U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

I will not apologize for being optimistic — angrily optimistic — about the election America just lost. I was wrong, but I shouldn't have been. This country should not have shoved a shotgun in its own mouth and pulled the trigger, but it did.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. My wife is a US citizen, but what will that be worth? She has a last name that codes Italian rather than Spanish, and a white man to speak on her behalf, but who knows. We have (some) money in the bank and good credit, and I have a job (for the moment) in what is (for the moment) one of America's few profitable industries (health insurance). We live in (relative) isolation, on a quiet cul-de-sac, and I don't think my town is likely to fill up with pickup trucks full of gun-toting vigilantes, but after last night what does anybody know?

We need to be somewhere with a decent arts and culture scene for the work we've been doing since 2010 to be remotely sustainable/worthwhile. Colorado seems like an option. So does Edmonton, so thanks for that suggestion.

Re: Twitter, I still have an account, though I took it private when the blocking function was gutted, and I'll probably never use it again. It doesn't generate traffic, or CD sales. I'm on BlueSky as burningambulance if anyone wants to find me there.

uh, dude, the shotgun stuff is a little too gruesome for me

Too bad Kurt wasn't alive to see this election

The apt analogy I saw earlier this morning was having a tumor removed, confirming that is indeed cancerous and asking your doctor to put it back in.

"Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?"

the deep, dark shame of this is killing me more than Trump, to be honest. failed society https://t.co/ucroDnfX44 pic.twitter.com/xiIXZPBviR

— CIA election influencer 🛰️ (@youwouldntpost) November 6, 2024

hello ilx. i see you're still here. good.

<3

And other grandfolks could be heard arguing the perennial question of whether the United States still lingered in a prefascist twilight, or whether that darkness had fallen long stupefied years ago, and the light they thought they saw was coming only from millions of Tubes all showing the same bright-colored shadows. One by one, as other voices joined in, the names began — some shouted, some accompanied by spit, the old reliable names good for hours of contention, stomach distress, and insomnia — Hitler, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, Hoover, Mafia, CIA, Reagan, Kissinger, that collection of names and their tragic interweaving that stood not constellated above in any nightwide remoteness of light, but below, diminished to the last unfaceable American secret, to be pressed, each time deeper, again and again beneath the meanest of random soles, one blackly fermenting leaf on the forest floor that nobody wanted to turn over, because of what lived, virulent, waiting, just beneath.

Good luck everyone.

A few friends expressed dismay this past week that their sons, in their early 20s or so, were all favoring Trump, whether or not they planned to actually vote for him. The friends wondered if they had done something wrong raising them and what they could do now. I thought this reel from Scott Galloway (who endorsed Kamala and is a kind of Bill Maher-level Democrat) had something insightful about this yesterday. Sharing it less as definitive and more as trying to get to root of what can be done about this in the years ahead.

i dont have anything to add except that i want to cry & scream

i feel so fucking stupid for even briefly believing that this country could unfuck itself

that this is happening again just makes me want to lie down in traffic

ugh. sending love to everyone xx

xp Check back with me in a couple of years I guess but all I hear in that reel is "White men are reacting to not everything being about them and for their benefit. The Democrats should have catered more to them, and less to all of the other people who make up 76% of Americans including veterans and disabled people (who also overlap with white men)."

You already know what I'm going to say about that.

Men ages 18-29 seem to have shifted near 30 points rightward from 2020, while women ages 18-29 have a less pronounced shift to the right but still extant. pic.twitter.com/yvqLPyidsE

— Sami Gold (@souljagoytellem) November 6, 2024

I watched about 20 seconds more and now I hate him and am enraged. So no.

Yeah I was shocked to see prop 6 failing. Thought that was a slam dunk. California has absolutely been pushing rightward. At least prop 3 (marriage equality codified in state constitution) will pass with over a 60% yes vote.

The younger vote is deeply disheartening but also not necessarily surprising to anyone who's ever known or been a young man. Highest-risk population for basically every imaginable stupid act, including voting for fascists.

Can't help but keep thinking about the reel I saw with interviews of white dudes on some college campus that were saying they were explicitly voting Trump because it would piss off women they knew. I don't know how we unfuck that.

guess the Joe Rogan endorsement really did matter

as we nurse our wounds, I still want to thank everyone here who helped on the campaign: canvassing, phone banking, writing postcards.. it really does matter

the People chose mediocrity, and mediocrity is what we'll get

xp Dana White shouted out Adin Ross, Theo Von, Nelk Boys, and Joe Rogan during the victory speeches last night. The weirdest nightmare.

