#crying over saw x crying over saw 2004 in a Normal sort of way

[zer0point5ive]

“lawrence! get up! i need you” “don’t leave me” “i’ll bring someone back, i promise” “we’re gonna be okay?” “i wouldn’t lie to you” ohh. pain and anguish

[five-hxrgreeves]

Feeling My Way Through the Darkness

A/n: This is my first fic on Tumblr! I also have it posted on AO3, but I thought I’d post it here as well- I will try to keep them on the same schedule by updating once a week. This is a Five x OC series fic; I’m late to the TUA party on here, so I’m not sure how many people will read this, but if you feel like it, let me know what you think! 

Here’s what you need to know: 

The timeline: everything is basically the same (except Ben is alive), but this takes place after season 2, where I'm assuming the Umbrella Academy stops the apocalypse successfully. The year is an alternate 2019 from the one the show has. Everything else will be explained later.

Ages: all the main characters (except Jared, one of my OCs), are 15 in body. Five spends less time in the apocalypse than he does on the show, and the OC isn't exactly a normal 15-year old. Everyone else's minds are how old they are in the show (so 30.) 

THERE WILL BE NO SMUT, we don’t stan pedophilia here!!!! 

Summary: Due to unknown circumstances of the time anomaly caused by certain members of the Umbrella Academy in stopping the apocalypse, there was a ripple in the continuum that caused an unaccounted-for effect to happen. At midnight on January 1st, 2004, seven women gave birth unexpectedly; and the strangest thing of all was that none of them had been pregnant in the first place.

This time, though, there was no Umbrella Academy to mark these children's birth to the world. Many of them lived quiet-albeit unusual- lives in the homes of their biological families, who, by 2019 and the long-forgotten news of the Umbrella Academy, were mostly used to strange occurrences happening.

Or, the wheel of time continues to turn and, according to The Commission, the Apocalypse is inevitable; it doesn't matter to them what brings it. (Prologue below cut)

Prologue: In the Beginning...

Feeling my way through the darkness

Guided by a beating heart

I can't tell where the journey will end

But I know where to start

On this particular New Year’s Eve, Lola and Richard were celebrating at home with their four-year-old-son, Jared. While they considered themselves to be loving parents, they were often busy at work and travelled around a lot, which left little time for family bonding, so they took advantage of the holidays when they could.

Lola had blonde hair and blue eyes, which was mirrored in her son; she was a petite woman, but that didn’t detract from the power she could hold in a room. Richard had short, dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes, and he was quieter and more easy-going than his wife.

They were currently celebrating New Year’s with Chinese takeout and watching old movies on the TV. The Christmas tree still stood in the corner of the living room, and colorful homemade streamers decorated the ceiling. The family of three sat on the couch in pajamas, with Jared being the slight exception; he was also still wearing his mother’s heels and had the sleeves of her bathrobe tied around his neck to make a cape from their earlier game of fashion-superheroes (while he thought superheroes were cool, he wouldn’t want to be one; he’d want to design their uniforms.)

As the clock counted down to the new year, nothing seemed out of place. By 11:45, they switched over the channel to watch the ball drop in New York, and surprisingly, Jared was still awake- a fact he was very proud of. And, fifteen minuets later, the countdown drew to a close:

“5!”

“4!”

“3!”

“2!”

“1!"

When the clock struck midnight, the people on the screen cheered as the ball dropped. Richard picked Jared up and swung him around the room in celebration, and Lola watched them amusedly. Suddenly, her expression dropped into one of horror and fear. Something wasn’t right. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong- until there was.

Afterwards, no one could say exactly what happened, but one moment, Lola was her usual slimness, and the next, she had ballooned out to nine weeks pregnant. Her father and son were startled by her scream and sudden change in appearance, but Richard was quick to react. He hastily shuffled Jared into the next room, ordering him to stay there. He grabbed the necessary items and rushed back to his wife’s side; having helped deliver his son, he knew the basic procedure for birth.

Her face was screwed up in pain and she was breathing heavily, “deep breaths, my love,” Richard said gently, stroking her hair. Despite the suddenness of the situation, he was able to remain calm, which had always been one of his gifts.

