#I can't imagine not voting in an election I can vote in

[deramin2]

Also, Harris just said directly and without qualifies (like the former line Israel has a right to defend themselves) at the Michigan State University on Sunday that she will do "everything in her power" to end the war in Gaza.

Trump has vowed to help Israel wipe Palestinians off the map.

Even if Palestine is your single issue, the choice of better or worse is clear. Harris may end up as mediocre as every other President on the conflict. But Trump will do everything in his power to make it so much worse. If you think it can't get worse than now, you have a profound pack of imagination.

As The Onion owner Ben Collins put it on Blue Sky, "I'm headed right now to vote for Kamala Harris. I hope you do too. I don't know how else to put this without sounding too earnest, or like an asshole, but you can't easily undo fascism. I am voting for her and expect to yell at her for good. Only under her administration is that a real possibility."

If Harris is elected we will be able to hold her administration's feet to the fire to do better on a few issues, including Palestine and transgender issues. If Trump wins we will be fighting on every front to save every single human right we have now. Our energy, resources, and efforts will be spread so think that our best efforts will achieve mild losses. With Harris we have a frighting chance of gaining at least some change, even if it's infuriatingly incremental.

Both sides are not the same, and one of those two will have the job by the end of the night (maybe the end of the week if counts are slow and close). Please help us put the candidate we can effectively fight against in office. We can lose so much more than many people seem to realize. We've already lode Roe V. Wade due to Trump, and hiss mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic has cost over 1 million US American lives.

Do not fall for conservative and Russian propaganda to discourage voting by making you apathetic. Please just do this one thing today to make fighting the US political system a little easier tomorrow.

If you still can't vote for Harris for president, please vote for House and Senate representatives who will fight for us and either pass effective bills or block destructive ones. Vote for ballot measures and local representatives that will affect you even more directly. We need as many allies in power no matter who the president is.

Hello. I mean this really imploringly, and really genuinely. If you're a U.S. citizen still on the fence about what to do for the election, please vote Harris. There's this idea circulating that the person you vote for should be someone you like, love, idolize and that is so very not true. You're voting for the opponent you'll face for the next four years when you have issues to protest and matters to vocalize. You're voting for the person most likely to give an inch when you protest the things that matter. You're voting for the person most likely to not strip away your existing rights and scatter your focus across the things we already won, and which can be taken away. We lost Roe v Wade under the Trump-appointed judges. The current trans-panic is so disgustingly on fire, and it's absolutely the Republicans eager to rip away what little protection there is. Both candidates are also, disgustingly, pro-Israel. But Trump will never ever give a fuck to any protest on that matter.

You don't want to be complicit in genocide. I get it. But if you're a U.S. citizen, you're already benefiting from the U.S.'s foreign policy, and that's already complacency. Refusing to vote or voting third party isn't absolving you of that. It's just letting Trump walk in the door. And letting Trump in is complacency. And your ability to organize, and to make change, will go so less far against a Trump cabinet than a Harris one. The material harm under Trump is real.

Does voting for Harris make you feel guilty? I'm sorry, but you have to bear it. Your guilt isn't what's important. A white person's guilt isn't important. A citizen of a global terror's guilt isn't important. Actions that pacify your guilt aren't important. Focusing on absolving your guilt is in fact harmful, as opposed to actions that can actually materially reduce harm.

Please protest. Please donate to good causes. Please support Palestine. Please be vocal. Please fight for BIPOC and LGBTQA+ rights. Please view Harris as the opponent whose ears these things fall on. Your ability to organize safely, largely, loudly, and effectively will go so much further under a Harris presidency. Please.

[imagitory]

I've never been more heartbroken in my life.

I was gobsmacked in 2016, don't get me wrong. I was devastated and frightened and shaken beyond words. I even had to go behind a wall and collect myself at one point that horrible November 9th, 2016, after colliding with a man wearing a red MAGA hat at work. A good chunk of us at work talked amongst ourselves about it, offering each other comfort.

But this? This is different. I could imagine dumb people making excuses for voting for Trump in 2016 -- saying that they thought a businessman would be good for the economy, saying that they wanted someone who wasn't a "Washington insider" like Hilary Clinton. Sure, it was stupid, but people can be stupid. Quite frankly, a lot of people are stupid, in this country and otherwise.

But now? Anyone who voted for Trump now has voted for a man who not only rounded up immigrants and put them in concentration camps separated from their families; bungled the response to COVID-19 so badly that the American death toll easily surpassed every other country on Earth; has poisoned the Supreme Court to the extent that they overturned years of precedence with Roe V. Wade and has basically given Trump cart-blanche to do whatever he wants while he's president; was the first president in history to refuse to concede on election day; was impeached for crimes in office not once but TWICE; was instrumental to and passionately supportive of the full-on attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 that could've very easily resulted in the deaths of his own Vice President and multiple members of Congress; has spoken glowingly of despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and even said he will be "a dictator on day one" if elected again; has both used slogans originally used by modern American Neo-Nazis ("America First") and purportedly told one of his ex-subordinates that he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler's...but also has by the day proven more and more just how mentally inept, vindictive, and mean-spirited he truly is.

