politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

by

Trump could be removed from office today, if Pence would actually act to uphold the oath he swore to protect this country. I’m absolutely fine with letting Pence be POTUS46 for the next two weeks, and letting Biden take up the mantle of POTUS47.

Trifecta

by

I hoped, but didn’t expect, that Georgia would come through. I am so happy to have my expectations proven wrong and my hopes realized.

NPR GA Results at 98% Reported

As I write this, Warnock has been declared the winner, and Ossoff is leading by more votes than Biden won GA’s presidential ballot by. This is momentous: GA elected a Democrat President, two Democrat Senators, and flipped one House seat blue (which GA with a 6-8 Republican majority in House seats).

Which means that, for the first time since 2011, Democrats will hold the House, Senate, and Presidency.

And Mitch McConnell will finally lose his Majority Leader position and, with it, his ability to block legislation from being passed (somewhere upwards of 400 bills passed by the House stopped at his desk).

Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth

And we need to make that count.

Democrats need to do everything they can to pass legislation that actually helps as many people as possible, to right the imbalances that have mounted over the past years, and to trumpet their successes so that we hold on to this advantage when the 2022 midterms come around.

The first two priorities that come to my mind are COVID-19 relief and expanding voting protections and accessibility, but there are many more.

There’s still a lot of work to do, of course, especially considering the number of judges that Trump has been able to seat throughout the country. But at least now, we have a good chance of actually being able to get things done.

Lots of Reason to Laugh

by

One glorious paragraph from the Intelligencer’s attempt to dig into the story behind the Four Seasons Total Landscaping debacle, Four Seasons Total Landscaping: The Full(est Possible) Story:

Whether it’s war and peace or public relations and gardening, sorting out the truth is a complicated endeavor when it relates to Donald Trump. Everyone involved in anything, no matter the size, no matter how stupid, seems to lie as a first resort, or to know very little, or to lie about knowing very little, or to know just enough to send blame in another direction, and the person in that direction seems to lie also, or to know very little, or to lie about knowing very little, but perhaps they have a theory that sends blame someplace else, and over there, too, you will find more liars, more know-nothings, and before long, a whole month will have passed, and you still haven’t filed your story about how the president’s attorney wound up undermining democracy in a parking lot off I-95 on a strip of cracked pavement in a run-down part of a city that ordinarily would command no consideration from the national political class or the very online public or the equally online mainstream media, which, when forced to look, found lots of reason to laugh.

Halfway Between the Truth and the Lie

by

Rebecca Solnit’s essay “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway” is excellent.

…the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat. Those of us who know it’s round will not recruit them through compromise. We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction.

Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s and it won’t work now. That doesn’t mean that people have to be angry or hate back or hostile, but it does mean they have to stand on principle and defend what’s under attack. There are situations in which there is no common ground worth standing on, let alone hiking over to.

by

Three cheers:

Cheers – to Kamala Harris
Cheers – to Joe Biden
Cheers – to an administration looking towards hope instead of hate

Post-Election Day Blues

by

Having a hard time this morning.

My usual optimism and hope is extremely shaky.

I keep reminding myself that several important states are still in play and that there’s still a decent (maybe even good) chance that Biden will win.

But even if he does, it’s far too close.

I keep reminding myself that many of the races are being heavily affected by gerrymandered districts, limited opportunities to vote, restrictions on when and how votes can be accepted, and other voter suppression tactics primarily concentrated in minority and Democract-leaning areas.

But even so, it’s far too close.

There are so many people in this country who are willingly voting for hate. For fear. For oppression. For racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and every other -ism and -phobia out there. Against science. Against compassion. Against care for others. Against their own best interests.

McConnell, who has made a career of doing nothing, has been elected for another six-year term. We don’t know if we’ll even be able to hold the Senate to an even split, let alone take control; if the Republicans keep control, then even if Biden wins, McConnell will continue to make sure that nothing of import makes it through. The confirmation of Barrett made it clear how fast things can move when allowed to proceed, even while hundreds of bills aimed at actually helping the American people sit ignored, because they were passed by a Democrat-controlled House, and so they aren’t worthy of consideration in McConnell’s eyes.

I just, on a very fundamental, moral, and ethical level, do not understand why so many are so willing to actively support harming themselves and others.

And it’s really hard to hold on to my usual hopeful nature right now.