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adamwatchesmovies · 4 years ago

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The Best of 2020

Better late, than never. I enjoy seeing other people’s top-10 lists and I said I’d do one for 2020, so here we go. I haven’t had the chance to watch EVERYTHING I wanted to, but you’ve got to pull the trigger at some point. When the Academy Awards took place on Sunday, I felt like I hadn’t seen ANYTHING nominated but I could remember dozens of times where I felt like I wasted my precious minutes with cinematic detritus. I assumed putting this list together would be easy. It wasn’t. I’ve got a lot of runner ups but for now, here are my Top 10 “Best” (by which I kind of mean my favorite) movies of 2020:

10. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Never Rarely Sometimes Always gave me a lot to think about. On the surface, it's about a teenager who has to travel outside of her hometown to get an abortion, but it could've been any kind of procedure she's uncomfortable (or unable) asking her parents for. It's about the lengths she has to go to when her main source of support is cut off. You feel uneasy throughout, wondering what lengths the girls will have to resort through and whether something horrible is just around the corner. For this reason, I think many parents would find the film enriching.

9. Mank

I haven’t posted my review of Mank yet - just haven't had the time so consider my star rating for it "spoiled". If you don't know, it's about Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and the time he wrote Citizen Kane for Orson Welles. I can’t call Citizen Kane one of my favorite films, but I do often think of it. The story, the characters, specific shots, the overall look, etc. Every time I revisit it in my memory, my appreciation for it grows and in a way, Mank helps complete my relationship with the film. For that reason, I foresee myself revisiting Mank in the future - probably as part of a double-bill. I’d love to see it enough times to memorize some of Gary Oldman’s best lines.

8. One Night in Miami

One Night in Miami addresses the present while being set in the past but something about it clicked with me more than Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It's essentially a series of long conversations, the kinds that force you to really examine tough questions and see these legendary figures as normal people. Unlike Mank, it isn't so much the individual lines that stand out, it's more the vibes you get from the exchanges. Out of all the movies on this list, it's probably got the best ensemble cast.

7. Sound of Metal

I'm sure you've seen that clip from Un Chien Andalou where an eye gets sliced with a razor? It gives me the willies just thinking about it because if I were blind I wouldn't be able to watch movies or draw. In Sound of Metal, we're dealing with a career cut short because of deafness but the dots are easy to connect. I immediately connected with this movie, which made its ending feel like a punch in the gut.

6. Tenet

I keep telling myself that I won’t love a movie Christopher Nolan directs just because his name is attached to it. Hopefully, this doesn't make me a fanboy, despite my falling for pretty much everything he's released. I love how ambitious Tenet is. The plot is so complicated but then again it isn't because once you're able to grok the mechanics of its reverse-entropy technology, you'll probably figure out most of the plot's mysteries. For me, that was the fun part. It felt good to see my understanding of the story and theories confirmed. I'll be watching it again once groups can gather so my friends and I can discuss everything in detail.

5. Trial of the Chicago Seven

I know The Trial of the Chicago Seven fudges history in ways certain people would say is irredeemable but I never go into a film “based on true events” assuming liberties won’t be taken. At the end of the day, I care about being entertained. My enjoyment was also amplified by the fact that I didn't know what the verdicts would be - my American history is spotty, at best. It's got laughs, outrage, drama, and inspirational moments. Aside from romance, you've got pretty much all the bases covered.

4. Palm Springs

Out of all the pleasant surprises of 2020, Palm Springs was the biggest. I thought the Groundhog Day thing was played out and the 0-star-worthy Love Wedding Repeat did nothing to convince me otherwise. Then, this movie comes along and does everything you want in one of those movies, and then some. Not only did Palm Springs give me the romantic comedy I'd been craving for (feels like we haven't gotten a good one since "Crazy Rich Asians" it also examines what love and relationships mean through smartly written metaphors.

3. Possessor

No, I didn’t put this movie on the list just because it’s Canadian; Possessor is on this list because it’s the most unsettling movie of 2020. I mean that in a good way. I've already talked about how unsettling the premise is but it's also the execution. Those bizarre “dream” scenes with the different identities merging in unnatural ways is unforgettable. That mask of Tasya's face, half-melted is already creepy enough, when worn by Christopher Abbott as he re-enacts her memories is just so weird it makes you wonder if you’re actually seeing what you’re seeing, or if you’re going mad. Then, there's that shot with the fingers at the end! Makes me wince just thinking about it.

2. Soul

During the Oscars, I get a little mad at Pixar. They effortlessly churn out these masterpieces that mean no other studio has a chance of winning an Academy Award for the Best Animated Film category. It makes me wonder if the voters even bother to watch the competition but I don't think anyone could argue against Soul. It's among their best films. It’s gorgeous, profound, and modern without showcasing any issues that might flush your day down the toilet.

Runner-Ups:

Enola Holmes

I never believed Enola Holmes would end up on my "Best of the Year" list but this movie is a lot of fun. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. Just wanted to remind you.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) I was disappointed when audiences didn’t seem interested in Birds of Prey. Seeing Margot Robbie go all-out and given a script that actually makes good use of her character was lots of fun. I also found it refreshing to see a superhero movie (not really, but kind of) that didn’t involve a plot to destroy the world, upheaval all of civilization, or shoot a giant beam into the sky. I think this is one people will discover down the line and go “why didn’t I go see this in theaters when it was playing?”

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm I’m not 100% in love with Borat 2 but boy am I looking forward to showing it to people who have no idea what’s coming. That scene with Rudy Guliani might not have the same impact down the line as it did when I first saw this sequel, but that’s ok. It’ll still have you picking your jaw off the floor.

Nomadland It’s a great movie and I might’ve put it on my list of the best… but I just don’t see myself watching this one again anytime soon. Great movie though. It deserves every accolade you see directed towards it. Chloé Zhao is shaping up to be a major talent. While before I might’ve said “Eternals who?” Now, I’m excited.

The Vast of Night Until I saw Possessor, this was my favorite horror film of 2020. I love the way this movie does so much without showing anything. It’s all about letting your imagination do the work.

Hamilton I’m still unsure how I feel about the casting in Hamilton. Everyone does a terrific job. I understand why actors of color were chosen to portray the historical figures we meet during this story. It still doesn't sit 100% comfortable with me. Then again, who can argue with those results? I’ve seen the movie twice and the songs are still playing in my head.

1. Promising Young Woman

I only had so much before this post went up. Enough for one more movie. It was a tossup between The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, and Promising Young Woman. As you can imagine, I’m pretty satisfied with the choice I made. Writer/director Emerald Fennell takes the rape-revenge genre and reshapes it into something that feels completely new. Like many of the other films on this list, it also feels relevant to what’s going on today. There are many reasons why I could’ve given it this slot. The writing, the performances, the way it puts your stomach in knots as you wonder what’s going to happen next, the pitch-perfect ending… but I’m going to pick a more personal reason. I try to look at films as snapshots of when they were made. There’s a part of me that winces when I look at Gone with the Wind but I’m also able to take a step back and say “but other than that…” and then just enjoy the movie. In Promising Young Woman, the past is confronted in a way that made me pause and think about two movies on my shelf: Wedding Crashers and American Pie. The Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy, in particular, has a lot of questionable bits of comedy, bits made even more eyebrow-raising by the fact that it isn't an "old" movie whose entire cast is now dead. Let’s just say that when a movie makes me go “This movie is replacing X”, makes me think this hard about things, and does everything else you want in a thriller… it’ll stick in your head for a long time. That's why I'm calling it the best/my favorite movie of the year.

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siimjaeyun · 4 years ago

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Chapter 3: A vote for ghost trucks

Synopsis: Heeseung’s father, the head of city, asks him to get more involved with the family tactics of politics. Luckily, the mystery group is up to lending him a hand and helping him get re-elected. Or well-that’s the plan up until a ghost truck appears in the city stealing door knobs.

Series Masterlist

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The young boy drove at full speed before stopping himself at witnessing the blaring blue and red rights of the motorbike behind him. The officer approached his window, moving his glasses downwards to meet the boy eye to eye.

“You do know your speeding right?”

“Yes officer, I'm’ v-very sorry.” The officer did not get a chance to respond before a thundering sound escaped from behind; following a large truck covered in fire and meshed cloth.

He quickly turned his attention towards the speeding vehicle, rushing and trying to get a response. Yet, the truck held nothing and instead moved sideways to push the man off the road. The truck escaped without a trace, and the officer was left dangling off a tree.

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Heeseung found himself walking up the stairs of the city building and directly into his father’s office.

“You don’t think he’ll send me away. He usually never calls me here.”

“I doubt it. Besides, we’re right here.” Sunghoon patted his back gently and saw as Mayor Lee left the room to welcome his son.

“Heeseung, you’re just on time! I thought it was time for you to learn about the family business, politics.”

“But dad, that’s adulting. I’m a teen, and teens like building traps and mystery solving.”

“No they don’t Heeseung. I want you to be involved, and you can start by helping me print pamphlets for my re-election.” He shoved a slip of paper into his hands and trudged in the opposite direction.

“Looks like we’re on office duty.” Sunoo and Jake quickly got to the copy machine, first attempting to even figure how to turn on the damn machine.

“y/n can’t make it today, but I know she’s sending you support.” Jungwon gave him a small smile, and joined the confused duo by the copy machine.

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“Are we an item? Girl quit playing.” The Bieber sang rang in the background as you worked on the embroidered design on the black bucket hat in your hands.

“Y/n! Dad wants to see you!” Jay’s voice echoed from down stairs, leaving you with no other option than to obey his wishes. You made your way downstairs and saw a young man waiting by the entrance.

“Ah, Y/n, I’d like you to meet Han Jaehyun, the son of Han Cooperation.”

“It’s my pleasure to meet you, here’s a small pendant for you.” He tossed you the ladder shaped pendant, but you casted it inside your pocket.

“Well, I must get going, but um how about I give you a call later for a magical outing on the town. See you later, babe.” Confused, you turned to Jay who had simply been observing quietly from the staircase.

“You’re trying to set me up on a date!?”

“Honey, at least give Jaehyun a chance”

“B-but, what about Heeseung?” You pushed them away and took a seat on the stairs waiting for them to respond.

“Yeah, but aren’t you guys just friends?”

“Yeah, but it feels like cheating,” an uncomfortable pause broke out so you spoke again, “I mean cheating on a good friend of course.”

“Sis, come on. It’s just one itty bitty date.” You unconsciously rolled your eyes, and made your way out the door.

“You only say that because you're the family's favorite.”

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“Uhh...Jungwon, I’m pretty sure that’s not how you do it.”

“Relax, just type 40,000 and boom.” He pushed the big green button without a care, and soon enough, the machine crashed and blasted a dark ink through the room.

“Just fantastic, you broke it!” Sunoo gave him a smack in the head and saw a man approaching them; his suit covered in a similar ink.

“Look what you did to my suit!”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Mayor Lee stepped out from the comfort of his office and saw his rival, vivid and clearly upset at the disaster he found.

“If you’re going to play dirty Lee, then two can play that game.” Without another word, he left quickly.

“Who was that dad?”

“Mr.Xiang, he’s the candidate I’m running against. His father was mayor, but was removed when he robbed a diamond. He still claims his father is innocent.” A small hum escaped from him before he left the scene.

“Let’s get this fixed now before picking up Y/n.” They got to work; picking up the pieces and cleaning the ink off the walls.

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You sat on the edge of curve, patiently waiting for a light purple van to pull up with your chaotic friends.

“You have a moment?” Jay peered out the front door and took a place beside you.

“Do I have an option?” You both chuckled and sat in a comfortable silence.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I don’t know how you feel, but if you really don’t want to go on that date...I’ll try to convince mom and dad.”

“Really?” You turned at him with confusion and played with your hands not knowing how to deal with the issue in front. Jay was trying to help you, and you had found a way to get rid of dating random guys that your family finds ‘fit.’ Yet, a bigger part of you knew that your feelings for Heeseung would go unresolved if you never gave yourself the chance to explore.

“I-I really appreciate that Jay, really, but if I ever want to get over my crush, then maybe trying wouldn’t hurt.” You gave him a small fist bump and looked up when a honk welcomed you to join the friend group.

“I’ll see you later Jay.” You got up and into the van you went, lightly waving at Jay from your window seat.

The night had settled, and your drive towards home was engulfed in a karaoke talent show.

“Yikes, what kind of maniac has such bright lights?” All of your bodies turned backwards and a sudden force pushed the van to the edge.

“The heck is this man’s problem.” The phantom truck soon drove stronger and managed to get the van to sked off the edge of the cliff. Running on adrenaline, Heeseung managed to prevent the van from falling into the ocean below. A breath of relief escaped from everybody in the van, and it was a while before the truck finally managed to disappear in the fog in front.

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“So you’re telling me a ghost truck tried to kill you?” Chief Kim looked at you with a questionable expression, but when your head nods affirmed what you had told him, he broke out into a smile, “finally, a tourist attraction!”

To be frank, the mystery group was no longer shocked by the man’s comments. At the end of the day, both Chief Kim and Mayor Lee heavily relied on the creatures to gain tourist attraction.

“Hey guys, I think I found something.” Heeseung managed to pry your attention away from the officer, his hands motioning over the road that you had driven on earlier.

“Y/n, let me borrow your phone.” Without hesitation, you tossed your phone to him. He turned on the camera, and the shutter of the photograph broke the silence of the night. Heeseung turned back his attention to his friends, displaying proudly the image he had managed to capture.

“Tire tracks?” Sunghoon held the phone closer, and saw the patterns of the tires painted on the road.

“But ghosts don’t have tracks?” Sunoo looked at his older friends with no response.

“Exactly,” Before Jungwon could continue his thought, your ringtone broke him off from doing so. Heeseung, who still had your phone, answered the call to place it on speaker.

“Hey y/n, this is Jaehyun. I wanted to remind you about our very wonderful date for tomorrow at the Delia Diner.” You didn’t even get to react before reaching out to get your phone and pry it away from Heeseung.

“I-um, J-” Your stutters managed to do nothing and eventually Jaehyun hung off with a “see you later babe.”

“Heeseung I can explain,” all of your friends turned in the other direction. Heck, everyone besides probably Jake and Heeseung himself were aware of your feelings towards the oldest member.

“He sounds great y/n, make sure to order the chocolate shake though, it’s better than the vanilla one.”

“You want me to go on the date?” The hurt in your tone was noticeable, but to a very dense Heeseung, it didn’t mean much.

“We should head home.” Jake gave you a light pat on the back and led you back to the car with the others; Heeseung slowly trailed behind.

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“The doorknobs are missing?” Sunoo inspected all the doors of the city hall, finding no trace of the regular crystal like knobs.

“They’ve gone missing all over town. It’s at the museum too.” Jungwon stood next Sunoo, pacing his eyes between the door and his friends.

“Too bad for old Mr.Lee,” behind them stood Mr.Xiang, a man who seemed too happy at the sudden disappearance of the door knobs, “remember missing stuff means angry voters.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the robber.”

“You can’t just go around accusing him,” Jake tried to ration with his 02 companion, but had no luck when Jungwon spoke again.

“I think Sunghoon’s right. At the end of the day, he’ll benefit from all of this.”