And unlike in his previous races, Trump is ahead in the popular vote too. We can't just blame this on the electoral college being antiquated and gerrymandered AF like in the Trump-Clinton or Bush-Gore elections. Even if all of the third-party voters in this country had grown a bloody brain cell and voted for Harris so as to show solidarity against Trump and his form of American fascism, it still somehow wouldn't be enough. We could potentially blame this on lower voter turn-out -- according to what I'm seeing so far, even with all the votes not counted in this race yet, it looks like there were far less votes cast this election than in the last one, though likely still more than the 2016 race. But even so, I don't think that's the only problem. I truly think there were just a lot of people who turned out en-masse to vote for Trump. And all I can think in regards to those people is...

This is beyond stupidity or even selfishness. This is cruelty. This is large swaths of people deciding that they want fellow American citizens to suffer -- because in their minds, if those people suffer, that'll somehow make them happy. This is a large chunk of America saying, "yeah, you know all that crap about 'liberty and justice for all'? Screw that, I want a 'strong man' to bully people different from me for my own amusement." And -- perhaps -- there's also an element of feeling like their vote doesn't really have any consequences for them, so why should they care if the man they voted for is a god-awful person? It's not like that man will hurt them.

I had hoped. I had hoped, seeing the outpouring of support from liberals, independents, and conservatives for Harris/Walz. I'd hoped, seeing how many ex-Trump appointees were standing up against him, how much people were shouting their disdain for Project 2025 from the rooftops, and how many women were protesting in the face of Roe V. Wade being overturned. I truly had started to hope that America would prove we'd grown beyond our country's own original sin -- how our United States preached freedom for all while still being built on the backs of slaves and refusing to grant a vote to over half their population -- by electing a smart, successful, charismatic woman of color who sees our country as great in potential and wants us to pursue that potential as our first female president, rather than backtracking all the slow progress we've made over the last 200+ years.

But now...my hope has faded. My heart is in pieces and the world is so dark. I hardly know how I'll function at work tomorrow, even if I know somehow, I have to try. We'll all have to stand somehow. Somehow, someway...we'll have to find the strength. We'll have to stand, and we'll have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like we're a Little Mermaid walking on knives.

We'll have to stand.

[aropride]

ok story before bed time. everyone gather around

you are me at age 13. you are an 8th grader who just realized he likes girls and recently had a gender crisis in the home depot lighting aisle. it is november of 2016, and trump has run for president for the first time. you are watching the map change over your dad's shoulder. you aren't really sure how it works yet but you are seeing a lot of red on there and you are very frightened. you just found out you have free will, like, last year, and you are only beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation- the situation being the united states of america in general- and it already is looking very bad.

when you wake up in the morning your dad tells you trump has won. he's too happy about it. you're skipping breakfast to make the bus in time. the sun's barely risen, btw, but you are 13 so you have little to no autonomy or rights, so you are in the fluorescent-light torment-nexus they call a "middle school" by 7:45am on the dot.

you see your friend as you're walking to your homeroom. he's a fellow gay emo middle schooler, he sucks, and he really likes to guilt-trip you into skipping class to hang out with him by telling you he's going to kill himself if you don't. you have other qualms with him, but this illustrates enough. he says hi, you say hi, there is a sort of thick dread in the air despite barely anyone in the building being old enough to vote and most everyone completely baffled by the concept of the "electoral college."

he asks how you're feeling. you say bad, and he agrees.

he looks you in the eyes and puts both his hands on your shoulders. he says, "don't worry about gay marriage. they can't get rid of it."

you don't say anything; he doesn't give you a chance to.

"i ran into the senate at subway yesterday and i asked them. and they said trump can't repeal gay marriage."

you do not know much about the government. you are not quite sure what a senator is. however, you know there are one hundred of them. you also know that the only subway in your little corner of maine is very small- there's, like, three booths to sit in. only a few people can even get in line to order at a time. you were born recently but you are able to draw some conclusions here:

1) there is absolutely no way that subway could fit 100 people inside of it at all,

2) there is no reason that the entire senate would be in a little town in maine the night after the election,

and 3) this guy is making shit up again, more than anyone's ever made shit up in their life.

you say, "okay. that's good." you are aware that gay marriage is not the only thing to be worried about, here. you are aware that this guy lies recreationally and it is not worth arguing the matter.

"isn't that great?" he asks. it is not great.

you go to homeroom and you do not stand for the pledge of allegiance (you never stand for it again). you go to pre-algebra. you listen to my chemical romance instead of paying attention. you go to english class, you go to study hall, you go to lunch. you go to social studies and your teacher lets you and your other gay friend (who doesn't suck and in fact you have crush-adjacent feelings for them) sit out in the hall to talk about the election, because you asked nicely. they do not try to tell you that they ran into the entire senate at subway.

you think about this interaction several times a month through the next two election seasons. you are a 21 year old man and you are still thinking about this. you are still imagining ways the entire senate could cram themselves into this tiny subway. you regularly share this story with new friends because you just cannot stop fucking thinking about it. he ran into the entire senate at a tiny little subway in maine at 7 in the morning. and they said gay rights were safe forever.

