The truth of the words “nobody knows what tomorrow might bring” rings in my ears, today.
They ring from generational trauma, and from knowledge of how America coddled Authoritarianism — which taught Nazis foul lessons.
They ring from media that I could not dream of as a child, forcing rich views into our cultural space in ways that mock Musk’s intentions.
They ring from watching so many join hands, fighting waves of brutal backlash with humor and joy and a searing intensity that only The Truth supports.
They ring because Today? Is far more wondrous than I expected, and far more terrible, than I could have imagined as a child.
And yes, that ringing means I am afraid for tomorrow, as many of us are. Yet I shall bear it, both to see that Future, and to help others, along the way.
So I ask you to Hold Fast here, and everywhere you can, everyone.
Hold onto those who have suffered in these times, those targeted in these times.
They need us. And we, need them.
We don’t know Tomorrow. But we can fight for the best Tomorrow, and reduce harm for those who need it Today.
Hold fast.
phdesmond
here’s a quote from last night’s email by Heather Cox Richardson:
2liberal
Nice work. Good morning and wishing the best to all the Dems standing for election today.
MisterDancer
Because I’m using an idiom:
hold/stand fast
idiom
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
In line and waiting.
It’s ALWAYS an honor.
It’s ALWAYS crucial.
I hope enough people believe that and act accordingly.
MisterDancer
@phdesmond: My Parents helped rip out the beating heart of American One-Party rule.
You think I’m cowed by Russian Interference after they’ve done shown their whole asses on a real battlefield? Screw that!
GO VOTE.
satby
Good morning! Will not be on here the rest of the day for personal reasons so everyone remember that today doesn’t end anything, it’s one battle in a continued quest for justice.
EarthWindFire
Beautiful. No matter what happens today, and the days after, we hold hands, stick together, and live to fight another day.
BruceFromOhio
MrsFromOhio and I just returned from voting. Turnout is high and very orderly in our fascist enclave, and Dems have been burning up our phones, our landline, and for the first time in a long time, left an excellent door hanger.
We pinky-swore a media blackout until Thursday. I was pleased to see the cable and local channels all championing election coverage, even the business crews (CNBC, Bloomberg). It will be interesting to see how any shenanigans are covered.
MazeDancer
Believe no rumors. Know nothing until it is known.
Also, listen to experts.
Here are two Twitter Lists of experts who will all be doing their best to shine on their Super Bowl day. Some overlap, but some supplemental.
Numbers People from Josh Marshall Link
Good Numbers from me Link
RedDirtGirl
Wise words. Thank you…
MisterDancer
From one Dancer to another — words to live by!
BruceFromOhio
@phdesmond:
I see little JD Vance and Dr Oz faces on the kidneys. Kari Lake is definitely the liver.
sab
Well, we are going off to vote at 9am.
Interesting thing I noticed about voting locations recently. We have been voting at my church for about ten years. Two of my stepkids live near that church. For one of them it is within easy walking distance. But they both have to drive by that church to vote in another church a couple of miles away. And the church they vote at is closer to my house than the church I vote at.
Meaning all of our polling places are located so that we have to drive to them, while there are closer polling places that we are not assigned to.
Amir Khalid
Another member of rhe Harry Potter cast has passed away: Leslie Phillips, the voice of the Sorting Hat, was 98. RIP.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
This is one of those days when I’m glad I’m 7 hours ahead of Eastern time. On the one hand, I’ll be dreading waking up tomorrow morning to read the headlines, but on the other hand, I’ll (probably) be sleeping like the dead while the pundits and politicos are going nuts tonight.
Chris Johnson
@phdesmond: Yup. When they tell you what they are, believe them… and the interesting thing is, when they were doing this and were NOT peacocking about it with rising suspicion and awareness of what they were doing, they elected a President rather than just using their guy to groom domestic terrorism.
Same guys, exactly the same plan, but the difference is now we know.
This just means ‘we’re gonna get blown out electorally and use our spin on that reality to groom terrorists so that the US becomes as close to ungovernable as we can make it, and we’re going to use our people everywhere we can to CLAIM that the US is ungovernable and hopelessly lost’.
Bear that in mind as you read comments even on Balloon Juice. Their spin is everywhere, but that is truly nothing new.
Amir Khalid
@phdesmond:
This has to become the subject of a major investigation by the FBI.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@satby:
Hey satby 🙏🏽🙏🏽
Redshift
Strong turnout in the opening hour in my precinct in Northern Virginia!
It’s the bluest congressional district in Virginia, so the outcome was never really in doubt, but I feel it’s a good sign that even knowing that, people are motivated to come out.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
98 is a very good run
RIP 🙏🏽😢
Baud
Uncertain times are the price we pay for being liberal.
Kay
My youngest voted twice now so he’s well on his way to a voting habit. A lot of it is habit- if you can get young people to vote a couple in a row they’ll be “voters”.
Baud
@Kay:
Vote early and often.
hells littlest angel
I predict that today will be a day of joy. Or a day of sorrow. Or possibly somewhere in between. And I’m willing to bet money on it. Any takers?
Starfish
The election day mess is happening.
Due to some Republican lawsuit, 3500 mail-in ballots have been thrown out in Philadelphia and have to be fixed by the voters.
Twitter suspended a League of Women Voters executive on the eve of the election, but apparently they fixed that mess.
Kay
@Baud:
His GF voted too- her first. She’s a Wisconsin voter. I took them to breakfast and I raised whether they had voted or not and then said “I won’t tell you how to vote”.
With a straight face I repeat this bullshit.
Baud
@Kay:
I will, however, cut you out of the will.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
In my exurban hellhole, they’ve consolidated precincts and the lines are running out the door. Courageous, hard working paper shufflers in pristine commuter pickups and giant SUVs are out in droves. One guy walked through in a TFG shirt and there was just a noisy set of cheers from old white assholes that I shouted down because it’s bloody illegal to engage in partisan crap in line.