The apt analogy I saw earlier this morning was having a tumor removed, confirming that is indeed cancerous and asking your doctor to put it back in

I used to truly love this country, despite everything. Cared for it very deeply, in spite of it all, was honestly proud to be an American in a very deep, very personal way, which I almost never felt comfortable sharing with anyone. Say what you will, but I really did.

But thinking about moving recently, those are the exact terms that came to mind. At one point, the idea of leaving would have felt like losing a working limb. Today it feels more like cutting off a malignancy, getting free from some kind of growth that no longer feels like a part of me, is slowly draining me.

Women, maybe moreso young women but I think really all ages, will always be slightly dragged rightward as long as they stand to gain from proximity to patriarchal power and the approval of male authority holders and their male peers. That's patriarchy/Christianity for ya, and that's the prevailing culture in America.

Men ages 18-29 seem to have shifted near 30 points rightward from 2020, while women ages 18-29 have a less pronounced shift to the right but still extant. pic.twitter.com/yvqLPyidsE
— Sami Gold (@souljagoytellem) November 6, 2024

this is insane

i have seen rumblings of it with my students. trump is the edgy pick for young boys. i guess he didn't have this appeal in 16 and 20 to the same extent? or the young people then were less nihilistic?

The "anti-woke" backlash was pretty much guaranteed to hit with young dudes. Same thing happened with the "anti-PC" wave of the '90s (part of why Gen X has always been so Trump-friendly).

hey table thank you for the poem way upthread, really resonated

I think the Youtube manosphere was less fully developed back then? Or wasn't as all in for Trump at least. Rogan didn't endorse him in 2020 iirc.

The full embrace of RFK Jr. on these shows paved the way.

The children of the pandemic

https://nypost.com/2024/11/06/us-news/2024-presidential-election-marks-closest-new-york-has-come-to-turning-red-in-30-years-as-trump-support-surges-in-nyc/

harris only beat trump by 11% in NYC, compared to 20-30% dating back to obama. big jump in trump support in the bronx, manhattan, and queens.

I’m looking for bright spots today, here’s another one: whatever happens to the economy, next year he’ll have to own that.

Ooooof NYC

so trump's sentencing is on november 26

will the judge issue a prison sentence and force a crisis or will he slink away?

so trump's sentencing is on november 26

It was last night. He got four years.

This is terrible to say, but I almost would welcome a way not to know.

white house arrest

he's skating on everything. he will not see a single consequence from any crime he committed. i don't know why we would pretend otherwise.

insane

Maybe he'll be sentenced to community service.

nothing will happen to him and he has a clear pass from the supreme court to continue to do illegal shit

Yeah, last night was the Ultimate Wriggle. All of his trials will be suspended during his Presidency and likely never resurrected.

Yeah, I mean last night absolutely cemented that he won't ever face a single day in prison, ever. Guaran-fucking-tee that the judge will say something about "risking loss of faith in the judicial system by sentencing a freely elected president yadda yadda blah blah".

The federal stuff will all go away immediately cuz he'll fire Jack Smith (and hell, probably launch an investigation into him for good measure).

nah, the issue is that Trump can appeal his sentencing and by the time that appeal would be heard, then he'd be a sitting President, and current legal theory is you can't prosecute a sitting President. it won't even come down to a difficult call by the judge

the federal justice department has a standing mandate not to prosecute a sitting president. at the state level this isn't the norm. it hasn't come up before i don't think

>>so trump's sentencing is on november 26<<

It was last night. He got four years.

grim lol @ this

the People chose mediocrity, and mediocrity is what we'll get

i wish

the georgia case bothers me the most. the phone call was so damning. the reason it was bungled so idiotic.

i wish

Seriously, almost posted earlier that I WISH mediocrity was all we were in for.

that was the other side's promise

I feel genuine pity for any young man who looks at Trump and sees strength. It only takes the smallest bit of actual contact with human beings over the course of a lifetime to know better. But I guess if your entire life experience has been posting things online to get a reaction, being the world's #1 Troll seems like quite an accomplishment.

incredibly depressing. i am surprised that young women are also trending rightward