“The only way to be sure is if we trap him right?” Heeseung showed up a proud smirk before skipping down to his van to retrieve all of the items he needed.

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“Too bad y/n missed out on the fun of setting a trap.” Sunoo mentioned sarcastically before staring at the shark tank in the middle of the room.

“Jake, you look quiet today.” Sunghoon pestered his friend, who since the night before had been filled with a blank expression.

“Is this about...no...what...Jake…for a moment I thought you might be upset over y/n’s date. How dumb of me.” Jake remained silent; he’d rather not mix his confusing teen emotions with the business at hand.

“But I’m sure she’s having fun on her date.” Heeseung managed a response to Sunoo’s earlier comment, and continued on with his mission of untangling some ropes.

Meanwhile, you were clearly not having any fun. You’d almost think that Jaehyun had bailed on your date, seeing as though half an hour had already passed by. You were getting impatient; there was some trucker guy trying to kill you and your friends, yet you were here waiting for a guy your parents had chosen.

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“What is the meaning of this!?” Mayor Lee hung on top of the shark tank; he was loosely held by a chord and couldn’t manage to bring himself down.

“We thought you were Mr.Xiang, he’s the trucker.”

“Non-sense Heeseung. You and your friends' imagination is too strong, now get me down!” In the background, Mr.Xiang was seen in the shadows, strolling by casually.

Heeseung and his friends abandoned the post after letting down his father, following behind Mr.Xiang who was inside his small car.

“For a villain, I would assume his car would be cooler.” Eventually, his car got lost in the blanket of fog, but luckily, the van stopped right in front of the ghost of the truck.

“This is our chance, hurry.”

“What happened to staying alive?” Sunoo and Jungwon didn’t manage to have an opinion before Jake and Sunghoon dragged them from the van.

They inspected it carefully, inclusively a smudge revealed that it had been recently touched up with paint. Still, nothing else was achieved before the group found themselves once more fleeing from the scene, however now in a backwards direction.

The truck roared and pushed the van in reverse; the cliff leaving in a dent in the front side of the poor van. With fright, the five boys shouted at the top of their lungs, but managed to stop when Heeseung turned off the front lights and hid in the small road to head to your supposed date.

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“Hey sorry I’m late, work got busy.” Jaehyun took a seat in front of you and managed to go by without noticing you rolling your eyes.

“I’m starving.” With no warning, his hands revoked the plate from your hands to dig into the order of fries.

He continued to eat, and managed a word or two between mouthfuls. Thankfully, your five friends arrived on time, and broke you away from the date.

“Can’t you see we’re on a date?”

“Sorry Jaehyun, but my friends are in an emergency. Guess we’ll continue some other time.”

“Woah, sick bucket hat.” Heeseung complimented your date, and discussed his appreciation for the outfit that Jaehyun had worn.

“Y/n, you mind? I forgot my wallet at home.” Just great, first he arrives late, and now he pulls this stunt. It didn’t take long for Jaehyun to finally leave, but Jake waved a cd with the familiar JK stamped on the front.

When you had made your way to the van, the cd played the recording.

“Hello my fellow friends. If you want to solve this mystery, you have to follow the fog, and remember some diamonds can open a lot of doors. Happy hunting.”

“Come on, we have to go back.” This time, the blanket of fog led to a canyon. The marble rock gleaming a bright purple given the time of day. Using your limited light, you managed to reach into a crevice that contained a lever. Pulling it back, an entrance to the cave revealed itself.

“Woah, this would make a sick hangout.”

“Yep, just us and a few thousand doorknobs.” A couple of piles with crystal doorknobs became emphasized with the moonlight shining in. Sunghoon’s hands graced over a book, and within it, a confession to a diamond robbery.

“He stole it. Mr.Xiang’s father is confessing to the crime in black and white.” Jungwon held onto the book, but didn’t get far into reading, when the earlier roar once again cried in the depths of the cave.

“Hurry!” Heeseung took control over the van, heading back to town at the fastest pace that he could. The frontside of the phantom truck grabbed onto the tires of your van, sliding the car further back. Heeseung, having been in this situation at least two times before, skated off the frontside, and managed to turn the car to face forwards.

“How do we get off his trail?”

“Head to your trap Heeseung!” Listening to Jungwon’s order, the van began to drive onto the streets, diminishing and destroying whatever objects were in the way. Eventually, the van pulled into the city hall.

“Now.” Grabbing a straw, Sunghoon shot at the record player, the disk spinning far enough to cut the rope that would catapult the truck. That it did.

The phantom truck was swung backwards, landing on the top and the driver’s seat missing the shark tank by a slight inch.

“I heard a monstrous noise, tell me it’s true!” Mayor Lee displayed Chief Kim’s earlier reaction; a tourist attraction brightened his gloomy face.

“We caught the ghost trucker, and it’s none other than Mr.Xiang.” Unlike what you had expected, Jaehyun came crawling out of the machine.

“Jaehyun!?” He fell hard onto the marbled floor, dusting himself as he got back onto his feet.

“That’s right, and I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for my meddling date and her obnoxious friends.”

“It makes sense. When Jaehyun had heard about the missing diamond Mr.Xiang’s father had stolen, he went looking for it. Remember JK’s clue, ‘a diamond can open doors,’ he had the diamond as a door knob, but because he never specified, you stole them all. You stole the crystal door knobs and smuggled them in a truck.”

“But why, you’re rich?” Jaehyun preferred to give no response and was led off by the authorities.

“I must say son, you managed to bring back the missing treasure, I’m happy.”

“Does this mean you support my dreams for mysteries and traps?” Mayor Lee responded with a hard no, and made his way back to his office.

-------

“Since Mr.Xiang has pulled from the race, I am happy to say I will be once more serving as your proud Mayor AND, that MY son, future mayor of Seoul, Heeseung has managed to return the missing diamond to us along with his friends.” The crowd erupted into cheers and applause, eating up every word that Heeseung’s father had managed.

You made your way back to the van before being stopped by Jake who held out a bracelet to you. You looked at his eyes, and saw a small smile forming on his face.

“I thought you might like it.”

“Thanks Jake, I love it.” You admired the white chain hanging on your left wrist before welcoming him into a hug. Maybe Jake had gained more than just a solved mystery.

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Note: Jay and Niki will be added to the story as the plot progresses. Jay to be added more into the next chapter!

P.S: My asks should be open lol, and I was wondering if people would like a taglist lol, but feel free to send a message or suggestion! :) <3

#enhypen #enhypen scenarios #enhypen imagines #jungwon #heeseung #heeseung imagines #jay #enhypen jake #jake imagines #sunghoon #sunoo #niki

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whitehotharlots · 4 years ago

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Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary

Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.

Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit.

The “top tier”

While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination.

Kamala Harris

Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle.

Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds.

Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store.

Andrew Cuomo

Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin.

Joe Biden

The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man.

Wild Cards

These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben.

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist.

Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men.

Larry Summers

I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier.

Jay Inslee

Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career.

AOC

I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.

Larry Hogan

Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry.

The Losers Bracket

These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.

Joe Kennedy

The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run.

Mayor Pete

I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!

Stacy Abrams

Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.

Elizabeth Warren

Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around.

It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure.

Amy Klobuchar

Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable.

Martha Coakley

She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties.

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anexplanationofunfortunateevents · 4 years ago

Text

BUT HIS [SON’S] [IRRELEVANT AND PROBABLY FAKE] EMAILS!

In a world where people were trying to do their jobs, this story would not make sense to anyone, now or ever. But because we live in the dumbest fucking timeline, you need to know the shape of the Trump cartel’s latest disinformation campaign against the American democratic process.

Former Vice President Biden is being attacked through his family, which means that his family’s story is the vital context here. Back in the ‘70s, when he was Senator-Elect Biden, his family was in a terrible car crash. His first wife and their young daughter were killed. His sons Beau and Hunter survived, though Hunter suffered a traumatic head injury. The boys went about 80% Parent Trap to convince their dad to marry his current wife Jill, and both grew up and went to law school. Beau became the attorney general of Delaware before dying of cancer in 2015. Hunter went on to a lucrative career in the private sector despite an intermittent struggle with substance abuse, which is a common aftereffect of psychological trauma and brain injuries.

Republicans generally believe that being a Yale Law grad with a wealthy father and a history of substance abuse qualifies someone for the Supreme Court, but for some deeply principled and intellectually honest reason, they have decided that Hunter Biden’s employment in the field of transportation and energy can only be a sign of spectacular corruption. So nefarious and sinister was the Biden family’s treachery that they managed to destroy every iota of evidence before multiple investigations by Senate Republicans could find any of it!

Obviously this little tabloid narrative was derailed when Trump went and got his dumb ass impeached over it. But it’s the middle of October, Trump’s down ten points in the polls, and he made the mistake of replacing the wildly unethical FBI director who threw the last election for him with a guy who at least knows to act professional, so he’s looking for a Hail Mary pass. In the wackiest of coincidences, some random Trumper had what he says might be Hunter Biden’s various hard drives, one of which apparently contained a backup of his most sensitive videos and text messages, in his computer repair shop. Of course this man did the only sensible thing and, uh, copied every file in the drives one at a time before bringing it to Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and then the FBI. Giuliani, who was a former federal prosecutor before becoming the former mayor of New York City and current new bestie of Random Tech Store Guy, handled this situation with the assistance of someone who has a mere “50/50 chance” of being a Russian agent. (Poor old Rudy does appear to have limited communication skills beyond his personal safe space of a noun, a verb, and 9/11.) It’s unclear to me whether Giuliani or Tech Store Guy was the one who shared the hard drives with Steve Bannon, the white supremacist propagandist and former Trump campaign manager who is currently under indictment for fraud.

As with a lot of Trump trash, it’s impossible to describe without sounding like you’re exaggerating for comedic effect, but the stakes are too high for any of it to be funny.

Over the weekend, a right wing tabloid published what it said were emails from one of Hunter’s laptops. (Reporters at that particular tabloid do not believe the story.) The emails don’t show any wrongdoing by the vice president and seem fake for a lot of reasons – but never mind, the bullshit laundering worked well enough to get some supposed actual reporter to harass Vice President Biden about it, and then a bunch of other supposed actual reporters to collapse into their fainting couches when Biden responded with appropriate impatience.

That apparently didn’t have the hoped-for effect. The next day, what appeared to be a series of highly emotional text exchanges between the vice president and his son appeared. There was nothing even vaguely scandalous in these, to a point where it’s not immediately obvious why anyone would bother publishing them. My best guess is that it’s meant to throw Biden off his stride by trying to hurt and humiliate his son, though it may also be an attempt to soften the ground for an even more theatrical reveal.

A lot of Very Serious Politics-Knowers have deluded themselves that the But Her Emails debacle of 2016 was the legitimate kernel of a story that was “blown out of proportion.” But Her Emails was about people a) having some degree of misogyny, conscious or unconscious, which led to a bias against Clinton and b) wanting to tell other people and/or themselves that it wasn’t because she was a woman. They understand that the But Her Emails-ing was a) enormously consequential and b) incredibly dumb. They don’t want to think too hard about that tension, because if they did, they’d have to take responsibility for how the dumb thing became so consequential.

Meanwhile, Trump campaign insiders know better than the rest of us how much they cheated in 2016, but they’re still people and therefore susceptible to the cognitive bias that they got what they wanted because they earned it somehow. The closest thing they had to an above-board strategy was yelling “emails!!” a lot, so they expect yelling “emails!!” to be successful again. They’re just desperately throwing pasta to see what sticks – but Joe Biden is a man, so they’re throwing it at the theory of relativity instead of the refrigerator door.

There are differences between 2020 and 2016 which are significantly less depressing. Trump’s co-conspirators are resorting to ridiculous methods because so many of the key players who made the 2016 operation work are actually facing punishment for some of their crimes. Paul Manafort is under house arrest. Wikileaks guy Julian Assange is in jail. Social media companies, especially Twitter, were prepared to slam the brakes. Some mainstream reporters have refused to learn their lesson from 2016, but others were prepared to be critical. And, I cannot emphasize this last one enough, voters are more prepared for it. So Team Trump isn’t as good at doing the crimes as they were four years ago, even if they were as good at it they wouldn’t be able to use traditional and social media as effectively as they did last time, and even if they could adjust to that they’d have a harder time manipulating us. Maybe it got frustrating and boring for you to hear and talk about the 2016 attack for years on end, but the whole point of that was that we needed to be ready for exactly this scenario. So far, it seems to be working better than I would have hoped.

Obviously, this is infuriating. All else aside, putting this enormous, invasive pressure on a private citizen’s mental health and substance abuse problems is abusive and gross and genuinely dangerous. I don’t give a shit who his dad is, it’s fucking evil. We need to be ready to remember everybody involved in pushing this story – not just the con artists behind it, but the “mainstream” reporters who validated it in their behavior toward the Biden campaign or who spread what were (allegedly) entirely personal text messages of no news value.

But first, we need to win next month. On that front, I want to reiterate what I said when they first started cooking up this story late last year: it’s actually encouraging that they’re resorting to something like this, because it means they’re flailing. They haven’t been able to make FBI Director Wray abuse his power in the way former Director Comey did, despite the fact that the only real tool they had to manipulate Comey four years ago was taunting and pressure from conservative media. They don’t have a cutout like Wikileaks to launder the documents for them. Most importantly, they’re trying to influence voters’ opinions of Biden because they think voters’ behavior still matters. The only thing Trump knows in life is how to get away with a scam. If they thought they had it “rigged” they would be trying to act normal, because spending the three weeks before a heist reminding your marks of what fucking criminals you are doesn’t help you get away with it.

One last thing: this is a less obvious reason why it’s important to vote as early as you can. All these other increasingly desperate stunts depend on the ability to overwhelm everyone all at once, without enough time for them to be debunked or brought back into proportion. The more early votes are in the bank, the less effective their next stink bomb can be, and if it can’t be effective, there are a lot of people around Trump who would rather save their own asses from prison than help him throw it.

#trump russia #disinformation #joe biden #election 2020

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

FiveThirtyEight has issued its final presidential forecast. There hasn’t been a lot of change over the past 24 or 48 hours, as most of the late polling either came in close to our previous polling averages, or came from — frankly — fairly random pollsters that don’t get a lot of weight in our forecast.

Of course, you can click over to the forecast right now if you’d like to see what it says — I’m sure most of you have already done that. But in these accompanying write-ups, I like to provide some context. When I wrote about our final presidential forecast in 2012, for example, I was trying to explain why a race that everyone assumed was close actually reflected a fairly decisive advantage for Barack Obama. When I wrote about our final forecast in 2016, conversely, it was pretty much the opposite. I was trying to explain that, although Hillary Clinton was favored, what most of the media was portraying as a sure thing was a highly competitive contest between her and Donald Trump.

This year … I’m not really sure what I’m trying to convince you of. If you think that polling is irrevocably broken because of 2016 — well, that’s not really correct. On the other hand, if it weren’t for 2016, people might look at Joe Biden’s large lead in national polls — the largest of any candidate on the eve of the election since Bill Clinton in 1996 — and conclude that Trump was certain to be a one-term president. If you do think that, please read my story from earlier this week about how Trump can win and why a 10 percent chance needs to be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, Biden’s standing is considerably stronger than Clinton’s at the end of the 2016 race. His lead is larger than Clinton’s in every battleground state, and more than double her lead nationally. Our model forecasts Biden to win the popular vote by 8 percentage points,5 more than twice Clinton’s projected margin at the end of 2016.