Lola tried to comply, but the pain was even greater than Jared’s birth, and she remembered that well. Surprisingly, however, the labor lasted only minutes, and soon there was a fourth member to the Quinn family.

Richard stared down at the baby girl who’d burst into life in the span of not even half an hour. Unlike Jared- and most babies-, she didn’t cry as she was born. Instead, she waved her tiny limbs around as she squirmed in his hands, opening vibrant blue eyes to take in the world around her.

“We have a baby girl, Lola,” Richard said, amazed. He knew he could immediately love their surprise child, no matter the unusual circumstances of her birth. He handed the baby to her mother who, despite her now-exhausted state, managed a small smile as she took her daughter in her arms. While she had every right to hate or fear the child by the surprise situation, having Jared first had helped ease the shock, and besides, they had the means to raise her.

Lola looked up at her husband, “we’re keeping her,” she said determinedly.

“Of course,” Richard said, surprised that his wife might think there was a different possibility.

"Will you get Jared? He should know everything's okay," Lola requested, and her husband went to find their son.

The blonde woman looked down at the baby girl, her expression soft, "everything's okay, baby. You should know that too. I don't know what happened, but we'll work through it. Supernatural things happen all the time in movies, after all. And you're special; I can feel it."

The baby's bright blue eyes blinked up at her as if to say yes, I know. Richard returned with Jared then, who was hiding behind his father's legs. After seeing that his mother was okay, he hesitantly moved to stand in front of her.

"You have a baby sister, Jer," Lola told him, "we haven't named her yet, but she'll be a wonderful part of our family."

He stared at the baby with wide eyes, "was she supposed to happen like that? Was that how I was born?" he asked, looking up at his mother, who looked faintly amused.

"No, you were very different," she answered, "none of us know quite what happened, but she's our little miracle. You're her big brother, Jared."

The four-year-old looked at the little child in his mother's arms and frowned. He was supposed to be the baby, not this strange creature. And besides, why did she stare so much? Those wide blue eyes were super creepy.

"I don't like her," he declared.

Richard laughed, much to Jared's irritation, "I'm afraid you'll have to get over that, son. I know this can't be easy, but she's our responsibility now. Go on, it's time for bed anyway. Your mother has to rest. Tomorrow, we'll get some new baby things."

Life settled into a new routine for the Quinns. The one good thing about the baby, Jared decided, was that it made his parents stay home more often; but even then, they were busy taking care of her. Jared tried to stay out of her room as much as possible to get away from those eyes. He really didn't like them. His mom had said that if her eyes were going to change color, they'd do so in a few days, since all babies were born with blue eyes. He didn't think that would help, to be honest. He wasn't able to put it in to words with his limited vocabulary, but the girl's eyes seemed to stare with a strange alertness that even his parents didn't have. And, if he looked too long, he could swear he saw something mysterious swirling in their depths.

When he tried to ask his mom and dad to "take her back" after explaining these very valid points, they merely laughed and said he had a great imagination. Eventually, they'd decided on a name: Elena Melany Quinn. He'd thought calling her "baby" was good enough, but apparently, that wouldn't do.

As Elena got older, she became very inquisitive, and was often found in some sort of mischief. In her quiet times, though, she loved it when people read books to her. One night, Elena and Jared were being watched by a sitter, who wasn't really paying attention to them. It was getting close to Elena's bedtime (Jared always made sure to make this distinction; he was older, after all, so he got to stay up later), and their caretaker was following the instructions their parents left. After getting his sister ready for bed, the babysitter placed her in the crib, turned off all lights but the lamp on the dresser, and left the door open a crack. There was only one thing missing; her bedtime story. Elena then did something she didn't often do- she began to cry. The sitter rolled her eyes and went to close the door, but Jared stopped her, "did you read a story?" he asked.

"No," the girl said with a slight question in her voice.

"Ellie always gets a story before bed," Jared explained importantly. While he wasn't fond of his sister, he never wanted her to cry.

She huffed, "well I'm not reading a story. She'll have to go without one tonight."

Jared knew that his sister wouldn't stop crying, so he said, "can I read her a story?"

The sitter looked at him with amusement, "I didn't know you could read."