[lesamis]

If you're up for it could you explain what is making the Germany government stuff so funny? I can find news articles about it (a coalition is dissolving? There's been tension for a while?) but they're all fairly serious. Thx!

ohhh, sure thing! i'll do my best!

i'll say upfront: this is a pretty serious thing to happen. our chancellor fired our minister of finance, Lindner, which definitively breaks up the governing coalition. germany will likely have snap elections at a moment in which far-right parties are polling extremely well. if news coverage about it seems like people are Worried, that's because, well, they are.

however. the reason it's funny is because our minister of finance was fired. ministers aren't really... ever fired. like, it's not a done thing. i'll fully admit i didn't even know it was an option until yesterday. and our minister of finance wasn't just anyone, he was one of the most mocked and hated figures in politics to germans who vote anywhere left of center.

the coalition that governed until yesterday was made up of the green party, the social democrats, and the neoliberal party (FDP). the FDP is infamous (and i mean, my parents already raised me to hate them for that) for playing kingmaker in coalition governments: they never get all that many votes, but they get just enough that whoever they agree to form a government with will probably succeed. they then tend to force extreme concessions from their coalition partners, because hey, if we walk off, you can't govern at all! so you better play along!

for the past three years, this behaviour has been extremely frustrating for germans who voted for greens or social democrats, because policy from their faction was constantly being blocked by the FDP and often by Lindner personally. the FDP received 11,5% of votes in 2021, but to many of us, it felt as if they were the only party who really had any say in the governing coalition. it made the green and social democratic coalition partners look spineless and passive.

and now, i invite you to imagine how on the day of the US election results, the day the whole world rolled their eyes at the sheer fucking stupidity and pointlessness of it all, at NINE IN THE EVENING, just as germans are getting ready to settle in to bed to dream of nightmare global politics -

the news suddenly breaks that our notoriously invisible chancellor just decided to fire Lindner for that exact behaviour. this chancellor comes out and says, on camera, to the entire sleepy nation, that acting the way Lindner did - blocking necessary policies, refusing to approve budgets unless his party's interests were met - was childish, selfish, irresponsible, and unfit for government, so, whoops, he had to go. shame. coalition over, i guess.

so, politically, that was a long-needed but never-expected moment of triumph for those of us who think the FDP is a clown show made up of human TESLA shares, and it came at a hysterically funny moment.

on a personal level, i can barely explain how uniquely hateable Lindner has always been. he's what would happen if a stock index graph came to life. he hates poor people with a relish; he mocks welfare recipients and would ax minimum wages in a second. he's everyone's business major roommate who shows up in boat shoes fresh off a yacht to discuss NFTs with you. throughout the entire time that he's used his rich boy policy blackmail strategy, he's been smug about it, and he was never taken to task for it, and millions of germans have been longing to throw rotten fruit in his face since 2017. and now we finally get to do it. via memes. on the day of trump's election win.

so that's why it's funny.

[doublejango]

I am already seeing virtue signaling posts from people saying "I don't care what you believe or how you voted..."

That's great. I care. I care a lot. The outcome of this election effects me, but so much more than me. I care. It matters. And if it really doesn't matter to you? Good for you. If you are privileged enough, safe enough, and entitled enough to truly not care about how the election will impact other people... I can't even imagine what that must be like. Nice, I guess?

I spent most of last night and this morning crying.

I'm done with tears now, and have moved on to rage.

And you know what? I promise not to let it burn out. Because smiles and positivity may work for many of us, and I'm not going to lose mine either, I promise not to lose my queer joy--they can rip it from my cold dead hands, not to get too damn dramatic here--but I'm also not in the mood to start forgiving and smiling and welcoming Nazis into the bar.

So. I will hold onto anger. I've been tolerant and accepting long enough in life... and have learned something important about what causes the worst harm.

I have been gay bashed before. Violently. Blood. Broken bones. Lost teeth. And you know what the worst part of the recovery of all of that was, the part that did the most psychological and emotional damage? It wasn't the actual bashing itself. It wasn't even the memory of exactly what it felt like to have something swung full force into my face with extremely violent intent. It was the denial from my "friends" and family afterwards. The people who wanted to deny that it was a hate crime. The people who wanted me to shrug it off and not be upset about it. The people who loved to say oh well it wasn't that bad. You know what helped? Letting myself feel fury. Letting myself name the attack as hate. "It wasn't that bad," though, they said, asif it was their judgment to make--endless hours of dental procedures, pain, wounds that never fully healed, the trauma, the lost work, the new experience of vomiting blood with broken jaws and knocked out teeth. Because it wasn't that bad. And there was so much self-reproach, because I could have avoided it. I wasn't the intended target. He was swinging for a lesbian with me. When the attacker burst out of hiding he was swinging for the side of her head, her temple. I jumped in between them. Didn't think. It was an impulse. Protect the people you care about. So I took it to the face. And I grabbed him. I threw him, and fell doing it. I remember being on my knees in the mud. Seeing my teeth in the mud. Seeing my blood just. Everywhere. And knowing I needed to push back to my feet immediately because it might not be over.

We were lucky. It was over. He hadn't expected anyone to fight back. He ran.

But the people who claimed to love me didn't want to deal with the idea that it was a hate crime. They wanted it to be random and meaningless. That made their world a little safer, I guess. And their denial made my world colder. And my recovery lonelier. Harder. They put me down for "bringing it on myself." As if it would have been more virtuous to let this woman take that attack to her temple, as if I would have been more valid for standing by and watching it happen.

There are so many more stories I can tell you, but the lesson is almost invariably the same: the ugliest hurt is often the one caused by the people who just turn away when you identify what happened to you. The hurts that cut the deepest and last the longest often come from the people we thought we could trust, because they want you to just get over it, don't talk about it, admit it could have been worse, don't call it That.