Indeed, some of the dynamics that allowed Trump to prevail in 2016 wouldn’t seem to exist this year. There are considerably fewer undecided voters in this race — just 4.8 percent of voters say they’re undecided or plan to vote for third-party candidates, as compared to 12.5 percent at the end of 2016. And the polls have been considerably more stable this year than they were four years ago. Finally, unlike the “Comey letter” in the closing days of the campaign four years ago — when then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress that new evidence had turned up pertinent to the investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state — there’s been no major development in the final 10 days to further shake up the race.

Now, there are also some sources of error that weren’t as relevant four years ago. The big surge in early and mail voting — around 100 million people have already voted! — could present challenges to pollsters, for instance. Still, even making what we think are fairly conservative assumptions, our final forecast has Biden with an 89 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, as compared to a 10 percent chance for Trump. (The remaining 1 percent reflects rounding error, plus the chance of an Electoral College tie.)

But what’s tricky about this race is that — because of Trump’s Electoral College advantage, which he largely carries over from 2016 — it wouldn’t take that big of a polling error in Trump’s favor to make the election interesting. Importantly, interesting isn’t the same thing as a likely Trump win; instead, the probable result of a 2016-style polling error would be a Biden victory but one that took some time to resolve and which could imperil Democrats’ chances of taking over the Senate. On the flip side, it wouldn’t take much of a polling error in Biden’s favor to turn 2020 into a historic landslide against Trump.

So as we did four years ago, let’s run through a few stress checks here. On average in past elections, the final polls have been off by around 3 percentage points. How would the map change if there were a 3-point error in Trump’s direction? And what about a 3-point error in Biden’s direction? Keeping in mind that some states move more than others in accordance with national trends, here’s what our final forecast shows:

How a 2016-sized polling error would change our forecast

Biden’s projected margin of victory or defeat in the most competitive states

with 3-point national error … State Final 538 Forecast IN BIDEN’S FAVOR IN TRUMP’S FAVOR New Hampshire +10.6 +14.5 +6.7 Minnesota +9.1 +12.1 +6.0 Wisconsin +8.3 +11.6 +5.1 Michigan +8.0 +11.2 +4.9 Nevada +6.1 +9.5 +2.8 Pennsylvania +4.7 +7.7 +1.7 NE-2 +3.2 +6.4 -0.0 Arizona +2.6 +5.8 -0.7 Florida +2.5 +5.7 -0.7 North Carolina +1.8 +4.7 -1.1 ME-2 +1.6 +4.8 -1.6 Georgia +1.0 +3.6 -1.6 Ohio -0.6 +2.5 -3.7 Iowa -1.5 +2.0 -5.0 Texas -1.5 +1.7 -4.7 Montana -6.4 -3.3 -9.5 South Carolina -7.5 -4.8 -10.2 Alaska -8.5 -5.3 -11.7 Missouri -9.4 -6.3 -12.5

First, before we get to the Biden-friendly or Trump-friendly scenarios: Suppose this is one of those happy years when there isn’t any systematic error in the polls — that is, Biden wins by about 8 points nationally. In that case, then Biden’s going to win the Electoral College, even if there might be polling misses in individual states. Biden’s easiest path to victory would be to win back three of the so-called “Blue Wall” states that Hillary Clinton lost: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Coupled with the states that Clinton won in 2016, that would get Biden up to 278 electoral votes, more than the 270 required. Pennsylvania is the most tenuous of the “Blue Wall” group, but even if Biden lost it — unlikely if polls are about right overall — he’d have plenty of other options as he’s also narrowly ahead in our final forecast in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia and only narrowly behind Trump in Ohio, Texas and Iowa.

What if there were a 3-point polling error in Biden’s favor? Then he’d be a favorite in all of the aforementioned states. Coupled with the 2nd Congressional Districts in Maine and Nebraska, where he’s also favored, that would result in his winning 413 electoral votes. Other states that are traditionally extremely red could even come into play for Biden too, with Montana being the most likely possibility, followed by South Carolina, Alaska and Missouri. This scenario would also make for an 11-point popular vote margin for Biden, the biggest by any candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984, and the biggest winning margin against an incumbent since Franklin Delano Roosevelt against Herbert Hoover in 1932.

But with a 3-point error in Trump’s direction — more or less what happened in 2016 — the race would become competitive. Biden would probably hold on, but he’d only be the outright favorite in states (and congressional districts) containing 279 electoral votes. In Pennsylvania, the tipping-point state, he’d be projected to win by 1.7 percentage points — not within the recount margin, but a close race.

Such a scenario would not be the end of the world for Biden. The extra cushion that he has relative to Clinton helps a lot; it means that with a 2016-style polling error, he’d narrowly win some states that she narrowly lost. Biden has polled well recently in Michigan and Wisconsin in particular and has big leads there. Still, this would not be the sort of outcome that Democrats were hoping for. For one thing, because Biden would probably be reliant on Pennsylvania in this scenario — a state that is expected to take some time to count its vote — the election might take longer to call. For another, it could yield a fairly bad map as far as Democrats’ Senate hopes go, as Biden would be a narrow underdog in several states with key Senate races, including Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa. So while Biden isn’t a normal-sized polling error away from losing, he is a normal-sized polling error away from having a messy win that might not come with control of Congress.

Still, as much as we’ve tried to strike a note of caution, Democrats have a right to be pleased about where they wound up. Sure, Biden could be in a meaningly safer position with a larger polling lead in Pennsylvania or Arizona, where his numbers have slipped a bit down the stretch run. Nonetheless, if we’d told our Democratic readers six months ago that Biden would be heading into election morning ahead by 8 points nationally, also ahead by 8 points in Wisconsin and Michigan, by 5 points in Pennsylvania, by 2 or 3 points in Florida and Arizona, and even a little bit ahead in Georgia and with a pretty decent chance to win Texas, we think they’d be fairly pleased.

It’s also worth keeping in mind the background conditions in the country today. Trump only barely won the election four years ago, against a highly unpopular opponent in Clinton. In 2016, 18 percent of voters in the national exit poll disliked both Trump and Clinton, and those voters went for Trump by 17 points. If they’d merely split evenly, Clinton would have (narrowly) won the Electoral College. Many of those voters actually like Biden, though, who has much better favorability ratings than either Clinton or Trump.

Meanwhile, the election comes at a time where a 2:1 majority of voters are dissatisfied with the direction of the country amid a COVID-19 pandemic that his killed 233,000 Americans — and which has gotten worse in recent weeks — along with high (though improving) unemployment, a summer of racial protests, and continuous erosions of democratic norms by Trump and his administration. Trump’s approval rating has been in negative territory through virtually the entirety of his presidency. Trump’s electoral record is hardly unblemished: Democrats won the popular vote for the U.S. House by nearly 9 points in 2018, about the same margin that Trump now trails in national polls, in an election where polls and forecasts were highly accurate.

In other words, given everything going on in the country — and Biden’s popularity relative to Clinton — it simply shouldn’t be that hard to imagine a small number of voters switching from Trump to Biden. Indeed, that’s what polls show: There are more Trump-to-Biden voters than Clinton-to-Trump voters. The lion’s share of people who voted for Gary Johnson or another third party candidate four years ago also say they plan to vote for Biden.

Trump might be able to overcome this with a disproportionately high Republican turnout. But while Republican turnout might be very high, Democratic turnout almost certainly will be too, as evidenced by, among other things: Democrats’ equal or higher enthusiasm level in polls; their very high numbers in early and absentee voting, and their greater fundraising prowess throughout the cycle.

Again, this is not to deny that Trump will turn out his voters, too. Our model projects overall turnout in the race to be a record setting 158 million, with an 80th percentile range between 147 million and 168 million. But if persuadable voters and independents are mostly flipping to the other party, you need your turnout to be high and for the other party’s to be low to have much of a shot, and that latter condition doesn’t appear likely for Trump.

Still, 10 percent chances happen, there’s never been an election quite like this one and this isn’t a moment that anybody should be taking anything for granted. We hope you’ll follow our coverage for as long as it takes to determine who won.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

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iwanthermidnightz · 5 years ago

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“Not a shot. Not a single chance. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Taylor Swift — who, at 30, has reached a Zen state of cheerful realism — laughs as she leans into a pillow she’s placed over her crossed legs inside her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, leaning further still into her infinitesimal odds of winning a Golden Globe, which will zero out when she heads down to the televised ball in a few hours.

Never mind whether or not the tune she co-wrote, “Beautiful Ghosts,” might actually have been worthy of a trophy for best original song (or shortlisted for an Oscar, which it was not). Since the Globe nominations were revealed, voters could hardly have been immune to how quickly the film it’s a part of, “Cats,” in which she also co-stars, became a whipping boy for jokes about costly Hollywood miscalculations and creative disasters. Not that you’ll hear Swift utter a discouraging word about it all. “I’m happy to be here, happy to be nominated, and I had a really great time working on that weird-ass movie,” she declares. “I’m not gonna retroactively decide that it wasn’t the best experience. I never would have met Andrew Lloyd Webber or gotten to see how he works, and now he’s my buddy. I got to work with the sickest dancers and performers. No complaints.”

If this leads you to believe that the pop superstar is in the business of sugarcoating things, consider her other new movie — a vastly more significant documentary that presents Swift not just sans digital fur but without a whole lot of the varnish of the celebrity-industrial complex. The Netflix-produced “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana” has a prestige slot as the Jan. 23 opening night gala premiere of the Sundance Film Festival before it reaches the world as a day-and-date theatrical release and potential streaming monster on Jan. 31.

The doc spends much of its opening act juxtaposing the joys of creation with the aggravations of global stardom — the grist of many a pop doc, if rendered in especially intimate detail — before taking a more provocative turn in its last reel to focus more tightly on how and why Swift became a political animal. It’s the story of an earnest young woman with a self-described “good girl” fixation working through her last remaining fears of being shamed as she comes to embrace her claws, and her causes.

Given that the film portrays how gradually, and sometimes reluctantly, Swift came to place herself into service as a social commentator, “Miss Americana” is a portrait of the birth of an activist. Director Lana Wilson sets the movie up so that it pivots on a couple of big letdowns for its subject. The first comes early in the film, and early in the morning, when Swift’s publicist calls to update her on how many of the top three Grammy categories her 2017 album “Reputation” is nominated for: zilch. She’s clearly bummed about the record’s brushoff by the awards’ nominating committee, as just about anyone who’d previously won album of the year twice would be, and determinedly tells her rep that she’s just going to make a better record.

But she suffers what feels like a more meaningful blow toward the end of the film. In the fall of 2018, Swift finally comes out of the closet politically to intervene on behalf of Democrats in a midterm election in her home state of Tennessee. As the Washington Post put it, this announcement “fell like a hammer across the Trump-worshipping subforums of the far-right Internet, where people had convinced themselves… that the world-famous pop star was a secret MAGA fan.” Donald Trump goes on camera to smirk that he now likes Swift’s music a little less. The singer is successful in enlisting tens of thousands of young people to register to vote, but her senatorial candidate of choice, Democrat Phil Bredesen, loses to Republican Marsha Blackburn, whom she’d called out as a flagrant enemy of feminism and gay rights.

“Definitely, that was a bigger disappointment for me,” Swift says, pitting the midterm snub against the Grammy snub. “I think what’s going on out in the world is bigger than who gets a prize at the party.”

It was not always thus for Swift — as the detractors who dragged her for staying quiet during the last presidential election eagerly pointed out. If you had to pick the most embarrassing or regrettable moment in “Miss Americana,” it might be the TV clip from “The Late Show With David Letterman” in which the host brings up politics and gets Swift to essentially advocate the “Shut up and sing” mantra. As the studio audience roars approval of her vow to stay apolitical, Letterman gives her what now looks like history’s most dated fist bump.

Thinking back on it, Swift is incredulous. “Every time I didn’t speak up about politics as a young person, I was applauded for it,” she says. “It was wild. I said, ‘I’m a 22-year-old girl — people don’t want to hear what I have to say about politics.’ And people would just be like, ‘Yeahhhhh!’”

At that point, Swift was already starting to record isolated pop tracks, taking baby steps that would soon turn into full strides away from her initial genre. But whether she had designs on switching lanes or not, the lesson of the Dixie Chicks’ forced exile after Natalie Maines’ comment against then-President George W. Bush had branded itself onto her brain at an earlier age, when she’d just planted her young-teen flag in Nashville and overheard a lot of the lamentations of older Music Row songwriters about how the Chicks had thrown it all away.

“I saw how one comment ended such a powerful reign, and it terrified me,” says Swift. “These days, with social media, people can be so mad about something one day and then forget what they were mad about a couple weeks later. That’s fake outrage. But what happened to the Dixie Chicks was real outrage. I registered it — that you’re always one comment away from being done being able to make music.”

Maybe the most transfixing scene in “Miss Americana” is one where Swift argues with her father and other members of her team about the statement she’s about to release coming out against Blackburn and — it’s clear from her references to White House opposition to the Equality Act — Donald Trump too. The comments were so spontaneous that Wilson wasn’t there to film the moment, but the director had asked people to turn on the camera if anything interesting transpired, and here it most certainly did.

“For 12 years, we’ve not got involved in politics or religion,” an unnamed associate says to Swift, suggesting that going down the road of standing against a president as well as Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates could have the effect of halving her audience on tour. Her father chimes in: “I’ve read the entire [statement] and … right now, I’m terrified. I’m the guy that went out and bought armored cars.”

“I needed to get to a point where I was ready, able and willing to call out bullshit rather than just smiling my way through it.” TAYLOR SWIFT

But Swift is adamant about pressing the button to send a nearly internet-breaking Instagram post, saying that Blackburn has voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act as well as LGBTQ-friendly bills: “I can’t see another commercial [with] her disguising these policies behind the words ‘Tennessee Christian values.’ I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That’s not what we stand for.” Pushing back tears, she laments not having come out against Trump two years earlier, “but I can’t change that. … I need to be on the right side of history. … Dad, I need you to forgive me for doing it, because I’m doing it.”

Says Swift now, “This was a situation where, from a humanity perspective, and from what my moral compass was telling me I needed to do, I knew I was right, and I really didn’t care about repercussions.” She understands why she faced such heated opposition in the room: “My dad is terrified of threats against my safety and my life, and he has to see how many stalkers we deal with on a daily basis, and know that this is his kid. It’s where he comes from.”

Swift was recently announced as the recipient of a Vanguard Award from GLAAD, and she name-checked the org in her basher-bashing single “You Need to Calm Down,” which was released as one of the teaser tracks for last fall’s more outwardly directed and socially conscious “Lover” album. Part of her politicization, she says, is feeling it would be hypocritical to hang out with her gay friends while leaving them to their own devices politically. In the film, she says, “I think it is so frilly and spineless of me to stand onstage and go ‘Happy Pride Month, you guys,’ and then not say this, when someone’s literally coming for their neck.”

