple thoughts on the electorate. The holier-than-thou leftist tendency has to be diminished now that Hillary isn't around to kick anymore. NBC News reports that third party spoilers are probably a rounding error this year. What have been the demographic changes in the electorate since 2016? More republican seniors have probably died than have been sprouted, boomer republicans have been dying off in droves to "diseases of despair" and the young people becoming politically active have got to be several magnitudes more Democratic than republican. That doesn't even factor in COVID.
It is well established that fear of death or danger causes a breakdown of higher, enlightened brain function and causes people to activate their "fight or flight" response. In other words, fear makes people more authoritarian. But how is that affecting their attitudes towards the authoritarian this time when he is the cause of so many people suffering and dying? I for one have always had a rather healthy level of fear that republicans could, through malice or incompetence, really hurt my life personally. How many others have now awakened to that reality? A missing piece for the "dormant and low-propensity voters" that Cahaly seems to think [wrongly] are a hidden army of trump voters, has been that "AHA" moment when they realize that government is not some remote, magic thing way over there and not any part of my life. Education may not be the silver bullet many neoliberals believe it to be, but for almost a quarter of a century now fox news has been programming those gullible non-voters into machines that would crawl over broken glass to vote against their interests out of fear. The only dormant voters out there have avoided becoming fox news zombies thus far, are they suddenly going to spring into action for a reality teevee star with a now four year solid record of bullying, wonton cruelty, easily provable lying and inaction while people all around them are losing jobs and healthcare in the middle of a pandemic.
This is a long-winded way of saying: sixty two million and change republicans turned out to vote for doughfacedonny four years ago, the probability that that number has increased is very low. And yet, here we are; here I am, on the edge of my seat that the horrid possibility that he could somehow win again. Is there anything that could calm my nerves?
Thank goodness for this blanket... and beer. Halloween is tomorrow but the scariest days are yet to come.
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