The betrayal from people who are supposed to have your back? That deepens wounds, deepens trauma.

I won't be that person. I won't tell you to smile and turn the other cheek when someone shows you they hate you. Do whatever you need to do to survive--physically, emotionally, psychologically. Just don't give up, and don't let the cowards force you into feeling shame for not giving up and letting the world break you.

Never be ashamed to refuse to break.

Never let someone shame you for choosing strength. For drawing your line in the sand.

I wanted the "exciting" times of my life to be behind me. But they're not--so be it. I'm not going to tone myself down to be safer. I don't care about my own safety anymore. Any self-preservation drive broke a long time ago when it comes to homophobia. I promise to always be ready to fight. To be a queer menace to "polite" society. I promise to be out and loud and gay, to be a shield however I can for those who can't be out, who can't fight back, who can't even speak up because it wouldn't be safe for them to do so. They are valid, too. And I love them. And I will have their fucking backs. I promise to, in my real off-the-internet life, be someone who will always jump in and speak up if I see queer people being harassed or shamed--especially if they're young. I am older. I will fight for my baby gays. I will love them.

And I will never, never put anyone down for refusing to welcome Nazis into the bar. We don't look the other way and quietly tolerate them. Not here.

I may not be around much for the next few days. I need to handle my own shit. My own fury. My own grief. Because right now, there is so much grief.

But I won't be going anywhere.

I will fight to stay.

Whatever it takes.

I'm not giving up.

If I end up on my knees in the mud again, staring at my own blood and teeth, metaphorically or in fucking reality, so be it. I will get back up. And I will keep getting back up. I won't let go of the anger. The spite. And I definitely won't let go of my love for every queer person, the ones I know and the ones I don't, because that love is what will give me strength to get through this. Whatever comes next.

I may not have much sense of self-preservation. But goddamn, I will fight for you.

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

To all the Americans on tumblr rn...

I am not American, nor am I old enough to vote yet as I missed being the legal voting age for my province by only about a week- curse my extremely late birthday.

(which weirdly enough has also had such an incredibly tight election that they are still counting the votes right now even though it happened 2 weeks ago because the two parties are basically tied. }

but I am also very worried for you guys way down south. Hopefully America will put the right person into power this time and everything ends up being ok for you all. Not to be too cliché but I am sending thoughts and prayers and I hope you guys all stay safe down there. I honestly can't even imagine how you guys fell- I don't even live there and I've been feeling increasingly nauseous as the hours go by and I have had to offline for the most of the day.

Remember:

To take care of yourselves. Just in general, in whatever way you see fit

You absolutely do not have to live stream the election polling/results thing on TV, doom scroll election content the whole day long, watch the news, or consume any other election related content. As horrible as it feels to say this; the results will be the same regardless of whether or not you are watching it. Sometimes it is just better for you and your mental health to just log off of sm/screens for the night

If it all does feel like its getting too much for you, please log off/take a sm/screentime break

Most importantly, if you haven't already, please vote!!!! I am not American and am barley old enough to be considered a legal voter (Missed my own countries election *tears*) so I can't really help in terms of providing resources but I am sure there are all sorts that can help you I'm sure. I know that its getting late at night; some polls have closed already but not as many as you would think. I found out that most are actually open way later than I thought. As it turns out, some are even open til 1! You learn something new every day I guess!

Just Please, Please, Please go out and cast your ballot and make your voice known, with how close this is quite literally every voice matters!!! GO VOTE!!!

Poll closing times in case you need it (I only included ones that close 8pm and upwards because it is 7:30 at the time of writing this)

8 p.m. ET

Alabama

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida (Polls in Eastern time zone close at 7 p.m. ET; part of Panhandle are in Central time zone)

Illinois

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Mississippi

Missouri

New Hampshire (Polling hours vary by municipality and are listed by location here)

New Jersey

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Tennessee

8:30 p.m. ET

Arkansas

9 p.m. ET

Arizona

Colorado

Iowa

Kansas (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties in the west)

Louisiana

Michigan (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties)

Minnesota

Nebraska

New Mexico

New York

North Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in all but eight counties)

South Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in the east)

Texas (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET for most of the state except three counties in the west)

Wisconsin

Wyoming

10 p.m. ET

Montana

Nevada (The polling location at City Hall in West Wendover closes at 9 p.m. ET)

Utah

11 p.m. ET

California

Idaho (Polling locations in the south close at 10 p.m. ET)

Oregon (Polling locations in Malheur County close at 10 p.m. ET)

Washington

12 a.m. ET

Hawaii

1 a.m. ET

Alaska (Polling locations close at 12 a.m. with the exception of Adak)

I'm not really sure what other useful info I could put as I don't know much about America or it's electoral system but I hope that helps.

A lot of people I have seen have been posting about how they feel sick to their stomach's and that they can't get off the news and how they just feel terrible so...

Things you can do to distract yourself for the rest of the night (And possibly the next few days, idk how long it takes to count votes)

Have an early bedtime/take a late nap (Only go to bed after 9 at least though, otherwise you'll mess up your sleep schedule and make you feel worse.) Just sleep your way througb it if you cant help it.