A year and a half later, she elaborates: “To celebrate but not advocate felt wrong for me. Using my voice to try to advocate was the only choice to make. Because I’ve talked about equality and sung about it in songs like ‘Welcome to New York,’ but we are at a point where human rights are being violated. When you’re saying that certain people can be kicked out of a restaurant because of who they love or how they identify, and these are actual policies that certain politicians vocally stand behind, and they disguise them as family values, that is sinister. So, so dark.”

Her increasing alignment with the LGBTQ community wasn’t the only thing raising her consciousness to a breaking — i.e., speaking — point. So did the sexual assault trial in which judgment was rendered that she had been groped by a DJ in a backstage photo op (for financial restitution, Swift had asked for $1).

Her experience with the trial was crucial, she says, in finding herself “needing to speak up about beliefs I’d always had, because it felt like an opportunity to shed light on what those trials are like. I experienced it as a person with extreme privilege, so I can only imagine what it’s like when you don’t have that. And I think one theme that ended up emerging in the film is what happens when you are not just a people pleaser but someone who’s always been respectful of authority figures, doing what you were supposed to do, being polite at all costs. I still think it’s important to be polite, but not at all costs,” she says. “Not when you’re being pushed beyond your limits, and not when people are walking all over you. I needed to get to a point where I was ready, able and willing to call out bulls— rather than just smiling my way through it.”

That came into play when Kanye West stepped into her life and publicly shamed her a second time. In the video Kim Kardashian released in 2016, you can hear the people-pleasing Swift on the other end of the line sheepishly thanking him for letting her know about the “Me and Taylor might still have sex” line he plans to include about her in a song — only to regret it later when the eventual track also includes the claim “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The boast, of course, referred back to the moment when he interrupted her and stole her spotlight at the MTV VMAs six years earlier as she was in the middle of an acceptance speech. West’s is not a name that ever publicly escapes Swift’s lips, so it might be surprising to fans that these events are recapped in “Miss Americana,” although Swift says the filmic decisions were all up to the director, who explains that Swift’s reaction to the episode was important to include.

“With the 2009 VMAs, it surprised me that when she talked about how the whole crowd was booing, she thought that they were booing her, and how devastating that was,” says Wilson. “That was something I hadn’t thought about or heard before, and made it much more relatable and understandable to anyone.”

“I see the movie as looking at the flip side of being America’s sweetheart.” LANA WILSON, DIRECTOR OF “TAYLOR SWIFT: MISS AMERICANA”

Swift acknowledges how formative both incidents have been in her life, for ill and good. “As a teenager who had only been in country music, attending my very first pop awards show,” she says now, “somebody stood up and sent me the message: ‘You are not respected here. You shouldn’t be here on this stage.’ That message was received, and it burrowed into my psyche more than anyone knew. … That can push you one of two ways: I could have just curled up and decided I’m never going to one of those events ever again, or it could make me work harder than anyone expects me to, and try things no one expected, and crave that respect — and hopefully one day get it.

“But then when that person who sparked all of those feelings comes back into your life, as he did in 2015, and I felt like I finally got that respect (from West), but then soon realized that for him it was about him creating some revisionist history where he was right all along, and it was correct, right and decent for him to get up and do that to a teenage girl…” She sighs. “I understand why Lana put it in.”

Adds the woman who started her recent “Lover” album with a West-allusive romp that’s pointedly called “I Forgot That You Existed”: “I don’t think too hard about this stuff now.”

What’s not in the film is any mention of her other most famous nemeses — Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, with whom she’s scrapped publicly for several months. “The Big Machine stuff happened pretty late in our process,” says Wilson. “We weren’t that far from picture lock. But there’s also not much to say that isn’t publicly known. I feel like Taylor’s put the story out there in her own words already, and it’s been widely covered. I was interested in telling the story that hadn’t been told before, that would be surprising and emotionally powerful to audiences whether they were music industry people or not.”

Still, the way Swift has been willing to stand up politically for others parallels the manner in which she stood up for herself in regard to Braun, et al., at the recent Billboard Women in Music Awards, where she gave an altogether blistering speech, naming names and taking no prisoners, going after the men who now control her six-album Big Machine back catalog. Certainly Swift was aware that, along with supporters, there were many friends and business associates of Braun among the VIPs in the Hollywood Palladium who would not be pleased with what this very reformed people-pleaser had to say.

One thing everyone who was in the room agrees on is that you could hear a pin drop as Swift used the speech to get even bolder about the meat of these disputes. Some would say it’s because they were riveted by her boldness in speaking truth to power, others because they just felt uncomfortable. Says one fellow honoree who works in a high position in the industry (and who’s worked with some high-profile Braun clients): “People were excited for her at the beginning of the speech. But once she started going in a negative direction at an event that is supposed to be celebrating accomplishments and rah-rah for women, I felt it fell flat with a good portion of the room, because it wasn’t the appropriate place to be saying it.”

Wasn’t it intimidating for Swift, knowing she might be polarizing an auditorium full of the most powerful people in the business? “Well, I do sleep well at night knowing that I’m right,” she responds, “and knowing that in 10 years it will have been a good thing that I spoke about artists’ rights to their art, and that we bring up conversations like: Should record deals maybe be for a shorter term, or how are we really helping artists if we’re not giving them the first right of refusal to purchase their work if they want to?”

“Obviously, anytime you’re standing up against or for anything, you’re never going to receive unanimous praise. But that’s what forces you to be brave. And that’s what’s different about the way I live my life now.” (Braun’s camp did not respond to a request for comment.)

One thing Taylor Swift can’t bend to her determined will is her family’s health. She revealed a few years ago that her mother, Andrea, a beloved figure among the thousands of fans who’ve met her at road shows, is battling breast cancer. Swift addressed the uncertainty of that struggle in an anguished song on her latest album, “Soon You’ll Get Better.” Many who view “Miss Americana” will look for signs of how her mom is doing. The subject comes up in a section of the film that includes a relatively light-hearted scene in in which it’s shown that one of Andrea Swift’s ways of saying “eff you” to cancer recently was to break the mold and bring a canine — her “cancer dog” — into a famously feline-friendly family.

The real answer may come in Swift’s touring activity for “Lover.” Whereas typically she’d spend nine months in the year after an album release on the road, she plans to limit herself to four stadium dates in America this summer and a trip around the festival circuit in Europe. This may not be 100% for personal reasons: “I wanted to be able to perform in places that I hadn’t performed in as much, and to do things I hadn’t done before, like Glastonbury,” she says. “I feel like I haven’t done festivals, really, since early in my career — they’re fun and bring people together in a really cool way. But I also wanted to be able to work as much as I can handle right now, with everything that’s going on at home. And I wanted to figure out a way that I could do both those things.”

Is being able to be there for her mother the main concern? “Yeah, that’s it. That’s the reason,” she says. “I mean, we don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know what treatment we’re going to choose. It just was the decision to make at the time, for right now, for what’s going on.”

In her case, it’s as if her manager had taken seriously ill as well as the person she’s always been closest to, all at once. “Everyone loves their mom; everyone’s got an important mom,” she allows. “But for me, she’s really the guiding force. Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness.” During filming, when Andrea’s breast cancer had returned for a second time, “she was going through chemo, and that’s a hard enough thing for a person to go through.” Then it got harder. Speaking about this latest development publicly for the first time, Swift quietly reveals: “While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor. And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family.”

Compared with that, nearly any other topic the movie might address would pale. But it finds weightiness in addressing other kinds of unhealthiness, like the physical expectations that are placed on women in general and celebrity women specifically, Swift being no exception. In this department, she has her own heroines. “I love people like Jameela Jamil, because he way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. Women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty, and we’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have unhealthy thoughts. I swear the way Jameela speaks is like lyrics — it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down.”

Swift’s collaborator in this messaging, Wilson, was on a list of potential directors Netflix gave her when she expressed interest in possibly doing a documentary to follow the concert special that premiered on the service just over a year ago. You could discern a feminist message, if you chose to, in the fact that Swift chose a director most well known for a documentary about abortion providers, “After Tiller.” Swift says she was most impressed, though, that Wilson’s docs look for nuance and subtlety in addressing subjects that do lend themselves to soapboxes, and their first conversation was about their mutual desire to avoid “propaganda” in any form.

If there’s a feminist agenda in “Miss Americana,” Wilson and Swift wanted it to emerge naturally, although the director admits it was pretty blatant from the outset, given that she set up the film (which is co-produced by Morgan Neville, the director’s “sounding board”) with an all-female crew. Or nearly all-female, says Wilson, laughing, “I will say that we did always have male production assistants, because I like trying to show people that men can fetch coffee for women.”

Adds Wilson, “When I started filming, it was before she’d come out politically. She knew that she was coming out of a very dark period, and wanted collaborate on something that captured what she was going through and that was really raw and honest and emotionally intimate.” The political awakening, the director says, “was a profound decision for her to make. In that, I saw this feminist coming of age story that I personally connected with, and that I really think women and girls around the world will see themselves in.”

“The bigger your career gets, the more you struggle with the idea that a lot of people see you the same way they see an iPhone or a Starbucks.” TAYLOR SWIFT

The film borrows its title from a song on the “Lover” album, “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” that’s maybe the one fully allegorical song Swift has ever released — and, in its fashion, is a great protest song. The entire lyric is a metaphor for how Swift grew up as an unblinking patriot and has had to reluctantly leave behind her naiveté in the age of Trump. Her partner on that track, as well as other message songs like “You Need to Calm Down” and “The Man,” was a co-writer and co-producer new to her stable of collaborators this time around, Joel Little.

With the song “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” although the lyrics are cloaked in metaphor, “We like to think it was a very clear statement,” Little says. “There are lots of little hidden messages within that song that are all pointing toward the way that she thinks and feels about politics and the United States. I love that it uses a lot of classic Taylor Swift imagery, in terms of the songwriting topics of high school and cheerleaders, as a clever nod to what she’s done in the past, but tied in with a heavy political message.”

“Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” doesn’t actually appear in the documentary, but the director says the film’s title is understood by fans as an obvious reference to political themes in the number. “Even if you don’t know the song,” Wilson says, “I see the movie as looking at the flip side of being America’s sweetheart, so I like how the title evokes that too.”

The doc doesn’t lack for its own protest songs though. In the wake of her midterm disappointment, Swift is seen writing an anthem for millennials who might have come away disillusioned with the political process. That previously unheard song, “Only the Young,” is seen being demo-ed before it plays in full over the end credits; it’ll be released as a digital single in conjunction with the doc. Key lyric: ““You did all that you could do / The game was rigged, the ref got tricked/ The wrong ones think they’re right / We were outnumbered — this time.”

“One thing I think is amazing about her,” says Wilson, “is that she goes to the studio and to songwriting as a place to process what she’s going through. I loved how, when she got the Grammy news (about “Reputation”), this isn’t someone who’s going to feel sorry for herself or say ‘That wasn’t right.’ She’s like, ‘Okay, I’m going to work even harder.’ You see her strength of character in that moment when she gets that news. And then with the election results, I loved how she channeled so many of her thoughts and feelings into ‘Only the Young.’ It was a great way to kind of show how stuff that happens in her life goes directly into the songs; you get to witness that in both cases.

So is the film aimed at satisfying the fan base or teasing the unconvinced hordes who might dial it up as a free stream? “I think it’s a little bit of both,” Swift says. “I chose Netflix because it’s a very vast, accessible medium to people who are just like, ‘Hey, what’s this? I’m bored.’ I love that, because I do so many things that cater specifically to fans that like my music, I think it’s important to put yourself out there to people who don’t care at all about you.”

In the wake of the last round of Kanye-gate, stung by the backlash of those who took his side, Swift took a three-year break from interviews. The mantra of her 2017 album “Reputation” and subsequent tour was “No explanations.” But her Beyoncé-style press blackout was a passing phase. With “Lover” and now, especially, the documentary, she could hardly be more about the explanations. Although this interview is the only one she currently plans to do about the documentary, it’s clear that she’s come back into a season of openness, and that she considers it her natural habitat.

“I really like the whole discussion around music. And during ‘Reputation,’ it never felt like it was ever going to be about music, no matter what I said or did,” she says. “I approach albums differently, in how I want to show them to the world or what I feel comfortable with at that time in my life.” Being more transparent “feels great with this album. I really feel like I could just keep making stuff — it’s that vibe right now. I don’t think I’ve ever written this much. That’s exhibited in ‘Lover’ having the most songs that I’ve ever had on an album” (18, to be exact). “But even after I made the album, I kept writing and going in the studio. That’s a new thing I’ve experienced this time around. That openness kind of feels like you finally got the lid off a jar you’ve been working at for years.”

Cipher-dom never could have stood for long for someone who’s established herself as one of the most accomplished confessional singer-songwriters in pop history. “I don’t really operate very well as an enigma,” she says. “It’s not fulfilling to me. It works really well in a lot of pop careers, but I think that it makes me feel completely unable to do what I had gotten in this to do, which is to communicate to people. I live for the feeling of standing on a stage and saying, ‘I feel this way,’ and the crowd responding with ‘We do too!’ And me being like, ‘Really?’ And they’re like, ‘Yes!’”

Swift believes talking things up again isn’t a form of giving in to narcissism — it’s a way of warding off commodification.

“The bigger your career gets, the more you struggle with the idea that a lot of people see you the same way they see an iPhone or a Starbucks,” she muses. “They’ve been inundated with your name in the media, and you become a brand. That’s inevitable for me, but I do think that it’s really necessary to feel like I can still communicate with people. And as a songwriter, it’s really important to still feel human and process things in a human way. The through line of all that is humanity, and reaching out and talking to people and having them see things that aren’t cute.

#swift finally comes out of the closet politically.... yes they REALLY wrote that

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wellesleyunderground · 4 years ago

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WU Reviews: Knock Down the House & Surge reviewed by Shloka Ananthanarayanan ‘08 (@shlokes)

This review originally appeared on Shloka’s blog, Pop Culture Scribe.

It’s October and people in many US states have already started voting, either in person or via mail-in ballots. I received my mail-in ballot last week but will be heading to my in-person early voting center on October 24th because I need the thrill of voting via a machine to feel like I gave this my all. If you are an American voter, make a plan and ensure you vote this year. And if you need a reminder of how important elections can be, I give you two wonderful documentaries that highlight all of the work that goes into political campaigning, all of the unnecessary horror of voter suppression, and what it looks like when truly deserving political candidates fight for the chance to represent their fellow citizens in a democracy.

Directed by Rachel Lears, Knock Down the House tells the story of four female Democrats in different parts of the country who ran for election in 2018. These women were not career politicians, but were all inspired to run following the 2016 election, where the shock of not seeing the first woman President get elected quickly gave way to sweeping anger and resolve to go into office themselves. The most famous candidate in the documentary is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She serves as the star of this film and gets more screentime than any other candidate, which is a bit unfortunate as I thought the other ladies were rather brilliant too. But in Ocasio-Cortez's case, what's intriguing is that she isn't a Democrat looking to flip her district - instead she is a progressive looking to upset the establishment Democrat, a complacent white man who can't even be bothered to show up to a debate and thinks that the voters in his district will just vote for him out of name recognition and sheer misinformed laziness. But with her grassroots campaign, Ocasio-Cortez convinces the people of New York's 14th Congressional District to vote with their best interests at heart, and thank goodness, they did. In the two years since she was elected to office, we've seen how great it can be when someone who actually gives a damn about the world and her constituents comes to Washington.