Geminid
@phdesmond: Prigozhin’s boasts about election tampering were the second item on the CBS hourly radio news last evening.
kalakal
Well said MisterDancer. Whatever happens today,( and I’m quietly optimistic ) today is not the end. We hold fast, we support one another, and we will win.
Heading off to work in a couple of hours. Part of the library is a polling station, hoping to see a long, long queue.
@Amir Khalid: Oh that’s sad, I’ve had a soft spot for Leslie Phillips since forever. He made me laugh for decades. RIP and thanks
Wanderer
Voted as soon as polls opened. There were a lot of people there and already a short line was forming. I am hopeful today.
Leto
For all our Pennsylvania Juicers: Pennsylvania voters scramble to cast new ballots after GOP lawsuit
Essentially if you didn’t sign or date the second outside envelope, Republicans have successfully blocked that vote. People have been left scrambling to get to their election office to cast a vote, and not all counties are notifying people. I know most of us are fastidious in completing all required fields, but this information needs to get out just in case.
Kay
@Baud:
I was interested in his gf. She’s very self possessed for 18. I can’t seem to finagle any info out of her. She’s a liberal though-I got that much. I think she’s actually moved him Right to “liberal”- when he met her he was saying he was a Marxist. He doesn’t say that anymore, maybe because it was boring and harauging though – he’s socially adept.
oatler
Colbert plans to go live this evening and his writers are probably preparing two separate monologues. If we lose, as with the 2016 election, his anger will be palpable and sincere.
Fair Economist
From Twitter:
sab
I am going to take Dorothy Winsor’s advice and start on a big puzzle this evening.
Kay
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Ohio consolidated precincts too. I think it was a mistake. It’s not more efficient as far as I could tell working polls last cycle. I think the big, noisy spaces probably add to error rates.
Leto
@sab: I have a dental appointment in an hour, then back to school until 1930 tonight, followed by a 45 min drive home. Basically by the time I get home I don’t have the energy to do much so it’s a perfect time to call it an early night and see what tomorrow brings.
Spanky
@Amir Khalid: First, his statement in itself is part of the election tampering. Second, there’s a high probability that he’s
exageratinglying. Third, the intel services are very aware of his little internet shoppe.But really, we’re already aware of bots’n’trolls, and Fox “News”, and candidates/officials who are Russian assets. They’ve exploited the very openness that characterized American democracy. Free speech is being used against Democracy. Do we rein in free speech or change our democratic process?
Matt McIrvin
@Chris Johnson: There’s a part of me that gets frustrated that WE don’t get to play destructive games. The other side keeps winning because they lie, they cheat, they spread insane conspiracy theories, it’s somehow OK for them to use actual terrorism and openly antidemocratic maneuvers, everything gets retroactively hallowed by the Founding Fathers; but we can’t do any of those things or it’ll reflect badly on us. It’s not our brand.
And there’s a dark thing in me that says, when do WE get to do that? When can we be the scary bugfuck ones? But we can’t.
I think part of it is that I’m thinking “I’m scared of them and they’re not scared of us at all!”
But then I think about it some more and I realize that the American right, at least, is actually scared all the time–we terrify them in dozens of ways, with threats to every long-running injustice they’re skating on.
I don’t know. I think there’s this fundamental cycle that happens, in which the right always wins in a fight on equal ground because there are all these evil tactics they can use and we can’t, but then they take power and they eventually lose because they’re just bad at governing, everything goes to pieces and it hurts people. But nobody learns the lessons and it repeats over and over again.
And the more they erode democracy, the harder and nastier that second step gets. At some point maybe it’ll take more than an election.
Kay
We have a renewal of a city income tax on the ballot and you-all would laugh at the newspaper ads for it in this dark Red area of the country- it’s a liberal argument. “Quality of life, the future of our city, funds essential city services”
I voted for it but the Trumpers plan to take it out. Because they suck and are bad for quality of life. Oh well. I tried.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree completely. The big difference isn’t the amount of fear. The difference is that the right has a tunnel vision with regard to their fear. We are collectively more distracted.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Been in and out for awhile…
Where did youngest decide to go to school?
Spanky
@Baud: One of their biggest fears is fear of being laughed at.
Brittle little people.
artem1s
Interesting observation about my polling place this morning. The local organizers (probably the city precinct captains) have turned out volunteers to hand out non-partisan voting rights literature (League of Women Voters flyers) at the polling sites. I didn’t notice until I drove past several on my way to work – but they are all women (mostly older white women). And they were all wearing purple volunteer t-shirts. I haven’t seen this many pro-Roe volunteers at the polls since the mid-90’s. WRUW FM – the college radio station out of Case Western Reserve University was playing old and new Neal and CSNY protest songs. Yes, it’s very, very blue Cleveland – but ♫ something happening here ♫ …
phdesmond
@Geminid:
the second item on the news? then it’s not going unnoticed. good.
jonas
@Geminid: The Russians used to play coy with the election interference stuff. While I don’t doubt that they’re still trying to fuck around with various aspects of the election, I also don’t doubt that the FBI and US Cyber Command are all over them. Prigozhin’s just trying to distract from the fact that the actual liver and kidneys are those of his soldiers strewn across the battlefields of Ukraine.
Baud
@Spanky:
That’s not ideological. Almost all people hate being laughed at. Again, the difference is how the right react to it. They feel entitled to engage in behaviors that most of us would reject.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Took 40 minutes. Observing the crowd, I saw them as the type of people who excused William Calley.
John S.
Dropped of my ballot here in WA last night (for the first time) and there was a line of cars for the ballot box — and no armed idiots in the parking lot.
I hope Patty Murray and Kim Schrier (especially) win, because Tiffany Smiley and Matt Larkin (especially) would be a fucking disaster in Congress.
artem1s
They are also perpetually pessimistic about everything – even what they consider their wins. Maybe it’s the constant barrage of rightwingnut hate talk radio or just what hate does to you after so long. But they can’t take any joy in anything. Even simple non-political stuff gets ground thru a grist mill of glass-almost-empty and someone is going to come and steal that away from me too.