To add on to point one I often use asmr if I can't fall asleep right away/to distract myself. My favorites are: Jaden Aliana Asmr, Oceans Asmr, Kaitlynn Reha asmr, and my absolute favorite Goodnight Moon ASMR (Check out her babble brook, 1920's, or valley girl series')

Listen to a podcast (I like Rotten Mango- informative true crime, Buzzfeed unsolved- funny true crime/ghost hunting, Look behind you- also true crime, and Chris Chan; a comprehensive history)

Never too late for some cleaning! Clean your house, bathroom, bedroom, closet, do a deep clean.

If your a student like me- do your schoolwork! I know you have some studying or homework that needs to be done! Get on it!! I use the pomodoro method if that does anything

Have a self care night- do an everything shower or fancy bath, make facemasks, mani pedi's ect.

Watch a movie or marathon t.v shows you love/that are comfort shows (Some of my comfort shows are; Bobs burgers, Gravity falls, the moomins 1990, the office, what we do in the shadows, black books, derry girls, moone boy, and all creatures great and small and M.A.S.H. Some of my comfort movies are; Little women, the cornetto trilogy, Emma, Legally blonde, Pride and Prejudice)

Never too late for some cooking! One of my favorite hobbies is cooking and baking (Mostly baking) Make some chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies, muffins, cupcakes or try a fun cake.

Go for a night walk! Just make sure you bring a buddy and some flashlights of you're in total darkness like I am right now. (Love me a Canadian fall! Already snow where I am so of course that means everyone now needs to immediately put up Christmas decorations lol. At least the lights are nice at night)

Spend time with loved ones. Call or text a friend, spend time with your family, roommates, whoever. If your on campus at a uni see if there's literally any activities or clubs open at this hour you can go to

Read. I know you have a tbr you keep meaning to get to

Go on a research rabbit hole about something interesting. Try to learn something new. Some topics to get you started relating to where I live cause why not; Try to learn about : The Animals of Canada, Indigenous cultures and peoples of Canada- ex: try to learn some Cree or Halqemeylem phrases, try to memorize all of our provinces and territories.

Get through any chores you still have to do

Make/do something creative: Play an instrument, record a song, make a collage, paint, draw

Play some music, listen to your favorite songs on loop (Spotify's still collecting data for wrapped!)

Download a videogame on your phone- just one to pass the time even if its total addictive trash. Some ones I like: Moomin town- Idle, relaxing, town building, slowpaced, free, Miriam webster quizitative- free, wordgames, has an end to it, Toca boca hair salon- not free, hair salon game, endless, Toca boca town- not free but there are dupes, dollhouse game, bird bnb- townbuilding, slowpaced, as well theres all sorts of cute isle cat games; I like the grocery store and cafe ones

Make sure to:

Drink water

Eat at regular intervals

take breaks from screens (It'll hurt ya eyes)

get some sleep at some point

Don't sleep all day (Try to get up at a normal time)

if you feel like you need- put screen time limits on your phone. Or as well, turn down the brightness if you feel you have to doom scroll.

That's all for now. Hope you guys are doing ok and that the results are what we are all hoping for. Just know that you are in pretty much everyone's minds and we are all thinking of you (Even if we don't live in America). Stay safe and take care of yourself and your mental health.

Love, thoughts, prayers, and support from Canada/Tumblr and have a good night.

Congrats if you managed to get through this absolute brick of text. I commend you. I'll probably check back in tomorrow.

[theprettynosferatu]

I Had Ice-Cream (The Election Post)

I had ice-cream yesterday.

I've following a very strict diet because I'm trying to eat in a healthy manner and, let's not lie here, because I am quite vain and wanted to lose a few pounds. And if there was one thing I stayed away from, it was ice-cream. But yesterday I had to. Eating my feelings, I suppose.

The reason I felt so bad should be obvious. And I'm not even American! But I lived there. I made friends there. I still have friends there. Gay, straight, cis, trans... my heart breaks for them all. It feels like something horrid, something primal and evil and dark won. A fear turned into anger and selfish lashing out. It's hard to believe, right now, that love will always conquer hate.

I intended to make a few captions yesterday, but I couldn't. And I am well aware you don't come here to see me whine and weep and rant. But I don't think I can make more content without addressing this first.

This blog plays with ideas of power- in fact, the main aesthetic and tone for captions is inspired very directly by propaganda. I imagine them as posters from another, fictional reality. Hard to see it as so fictional right now.

Let me be absolutely clear: if you truly think women are lesser, if you let hate take root in your heart, if you are a real authoritarian, this blog is not for you.

What can I do? Not much. Not much except providing, perhaps, a bit of escapism- hoping people understand the difference between kink and reality, hoping I haven't done harm with my work (although I doubt captions and kink stories moved a lot of votes in this election).

I feel we need to take our small joys wherever we can find them. You can't fight if you are a burnt-out, overwhelmed mess. So, don't feel bad about cutting yourself some slack. Do something that brings you joy, even for a moment, because we need you. You matter. And you deserve that joy, and so much more.

So, I had ice-cream. Find your ice-cream, and eat a bit without shame.

Take care of yourself. And now more than ever, we need to help take care of each other.

Kink content will resume soon. I just needed to clear the air and vent a bit. Thank you for understanding.

-Nos

[eight-freakin-gids]

"Democracy doesn't work if people do not occupy a shared reality."

I don't like telling people what to do. I'm happiest when everyone is on the same page, when everyone does what is expected of them.