The other women featured in this documentary are Amy Vilela from Nevada, Cori Bush from Missouri, and Paula Jean Swearengin from West Virginia. They are all incredible women who are running to protect their people from greedy self-serving Republican interests. None of them won their primaries in 2018, but Swearengin and Bush both won in 2020 and I will be eagerly following their races this November to see if they flip their districts/states blue (Swearengin, in particular, is a fascinating woman who bucks the stereotype that West Wirginia coal miners can only be Republicans, and she is running for Senate, which would be such a coup for the country). All three women have incredible stories of why they chose to run in the first place and serve as a great reminder that politicians do not all have to be corrupt, amoral snakes. Sometimes, they can be women who want to protect their communities and serve their country proudly. Also, Netflix put this movie out for free on YouTube, so really, you have absolutely no excuse not to watch it.

Directed by Hannah Rosenzweig and Wendy Sachs, Surge tells a nearly identical story of three women running for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. Like the women of Knock Down the House, they were all "activated" following the 2016 election and are determined to make a difference. This movie does a better job of giving each woman equal time to tell her story and following her campaign, and it also showcases some of the challenges they face on elections days with poor infrastructure that seems designed to discourage voting. There's also an incisive look at how the Democrats' Primary Machine works and how candidates depend so much on the support of the Party for monetary and logistical support that could give them a boost and much-needed name recognition during their races.

The film follow Lauren Underwood in Illinois, Jana Lynne Sanchez in Texas, and Liz Watson in Indiana. Again, these three women have different levels of political savvy, and different reasons for why they are running, but they are all united in their passion and commitment to the people of their districts. All three women win their Democratic primaries, but then we get to see how difficult it is to actually flip a district in the General Election when they are up against moneyed Republican interests. Millionaires and lobbyists (and racists and misogynists) aren't going to let these women win without a fight. Devastatingly, in Indiana, Liz Watson's grassroots campaign generates high voter turnout, but the Election Office in one county runs out of ballots as they never expected so many voters. Which causes a delay and results in her losing a lot of people who might have voted for her in the first place. While Underwood and Watson get Party support and have people like Obama, Biden, and Sanders show up to their rallies to get out the vote, Jana Lynne Sanchez's district in Texas is deemed too impossible, so the Party doesn't help her out. She ultimately loses the election, but because of her efforts, Democrats discovered it was actually winnable, and they will be investing in the candidate who runs there in 2020.

Politics is a complicated and dirty business, but what these two documentaries (that were directed and edited and shot and produced by women, FYI) reveal is that there are still idealistic and determined people that we can get behind. More specifically, idealistic, determined women, who face an uphill battle because women simply aren't treated fairly in the political arena. It was thrilling to see how excited they were to see other women running for office and formed a supportive clique to cheer each other on regardless of whether they won or lost their own elections. That's the kind of energy we need in today's toxic political climate. In addition, these women aren't taking corporate PAC money and they have a slog ahead of them, but they are fighting for the right to represent us fairly and decently, and they deserve our attention.

So before you vote this year, and in every election following, pay some attention to the people on your ballot. See if there's a new candidate who is more deserving of your vote than the establishment candidate you've been voting for all your life but who has never actually pushed any policies that you want. In Surge, someone talks about how party affiliation has become like a religion - you'll vote for the person from your Party even if they're ripping you off. Let's stop doing that and only vote in the people who actually want a better life for us and our families, instead of pocketing millions from corporate interests. Read up on what these candidates stand for and don't just vote for someone because they have a (D) or an (R) after their name, but because they actually represent the values that matter to you. Get out there and vote, America. We're all counting on you.

#wu review #knock down the house #surge #documentary #movie recommendation #voting #us elections 2020

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plurdledgabbleblotchits · 5 years ago

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Of course! Bernie and Pete are not electable in places like Ohio, and regardless about how young idealist far left coastal liberals feel about the “flyover”, it's those places like Ohio that are usually right about the final candidate (look it up.) Warren has a slight chance here especially if she can tone down the socialist rhetoric ( that will definitely hurt her if she doesn't !) Also, she needs to deal directly with the problem of immigration and how she proposes to get something done. People aren't going to tolerate that anymore. I'm sorry far left young idealists, but they’re NOT. The Democrats have appeared- to the average voter- to have abdicated any responsibility in this area, and it’s a lightning rod issue around here. We better get our act together. Oh, and drop the minority and identity politics. It only hurts you around here. Big mistake to emphasize that. Sorry, but it’s true. :(

Today, I’m a left leaning moderate myself. I’m not young enough to think the things I used to think 40 years ago. I didn’t know then what I know now. No, In this election it’s about practical politics, and if we don’t wise up soon, we will lose again to Trump, and I don’t want to see that happen. Most everyone I talk to around here plans on voting for Trump because of immigration issues and economic reasons, and that is scary because it’s OHIO! (look at my other post about this) I’m upset about it, because I don’t want a Republican in the White House, yet alone Trump!

I voted for Jimmy Carter way back in the day and remember lying to people about it when they asked me how I voted, because the orthodoxy was such that you could become a social pariah quickly. When I was young I always voted for who I thought was the best person and who was best for the country- those two were equated. I looked at character mostly and could see when a candidate was either out for himself, or wanted to do the right thing for the country. (Trump for instance is mostly out for himself, and doesn’t really care about the country, although he has convinced many with his rhetoric.) As I have gotten older, I realized it’s also about practical politics as well. What I am saying is that when we are young, we are more idealistic and don’t think about practical politics. So remember, that even though you think Bernie is the best candidate for the country (and he may be..but I think Warren is better) or how great it would be for a smart gay man like Pete to be President for a change (I agree, if circumstances were different !), the average American voter will NOT agree with us, and therefore if we wish to win on the larger stage, we must back a more moderate, electable candidate; of course, someone who you can still feel comfortable with, character wise. And it’s especially important this election to do so.

Let’s not let the democratic party fracture due to ideologues. You know... the type that says ””If my candidate- and their policies- doesn’t win, I’m out!” The Republicans seem to be able to get behind their candidate better. Partly I think because the issues are more narrow on the right, while the left is trying to “herd cats”... from having too broad of a platform and too may disparate issues. :)

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imagitory · 5 years ago

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*exhales heavily*

Okay...I don’t usually go off the deep end in political essays that often. If it’s a quick thing like “f**k Neo-Nazis,” then sure, fine, that’s easy. I don’t have to explain why Neo-Nazis -- especially the cowardly ones that try to label themselves as the “alt-right” in a vain attempt to seem more acceptable to modern society -- can go screw themselves. Everyone already knows they’re awful -- or at least, everyone should already know they’re awful. If you’re the sort of person that wants to try to “teach” me about how the alt-right are not Neo-Nazis, then this post isn’t for you, so kindly don’t interact and keep scrolling.

This post is instead for my Democratic followers, whether you support Bernie, Biden, Warren, whatever. Please feel free to skip over it, though, my dear followers -- I know this whole political season has been very draining, and I have a lot more positive posts on my blog that you can consult instead. If you do want to read my thoughts, though, here’s a cut.

Hi, guys. How’s it going? We really dodged a bullet with Bloomberg dropping out of the race, didn’t we? At least now no one should be able to say Democrats and Republicans are alike, right? The Democrats kicked their racist, sexist, obnoxious, out-of-touch billionaire accused of multiple sexual assaults to the curb, while the Republicans made theirs president.

On that note, though...we still have the Republican version of Michael Bloomberg -- the one and only Donald Trump -- in office. We all remember how he got there...Hillary won the popular vote, but thanks to the ridiculously outdated electoral college rules and Russian interference, the electoral votes went Trump’s way. We could conjure up multiple reasons for Hillary’s loss, but at least in my opinion, I would say we learned a few lessons from the 2016 election that I think we should keep in mind. (Alongside making sure Russians butt the hell out of our elections and fact-checking all the rampant misinformation from our media outlets.)

1) We Democrats have more things in common than we might think, sometimes.

Clinton was infinitely closer to Bernie, politics-wise, than Bernie was to Trump or Gary Johnson. Yet there were those who were so upset about Hillary’s nomination and the role Democratic Party officials had in coaxing delegates to support her that they protest-voted against Hillary, even if that vote wasn’t in their best interest. We don’t have a system that lets us rank who we want for office from most to least, so sometimes we have to accept a bird in the hand rather than reach for two in the bush. You might feel good about voting your conscience in the short term, but you probably won’t when it results in your vote being a drop in the bucket that doesn’t prevent someone like Donald Trump from winning. We’ve already seen this happen not just in the Trump-Clinton election of 2016, but in the Bush-Gore election of 2000.

2) Despite that first point, if we want unity, our Democratic candidate must be aware of how diverse our party is.

Even if we do end up having to settle for a less liberal candidate in order to win an election, that candidate MUST acknowledge that we are not like the Republican Party. We will not march lock-step with people we don’t agree with just because they’re in our party or we agree with some things, and we will certainly not be satisfied with simple pacifism. The Republican Party has been tilting farther and farther to the right over the last three decades, to the point that their policies now involve mass internment of Mexican immigrants and family separation, directly paralleling plans carried out by the THIRD EFFIN’ REICH. We cannot keep begging for civility and peace and trying to reach a compromise -- you cannot compromise with this kind of extremism without sacrificing all of your principles, because those kinds of people do not make concessions.

I remain convinced even after four years that Hillary should’ve chosen Bernie to be her running mate -- if she had, the rift between the centrist and more liberal branches of the Democratic Party might have been healed enough that we could’ve looked at our ticket with excitement and hope, as we had for Obama and Biden back in 2008. Instead Hillary chose Tim Kaine, an inoffensive centrist Democrat who added absolutely nothing to her presidential bid. He couldn’t even help Hillary out by boosting the campaign with youthful energy or natural charm -- Bernie would’ve both boosted morale among younger and/or more liberal voters and lit a fire under those who were anxious about what a Trump presidency could lead to. The same could’ve been true if Bernie had been chosen to be president -- if he’d chosen Hillary, she could’ve better appealed to moderate voters intimidated by the thought of voting for a Democratic Socialist and run on her international experience as Secretary of State.

3) In order to make any difference at all, we must vote, and we must win.

I’m the first person to acknowledge that I hate voting against my convictions. If the Democrats had chosen Michael Bloomberg, I would’ve probably been ready for whole-scale revolution, right then and there. But let’s be frank here -- in 2016, we got complacent. We assumed that Trump would lose. We assumed that America wouldn’t choose racism, or Islamaphobia, or sexism, or Nazism. BUT WE DID. In the end, our country -- like many other countries before us were -- is more afraid of the promise of social change than we are of the threat of fascism. Yes, I called Trump’s vision of the country fascism, and I stand by it. Fascism is defined as far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial authority, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy and often supplemented with government-sanctioned racism -- and yeah, given that Trump clearly wants to do whatever he wants whenever he wants without facing any consequences for his actions, persecute any so-called “enemies,” make money for himself while in office (even using his office and political power to achieve that end), and scapegoat minorities, I think my point is made. And so I will state it again -- America is more afraid of the future and the progress that could come with it than it is of the cruelty, bigotry, and tyranny of our past. It’s an absolute tragedy, but it’s true. Americans were absolutely terrified of Obamacare until it actually became law and people saw how cool it was, not to be booted off your care for preexisting conditions and stuff. Once that happened, Americans were ready to bite off the hand of any Republican who made any move toward repealing it. If it’s something we’ve never done before, it’s beaten back like the plague, but once it’s something we’ve become accustomed to, you can tear it from our cold, dead hands.

In the 1930′s, Germany had a choice between three political parties -- the Communists, the Democratic Socialists, and the Nazis -- and in the end, the reason the Nazis got power was because the Communists and the Socialists could not band together to stop that greater threat. The Nazis were able to paint a pretty picture to the German people of returning their country to its supposedly long lost, mythic greatness, and they won power, even if they were still not the majority when Hitler got into office. And as soon as the Nazis got power, they never let it go and went out of their way to destroy both Communists and Socialists, just like they did with Jewish people, the Romani, and the rest. We are at such a crossroads now. I am deathly afraid that the Republicans will try to find some way to keep power even if Trump were to lose, but we cannot let that happen. We must stand together, strong and united.

The more liberal of us must acknowledge that radical change cannot be put into place quickly. Our system is broken and falling apart thanks to the Republicans’ on-going sabotage, and we cannot hope to remodel our house until our foundation is secure. Even the Republicans were not able to destroy our country in so many ways these last four years without dismantling a lot of other things first -- corrupting our elections with money thanks to the Citizens United ruling -- sparking two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that drained us of money and added to the backlog of veterans that have yet to receive their deserved financial support -- intimidating political officials away from substantive gun control legislation -- chipping away at abortion rights nation-wide -- stacking the courts, both local and Supreme, with unqualified, strongly right-leaning candidates -- gerrymandering districts like crazy so as to split Democratic-leaning areas and puff up Republican-leaning ones -- even spreading misinformation through shows on their own private so-called “News” network. It will take time to repair all of the damage the Republicans have wrought, but we must first win if we are even to have the chance to try.

On the flip side, the more centrist of us must acknowledge that we cannot go back to the way we were because the way we were was WRONG. We might have nostalgic visions of it being more civil and peaceful, but the tremors of war were still rippling under our feet. The Neo-Nazi rats that elected Trump were gathering under us, and we let them. We let them gain enough confidence to come out into the light in large numbers and we stood by, assuming that they wouldn’t succeed in their goals. We ignored the rampant spread of anti-immigrant rhetoric and Islamaphobia -- we downplayed the racism, the homophobia, and the sexism. Sometimes it was due to arrogance, and sometimes it was due to flat-out indifference, because those things didn’t directly affect us. We should know by now that that rosy view of our past was not how things were -- just as many of our Founding Fathers were still slave owners, and America interned our own citizens in camps during World War II, and the supposedly great Ronald Reagan turned a blind eye while thousands of Americans died of AIDS, our country saw the signs of racism, xenophobia, and ultranationalism coming out in full again and didn’t fight back. And now that racist, xenophobic ultranationalism is in control of the Oval Office. If we have any chance of stopping them, we can’t simply go backwards -- we must charge ahead. We can’t simply pretend like everything can go back to normal -- we must accept responsibility for what we’ve done and pursue justice in making things right. We must fight back against these far-right, tyrannical policies and we must pay restitution to those our country has hurt. I do not want the Mexican families we have destroyed to be treated the way our Japanese American brethren were after they were released from the internment camps in the 40′s -- dismissed and forgotten, with our flag figuratively slapping them in the face every time some stupid guy crowed his head off about America being the greatest country on earth. I may have hated Trump’s immigration policy -- I might not have voted for him -- but he still represents my country, and therefore me, to the rest of the world, and even if he’ll never apologize for a single damn thing that he’s done, I want my country to make things right.

Maybe once a Democrat -- even if it’s a centrist like Biden -- is in the White House again, we’ll have the chance for real change -- good change. We certainly won’t get it as long as we’re stuck on the outside looking in.

