#Election2020 Day Three

The election drags on. I have a massive headache. Steve King, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and Jake Tapper have become new fixtures in our living room. Normally we never watch CNN – we don’t have cable – but I’ve been streaming it pretty much nonstop since election night. Election Night! What a quaint term! More like Election Week.

I’m afraid. I’m not afraid that Joe Biden will lose – I feel pretty confident that he is going to take Nevada and Arizona and maybe Georgia and maybe Pennsylvania too. I think he will have enough to get to 270 or better. I’m worried about what The Orange One is going to do once those states are called and the math says what it says. He’s obviously not going to go gracefully into the night. He has a packed Supreme Court in his back pocket and I don’t have any faith in their independence to uphold democracy. At that point, we’re really beyond fucked. Genuine banana republic status. Someone on Twitter posted a video of John McCain conceding to Obama in 2008 and it honestly feels like it took place on a different planet.

He’s just a mad man, a wannabe despot, a wanton destroyer of norms and civil society. But he’s not doing it alone. He has enablers in the Republican Party and in the White House and all over Washington, but the real root of his success is, of course, his rabid supporters. Supporters isn’t even the right word. Followers. These people aren’t supporters of a politician. They’re followers of a deranged but charismatic charlatan. These are people who criticized Obama supporters for supposedly embracing an adoring cult of personality around the 44th President. Like…look in the goddamn mirror. All I can guess is that the very things which repel me from him, attract others to him: the machismo, the arrogance, the obstinacy, the purposeful disregard for expertise in any arena, the chauvinism. These are, apparently, the ingredients to an absolutely irresistible leader for some people. The psychology is…really something.

Thank God the Packers are playing tonight. There is no better distraction, especially when we’re up 31-3.

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What I’m Reading:

• Theoretically, several books. I currently have open Fahrenheit 451 (time for a reread), HUMANS (the newest Humans of New York coffee table book), and Red at the Bone. Have I made meaningful progress in any of them in the last…two weeks? Nah.

What I’m Watching:

• CNN.

What I’m Eating:

• A new favorite brand of ice cream called Til the Cows Come Home, flavor “Please Sir, I want S’more”. It’s fucking i n c r e d i b l e. At a Hy-Vee near you.

What I’m Writing:

• It feels like forever ago now, but I was published by Tone Madison on October 1, bitching about the Dane County GOP’s insulting and tone-deaf Abe Lincoln billboards. Yay for making a lil money, double yay for making a lil money WRITING.
• Like the new (highly minimalist) layout? I’m trying for a more professional look. Hence the blog no longer being the homepage of this website. We’ll see. I’m going to keep playing with it.