As many of us have observed in the past the only thing that looks like joy for them is the delight they express when someone else gets hurt – short lived and fleeting as it may be.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Prigozhin has already been indicted once, by the Mueller team, for the 2016 activities of the St. Petersburg troll farm he helped set up. If Prigozhin’s brag is true, he’ll likely be indicted a second time.
Unless he gets rubbed out first. Prigozhin is building his power base in Russia and may step on the wrong toes in the process.
zhena gogolia
@phdesmond: He’s a bullshit artist of the first water.
Kay
@rikyrah:
MSU. He wanted to get out of Ohio. He got in with money for computer science but my oldest son works in the industry and is advising him on a broader track. My oldest sort of made up his own track and he’s been successful in that industry. I was afraid MSU would ding him for not immediately majoring in comp science – to me that was the deal- but they haven’t. I myself was a commuter student and it was a long fucking time ago so I’m always nervous these slick admissions people will rip off my kids :)
I don’t really know what the plan is. At this point he’s exceeded what I know about so I’m handing him off to his brother.
zhena gogolia
@MisterDancer: Thanks for the inspirational message!
zhena gogolia
@MisterDancer: Аминь, аминь
Brachiator
As expected, a lot of rain in Los Angeles County. But at least one million votes have already been cast, including mine.
I won’t be looking at results until Wednesday morning.
Kay
I think we’ll have at least one contested Senate race where the Trump nutters will declare victory under some insane theory, so that should bring Democrats together and out of any slump they’re in if we do poorly.
Ken
As I recall from “Fifty Nifty United States”, the “M” section is the longest.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Uncertain times are the price we pay for living.
bjacques
I sent in my expat’s vote 2 weeks ago, which is a shame, because (1) I can only vote for my nominal Congressional challenger in Houston Red Suburbia, while a fellow Texpat (from 1980s band The Haskells) living in France got a complete ballot, and (2) I’m actually *here* and could have actually walked up and voted in person, if I were registered here.
Welp, my contribution this cycle has mostly consisted of repeatedly talking friends and family off the ledge and fending off bullshit on Facebook, so here’s hoping it helped in the aggregate, and there’s an election night party with open bar and taco trucks at the office of a big Democratic lawyer here. Jet lag permitting, I plan to enjoy myself however the picture develops.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: These days, moving from “Marxist” to liberal isn’t even necessarily a move to the right.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I thought he might go to law school for a minute or two- freshman year one of his advisors told him he would be good at it and he would be good at it. I think he’s too social to toil away alone as an engineer like my eldest does. Happily alone- he hates everyone. But alas. None of them want to be lawyers. My daughter, hysterically, said “ewww, NO” when I carefully raised it to her :)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Heh.
SiubhanDuinne
@sab:
I started one yesterday afternoon — an image of 60 or 70 classic book covers of Agatha Christie novels. Got all the edges in place (except, of course, for the inevitable “OMG THERE’S A PIECE MISSING!!”) and and assembled quite a few small middle bits but with nothing, so far, to anchor them to. It’s already proving to be a nice distraction from the stomach-lurching emotions of the days ahead.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s very soothing
Starfish
@Kay: Because the systems that are being worked on are complex, programming can be a lot less solitary than it was. My job is to do my work and also make people talk to each other to figure out what is going on.
phdesmond
@zhena gogolia: that’s the sound of Prigozhin’s cackling, as he rubs his hands?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: In my day we had real Communists–they don’t make ’em like they used to.
Another Scott
@satby: +1
We have to fight them every single day. There will be victories, but the task is never finished.
Beautiful day here in NoVA.
Thanks satby and MisterDancer. Hang in there everyone.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
He was just really young and basically repeating what he read on the internet, but not everyone is as forgiving of that as his mom and he probably got some pushback on it when he got out in the world. I think to a certain extent it had to do with attending a very conservative public high school. He didn’t have to say he was a liberal or (worse) a Democrat, he could be “a Marxist”. It’s like how Republicans insist they are “libertarians” in liberal spaces :)
He’ll figure it out.
NotMax
@Kay
Speaking of lawyers —
The greatest brief ever filed.
:)
Fake Irishman
Well said, Mr. Dancer. The work goes on. The Dream never dies.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you, MisterDancer – your post was the first thing I read today. Amen to everything you wrote.
I grew up with the Weavers, and Pete Seeger: “Keep your hand on the plow, hold on.” So may it be.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Denver makes it easy. Dropped of our ballets at the drop box at the Nature and Science Museum last night.
Although we’re blue, there’s plenty of local stuff to sweat. One of the yimby groups is trying to con people into paying for our sidewalks via increased owner fees that, by design, target longtime owners, usually POC, with limited incomes. Sidewalks won’t be completed for 80 years but the real, near-term goal would be met: increased economic pressure on owners with fixed incomes to sell out.
Another Scott
@Kay: A friend in grad school took the LSAT on a lark and did very well and decided that maybe it was a better path. Another friend was a PhD EE researcher who decided that 10 years of it was enough and that she really wanted to do elder care law. She’s a rising star, clerking for some federal judge in PA.
Law seems to be one of those fields that you can enter later and do well. Don’t give up on them!!
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
They are afraid of everything and everyone. They’re afraid of the past, they are afraid of the future, they are afraid of immigrants, they are afraid of the blacks, they are afraid of Hispanics, they are afraid of the gay, they are afraid of the trans, they are afraid of the Muslims, they are afraid of the Hindus, basically they are afraid of any religion not defined by Jesus and even some of the ones that are, they are afraid of atheists, some are so terrified they don’t dare leave their house without a gun.
Kay
@Starfish:
Oh, good to know. I trust my oldest son to advise him on that industry. Youngest would be miserable working alone. In high school it would start with “I’m going to Taco Bell” and he would end up bringing 11 people into it.