Now of course, even when this whole presidential thing is done, we can’t rest on our laurels. We must get out in force for local elections too -- we must take back the Senate and keep control of the House. We must pressure our lawmakers to get the money out of politics, and fix gerrymandering, and restore environmental protections, and hold corporations accountable, and tax the rich, and abolish the Electoral College, and put term limits on Congresspeople, and impeach Brett Kavanaugh, and fund dismantling the backlog on VA benefits, and cancel student loan debt, and implement universal health care, and pass gun control legislation, and do all the other things we need done.

I really hope that whichever candidate we end up with -- whether it’s Biden (*sighs begrudgingly*), Bernie (*smiles*), or Warren (*wiggles in glee*) -- that candidate will strongly consider choosing a Vice President who is either more centrist (if they’re more liberal) or more liberal (if they’re more centrist) and filling their Cabinet with those other ex-presidential hopefuls who still have something to offer. Kamala Harris was Attorney General of California -- why not have her become Attorney General of the United States next? How about Tom Steyer as Head of the EPA, or Cory Booker as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development?

Here’s the thing about us being more diverse in thought than the Republicans -- it means we have a great swath of very different members with very different skill sets, as well as the ability to learn, critique, rationalize, change, and improve. And if we are to defeat an institution like Trump’s that demands lock-step, mindless obedience and praise, it seems to me that’s something we should use to our advantage.

#excuse me politics coming through #personal #hopefully I won't get too many of my followers upset with this #feel free to ignore this if you're not in the mood for politics I get it #democrats #republicans #i just republiCAN’T #donald trump #joe biden #elizabeth warren #bernie sanders #opinion #oh boy here i go

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theorynexus · 5 years ago

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Fifty and Four sends us cresting over the hill, if we weren’t already. How long until we hit the bottom?

Oh ho? Jane’s perspective again, huh? ‘t’s been a while.

EEEHHHH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh, that is not good!

Rrrrgh, she does not need to be building up a habit like that! The consequences of such use are far too severe and unpredictable, even if you don’t consider the potential negatives to one’s psychological health. >.< Gosh... even with her Life aspect probably protecting her a little bit from its sugary after-effects, reading that makes me feel sick. > ~~~ <

Figures that a Cherub would be biased in favor of it. At least Alt!Calliope is willing distance herself and try to be objective, though.

***giggles uncontrollably, even though this honestly shouldn’t be funny***

Very politically-minded, but it also sortof sounds like the excuse-making that an addict would engage in, so I am not convinced that this is a legitimate argument. Yeah, shoring up your base is important, but doing something that could strongly alienate swing voters is not necessarily wise, either. I suspect she knows this too, but is in denial about the fact of the matter, because she enjoys the benefits of Trickster Mode too much. It is quite interesting that the human kingdom’s subjects appreciate it so much~

HAAAAA. Oh my fricking gosh, Alt!Calliope is a Cherub Supremacist! XD

(Sortof makes sense, based on the mindsets that were described in Aranea’s [?] talk about the Cherubs’ origins, though. Might be biologically-driven, honestly.) Also, it’s quite interesting to see Jane interacting with Alt!Calliope like that, but it is hardly unique or overly-noteworthy, all things considered... at least, most likely. Quite a few other characters have responded to narration in a similar manner.

... Honestly, I was about to freak out about the Juju getting covered in dirt and grime, but the way she tossed away probably significant keepsakes, trophies, or the like for the sake of honoring it is... quite disturbing, and speaks to a danger in her presumably worsening compulsion/habit. Though they might just be cookies.

Dirk displays surprising wisdom/good judgment, here, and amusingly alludes to the fact that his voice is being otherwise suppressed. His actually talking in a scene represents a nice sort of loophole, but not one by which he can utilize such control as he would otherwise be capable. ... And yes, her burning out is a very legitimate concern, which speaks to the fact that Dirk definitely+legitimately cares about the things that serve his purposes and/or agendas. They, he is willing to more gently guard, comparatively, it would seem.

It feels like this is a reference to something, probably from the 1980s or early 90s, but I can’t place my finger on it. Oh well.

This is very amusing, honestly.

Deeeeeerp. (Yet another example of why it is difficult to take his attempt at super-godhood seriously... or at least find it anything better than dreadful. Dirk is great at juggling many things at once, but not as great as he’d need to be. )

Oh, and I appreciate Jane’s concern for Dirk. She is indeed correct in saying that he is usually much better at it than my previous comment might have suggested. But I am not entirely being unfair, insofar as this is true: the greater the responsibility one wields, the greater the level of competence one must have in order to pass proper muster. He was failing in his attempt. I didn’t really give him all that much of a chance to sway me, honestly, but my own demeanor in dealing with him had nothing to do with the actual quality of his work.

This must be really concerning to Jane. And... honestly, yes he is. They are very, very similar. Dirk is just more obvious with his intelligence, more controlled, and more mature. They are both highly ambitious, crave challenges, enjoy art, have quite a bit of masculine pride, and have a shared appreciation for irony, riddles, and absurdist humor. Caliborn was likely very, very influenced by Dirk in particular, both of them received Yaldabaoth as their Denizen due to their personality and prowess, and both of them are highly manipulative men of questionable morality. Also, their sexual interests seem to be somewhat similar, but that is a debatable matter. Lord English has Lil’ Hal integrated as part of his soul, Lil’ Cal has played a profound part in both of their (multiple) life cycles. Finally: as of the Epilogue and his attempted control of the narrative seen therein, Dirk essentially has pursued the same goal that LE did: domination of Paradox Space through his will controlling the natural flow of events. Dirk and Caliborn are in truth extremely alike.

I do so very much like where this is going. It would seem that we will soon find out precisely what Dirk is planning. “Diminishes and ascends” has an interesting ring to it, as well. That red rifle: Is it the one that launches portals? Honestly, Dirk is indeed quite clever, by the way. He has the seeds of great potential. It’s simply that it has not fully bloomed, yet, and he is a little bit overly full of himself, and arrogant in what he believes he can do. And yes, he is indeed temperamental when people interfere with his plans, it seems.

There’s the scheming politician we’ve all been waiting for. Way to go, thinking in such calculated manners and considering backstabbing ones you care about, Jane. Somewhat petty, and certainly rather dangerous, all things considered (things are a bit more explosive, where gods are involved), but closer to the political ideal which I would hope for if she were to be portrayed as competent. (Of course, I am actually disgusted with that sort of behavior. It’s one of the things I dislike about politics. I’ll recognize that it at least paints her in a slightly better light than the previous samplings of her thought process and tactical capacity has; thus, I generally like and dislike where this is going.)

Yep. Angelic purity with sexual potency/desire. There has always been this sort of tension in Hope’s nature. Just like the fact that angels are, in Biblical texts, both symbols of terror and destruction as well as hope and salvation. All (almost all?) the important positive interactions with heavenly beings start with fear on the part of mortals, followed by a “Fear not!” to suggest they come in peace. Otherwise, they come bringing judgment and wrath, and thus don’t tend to bother much with formalities.

Is that sarcasm, Jane? If not, there’s certainly a heavy layer of irony. Do remember what just happened with Jane when she invited Jape Jake over for a friendly visit, not too long ago, my good audience members.

... ***twitches, and tries very hard to hold in the inappropriate laughter***

If only I had someone so dependable to tell me when I was not dwelling far enough into the land of Always Woke. Perhaps then I would be able to avoid the inevitable scandals that would result from Foot-in-the-Mouth-itis. Oh, wait, no politician can avoid being attacked for various probably minor accidents on their part as the populace naturally over-reacts to what honestly may not actually reflect their character so much as them being accident prone or ignorant? What’s that about manipulation of audio/video recordings for the sake of generating useful sound bites that might be used in an attempt to impugn the honor of any prospective candidate? Oh. I see. Thank you for that important bit of knowledge that I otherwise might not have had access to, imaginary adviser. (Note: I do not actually believe that one should try to be as careful as possible with regards to what one says; nor that one should ignore or scorn important social issues. I am utilizing exaggeration and mockery for the sake of comedy.) ... Alt!Calliope’s description of Dirk holding the rifle is quite elegant and beautiful.

This is indeed a beautiful irony, seeing the situation with regards to Dirk and Alt!Calliope’s tendencies toward bias being reversed.

***snickers*** Magnifique.

It is strange to see Alt!Calliope teasing and egging him on. It may be unintentional. Hard to say.

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hearthandgnome · 5 years ago

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Warning, long post. TL/DR at bottom.

Okay so I've got a real hot take about the primaries.

And I'm just gonna stress this now. This is by no means fact checkable and is closer to a conspiracy theory than like, an actual reality we need to worry about. So please don't come at me for spreading false news. This isn't news. Its just a theory.

But I high key think our elections have been rigged again.

In short: my theory is that the obscene number of people that were running for the primaries who have since dropped out, never ACTUALLY wanted to run. They were just there to collect and hand over votes to Biden.

And I know that sounds nuts but let me walk you through my thought process here.

1- Not a single person I've spoken to or heard of, either in person or online, has said they wanted to vote for Biden. He was literally no ones first choice. Even the more conservative centrist end of people were saying Bloomberg before Biden.

2- a common joke amongst late night hosts has been just how ridiculous it was that sooooooo many people were running and how no one was willing to back down or quit, even when they had no chance.

3- Beyond just your pride, which will hurt either way, dropping out after voting has already started makes no sense. Spending all the time, money, and resources, on a presidential campaign for months if not years, just to drop out in the first week of the primaries makes no sense. At that point it's not like you can get your money back. So why drop out at that point?

Dropping out just before, when you see your polling low, makes sense. Cause it means not splitting the vote. But after? That means people that already voted for you don't really get the chance to vote their second choice. Their votes are basically just given to whoever you endorse.

Which brings me to

4- Pretty much every candidate who has dropped out after voting began has given their delegates to Biden. Like, even the ones who had basically nothing in common with his campaign. Even the ones who said they hated him the whole time they were "against" each other. And even the ones who claimed to be more progressive and aligned with Bernie when discussing their views and plans.

And I know I'm not the only one who has noticed this cause I've seen the memes, as well as the serious posts, all talking about how ridiculous it is for the media to claim Warrens delegates should go to Biden "cause he was the 2nd choice for most of her voters". Like no. He wasn't. She was Bernie's direct competition. They had incredibly similar campaigns. Warren and Biden had NOTHING in common policy wise.

5- The web domain for Bernie sanders currently redirects you to a donation page for Biden. Like You click the link thinking its for Bernie, and the only way to figure out your actually donating to Biden instead is to scroll up first or see it after you've already donated.

These above factors, mixed with a variety of other little things that just don't add up, have me pretty convinced there's something shady going on.

And the most probable cause in my opinion is a rigged election.

I know that seems like it would be hard to do. But honestly its pretty simple.

Copious choice splits the vote. Which makes it easier for them. So that was step one.

Then step two. Misleading voters into thinking these planted candidates are more progressive, which seeds false security by making them think they will endorse Bernie or another progressive candidate if they do drop out.

Step three is collect votes and delegates early on then drop out and give them to Biden. All of a sudden Biden has all the delegates and is somehow winning despite a huge portion of that being votes he didn't actually earn himself.

Step four will be people giving up and letting him win the primaries. They are literally already trying to end the primaries early and hand the win to Biden as I type this up.

And honestly.

I don't think step 5 will even be giving Biden the presidency. I don't think he's involved at all actually. I wholeheartedly think it'll be giving it to trump.

I think rigging the primaries in favor of Biden is jist phase one in a two part plan to get Trump re elected. And here's why:

1- Our last elections were hacked by the russians in trumps favor and there was literally 0 backlash for that for either of them.

2- Trump and his team just learned that they literally can get away with anything including trying to rig elections. He literally was impeached for this and got away with it. Soooo why shouldn't he do it if he knows its allowed for him?

3- There's no real know incentives for anyone with the ability to rig elections to rig them in the dems favor. The agenda of rigging elections is gaining power and money and it can only be done if you have some of that already. And who do the rich powerful people want to be in charge? Not Biden. And for SURE not Bernie.

4- Speaking of the impeachment trial.

Remember way back when the whole impeachment case story broke? Remember people making jokes about the fact that trump chose Biden of all people to get dirt on? Remember people thinking it was ridiculous cause there was no way he was gonna win the primaries?

Well. This is adding an extra layer of conspiracy to this conspiracy theory. But what if the plan to rig the election was already being formed back then?

What if Trump knew that Biden would eventually be the one running against him because he knew it would be rigged as such?

And I know your wondering why they would want Biden to be the one against trump as opposed to any of the other guys.

Well. Have y'all read the responses to the primaries so far? Everyone hates Biden. Like yeah we hate trump more. But I've already seen posts of people saying voting for Biden would be "just as bad".

I'm seeing people lose hope in Bernie winning or their voices being heard. And I'm seeing in fighting amongst people who are mad their first choice didn't win. All of this means potentially low voter turn out.

Especially amount younger more progressive voters who have taken a "Bernie or Bust" mentality.

And we know what happened when we take that stance. Cause its the same one that happened last time.

I know Hillary wasn't a perfect person or candidate either. And I too would have preferred Bernie in the last election.

But all that: "she's just as bad" "my votes don't count anyway" "id rather vote 3rd party than her" "Bernie or Bust"

All that.

Is how he won last time.

So all I'm saying is. Them rigging primaries in favor of a candidate they know most of the democratic voter base actually hates, makes it a lot easier to secure trump gets re-elected.

And the people potentially being pissed that Bernie lost primaries twice in a row wont help.

Even if my whole crazy theory is wrong. Even if their is no real evil plot being done here. That last point still stands.

If by some bizarre twist of fate. Biden wins the primaries. Be it honestly or by stealing delegates from the drop outs. He's still better than Trump.

Be prepared for that other shoe to drop.

Be prepared for the memes and social discourse trying to convince you not to vote or to throw away your vote on a 3rd party.

Be prepared for what ever dirt trump was trying to get on him to be released.

And know that he will STILL no matter what. Be better than Trump.

And in case I am right. And we are in the middle of an attempted coup.

Then this next part becomes twice as important.

If you live in a state that hasn't voted yet. PLEASE show up for Bernie.

I hate telling people how to vote. But mathematically speaking the only possible outcomes at this stage are Biden or Bernie. So for the love of god stop wasting votes on the other guys. Its almost as bad as voting third party for the actual election.

Plus if I'm right there's a 50/50 chance of those underdog votes being party of the conspiracy and going to Biden in the end.

If Biden really is your 2nd choice then fine. This doesn't apply to you.

But if you hate Biden and you prefer the more progressive stances, and your hoping for someone similar to Bernie, then just fucking vote Bernie.

Cause we learned from Warren that we cant trust ANYONE to give their endorsement to Bernie when they drop out.

So vote Bernie.

And if y'all don't, and we end of with Biden. I don't wanna hear any complaints.

If we get Biden then we gotta vote Biden. End of story.

Cause if Trumps re elected its game over.

He's already talking about extending his term limits or straight up erasing them. He wants to be a dictator and he's WELL on his way to achieving that.

He's proven above the law. And when the system fails the only hope left is the people.