"Of course I can!" he declared (in truth, he was just starting to, but she didn't need to know that.) He slipped past her into his sister's room, "don't worry, baby. I'm going to read you a story."

Almost like magic, Elena's cries stopped. Jared looked at her with wide eyes, "can you understand me?"

The baby's mouth opened and closed, as if she was trying to form words. Pulling herself up by the handlebar of the crib, she supported herself in a standing position to get a better look at him, but still didn't say anything; she just watched him with deep blue eyes. Jared sighed, he should've guessed she wasn't smart enough yet. He made his way to her bookshelf and picked out one of the thinnest books he could find before returning to the crib. As he struggled through the first page, Elena's baby mind was turning. She knew she knew this person, although she didn't think he liked her. She thought him name was easy though, she'd heard the taller people say it, and if she said it, would it make him like her more? Was it.... Germ? No. Jar? No. "Jer!" finally came out of her mouth.

The little boy looked up at the baby in surprise, stopping in the middle of the second page, "what?"

"Jer! Jer! Jer!" the baby turned it into a chant.

He couldn't believe it; his sister's first words were his name! Jared wished his parents were there to hear it. He couldn't help smiling, "yes, that's me," he said. Maybe his sister wasn't so bad after all.

"Jer!" came his name the final time, before, "bo?"

He nodded, "yes, book."

----------------

When Lola and Richard found out about the new understanding Jared had for his sister, they were surprised until they learned what her first word was. They exchanged amused smiles.

[superqueerwritingfangirl-blog]

Scattered Memories (Part 1)

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Character Ship: Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: 2004(Far too long)

Summary: After Hotch gives your team a rare long weekend you head home, but you never make it. You wake up 13 hours later in the same spot you blackout at, but something is different. 

Warnings: None descriptive rape, kidnapping, angst, eventual PTSD

Author’s note: I’ve been working on this for two days before realizing how long it was getting to be a one-parter, this won’t be as long as I plan on making my Trials and Tribulation’s series -two/three parts at the most.

Part 2

The last thing you remembered was leaving work for the day. You handed Hotch your completed files, saying goodbye to him, JJ, Rossi, Derek, and Garcia. As always, you lingered at Spencer’s desk, laughing at his awkward jokes, being completely hypnotized by his magic tricks, and sad goodbyes, even though you know you’ll see each other the next day.

After that, you head down to the parking garage that belonged to the government building. It was already dark out, being winter, so you picked up your pace and approached your vehicle. You heard of few stray footsteps, but nothing too close to you. As you started your car it seemed to lurch forward for a split second, but it rested and returned to normal, so you went on your way.

About half way home you decided to rent a movie for the long weekend Hotch had allowed the team, given no cases came up. The rental store was crowded for date night, causing you to bump into several of the inhabitants. Mumbling to yourself you searched the new release aisle, grabbing the one that looked most interesting.

You began feeling slightly dizzy ‘It’s probably just anxiety,’ you told yourself, ‘it’s far too crowded for anyone to feel comfortable.’ Pushing the feeling aside, you paid for the rented DVD and stepped outside. With a breath of fresh air, the dizziness seem to subside and you continued your drive home, but not even 5 minutes into your drive, only a few minutes away from home something turned wrong.

Something was very wrong: your hearing faded, ringing to a deafening point, your hands were shaking and you knew you had to be swerving, and your sight was almost gone. Trying your best to focus on the road, you reached into your back pocket and pulled out your phone. You knew you wouldn’t be conscious enough to make a call, your words being blurred in your mind, let alone, actually being spoken, so you sent a text. You chose the first contact in your text message history: Spencer Reid, typing a simple “911”.

As you sent it you pulled off onto a side road and parked. Just behind you, another car pulled up, you stepped out of your vehicle, hoping to signal the danger you were in but the moment your feet touched the ground you collapsed, the world turning dark.

But that had to have been hours ago because right now it looked as though the sun, which was just going down the last time you were conscious, was rising through the trees. Instead of lying on the ground, where you were previously, you haphazardly splayed over the front two seats of your car.

You groaned, shifting into a sitting position, searching for your phone. Surprisingly you found it back in your back pocket. Your phone was shut off - something you never did, in the case of an emergency, you could be tracked down. Dozens of texts and phone calls from everyone on your team and a handful of others.