I thought he might be a good teacher but he did tutoring work in a Michigan public school and they hurt his feelings. The 4 thru 6 grade boys were mean to him. He didn’t re-up this year.
kalakal
I missed the eclipse this morning as it was clouded over. Here’s what it’s like if you have the good fortune to be in the perfect spot
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221107.html
Frankensteinbeck
@artem1s:
They enjoy being angry. Why do you think they say Trump rallies are a fun, happy space?
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
My mother, stepfather, and maternal grandfather were all lawyers. None of my siblings or step-siblings are lawyers, nor are any of my cousins on that side, nor am I. 0-for-9. :-)
RaflW
@Spanky: I tend to think their biggest fear is that they’ll get treated by the gay /Black /trans /bi /Asian /prochoice /women /Latino /etc coalition all the horrible ways they know they want to treat us.
But of course our worldview doesn’t mete out suffering, or punish difference they way theirs does.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: STL city has one particular mega rich real estate baron whose name escapes me just now who has been trying for years to get the city’s earned income tax* repealed. He’s spent millions over several elections on this bugaboo. But STL city residents like the idea of people who fled to the county in the 60s &70s but work in the city contributing to the city’s well being and county folks can’t vote on it. Sucks to be them.
*it is a tax on all who live or work in the city, the county folks hate it.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m surprised the MO legislature hasn’t done him a solid and stepped in.
kalakal
@OzarkHillbilly: I have to laugh when I hear so many of them idealizing the ’50s and how everything was so much better. They were fucking terrified then, completely paranoid about threats internal and external. A decade encapsulated by Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Baud
@RaflW:
Generally true, but there will be outliers. And the right treats liberal outliers as the heart of the party.
O. Felix Culpa
Greetings from the UNM campus polling place! Doors opened 14 minutes ago and we had a nice little rush. I love the smell of democracy in the morning.
(I’m working as a D poll watcher. All is copacetic so far.)
NotMax
Wowzers. Just got a 1016 error page when refreshing.
rikyrah
Rachel Janfaza (@racheljanfaza) tweeted at 11:48 AM on Mon, Nov 07, 2022:
You can register to vote on Election Day in the following states: CA, CO, CT, HI, IA, ID, IL, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NH, NM, NV, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WY + Washington, D.C. (and ND does not require voter reg)
(https://twitter.com/racheljanfaza/status/1589676076393172994?s=02)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Ken: Pretty sure the M in this case is Michigan, as in Michigan State. I made the opposite move for undergrad. Grew up in Grand Rapids and wanted to go somewhere else. Could have been somewhere else in Michigan but I wound upin exotic Ohio, at Wittenberg University. Ohio seemed to have a lot more small liberal arts colleges which is what sounded best to me.
The other schools were UM (accepted but it was too big) and then a couple other OH and Carleton and McAllister in the Minneapolis area. At the time the music scene there was legendary but I didn’t realize quite how far from home that was until it was time to decide where to go. Wanted to be far enough away that my parents wouldn’t drop by unannounced but close enough that it wasn’t too major of a slog to get home if necessary.
kalakal
@RaflW: Couldn’t agree more. They cannot understand that not everybody thinks like they do. Anyone who doesn’t act like them can only be doing for evil reasons rather than from ethical or moral convictions. Do unto others as thou wouldst be done by is replaced by Do unto others by for they do it to you.
An entire worldview based on getting their retaliation in first
jnfr
Our votes were dropped off and accepted almost two weeks ago. I am trying not to panic, ok?
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Thank you for your report from the Land of Enchantment!
How’s Gabe Vasquez looking, over in the 2nd New Mexico CD?
rikyrah
@Kay:
That sounds about right.
Peanut doesn’t just want to get out of the state. She wants to get out of the country. I don’t know if this is a phase…or if she’s truly serious. She’s only a freshman. I keep telling her to look at colleges with year abroad programs too.
Layer8Problem
I was up way too late last night and we both had an sleepless period, but we got to see the lunar eclipse at least. Usually in these parts astronomical events get obscured by weather, due to bad karma I suppose rather than a normally cloudy location.
I hied onto Mastodon to see what that’s like, even though I never joined the blue thing because I did all the twittage I cared to via this blog community’s helpful links. My initial reaction after joining mastodon.online (I mistakenly said mastodon.social the day before yesterday) was that these guys must be getting slagged, because it was wicked slow. It’s much better today; Eugen the head Mastodonian threw on more capacity to mastodon.social and .online.
And my polling place is across the street and I’m voting within the hour.
kalakal
A message for us all
NotMax
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Macalester.
Trivia: Proudly flies both the American and the U.N. flags on campus.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: So am I, but I think the state constitution stands in their way just as it stands in the way of city control over the police. I don’t recall the particulars any more (i’ve been out here for over 20 years now, lost all track of city issues) but when the state constitution was rewritten after the Civil War (iirc) it gave the state a considerable amount of power over city police. Not total, but the city is constrained by Repubs in Jeff City.
MazeDancer
@sab:
While Dorothy always gives good advice, you might want to check out this pic of her idea of a “big” jigsaw puzzle.
https://twitter.com/dorothywinsor/status/1589965567121055744?s=61&t=cwu3AVgCtv6gApHp-7mF6Q
One person’s “soothing” is another person’s lifetime achievement award.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Exactly the same here. My rural clients who work in the city bitch about it constantly. But I live smack in the middle of the city and I see all those nice rural folks at all the city parks events and they surely use the municipal court, etc.
We have municipal electric – a left over from when small town people were sensible about banding together for non profit, citizen owed services instead of being nutty ideologues knee jerk opposed to “socialism”, and “county” people who are far out don’t get it – they get a rip off service out of Toledo- so I get that part. I sometimes get a check from my electric service. It’s great. We applied for and got a solar field from Obama’s stimulus. It’s jamming now.
rikyrah
Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) tweeted at 9:06 PM on Mon, Nov 07, 2022:
I remember when Steven Mnuchin funneled $500B of PPP Covid relief loans and gave millions to himself, Kushner, Devin Nunes, Betsy DeVos, Joel Osteen, Kanye West, Tom Brady and $334K to Moscow Mitch’s wife Elaine Chao. MAGA lunatics can shut the fuck up about student loan relief.