Its 100% on us to make sure trump dosnt win. Its 100% on us to stay vigilant and not fall for the BS designed to turn things in his favor. It's 100% on us to show up, speak up, and carry a big ass stick of democracy.

Sorry for the long ass post. But I've been getting more and more suspicious/nervous by the day.

TL/DR: The primaries may or may not be rigged in Biden's favor. And that might be part of an even bigger plot to get Trump reelected. Don't waste your vote on 3rd party or underdogs. Please fucking don't inadvertently hand the election to trump.

And remember that I'm not a news source. Just a concerned citizen who worries too much and is hoping to inform/ warn people about a possible threat to our democracy.

#primaries #Bernie #conspiracy #your vote matters #vote democrat #vote them out

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cyanpeacock · 5 years ago

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Agh. It is morning. I am awake.

Don’t feel so hot. Lots of guilt and shame. Also fury. Trying to like... feel it without hating it and getting into that whole spiral.

I’m tired and struggling with like, reasons my body is worth caring for?

I feel kind of like... I’m ungrateful. Why would I cut all contact with a family that would accept me. They say they love me. They let me go to their houses. They’re alright... right?

But they didn’t fucking accept me.

OK this got long and furious under the cut wow. Apparently that’s why waking up was such a cunt this morning. Well. It’s out now.

They wanted me to be amazing in school, and got upset and/or angry and/or disappointed and/or guilty when I wasn’t achieving those kinds of grades. Punished for it. Means of social contact taken away from me, when I was already so fucking lonely. Constantly being fucking watched through a hole in the door. What the fuck kind of house just has holes in all the fucking doors? Why the fuck do you think that’s okay? Do you have any idea how much that fucked with my sense of privacy, how long I felt permanently observed for? Are you even aware how much your other kids hate it?

They wanted me to be a girl, and told me I was ‘just confused’ when I came out, got my name and pronouns wrong like they assumed it was going to pass in the next month, every fucking month. I wasn’t allowed boys’ clothes because “they wouldn’t fit me,” when being a “tomboy” was absolutely fine. Uh, I’m pretty sure ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ children do share dimensions? They’re both humans? I wasn’t even allowed to cut my fucking hair for years, because my mother wanted control over how my body wore my hair, and she wanted it long and blonde and pretty like the perfect working-housewife-to-be. She didn’t see me as a fucking man until after testosterone, and her eyes are still fucking looking for her “little girl.” Fuck off. She died ten thousand times living with you. She was one of those creepy dead-eyed dolls Sheila keeps on the landing in Killinghall. It drives me insane.

Okay this is pretty pointedly at my mother now so yeah.

“You’ll always be my baby” NO I fucking WON’T. Jesus fucking christ woman, I am not a baby any more. You might remember a tiny child and get all misty-eyed. I’m sure it’s reassuring to some adult children. How that feels to me? Oppressive. Like it’s a trap. All-consuming. Like if I go, and actually express and deal with all my rage, I’m going to destroy your world. Because that’s how it fucking worked at the beginning. If I expressed I was hurt, or angry, or upset, or hungry, or in need, I’d get fucking yelled at, I’d get yanked around, I’d get smacked. I’d get ignored. I’d get told I don’t deserve food. I’d get shut inside a lonely dark dirty disgusting fucking room and you’d pretend I didn’t exist.

You never saw how mental I went. You never saw me chewing the bedframes. You never saw me clawing at the walls. You never saw me picking the paint off the plaster, just the aftermath. You never saw me hurling my toys and books around in a rage, you just assumed I was ‘making a mess’. You never saw me beating my skull and body with my fists. You never saw me beating up Hank the teddy in complete rage then sobbing and apologizing to him like he was alive. You never saw me standing in the window crying wishing somebody, maybe the nice man Jeff down the road, would help me.

You never saw how I learned to imagine characters and stories so hard I began hallucinating them in my attempts to escape that ‘home.’ You never saw me wishing the ‘scary’ pedophiles in the white vans would come and take me away, because then maybe somebody would love my body for something different, and that I wouldn’t have to think so hard any more. You never saw me wish that mummy would just kill me so it would all be over. You never saw the help notes I wrote and tore up and posted outside, in the hopes somebody would put them together, and realize I was so scared of being caught asking for help that I destroyed my attempts to get it.

I’m fucking furious. Again and again you’d say bullshit like “imagine how I feel!” when you were the grown fucking adult in the dynamic. And I know-- Christopher comes into the equation, so does Sheila, who - man, that’s just, why would you still see that almost-murderer - I understand why, but holy fuck, I can’t watch myself start living like that - but this, right now, is about you and the child you did not protect, but transferred pain onto.

You got so fucking far inside my head I believed I was ungrateful, disgusting, a brat, just whining, that I had no reason to be so upset. That I should just buck up, and go to school, that I wasn’t doing good enough. I still don’t fucking feel good enough, because you’d go from essentially calling me worthless, to calling me a genius or a prodigy when I did something academically remarkable. It was the only way to convince you I had value.

So I learned to escape through school. I learned to just do the work, even though I still wanted to die right there. Easier to do an exam with an invisible gun to my head than to go home in the evenings, more fun, actually, because at least there was a chance of success in the exam. You didn’t see all the dark fucking nights I lived through considering suicide, wishing desperately that I could just kill myself, but feeling like my utter desperation to get away mattered less than your happiness. Awake all night trying to get away from the thoughts that told me to just stab myself, just go out in the cold, just rot away, because I felt responsible for holding the family together. And I also felt like I was the one destroying it.

I felt responsible for that, especially with how PISS fucking poorly you and David both handled that relationship. Neither of you are emotionally healthy people. You both used emotional manipulation on the children involved in attempts to achieve the same ends: harm the other party, gain power and control.

You know, I want to be a nice guy. I want to give happy happy endless love to the universe. Why do you think I was capable of moving in with a self-declared sadist, a man who’d shot men? Because I’d already lived with somebody who was wounding me every fucking day. In insidious, nasty little ways. That the David cunt only observed and copied. From you, Claire.

Your literal gibbering about “brainwashing!” and “mind control!!” - literally, what the fuck, woman. You’re not immune to propaganda either. You were literally making up your own. You two thought you were the entire fucking universe. He was the Right, you were the Left. It was the Tories and the Labour party, the Axis and the Allies, and the unwitting, dumb voters, with no experience in politics.

This is literally how you framed it to me.

That is literally how you two IDIOTS thought it was appropriate to navigate a breakup.

You know what? I’m done with it, again. You’re different to him in how you throw your shade, and that’s all. He’s alright, in moderation. You’re alright, in moderation. I could tolerate a serial killer, in moderation; I almost fucking was one, with how hurt I’d become, and how little trust in and respect for human beings I’d developed. All just meat to me. It’s all I’ll be in the end, anyway. It gave me a sense of power to stalk strangers at night, and observe their weak points, and consider how fucking easy it would be to get a rush that way.

And I can’t have these conversations with you, these furious fucking conversations, because I am conditioned to box up every bit of my rage when I even THINK of your face. You show up in my mind with your eyes all watery blue and bloodshot from drinking, and your lip and chin all tight like you’re going to cry, and it convinced - and still sometimes convinces me - “pack it in, you can’t destroy her like that, the world will fucking end, it’ll come back on you and your siblings. There will be punishment, there will be blood, and it’ll be yours, and you’ll be left all alone cleaning it up with no fucking support. The only eye that sees your blood will punish you for making a mess with it.”

Neither of you can see shit about what I really feel, unless you’re reading it here, like fucking omnipresent surveillant operatives of Big Brother, which I suspect at least one of you might actually be fucking doing.

Sure, things changed when I came back, still going through active trauma, desperate for something, some illusion of healthy family. Was that healthy? No. Was I actively going through unhealthy, traumatic times? Yes. We do unhealthy things in unhealthy times, and afterwards, while we process the feelings we went through but were numb to. It happens. I understand this, it’s why I kept making fucking excuses, why I thought ‘explanations’ of behaviour meant anything when you’d hurt somebody. It’s why I boxed up all this fucking rage. It’s why I thought my pain was meaningless compared to yours.

I’ll give this to you, you got nicer. You drink less. I appreciate it, for your other kids. They’re doing better than I was, but they’re still not well.

When did that change?

After your first fucking child ran away, because of the sheer amount of pain you were transferring onto them. Because of the toxic fucking environment of emotional manipulation and infantilization you’d continued to foster. Because it was easier to live with a racist opioid addict murderer for a while than to stay in that shithole city any longer. I had to force you to realize how fucking unhealthy that place was.

I’m not being kind right now, because I don’t know how to express all this fucking fury in a kind way. I don’t know how to soften the blow. Maybe there’s no fucking way, maybe that’s why I’m doing it on my blog. I still don’t believe you’re grown enough to handle this shit. You shut me down in every difficult conversation about feelings, and you don’t even mean to. Why do you think I cried on you so fucking much, but you could never fucking console me? Because you fucked up at the start. Because you didn’t establish a secure attachment between yourself and your child. Because you couldn’t provide for me.

I don’t blame you for being unable to provide for me. Circumstances align this way, often, and it’s inevitable.

I can’t go back in time and re-establish that attachment. There’s always this lingering fucking, waiting for the stab in the back. Waiting for trouble. Those moments where I go completely blank and convince myself it’s always been happy, it’s always been nice, I really am imagining things, I really do just overreact... there’s something wrong with me, why am I so ungrateful? Why can’t I feel joy here? Why is it always bittersweet?

It’s fucking me up. It really hurts me, every day. Every god damn day when I’m living with myself, and actually working on acknowledging and expressing what I really feel, in as healthy a way as I can muster. I still wake up thinking I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to smile today. I’ve ruined the world. I’ve fucked up so badly by making the decision not to speak to you again.

I have to stop doing that to myself.

I went psychotic from the amount of repressed trauma I’d been burying by smoking pot. My brain had to show me all that pain and instability I’d been avoiding, in the form of hallucinated symbols.

It was terrifying. It was also incredibly helpful. The doors of perception, as it were. Thanks for that one - I’m off making my own Brave New World, and it’s on the island, far away from the rest of them, with their neatly chemically controlled babies in fucking jars.

I needed to drug myself to function, for a while. I needed my meds to function. To do the only thing I’d ever been truly worth anything for, the only thing that was going to get me out and away. I’m coming to doubt that it was ever really my choice to be an academic. Between ability and unhealthy amounts of pressure, I was forced this way, like that fucking rhubarb you were growing.

So I suppose that’s why I woke up this morning and thought about staying in bed all day, hiding from the rest of the universe. I wanted to go back to sleep, so I didn’t have to feel how fucking angry and hurt I am. I can’t avoid feeling angry and hurt, now nothing’s actually hurting me in my daily life, now I’ve got people who respect my every word for what it is.

And I have to do this every day. Every fucking day, I’ve got to have these conversations with myself. Sometimes I write them. Sometimes I sing them. Sometimes I have to talk through them, slowly and haltingly, trying to understand why something apparently small hurts like something much bigger.

Why am I ‘doing this to myself’? So I don’t do it to anybody else. Not again. So I can come to a place where I feel worthy, and deserving, and like I can connect enough to my feelings and body to function without damaging myself even more.

All that fucking denial of my physical pain. All that denial there was anything medically wrong with me. It got inside me, man.

But - I have to accept my borderline. I have to accept that I have an intense emotional range, that causes me problems in meeting the societal standards of daily life, because I’ve been through an emotionally intense past.

I also have to accept that it’s not normal for this (almost) 22 year old body to click and crack and pop and grind and ache so much I have to literally limp around. My hips should not be audibly thunking when I go to sit down in an office chair to check my emails. My shoulders should not be sliding out of place steadily over the course of the day. I should never have gone so physically numb that I didn’t notice my binder warping my ribs.

I said I thought I had Ehlers-Danlos. You said I read too much, and that I was paranoid. Where am I now? Six years later, facing the possibility that that really is what’s wrong with my cartilage, the reason my skin is so soft, the reason my ribs bent so easily, the reason my vertebrae slide over each other audibly, the reason the only joints I have that don’t hurt are my elbows. And I’ve got to do it alone, because I can’t deal with looking right at your guilt every time I bring it up, because I know that you know now that this really isn’t normal, and you ignored it at a time so much damage could have been prevented.

I know why it went down that way. I do and don’t blame you. I just have to get angry, so I can fucking do something with my day that isn’t pure escapism, something constructive.

So now I’m wrapping this one up. I’m not fucking “packing it in” any more. I’ll wrap it up, at a time and place of my choosing, considering every body and mind my actions are affecting in the moment. Right now? This is for me.

#fliptext #trauma #abuse #neglect #suicide #addiction #murder #self harm #ask to tag #Good Morning #I Had To Get Mad So I Wouldn't Be Sad All Day #Things To Do U Kno #disability

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kaepop-trash · 6 years ago

Text

Epitaph

Rated: M for Smut, Angst.

Pairing: Jaehyun x Reader xYuta

Summary: The story of secrets, deceit and greed. Three characters with unlikely alliances and one common goal; power. Jaehyun is stuck between his own thirst for power and his need for the one thing that could take away everything. Yuta has ambition growing from an unlikely alliance and convinces himself to do anything to protect it. Between both of them is her, ambitious but with one weakness, she does all it takes for Jaehyun, even if it’s putting herself aside. But how long can she hold up her own fragile games?

(A/N): I’ll edit this later, I’m currently in a lecture.

Mini Masterlist

She was sitting in the library when she heard the door creek open.

“Oh.” His eyes opened wider from shock before he smiled, “Hi.” He walked in, closing the door behind him.

“How are you holding up?” He asked, keeping a respectable distance, “Coming here can't be easy.” He recognised with solitude, she looked up at his face. Empathy was something she hadn't seen often on someone she's known as long as Jaehyun, it felt disconcerting.

“I'll be better.” She closed the file in her hand, getting up and putting it in his hand, “Your numbers spiked up last week but it's stagnant now. We have to do something.” Her voice was soft. Jaehyun sighed, his head dropping. He thought about it for a second, before playing along, nodding his head and lifting it. He grabbed the file and let her avoid talking about what he asked.

“We'll take care of it.” He mumbled, seemingly disinterested as he flicked through the file.

“We're losing Jaehyun. Your only claim till now is that you're the only democratic congressman in the state. But we're alienating Republican voters, and whether you like it or not that's our demographic. I don't care if you have to be empathetic to mom's with guns or if you kick a Marxist propagating universal healthcare. Get elected.” She didn't leave room for argument.

“I'm not going to campaign on lies.” He made space.

“But you don't campaign on anything.” She said, clearly frustrated. “You're a moderate so your beliefs are lukewarm.” She said and he looked away with a scoff. She frowned, putting a hand on his cheek to make him face her.

“Look at me.” He obeyed, “You're the leader this country needs. You are someone the world needs.” Her eyes went from soft comfort to determination, “I don't care how you get up there. Because I know you'll change this world when you do.” He was almost taken aback by her devotion.

“But it matters to me. I won't trick people into making me their representative. That word holds responsibility.” As she squinted he laced his fingers with her hand in his cheek, brushing it against his lips as he set it down, “Government is my only religion.” He meant it with a determination that caught her off guard but she also realised in that moment what his words entailed. She took the file from his hands and sat back down to scribble something quickly at the back before placing the file with another pile.