That's why this election blindsided me. We beat him last time. I thought we had the momentum. I thought there was no way that the majority would vote for someone that the US court of law found guilty as a criminal. Someone who spews venom every single time he's on camera.

But I suppose I should have seen this coming. I was talking to a coworker who was watching the presidential debate and said that both candidates are equally bad/corrupt. Through gritted teeth I told him I disagreed. I couldn't call him an idiot because in the past he was willing to hear me out. Because he asked about my political beliefs and was willing to listen to me without dismissing me outright.

But Democracy doesn't work if people don't occupy a shared reality. It doesn't work because they assume all politicians are equally corrupt. It doesn't work because they assume the Republican is a Christian, or that the Republican party is always the best choice for Christians. It doesn't work because despite Trump being the most grotesquely evil human being imaginable, people still think he works as a president specifically cause he's not a politician. Because he 'tells it like is is.'

I'm dreading talking to my coworkers about the election. Talking to my parents. My grandmother and my aunt. I was hoping we were all on the same page. Just this once, vote blue, then after that, I don't care. Vote for a more normal republican next time. The US can handle that. But now, I can't look at anyone, strangers or otherwise, without wondering if they contributed to the delusion.

I want to leave off on a positive note. My goal for the next 4 years is to keep my family and friends safe.

I'm a chronic optimist, so part of me keeps expecting something to happen. But even if there is a recount or an impeachment or another attempted assassination, it's not going to happen tomorrow.

All of us, hang in there. Survive, protect each other. Endure. This too shall pass.

We will get our opportunity.

I've done a lot of thinking about the election loss over the past 24 hours, and read a bunch of think-pieces about what Democrats could've done differently, or which bits of messaging were to blame. A lot of the dialogue seems to be missing a fundamental point.

It doesn't matter what solutions you propose or enact, if the voting public cannot differentiate between facts and lies. Your policy platforms do not matter if people can't discern which things actually happened, and which didn't. You could pass a $35 minimum wage tomorrow and unless people are able to connect their pay increase to your legislative action, they will not reward you for it at the ballot box. We are caught up in a vast information war where conspiracy theories and propaganda have saturated the television screens and social media feeds of the voting public, leaving them confused, angry, and tapped out. Democracy doesn't work if people do not occupy a shared reality. Engagement-driven algorithms have distorted our collective perception of the world so drastically that people cannot determine what any given candidate has actually accomplished, or even what they stand for. For crying out loud, we've got voters who have abandoned the most basic, bedrock underpinnings of reality, like the fact that we live on a planet, or that germs cause disease. It's just absolute bugfucking chaos out there. Old-school "grassroots democracy" does not solve the problems of a post-truth society. If we cannot get a handle on disinformation, we cannot fix things. Ever.

[whatbigotspost]

Sometimes it feels like everyone left leaning on this site are at the extreme polar opposite ends of a spectrum of "compulsory vote blue or die and kill us all, you stupid selfish piece of shit" or "vote for Biden and you're a fucking warmonger who will kill us all, you stupid selfish piece of shit."

I'm so sick of it. It's exhausting.

I can't do justice to this point in a tumblr post. But for now I'll say, as with everything in life, it's all so much fucking more nuanced than this. Both systemically and personally. No 2 people on this site's voting access and circumstances are remotely the same. Y'all really gonna tell me it's the same experience every step of the way to vote in rural Texas as it is downtown NYC? Indianapolis as LA? Denver as Honolulu? Alaska as Alabama? And that’s only speaking to geography which is 1 factor of so many.)

I'm gonna hold my nose and vote for Biden. Again. (Again and again if you count VP.) AND I fucking hate him and his politics. I was raised as close to the "vote blue or die" side of the spectrum as one could be in 1984. My parents were shit, but they did take me to see voting w/ them. I was raised with a hero of a grandmother who reminded me every election cycle that when she was born, her mother wasn't legally able to vote.

I ended up spending 4 years studying poli sci, where my academic mentor and thesis reader was the first Black woman (I'm white) who I'd ever gotten to formally learn from. She was the first person who also ever challenged my idea that "voting is the ultimate way to participate in society" and opened my eyes to the substance of the choice to not participate in politics that way. She was foundational and planted the seed of the thought in my mind, but my continued educational path studying the governmental systems of the US far outside her direct tutelage kept raising the same questions for me. After that educational experience, I basically walked away with a following 17 year (ever growing) mental ethical dilemma and debate on this in my own mind that has just gotten more and more intense because I can personally understand both of those extremes and why they are so passionately felt.

But I just don't agree that we should be spending our time continuously text screaming at another person that the choice you arrived at (for the reasons YOU have) are in any way actually relevant to a stranger.

If you read this and you're at one of those extreme ends, I want you to know: I don't blame you or have a negative judgement against that. But if you think that YOUR REASONS are the same truths present for all other folks on the left side of the stupid ass US political spectrum, you're wrong. You just are.

[tenrose]

So you're telling me in the US they put their ballot votes in a box in the streets????

Learnt that because apparently they are being sent on fire which is exactly what I'd expect with that kind of system...

[jaythelay]

You Are In Fact Demanding Tyranny by telling people Protesting or Demanding Better will Cause Us To Be Hurt or to Lose.