(https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1589816708814221313?t=QYALhlBZGtW0fP0m0yMtwA&s=03)
Matt McIrvin
@kalakal: It was also a time when taxes were higher and, in many ways, regulation of commerce and industry was tighter (though that was industrial policy designed to manage supply and demand, not so much with regard to conservative bugbears like safety and environmental impact). Organized labor was stronger than it would be later, if not as strong as it had been previously. Not a libertarian paradise–historians often lump in the Eisenhower administration with the postwar period of liberal dominance.
But straight Christian white men were supreme, which is key from the conservative perspective.
Ella in New Mexico
Hubby dropped off mine and my 88 y/o Dad’s Absentee ballots yesterday–we’re in Albuquerque (have kept my house in LC and haven’t changed my address yet) and he was back in Las Cruces for work. He votes today in person–at any precinct in town because we stopped tying where to vote to your election ballot long ago here in New Mexico.
Was proud to report not a camo-donned gun toter in sight.
I may not be proud of certain places and elements in America lately. But I love my state and believe so many things we do here so easily–like make it a breeze to register and vote–will be the law of the entire land in my lifetime.
Holding fast, holding firm, holding faith that no matter what the near future brings, the good people will eventually prevail.
OzarkHillbilly
My wife and I will vote this evening. I always go with her because she is a naturalized citizen with a Hispanic name and a strong accent. She is white and while nobody has ever given her any shit, this is the Ozarks and I am paranoid that some day somebody will and if that day ever comes I am going to be there for her.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MazeDancer: Hey, it’s coming along!
Here’s a link to what it’s supposed to look like when it’s done.
Betty Cracker
Via TPM (paywalled, probably):
An honest Republican elections commissioner in 2022 — wowsers.
I’m pretty sure Florida allows SoEs to count mail-in ballots as they’re received (unless Puss ‘n Boots changed that rule when he stood up an elections police force answerable to himself). To their credit, the FL dailies have been throwing cold water on the Trumpian notion that elections must be called on election day or else sToLeN.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wish we had one for Chicago. All these people who come into the city to work – yes, they should pay taxes.
One of the best things NYC ever did for itself.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
They don’t realize that we just want to be left the phuck alone to live our lives in peace. We don’t remotely want to think about them.
indycat32
Indianapolis has voting centers. I went to a nearby fire station with very limited parking. Fortunately someone left just as I arrived. Waited in line about 5 minutes. Voted straight D and am now preparing to load a quilt onto my longarm and spend the day quilting.
Leto
@Kay: typical Republican/conservative behavior: they want all the benefits of society without having to pay for it. Yes, yes liberals are the moochers.
Kay
@rikyrah:
My youngest didn’t know my oldest at all. The oldest was out of the house by the time the youngest was old enough to get to know him, but I suspect part of the appeal of computer science (or that industry) is my oldest lives in Copenhagen and the youngest has been there to see him twice. His life looks exciting and like he gets what he wants, which he mostly does.
I think it’s great that young people are such travelers- that they really took that “citizen of the world” thing to heart. I’m much more conventional. I’m like “you need a steady JOB and also you should stay by ME” :)
I would like a “compound” where they all had to live on the property. It’s a great idea.
Layer8Problem
And if anybody’s looking to pop over to LGM for some Election Day cheer, don’t. Currently up on the top, Farley touting a doom-laden podcast and a Campos post with a picture of Marshal Pétain in a girlishly fun mood. Those guys must be a scream at parties.
narya
I woke up at 3:00 (not on purpose . . .) and at 4-ish I hauled myself out of bed. Turns out I could see the eclipse from the back porch (!!). I watched till totality (or what appeared to be, naked eye), then went back inside for a bit. When I went out for my walk at 5:30-ish, there was both a spectacular sunrise AND I could see the moon reappearing–pretty awesome, actually. The other nice thing about this is that I will be exhausted tonight, and hopefully can just go to bed instead of watching talking heads and worrying about things that are still unknown.
Thank you, by the way: those of you who have done or are doing election work, those of you who are coming here to keep calm and aren’t doomsaying, those of you working toward creating an online community that feels safe and where I don’t feel like my politics are unusual, all of you.
ETA: I voted last week. and also clean up typos.
kalakal
@Leto: No idea who said it first but with a slight amend
Chief Oshkosh
@jonas:
Really? I’m the opposite. I just assume that there are several moles or semi-moles in the system, especially in the FBI, where their natural inclinations lean hard right.
MazeDancer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: When I saw your tweet this AM, I actually gasped.
My idea of jigsaw puzzles is pretty pictures. Clearly, I am an amateur.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: the WaPo article I linked above has the same quote. Feels weird that there’s a Republican anywhere in Philly but I think he’s the same commissioner from 2020 who was saying similar things. It’s also similar in nature to what happened in Michigan where an election certifying member wanted to exclude just Detroit so they could clear up… irregularities. Didn’t happen ofc, but this is the same thing.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Is Peanut in Chicago, though? Because my oldest went TO Chicago after college. Peanut has a lot more options at home than he did.
Mike in Pasadena
When you vote, remember only one party, only one faction, attacked the Capitol on January 6. It happens to now be led by a vain, foppish, evil man but many more just as evil came before him and many more stand waiting in the wings. Vote for the Democrat in every race because your life depends on it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Some years ago STL city, STL county, St Charles county, I think Jeffco and maybea couple IL counties as well, banded together to form the STL Zoo and Museum district. They levied taxes on all citizens within it to support the Zoo, Art Muesum, Historical Museum, the Unknown Soldier Monument and museum and a few other things too. All in STL city but regularly used by residents from all over the STL metro area.
It’s hard for me to believe that all these disparate parts came together to support these crowning institutions in the city, but they did. Not only that, nobody complains about it.