“I'll give it back to you after the weekend.” She looked around her table in search of something before stopping, looking up at Jaehyun. Her eyes traced his dense eyebrows that missed the ease of a forehead without squinted tension, his long but dropping eyelashes that coupled with his heavy lids used to make Jaehyun perpetually look like he had just woken up in the most breathtaking way, now they made him look tired and empty. She glanced at his lips and remembered when they always looked plump and inviting, yet the way they seemed to be always pulled straight made him look older. She looked up at his eyes that seemed to be confused. She reached up and pecked his lip gently, almost relieved to learn that they at least felt the same.

“You're someone to believe in. Your voters see that, I see that. It's my job to make sure the world sees it.” She spoke still close to his face, noses brushing together. Jaehyun watched her with an almost fascination that she couldn't see over the possibilities in her eyes.

Yuta walked down the stairs fifteen minutes after a maid knocked on the door and asked him to go downstairs because ‘Madam’ had asked for him. It was 5:30 in the morning and the even the sun was hesitant to come out properly as Yuta made his way through the dark halls of the house that seemed to want to swallow him. Yuta's footsteps quickened and he soon reached the stairs, making his way down.

When he came downstairs he was met his Jung Jaehyun's back and (Y/N) at the window.

“Why are there reporters here?” She asked and The congressman seemed to be as confused as Yuta himself was.

“It's your father's funeral.” The congressman stated blatantly and she turned around with a serious gaze.

“My father was an investment banker, not even a particularly successful one.” She crossed her arms in front of her and Yuta was truly at a loss.

“They aren't here because of your father.” He found himself saying. She turned his residual glare at him and he took a physical step back.

“They're here because of you.” He laughed uneasily at the confusion. Her knitted brows unfurled and she turned back to the french doors, the entrance visible in the distance, visibly crowded, with the occasional flashes.

“Do you think they can see us?” The congressman asked softly and Yuta saw his girlfriend's back stiffen.

“When can they not?” He could see her eyes in the reflection of the glass, before she walked away into the kitchen.

“Breakfast is out by the gazebo. You can ask one of the maids taking food to guide you.” Jung informed Yuta who wondered if he was being helpful or asking him to leave the house for breakfast at 5am.

“I think I'm going to get some more sleep actually.” Yuta said uncomfortably.

“Do you usually sleep in?” The congressman asked idly and Yuta was caught off guard by the odd question.

“I usually wake up at 8. I don't get weekends off.” Yuta said as if he somehow needed to defend the tireless nature of his work. Jung's growing smile was a condescending one.

“Rather idealistic to seek for such luxuries in our business is it not?” He phased it like a genuine question and Yuta was at a loss, unable to understand whether what was being posed his way was hostility or just the mockings of a righteous politician.

Truth be told Yuta never liked covering Jung Jaehyun because he never understood him. Sure his old right wing paper took his confusion as criticism, Yuta got a raise in words and a salary so he let them politicise his ignorance, or rather lack of comprehension.

Yuta couldn't comprehend any of it. He had been covering Jung Jaehyun since the start of his campaign. He saw the way he could bewitch a room with his words and he saw him in session defending a maternity clinic bill with a murderous rage in a majorly Republican House.

But as a whole, something about Jung Jaehyun never sat right with Yuta.

He was exceptionally ruthless towards his opponents for one. Something his supporters defended as perseverance and strong values, but Yuta just thought he enjoyed it. There was something about the way he basked in the defeated looks from his opponents, he enjoyed crushing them.

But Jung Jaehyun had done more as a representative in one term than most do in their lifetimes. Politics was the current viral sensation of choice for people and it wasn't uncommon for someone in the depths of the Midwest speak about the enigmatic representative of Pennsylvania. He pushed legislation on medical insurance, abortion and gun laws in Congress in a way that was almost systematic. He made himself a peaceful centre in the storm of controversy, simply put, he was successful. And then he had those dimples, Yuta rolled his eyes as he realised that this country would never get over their obsession with Handsome Democrats. But he was curious to know if things go as predicted, would Jung Jaehyun be the return of the Kennedy or the Clinton era? Or would he be something in an of itself completely new? With his thoughts over these, Yuta made a mental note of a question he would ask the Congressman the next opportunity he got.

(Y/N) stood in front of the window above the kitchen sink, still frowning at the presence of the crowd see could see despite the distance. She heard the soft padding of feet as a pair of fingers brushed up her arms.

“People are watching Jaehyun.” She spoke into her mug of tea.

“They can't see.” He slipped his hand up her robe. And grabbed her thigh before she could pull away.

“Your parents are here. What is wrong with you lately?” She hissed but he seemed relentless.

“It's five in the morning. If you don't want me to touch you, just say so.” He slid his fingers higher and she turned a panicked gaze towards the window.

“Don't move.” He mumbled before walking away for a second, before she felt his hands on her waist. When she glanced back, he was on his knees.

“Just say so.” He repeated and she gripped her jaw, turning back to face the window.

“If there's even the slightest chance of them realising what is happening here.” She seemed to warn.

“What do you want happening here?” He mumbled against the soft flesh of her thigh and she closed her eyes. More than anything she wanted to him to stop modelling her thoughts like this. He hummed closer to her physical arousal, making her drop her head and pray to god as he spread her legs without any protest.

“Talk to me, I've always been a slave to your words.” He stroked between her legs gently, brushing his fingers over the skin without any urgency, “What do you want?” His voice was more implicit this time.

“You.” She didn't need to hesitate, she didn't feel knocked down by the confession. He hummed with approval. She looked up again, looking away to the side this time.

“Has it not always been like that?” His nose brushed close and she gasped, knuckles white against the counter as her ears remained focused on the stairs. Suddenly he pulled away, pulling her away to the corner.

“I'd never make you so vulnerable if we have audience.” He kissed her temple roughly before walking away, leaving her heaving.

“I didn't think anyone would come.” She spoke as she looked down the landing at the crowded parlour. Jaehyun had just walked up behind her, his eyes scanning over her back and the side of her face.

“They must want to be in your good books.” Jaehyun spoke from over his glass of whiskey.

“Pathetic all of them.” She grimaced.

“They're just build to serve, and please the ones who can give them something.” Jaehyun spoke relaxed.

“These people all shrugged us off at the first fall. Mr. Rand over there had once complained to the manager at the Philly club because I would still go for horse riding after the trial.” She scoffed.

“Now he's looking for you. No doubt with gifts and condolences.” Jaehyun said and she turned a bit, glancing at him.

“Sungjae is here too.” She informed him and he almost laughed at the mention.

“I know, I met him earlier. He asked about you.” He grinned as she mirrored it.

“How's his father?” She asked, turning back completely with curiosity in her eyes. Conditioning made him want to hold back his smile, but he let himself gloat.

“He avoided jail time by getting his company delisted.” He informed and she frowned at the word a little before shaking it off and turning back.

“He deserves it.” Her voice was without emotion. She contemplating something for a moment and Jaehyun knew she was thinking over her words so he waited.

“I used to hate you then. It was the only time I was sure about feeling something in its whole.” She remembered.

“Maybe you had the right idea.” He seemed to test and she turned around.

“Though I imagine you would have preferred rowing to football.” He smirked and she laughed.

“You know I always knew you were envious.” She teased and he played along.

“I felt sorry for you.” He chuckled and she shook her head, looking away.

“You just didn't like the idea of him being richer than you.” A ghost of a smile played on Jaehyun's face.

“You're assuming things.” He lied and she hummed, letting him.

“There was never anyone else you know.” She said genuinely.

“Is there now?” He tilted his head and she couldn't answer.

“Tell me Jaehyun, what would you do if I said yes?” This time he didn't have a reply. But it was only because so many things suddenly rushed by in his head, years of trying to decipher the way she looked at him. Could he ever go back to seeing her indifference?

She almost turned back before she did a double take, his eyes grabbing her attention. How long had it taken them to come here?

“Do you ever find it funny that there has always been someone between us?” Jaehyun was reflecting too, clearly.

“The only people between us is ourselves Jae.” She frowned at his juvenile lament. He didn't know which way to see that statement. He didn't want to speak to her anymore, she wouldn't understand his conviction and he didn't expect her to. So he slipped back into the shadows and she went back to eyeing the crowd with distrust.

Yuta sat away in a corner, the way people looked at him made him wonder if they were being wary of a reporter or whether he was radiating a dark energy. Something shifted in the last few hours he realised as he took another glance around the room. He saw (Y/N) talking to the chairman of the company that build his car, he found Jung Jaehyun engaging an old time investor. It took Yuta a day in this house and a morning with these people to realise something, he didn't belong here. It was different the other times he had been amongst the same kind of people. Fundraisers and campaign events were a necessity of one's job; but this: he looked around again with a settling sense of panic.

Yuta had never known his father, he was admittedly the underbelly of the American dream with a hard working single mother who emphasised his education over all. She never had the luxury to be sentimental about much, but he remembered travelling back to his mother's land when her great uncle had died. Yuta remembered wondering why he had to sit in a plane for hours to mourn someone who was a stranger to him, but he did realise on that trip. He met a family he didn't know he had and he saw grief bring people together when they were busy with their own pursuits. Family instilled a sense of solidarity in Yuta from then, he understood the importance of identity and humility: he realised the value of mourning. This he realised with a deepening frown, eyes landing on the one person in the room still holding him down, was a statement.

Jaehyun was talking to someone when a hand landed on his shoulder, he turned at the intrusion. Hesitant suddenly after finding (Y/N)'s mother smiling at him expectantly.

“I was hoping I'd catch a word with you.” She informed him, turning around to walk. Unsure of himself, Jaehyun just followed.

“You saved this house.” She spoke after she walked into the veranda, stopping abruptly, “My daughter is attached to this place, so I'm grateful to you.” She turned slowly, her eyes didn't look grateful.

“But it isn't your place. As appreciative as I am, I'm not sure I'm comfortable knowing that my daughter's employer owns the halls I lived in.” She spoke sharply, Jaehyun frowned.

“Your daughter is my longest, most cherished friend.” He retorted.

“I know my child Jaehyun. She doesn't have friends; I'm not just throwing words at you. I think it's time you articulate your intentions with my daughter. Your father might be intelligent, but he can let his pride cloud his observations. I don't have the same disability. I see what I need to see. ” She spoke with authority, Jaehyun raised his brow.

“I'm very appreciative of your appreciation. But I also am fairly certain that this house and any other matters related to (Y/N) and I are between us, and I'd be grateful if you gave your daughter the allowance she deserves after having to raise herself for the most part.” His face didn't give away his annoyance over her presence, Jaehyun severely disliked (Y/N)'s mother, she was the kind of women who went around life feeling entitled to the fruits of another's labour, he was also suddenly cautious about what she said.

“We raised her to be a lady. Now she's your henchman.” She spat at Jaehyun and he almost scoffed, “Running around with politicians and local news announcers.” She turned her head away, clearly disgusted at the idea. This time Jaehyun let himself laugh.

“Your daughter isn't a Lady or a Henchman Mrs. (Y/L/N). You've just always thought her the weapon. He presumed she wanted to ask what he said, he was ready to explain to her the extent of her underestimations, but the door swung open and Jaehyun turned a scowl at the door.

“Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was a door leading outside.” Yuta stood at the door with eyes wide, gaze moving between the both of them.

“It's quite alright, in fact.” Jaehyun turned back to her, “We were just talking about you.” Jaehyun's eyes were clean of any residual emotion, looking down at the woman with his own form of disgust.

“Were you?” Yuta walked into the room, completely unaware of the situation.

“I was reminding Jaehyun that my daughter is very resourceful.” She turned and glanced Yuta over in a way that made even Jaehyun uncomfortable, “And some think that warrants exploiting her. Isn't that right Jaehyun?” She turned back to him and he squinted at her.

What an unpleasant women.

She walked away with an air of superiority and Jaehyun almost felt bad for the expression on Yuta's face.

“She's like that. Always has been, don't bother with her approval.” Jaehyun felt his practiced politeness come through, Yuta gave him a distracted nod before he tightened his jaw and walked out of the room in a rush.

Jaehyun walked closer to the stable on the estate as he remembered it. He was almost taken aback when he came closer. The way she stood in front of her horse was reminiscence of a time so long ago he almost gave into the nostalgia; but then reality claimed him, neither of them were the same people they were before. He wondered if he could ever articulate it; Jaehyun would consider himself rather good with his words, he was a politician by profession. He would even say he was rather tactful with Human Beings, after all nothing came in the way once you knew what someone wanted. But his own emotions were somehow always beyond Jaehyun, and he didn't realise the extent of this weakness till he felt his emotions in a magnitude akin to a wretched sea storm. But hers were beyond his comprehension as well. And while that frustrated him, he was also aware of the tempest.

“My grandfather sends his condolences.” Jaehyun reiterated the words as he walked up behind her.

“I didn't know your grandfather knew of me.” She turned his head towards him, picking up a brush from the ground to brush her horse.

“He never forgets a favour, he definitely never forgets who it came from.” He spoke and she smiled, turning to him completely.

“I wonder how I would feel if someone ever showed kindness without separate motivation.” She shook her head, breaking into a smile when he raised a brow.

“Your boyfriend was packing his bags when I crossed his room earlier. While I would love to show him the door myself, I figured you'd want an explanation.” He sighed into his words when she turned to him with a frown: he figured that the guy was a coward.

“Your mother was speaking to us both. I guess you didn't pick one with thick skin.” He said and she frowned further, turning her irritated eyes at him.

“Why do you assume it's not his personal business.” She responded and he smiled.

“I know your mother. And I was there, in fact it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume she meant her words for me. But we've been here before haven't we? You keep wanting things in life you know you have no place for. He’s your everyday human, I know how it must have felt, the possibility of someone who only sees the good in you. I tried with Sulli, the entire term I served in DC after you left me. But it's unceremonious to pretend, you'll get tired and slip and suddenly he's accusing you of the crime of being yourself.” He tilted his head away. Despite the situation, Jaehyun knew this wasn't going to be easy on her, she had the capacity to care.

“I'm not doing this with you again. I don't do anything without a purpose.” He frowned at the memory, his mind getting ahead of himself. He wondered to himself for a moment, silence spreading between both their running thoughts. If there was a higher order setting things in motion, Jaehyun thought, that order would be fair but strict. He wondered if it was that need for order that brought them together and he wondered if it was that order they disrespected the years they spend looking for reasons to stay away from each other. With the intensity involved, he wouldn't blame her or himself. But he wondered if that order was now trying so hard to pull them apart.

“He might leave.” He said once finally and she dropped the brush in her hand with irritation.

“I would ask why you aren't happy if he's in fact leaving, but then again you're desperate to win right?” She narrowed her eyes before walking away from him.

When she reached the house she laughed at the stray ear in her eye, he was gone. The situation felt too familiar, she needed to realign herself.

#nct #nct scenarios #jaehyun scenarios #yuta scenarios #kpop #jaehyun #yuta #political!au #ambition series #kpop scenarios #smut #jaehyun smut #yuta smut #nct smut #angst

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