We can hate Trump and be anti-genocide and I really think Dems gotta understand their Pro-Genocide talking points continue to be Republican talking points that benefit Republicans and the Rich.

Sincerely ask yourself why you don't hold the same standards for BLM as you do Anti-Genocide/Pro-Palestine protests.

Please ask yourself if the difference is solely because you're scared to demand anything from Dems, lest we lose through Actual Political Action instead of simply voting silently and hoping for the best or ignoring problems we cause without our permission?

Be Ignorant of corruption or bad legislation or mistakes, They Have To Be Perfect. Anything less and they'll lose. Because of course, Kamala Has To Be Perfect whilst Dump does not.

And because of Your Mentality, you have Boxed Her Into This Situation where she cannot possibly give a definitive answer. If she is public about a Ceasefire Dems Will Not Vote For Her. If she says she's pro-Israel it's the exact same.

All You Have To Do Is Be Anti-Genocide So She Can Give A Definitive Answer. God damn.

Why should people be silent about an Active Genocide we're funding? Why should you be allowed to Demand Free Healthcare and accountability for police but are not allowed to for Israel's Genocide?

Ask yourself why you want a Tyranny and yet are scared of Dump?

Don't get intellectually lazy here-

You Are In Fact Demanding Tyranny by telling people Protesting or Demanding Better will Cause Us To Be Hurt.

Quit being Republican about Genocide/Israel. Do you just defend party blindly no matter the fucking cost? Grow up! Or admit you're republican but vote dem for social reasons.

Get out of this wide umbrella of a party if you don't support our ability to Demand from Elected Officials. That is what Republicans Vote For. Not Dems.

Fuck off you pathetic, terrified, nazi enabling larpers who can't come to the most elementary school conclusion upon Mass Murder and Simple Civics.

Demand Better.

Genocide Bad No Matter Who.

Fuck you.

[sylvthara]

lord please take all of my pain give it to donald trump

[girlcalledwhatsername]

USAmerican here. So we have something called the electoral college in the US. Which means people's votes aren't counted individually. Depending on what state you live in, your vote is worth more than other people. States like Nebraska and Wyoming have more votes than states like Maryland or Vermont despite having a far lower population. Those states have conservative majorities and those conservative majorities have more votes than people in liberal (not even leftist) areas. So elections aren't about convincing people in your state to vote, it's about convincing guys in Nebraska. Those guys in Nebraska want a conservative candidate. So the only hope of getting them to not vote conservative is for them to vote for a conservative democrat. Until this system changes, it is not possible to get a liberal much less leftist candidate in major elections. The elections literally do not matter unless you live in a few specific states.

Okay I had heard so much about electoral colleges and gerrymandering but it was never explained this plainly, thanks for sharing that! I thought it's referring to constituencies as usually happens with general elections. So there's the electoral college which means every vote isn't equal, and then the vote from there is just the "popular vote" and isn't the final deciding factor? So it's rigged twice over to not give much of a choice to the citizens, I had been wondering about those write-in votes all this time, and wondering that if voting really is the topmost important thing to get people to do then why aren't more people putting forward Bernie as a big candidate when they get people to vote instead of insisting they vote democratic, but it's making more sense now. And so is everyone who rightly said you can't keep reforming such a system it actually needs to be gone.

[chaoskirin]

I'm not gonna tell you how to vote, BUT...

Here are some truths about the upcoming United States election.

Either Trump or Biden will win.

Our political system is designed around ensuring that either the Democrat or the Republican win. There is no "but if everyone rallies around a third party candidate..." argument, because...

Grassroots campaigns can't work. There are areas of the country that don't have internet or television. Congress just allowed the Affordable Connectivity Program to lapse, denying internet to even more people. There is literally no way for some candidates to get their message to huge parts of the country.

The Republican and Democrat candidates are backed by huge donor machines that enable them to tour a campaign trail. Independent candidates do not have this luxury.

Our country still uses a First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system, which is specifically designed to support only two candidates.

Our country uses an electoral (all or none) system, which is why you hear that voting for a third party candidate "takes votes away" from one of the major party candidates. For example, if Trump gets 48,999 votes, Biden gets 50,000 votes, and a third party candidate gets one single vote, Biden takes all the electoral votes in the state. All of them.

I really hope you make your peace with this now. Please, vote how you want, but with one candidate saying he will essentially outlaw transgender people, I can't imagine NOT voting for the only other candidate who can possibly win. Right now the polls are 50/50, which is absolutely insane to me.

In my experience, it's usually younger people who talk about either voting their conscience, or not voting at all to "send a message." I assure you, not voting doesn't send a message to the candidate who loses. Your message is only received by the millions of Americans who will suffer as a result.

I don't want to argue. I have no desire to fight with anyone over this anymore. And if you want to ask me "so I have to choose between two killers?" as a gotcha, then I'm sorry to say... The answer is yes. Those are the choices we've been given. And because the United States is no longer a true democratic republic, there's not a whole lot we can do to change that right now.

[kawuli]

you know, the thing that leaves me completely out of fucks for "don't vote" arguments, more than anything else?

the 2000 election

Bush won by Supreme Court decision. If they'd counted all the ballots in Florida he would've lost, but he successfully sued to stop the count.

We all learned what a "hanging chad" was. It was awful.

Less than a year later, airplanes flew into a bunch of big important buildings.