Leto
@kalakal: spot on.
@Kay: not gonna lie, but I’ve wished for a compound for my friends. After 20 years in the military you make a lot of good friends. Unfortunately they/we all scatter to the wind every 3-4 years. It’d be nice to have them all in one place.
citizen dave
@indycat32: Hello from Fishers.
OzarkHillbilly
Always this.
OzarkHillbilly
@kalakal: I like that. Too too true.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: A lot of effort has gone into supporting Gabe. From what I’ve seen, the race will be tight. Fingers crossed. It would be delightful to evict the vile Herrell. We recently moved to CD1, our Dem rep should be be easily re-elected.
dww44
@Layer8Problem: I was coming over here to say the very same thing. One early commenter remarked ” so you’re telling me to stay off the news/media, but then recommend a doom and gloom podcast, or words to that effect.
Betty Cracker
The wind is howling today, and supposedly, we’ll have a tropical storm in the area starting tomorrow evening. If it knocks out our power and I’m unable to binge-watch the new season of The Crown, I shall be very cross.
Layer8Problem
@dww44: I know, it’s like, what’s their point, “enjoy my deep thoughts as we watch Western Civ burn down, together!”? I don’t necessarily think Western Civ is burning down, yet anyway, but these guys are spending too much time opining on the sheer badness of the fire and not enough helping pull out the hose and connecting it to the hydrant.
schrodingers_cat
I made a new Header.
Feel free to use it if you want.
MazeDancer
Four blocks from my house in this teeny village is my polling place.
Viewed the sample ballot, very short. Should take maximum 2 minutes to vote and check.
But it will take 5 because they always have those ridic fine point pens to completely fill-in those large circles.
And one has hanging chad concerns about coloring outside the lines. Or missing a spot in the circle.
Still, despite they’re being too many hard and hateful GOP, I love going to the polls on Election Day. And am grateful that I live somewhere it is easy and safe to do so.
Eyeroller
@Layer8Problem: There’s a reason some of us call him “Gloomis”..
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I really hope Gabe Vasquz wins. We need more Democratic Reps, and I’d like to see more more Reps in their 30s. There are plenty of good ones in their 40s and good ones who are older, but I’d still like to see more representation from the younger generation.
dww44
@Layer8Problem: Exactly, and the dissing on Stacey Abrams as a candidate pulling down Warnock’s numbers…. Not enough ticket splitters. They’ve been negative on her candidacy all along. While I don’t think she’ll win…. misogyny married to racism is a potent drug to combat. I do salute her for believing that, with her intelligence and skills she has a chance. And, she WANTS the job.
Low Key Swagger
@OzarkHillbilly: I just visited those places as a first time visitor! Oh and good lord the bbq I had at…was it Pappys? Phenomenal.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
I hope he does too. The redistricting should give a boost. We’ll see.
OzarkHillbilly
If my eldest was here he could probably tell you. These days, if I head up to the city I usually just eat wherever the person I am visiting with recommends. If I am by myself, I will just head for one of the old delis I used to haunt or go to a diner if I have a hankering for a Slinger.
rikyrah
The thing about being Black in America, especially if you know your history, WE KNOW how bad things can get. We fight because we’ve always fought, and, we fight because we know we have different tools than our ancestors. Yes, I know how bad things can get in America, but, I fight because I can. Just because some muthaphuckas want to take us back to the1922, doesn’t mean that I can’ t use all tools at my disposal. People always get it wrong about Black people. About how we are so ‘generous’ and ‘giving of spirit’, when we come to defend other groups. No. We do it because we are the <b>most practical people in this country.</b> Because, there’s nothing in the history of this country that tells us that anything which hits OTHER groups, won’t wind up AT OUR DOORSTEP. So, practically speaking, we’re trying to shut that shyt off at the path.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Thank you.
The Moar You Know
Well.
We gave money. We hung signs. We canvassed. And oddly enough, today, my wife and I are not waiting for election results; we’re waiting to see if her dad lives through his last-ditch surgery for cancer. Pretty unlikely, as we all understood going into this. I can think of many worse ways to go than on the OR table.
It’s putting this election in proper perspective for me.
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterDancer: Rod Morrow of TheBlackGuyWhoTips podcast, said it well on Twitter (paraphrase):
I don’t need some silly Black Israelite origin story. I come from the people who stood on Edmund Pettis bridge and survived slavery, water hoses, the Klan etc. That has always been more than enough for me.
UncleEbeneezer
@Layer8Problem: I’ll pass on the lengthy discussion how this is all Obama and Garland’s fault, before the votes are even counted.
Geminid
@dww44: I don’t buy the argument that Abrams is dragging down Warnock. Sure, there is a differential in their respective polling numbers, but I’ve seen no evidence that this has had any effect on Warnock’s support.
Besides the factors of racism and misogyny, the relative quality of the two Republican opponents must have an effect on the numbers also. Warnock’s opponent is a weak, amateurish candidate. Abrams’ opponent is an incumbent Governor of an economically dynamic state with a fiscally sound state government. Rightly or wrongly, those factors are going to rub off on the incumbent.
TheTruffle
I’m weirdly calm today. No anxiety. No doomscrolling. No obsessing.
I don’t know why today is different.
Normally, whenever I felt anxious about the midterms, I’d be firing off postcards to voters. And I sent out thousands–THOUSANDS–of texts yesterday.
I feel…okay. Not anxious at all.
Bupalos
Well this is the 1st election I can remember where I feel really good about what I brought to the table, and even though I’m as apprehensive as anyone about the anti-democratic direction this country may keep skipping along today, I also half feel like it’s cosmic payday. The difference for me this year is that through the coincidence of the Ukraine invasion and our folk dance group getting back online after covid, I had many conversations and short interactions with folks of eastern european ancestry in northeast Ohio that I feel made a real difference. I know a double-digit number of votes that wouldn’t have come Tim Ryan’s way are coming his way. And maybe some of those crossing over for him will extend that, maybe it’s a way to break the ice for a few of these folks to see how dangerous and seedy the party of Vance can be. I’m really glad I waded into those waters, which wasn’t comfortable at first. It was good for me. Good for them. Feel like I did them a favor. It’s something real.