Seeing the urgent messages you went to reach for your FBI badge and your gun, that always sat in your glove box, but they were gone. Immediately you dialed 911. “911 - where is your-”

You cut her off, begging yourself not to lose your train of thought. “My name is (Y/F/N) (Y/L/N), I am an agent of the FBI. I think I might have been attacked. I’ll need an ambulance, police unit, and for you to call and ask for Special Agent Hotchner and the rest of his team at the FBI.”

“Yes ma’am.” The 911 operator replied, obviously shaken. You hung up and began checking yourself.

Looking into the rearview mirror you checked your eyes, your pupils were dilated and the whites were yellowed, most likely from being drugged. Looking down at your clothes you noticed how disheveled they were: shirt untucked, buttons undid haphazardly, one sock missing. You didn’t want to think about why. Rolling up your sleeves, you checked your arms, you saw bruises and scrapes but no signs of injection marks. You did the same for your legs, but then you remembered the rentals store: someone had bumped into you, they hit your hip. Grabbing the waistband of your pants, you slowly revealed the skin of your hip and almost immediately you saw the tiny red dot, and gently touching it you could feel a slight indent of a hole. Along with remembering the rental store you also remembered the car that pulled up behind you.

Seconds later you heard the sirens, as well as two black SUV’s. You got out of your vehicle, almost running to Hotch as he stepped out, onto the pavement. “I need an APB out for a red 2014 Impala.” You began to walk away, towards the paramedics, before you felt a hand grasp your wrist. With your instincts kicking in, you swung around and attempted to punch your assailant. Luckily he was able to dodge it as you realized it was still Hotch. “Shit! Hotch, I’m so sorry!”

“What happened, (Y/N)?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know.” You admitted. “After I left the other night, I went to the movie rental place a couple blocks back. It was so crowded and someone bumped into me. I became dizzy but tried to drive home. I knew I couldn’t make it so I pulled off here and the car pulled up behind me. I went out to confront him but passed out the second I stood up. I woke up back in my car.”

By then the team had gathered around, as well as the paramedics and police. You sighed when you saw the way Spencer looked at you. “They took my gun and badge, and - uh - there’s an injection point on my hip. I think he may have..” You didn’t have to finish the sentence for them to know what you meant. They all looked away and a paramedic ushered you over to the ambulance, sitting you on the bed in the back.

They asked you dozens of questions, trying to burrow passed your fuzzy mind. They quickly took you over to the hospital, doing horrific tests. After everything was done they finally allowed you to be released, abling you to see your team - your family. “You should be at the hospital,” Hotch said, oddly gentle.

“I won’t be able to help while in the hospital. The drugs are out of my system, and other than the kit I’ve been given a clean bill of health.”

“Other than the kit?” He asked, clearly worried.

“It came back positive, but I’m fine. I don’t even remember it.”

He gave you a look. A fatherly look that said he didn’t believe you but he’ll leave it for now. You silently thanked him. The two of you walked into the briefing room and, no matter how hard they tried, all eyes were on you. Jennifer ran up to you, awkwardly gave you a hug and handed you a warm cup. You took a sip and sighed. Your favorite coffee drink, you smiled for the first time that day, and that made her smile. “Thank you, JJ.” You sang.

You plopped down in your chair, always next to Spencer, you smiled at him and as you pushed yourself closer to the table he looked confused. In all honesty, so were you. How should you feel? You couldn’t remember what happened to you but now you know something did. You felt gross and violated but also fine. You knew it was probably because of shock but you had to ride the wave in order to catch this guy. You could mourn after he was in jail.

“We were able to track down the tape from the rental store. It’s hard to see because of how crowded it was but we can see the moment he stuck you with the drug.”

You watched intently at the screen, furious with yourself for not connecting the pain in your hip with foul play in the moment. You saw a man in a hoodie, jeans, and a baseball cap pull a syringe out of the hoodie pocket. He pulled the cap off of the needle and approached you, swiftly sticking the needle into your thigh, plunging the liquid into your bloodstream. You pounded your fist onto the table. All eyes turned to you. “I was dizzy!” You nearly yelled.