Nader got near record green party votes. Al Gore was the famously boring VP for Clinton, the guy who decided the way to win was to be a Democrat who acted like a Republican. Clinton and UK PM Tony Blair were the champions of neoliberalism.

why in the fuck would you want to vote for that guy? the dumb kid of the old president didn't seem too bad, anyway. he was a Compassionate Conservative! is that really so much worse than neoliberals?

it's hard to play alternate history with this stuff, but imagine if Al Gore had been president on 9/11. We probably still get a war in Afghanistan, everybody wanted that one except Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-CA. I think it's a pretty good bet the US doesn't invade Iraq.

Can you imagine how much better off we'd be if instead of 8 years of a climate denier president we'd gotten the guy who wrote "An Inconvenient Truth"? If we'd managed even to do the wimpy version of cap and trade?

You can't KNOW these things. That was one Trouser of Time and we're down a different one.

But 537 votes in Florida made a hell of a lot of difference. I don't want to be one of the 600 or so people who were running late after work and didn't want to wait in another goddamn line.

Because you just never know what's going to happen

[qqueenofhades]

I got political whiplash on Threads. First, everyone was screaming, “All is lost!” I came back an hour later, and everyone was screaming, “We Ride at Dawn!”

The right-wingers are in panic mode. Steven Miller was practically screaming on Feckless news. 🤣

I mean. The right-wingers' entire mentality, the fuel for the January 6 attempted coup, the recent SCOTUS President God-King Immunity ruling, and all the rest, is premised on the simple fact that the president is indeed, Almighty God King who serves for life and will never, ever willingly give up his power. So that's how I can guarantee that the GOP, because they are short-sighted fascist morons, did not plan for this. Their entire strategy was built around attacking Biden, because they hate him. Like, really hate him. He defeated Trump the first time and there was still a good chance that he could do it again. Trump got impeached the first time for trying to extort Zelenskyy for dirt on Biden, because he didn't want to face him. That's why they went after Hunter on largely bogus charges, tossed around the idea of impeaching Biden, actually (uselessly) impeached Mayorkas, etc.

And yet, because Biden (even if he was forced to do it) decided to step away and voluntarily give up his presidential power instead of wrecking American democracy to hold onto it, that has broken their little shriveled fascist brains. They literally can't comprehend it, and I can guarantee they're now shit scared about having to face Kamala, a brown woman, who is the epitome of everything their tiny evil brains hate. As noted by those bangin' fundraising numbers, there is also a lot of excitement around her. And suddenly, after MONTHS of "this election is a referendum on which old and mentally declining man you hate more," that has been removed as a factor. (Watch the media suddenly forget all about age and/or mental competency as a factor now that Biden is out. Does it apply to Trump, you ask? CRICKETS.)

Kamala is going to mop the f'n floor with Trump at the next presidential debate, and I guarantee that the GOP knows that too. Because yes, if Biden had another bad debate, or if he has a bad case of COVID that might end up giving him long-covid symptoms or keeping him off the trail for days or weeks, that would have been very, very hard to recover from. Now the GOP is the one stuck with an old, mentally baffled, virulently hated presidential candidate and the most pro-Russia, anti-woman, demonstrable-sellout whitebread VP pick imaginable, that they had to choose because Trump nearly got the last one killed and he wasn't interested in the job again, for some weird reason. And as we have pointed out before, this is the last-chance saloon for Trump in any number of ways, and he has been demonstrably overconfident the last few weeks as the media was consumed with discussion of Biden's stumbles rather than Trump's manifold unfitness, treason, felonies, and all the rest.

I don't agree with Biden on everything he has ever done in his long career in public service, but I will say that I don't think he would have actually done this if he wasn't eventually convinced, for whatever reason that might be, that it was the right decision. And my one big fear about him stepping down was that the party would instantly fracture, people would start flogging unrealistic Magical White Boy replacements, and otherwise insist on an "open mini-primary!" or some other fucking bullshit. Now, there are still a few idiots trying that, but by and large, the Democratic power apparatus has instantly thrown its weight behind Kamala. That doesn't excuse them for the weeks of wibbling Anonymous Sources self-sabotage beforehand, and I still vote that we destroy the billionaires at our next opportunity, but if we can stick with that and keep up those mongo fundraising numbers, we might indeed actually have a better chance than before, and that was what this was all about.

As I noted yesterday, Black women have been disproportionately influential in taking Trump down (think Leticia James, Fani Willis, etc) and there is undoubtedly a huge, HUGE amount of poetic justice if Kamala can be the one to stick the knife in his greasy orange gut once and for all. I can likewise guarantee the GOP is well aware of that, and the fact that while they can yell even louder and trot out the same old racist, sexist, misogynist fearmongering dirtbag attacks they used on HRC, that is a strategy with demonstrably diminishing returns (it sure as hell isn't going to help them win any more female or suburban or black voters or anyone else we always hear about how they're Making Inroads with). And we're not going to talk about how it's Obvious that America would never elect a black female president. Obama won two terms. Even with all that weight of frothing misogyny and DECADES of Republican smear machines, HRC won the popular vote and was ratfucked out of the Electoral College by the slimmest of margins, after a massive interference campaign by the Russians. It is fucking possible, we are going to do it, and the Republicans are so, SO FUCKING SCARED of having to live in an America run by a brown woman, that can only be for the good.

Kamala Harris 2024. Let's go.