My advice is forget about this election, it’s over… stop stressing, it’s going to end up in a band of electoral outcomes that is ambiguous and the furthest thing from an endpoint, whichever direction it moves. Start looking for the thing that makes you uncomfortable that you can DO. Hopefully in the real world.
Eyeroller
@Geminid: Yep. I don’t buy their hypothesis either. It was always going to require ticket-splitters to get Warnock re-elected, as well as a strong D turnout which she may encourage more than discourage. It’s difficult to dislodge an incumbent in any case, and particularly so if he seems to be doing a good job (whether it has anything to do with him–usually it’s a him–or not).
UncleEbeneezer
@rikyrah: I know y’all don’t do it for us, but thank you. It gives me inspiration, hope and a pretty good road-map for how to stay in the fight. Not to mention the reliable core for any meaningful coalition to make a better country/world.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: hoping for the best for your family.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Well said. I am not black but as an immigrant whose formative years were spent in another polity I can vouch for most of what you say and how precious the American experiment is, flaws and all. And how the Democratic party in spite of everything that is thrown at it has been a force for good post LBJ at the very least. And that’s mostly due to the influence of Civil Rights leaders and those who came after them.
I saw the BJP go from nothing to ruling the country mostly because of apathy and outright bigotry of the haves.
lowtechcyclist
Just in case nobody’s brought this up, here are the states where you can register and vote on Election Day:
Baud
@TheTruffle:
We are becoming hardened by past experiences.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: 2016 was my worst nightmare. Rs have gotten steadily worse and yet have been rewarded for it by a majority of white voters and the media. That needs to change.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Same. Agree on all points.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: It’s good to have people bring this up because those who lived here all their lives can tend to take the good parts for granted and magnify the bad.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Just finished my last canvas of the year. 35 houses. I’m damn near certain we’re going to flip the MA governor office blue this year.
Baud
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
First woman too, no?
Eyeroller
@schrodingers_cat: Having grown up in the South and the lower Midwest, I disagree–the Democrats/Dixiecrats of that time and place were every bit as bad as current Rs. And they wielded a lot of power. Of course now those people are all Rs.
Kelly
Kelly
Old Sailors Tattoo
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Baud: Yessir, first gay woman too, if I am correctly informed.
TheTruffle
@Baud: I don’t know if hardened is the word for me. I’m just glad to have done my part.
schrodingers_cat
@Eyeroller: Not all the Democrats but the Democratic party in general. Most of those Dixiecrats are now Republicans, aren’t they. The LBJ era Democrats didn’t make Wallace their standard bearer.
Eunicecycle
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I went to Wittenberg too! I graduated in 1978.
Kelly
Pin your ear to the wisdom post
Pin your eye to the line
Never let the weeds get higher than the garden
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind
You got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow
Got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow
Got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow
Got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow
Tom Waits
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: If you’re willing to verify that list, I will happily put up a post and get John to post it to his twitter feed.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I changed your “lied” to “lived” because the typo made your comment a bit confusing.
I can change back if you like.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kelly: Well said.
eta: first time I saw your comment, it was blank. Now it has “Old sailors tattoo.” Oh well, that’s what I get for being a smart alek.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
Thanks.
schrodingers_cat
I found this entire genre on YouTube of dance covers from India on popular semi-classical or classical songs from movies and streaming shows.
This is Bharat Natyam + Kathak
and this one is Hip-hop + Bharat Natyam
Omnes Omnibus
Just got a text from my niece. She voted. Nineteen y/o college sophomore.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t know they can test for that. Hope it’s contagious.
Kelly
@OzarkHillbilly: There is a blank comment, an early morning misfire. Then again, maybe I should go for the strong silent vibe.
Omnes Omnibus
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
I apparently can’t type this morning.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure you can, just not accurately.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
FYI, have gotten several scattered 1016 errors (Cloudflare unable to resolve DNS for this site) over the past couple of hours.
Omnes Omnibus
@Qrop Non Sequitur: ::glares menacingly::
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought we were past the menacing stage in our relationship.
Eta: I’ll just assume you’re so excited we’re going to hold Congress today that your hands are unsteady with joy.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh, thanx for the chuckle.
Kelly
Blaze Foley “Election Day”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u34QtftJtRg&ab_channel=BlazeFoley-Topic
zhena gogolia
We just voted. The polling place was more crowded than I can ever remember. The mood was good.
Joy in FL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, I love Colin Thompson’s art. I had one of his pieces that was bookshelves as a skin on both an iPhone and a laptop. I was sorry when those devices had to be replaced. I still have the laptop skin, though. I love the detail and the color and the imagination.
Joy in FL
Mister Dancer- Thank you so much for this post. It’s truly helpful. So is your comment at #5.
O. Felix Culpa
Polling place update: people continue to stream in to vote. It’s been constant all morning. A number of first-time voters and new registrants. Makes me weepy to see the engagement.
ETA: I love the good spirit of the election workers. They’re dedicated to making sure everyone eligible can vote. It’s an excellent operation.
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
One of my closest friends daughter went there. She’s a sophomore. They were liberal home schoolers and their kids were/are wonderful. Interesting and funny. When the Wittenberg student was little she was at my house a lot and my kids went to public school. She wanted to “go on the bus” so I would tease my friend- “she wants to go ON THE BUS you monster” :)
OzarkHillbilly
There is no bottom to the GOP barrel.
Elizabelle
@O. Felix Culpa: Yep. Steady in central VA, too. Hello from a fellow poll watcher.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Haley is particularly craven, even in a party that has that attribute in abundance. How many times did she disown Trump and then crawl back to lick his tiny wingtips when the political wind shifted? It’s just gross. I don’t see how anyone can take her seriously at this point.