“(Y/N)” Spencer started before you interrupted him.

“I thought it was because of all the people around me. I completely ignored the pain in my hip.” You were so frustrated with yourself you felt tears prick at your eyes. “I should have stopped and made sure I was fine.”

You got up and went to leave the room, needing to be alone. As you opened the door you ran into Garcia, all but crying, she apologized. “Global News was sent a tape. They think it’s our guy, they sent it directly to us.”

You looked at Garcia then Hotch and went back to sit down. “You don’t need to watch this.” Aaron stated.

“I’m not a victim, Hotch, I’m a highly qualified Agent. Let me solve this case.” You said, trying to convince yourself more than the team. He nodded, turning back to the screen.

Your beloved techie pressed a button on the remote and ugly rock music began swimming through your ears. The music triggered a sort of trance in you and suddenly you were there. Clothed in only your panties, the man had his arms wrapped around you as you stood in the middle of a freezing shed. You were still drugged out, but conscious enough to have a vague memory of the event.

With his arms around your waist, your own arms tucked under his, he forced you to sway to the music. Incoherent moans and groans spilled out of your mouth, a few ‘no’s’ barely audible, but still there. You could feel the tears spilling from your blurry eyes. “No.” You whispered, sensing his lips ghost over your ear.

“Dance for me, agent.” The man sang, walking towards the camera. In his hands were your badge and a gun, that you assumed was yours as well. He showed the camera his new toys then looked back at you, who was standing still. “I said dance! If not you won’t be able to watch as your colleagues watch this tape. So, with the room in a fuzzy haze, you began to sway, one hand crossing your stomach and the other tangled in your hair.

On any normal day, you hated dancing when people were watching. You never danced at clubs or parties. You only ever danced with Reid at Rossi’s get together's, that's always what you did. You’d be in each other's arms and sway to the music, talking about anything and everything while the team watched and laughed.

You had no idea how to dance to rock music, let alone under these circumstances. He groaned in a disgustingly sexual way. “‘Atta girl.” He laughed, turning his direction back to the camera. He flaunted your credentials and gun, twirling it around his finger. “Isn’t your girl beautiful? Aaron? Rossi? Derek? Spencer?” He finished with emphasis. You couldn’t see his face but you knew he had a foul smirk.

With every second he spent showing off in front of the camera your mind cleared up. When you felt stable enough you reached for a stray tool, leaning against the wall of the shed. You swung for his head, but missed and a second later he slammed the second syringe into the back of your neck, almost immediately you fell to the ground, your mind was black. “No.” you whispered again, then again and again. Soon you found yourself chanting ‘no’ in a whispered panic.

[nothingman]

In this post, I’d like to make an argument about a way to understand how the Democratic party seems to be making messaging and policy decisions. An argument like this can’t be made in a vacuum—or in 1,500 words. Nor can any one or even ten reasons be decided upon for why the leaders of a party do what they do. But I recognize a pattern in how the DNC and leadership has acted over the past decade and I want to work that through here. So please forgive any indication that I am not a policy wonk or political analyst—I do not claim to be, nor do I wish to be either.

In my series on the history of the Quantified Self and eugenics earlier this year, I referenced the Belgian astronomer, Adolphe Quetelet, who argued that man could be measured just like the positions of planets. I didn’t have the space to explain it very well back then, but think about it like this: you and, say, 570 of your closest friends have telescopes. At the same time on the same night, you each measure the position of a certain star in the sky. You all come up with roughly the same position, but with distinct and consistent variation. Take those measurements and plot them along a chart, like this:

The numbers of measurements that fall into position A (14 friends got this measurement), B (21), C (41), etc. is counted and plotted. The astronomer’s error law, normal distribution, and Gaussian density function (which are all the same thing) dictate that these values will fall into the normal bell curve. Most of the measurements (217) fell at position E, which means that your friends who got other measurements were probably wrong. So let’s say that the star you’re measuring is, in fact, at position E.

Now, let’s assume that instead of 571 people taking the same measurement, it’s just you but you’re measuring the height of 571 people. Quetelet would argue (in fact, he did just this in 1842) that the heights of these people (he would call them men…because they were) would fall into the same normal distribution. And, just like position E on the above graph revealed the “real” position of the star, position E on our height graph would reveal the “real” height of a man. After compiling a good number of measurements about this man, he labeled him l’homme moyen, the average man.