O. Felix Culpa
@Elizabelle:
Happy Election Day from Albuquerque!
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl: The link is to a NYT tweet with that list (though in image form rather than text), but the tweet links to the NYT article itself where I copied the list from.
Matt McIrvin
@Layer8Problem: I don’t like to admit it but my own pessimism is, I think, rooted in a superstitious intuition that optimism is a “jinx”.
Partly born of the genuine effect that great optimism invites great disappointment when things go badly, and as a kid particularly I was always really socked in the gut emotionally by disappointment.
To such an attitude, expressing pessimism feels like doing something, even if it isn’t.
I suspect most of the LGM regulars have some version of this attitude. I’ve noticed that some of the front-pagers tend to crap all over actual activism as annoying, pointless or some kind of scam (Loomis is particularly bad in this regard–sometimes his entire output seems to be “more ways that liberal activism is dumb or useless”). That’s the point where it gets harmful.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Indian Americans like Usha Vance, Nikki Haley etc are so gross.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Ambition can make Republican politicians say vile things.
And stupid things too. How the hell does saying Warnock should be deported help Walker? It seems to me this would have the opposite effect.
cain
@Baud: 100% – you evil genius you.
O. Felix Culpa
Heh. They ring a small cowbell and cheer each first-time voter when they submit their ballot for tabulation. Given we’re on campus, it happens a lot. Plus some naturalized citizens voting first-time. 🎉
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Eliminationist talk with intimations of violence (and, make no mistake, saying people should be deported is that) helps scare the other side’s voters away from the polls. The idea is to create the feeling that it’s not safe to be a member of the opposition.
Eunicecycle
@Kay: it was a good place to go to school. None of my kids wanted to go there, because it was too small. Kids
That’s funny about your friend’s child wanting to go on the bus. My kids always wanted to be walkers!
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: @schrodingers_cat:
Yep.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: This is the direction the GOP is going: Only they get to define who is a “real” American and anybody who doesn’t fit their rather fluid definition, should be deported.
There are many in the GOP that I would like to have deported, but I doubt anybody would take them, not even Russia.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: NYT did a puff piece on Usha Vance.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Of course they are the Nazi whisperers.
dww44
@Geminid: You’re right, of course. But that relative economic dynamism can trace its roots back to when the capital sold itself as the city too busy to hate and kinda dialed back on the overt racism. There actually was a Southern version of progressiveness going back to the late 19th century when Henry Grady was the editor of the AJC.
And the business leaders of the mid 20th century realized that to prosper things had to change. They led the way. Different from far too many business leaders today. If nothing else too many of them have big yellow streaks down the middle of their backs.
rikyrah
@Kay:
She is in Chicago. She says she wants to leave the country.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I think Democratic voters are tougher than that. Especially Black Democrats, who I think will be especially outraged by Haley’s remark.
But I don’t think Haley thought about effects beyond burnishing her own radical credentials.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Just the unmitigated gall and audacity of someone who got here last week to purse her motherphucking lips to say that about someone whose family has been in this country for seven generations and helped built it – FOR FREE.
Layer8Problem
@Matt McIrvin: They’re dooming, and doing it to the point that it becomes, in effect, voter suppression.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Chetan Murthy just mentioned a relative of his who’s not voting (even though she used to be a poll worker!) because she’s received physical threats, doesn’t feel safe going to the polling place, and there is no general mail voting in her state. I suspect there’s a fair bit of that going around.
Matt McIrvin
@Layer8Problem: Loomis’s review of David Byrne’s show American Utopia was about half a rant about how it was dumb, pointless virtue-signaling that Byrne got up during the show and told everyone to vote, and was registering voters in the lobby.
I do think he was missing some context erased by time: before it was on Broadway, the show was a touring rock concert (I saw it in Boston), and that was during the 2018 midterm race that was Democrats’ first chance to get some control back from Trump’s trifecta. I know Byrne was doing the same spiel and registration drive then and he probably just kept it in there.
But Loomis seems to have this particular animus toward voter-registration drives; they irritate him for some reason, he’s convinced they’re pointless or actively harmful. And several of the FPers there like to sneer at “vote harder” sloganeering.
Ohio Mom
@The Moar You Know: Holding you and yours in the light. You might have updated since but all I’ve read so far is that you are not sure FIL will make it through his surgery.
You have a very balanced and pragmatic attitude, that’s always a good starting point.
You did what you could do for the election and for him. That should be a comfort no matter what.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t doubt it. I’m just saying that in this instance Haley’s remarks are more likely to motivate Democrats than intimidate them. They may even change a few Walker voters’ minds, especially among his Black supporters.
Ohio Mom
@Geminid: We have a similar situation in Ohio.
A low-polling Dem woman running for governor against a popular (inexplicably so to me) Republican male incumbent, and of course the Tim Ryan — JD Vance senate race.
There will certainly be some ticket splitters but enough?
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Those guys are privileged, comfortable white males and it shows.
And they are too smart for their own good, the kind of people of whom Harry Truman said: “I wouldn’t hire them to pound sand into ratholes.”
sab
@MazeDancer: Wow. Mine are only 1000.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Probably Rex Sinquefeld (sp?).
jnfr
@kalakal:
👍
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
They did such a good job as homeschoolers. I recall they had a whole term on The Pyramids- like, history, writing, math all pyramid- connected.
Mom went to Oberlin which is as we know the Center of Wokeness so probably also a CRT unit :)
...now I try to be amused
@rikyrah: Amen. When folks were complaining about Biden winning the 2020 nomination I’d tell everyone who would listen that Black people are the most politically pragmatic people in America and we should listen to them if we want to win elections.
JoyceH
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, Russia would take them! They have a shortage of cannon fodder at the moment…
BruceFromOhio
@rikyrah: thank you for this.
pieceofpeace
Such an outstanding essay. Reading this took my mind from the precarious brink of today’s anxiousness to sanity and some peace. Thank you for putting your mind and heart into this.