Remember that this was all happening in the mid-1800s in France and Belgium, a time during which the French monarchy was under upheaval. In 1830, Charles X was forced to abdicate after the July Revolution, and so his cousin, Louis Philippe, became king. Louis Philippe (whose daughter was married to Leopold I, king of Quetelet’s home nation Belgium) operated under “a juste milieu, in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power” (Antonetti 1994, p 713). Quetelet, often quoting Victor Cousin and the philosopher’s ideal of moderation and compromise, was quite taken by this idea of juste milieu and equally enthusiastic about the application of the astronomer’s law as an instrument of social analysis: that there is a common type of man and that, just like the “real” position of the planet or the “real” height of man, that type is found somewhere in the middle of the bell curve. Per Ted Porter (1988), “L’home moyen, then, was not just a mathematical abstraction, but a moral ideal” (103). Quetelet believed that income inequality could be tied to crime rates, that the rich lived longer because they did not drink as much, and that moderate men tempered their passion and helped regulate birth and death rates. By smoothing out the curves that described man, oscillations of the social body were eliminated and an ideal existence could be achieved.

What, then, does this have to do with the Democratic Party? It is a relatively well-known history that the Dems (that is, DNC-sanctioned campaigns for legislative and executive offices) have been basing much of their decisions on a sophisticated data operation. As Daniel Kreiss described last February on this blog, starting after the failed 2004 presidential election, the DNC began to build and amass a sophisticated database of constituent and voter information. In The Audacity to Win, 2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe elucidates how critical projects like the DNC’s (and the campaign’s own data and media programs1) helped the campaign understand which issues voters wanted to hear about, what geographic areas to focus on—down to the precinct level, and which ads to run when. Reportedly, the 2016 Clinton campaign leaned too heavily on their data, eschewing opportunities to campaign in what would eventually prove to be critical markets…like all of Wisconsin.

Obama won on a centrist platform of compromise, one that led to increased civil freedoms like the right to marry, but his tenure as president also saw large banks and corporations make exponential gains thanks to a largely hands-off approach to post-bailout repercussions. And while the ACA is an extremely critical step in the right direction, it is a far cry from a single-payer healthcare system. On the other hand, the Republican party has enjoyed control of both houses of congress ever since 2010 and conservative extremism has taken hold of all three branches of government after Clinton’s centrist platform could neither carry her, nor her down-ticket colleagues to office. Meanwhile, in England, we’ve observed an oscillation from one extreme—Thatcherism—to the other—Corbyn-inspired Socialism. What might have been considered the “mainstream” Labour party two years ago failed miserably, running on, yes, another centrist platform—even with the help of Obama’s 2008 and 2012 strategy, data, and media team.

Francis Galton, you may remember from the first installment of my eugenics series, took Quetelet’s work and shifted it—literally. Rather than seeking to find the normal man and make him the model, the father of eugenics wanted to work against what he considered to be a “reversion to mediocrity.” So he promoted the reproduction of those on the exceptional edge of the bell curve and…gently suggested that those on the “deficient” end not reproduce. Of course, this suggestion manifested itself in forced sterilization programs that lasted well into the 1970s in the United States. The idea, of course, was that by removing the deficient and growing the exceptional, the entire curve is forced to move to the right—to the highest IQs, longest legs, fastest reaction times.

Let’s, for the sake of argument, go ahead and call the Republican party Galtonian. Sure, the AHCA, the travel ban, the removal of LGBT identity from the census, and all of the other appalling policies in place or being put in place have eugenicist characteristics. But for now, I want to argue that the Republican party has been using an edge case messaging strategy: war with the terrorists on our soil is imminent, so keep them out and arm yourselves; you might get rich, so let’s reduce the top-earners’ taxes; your marriage will be ruined by someone else’s decisions; women get abortions for fun and your daughter is next. Meanwhile, the Democrats want to reach across the aisle and find a happy medium. They want to incorporate the insurance companies’ wishes into the ACA. Bankers are people, too. We’ll never get single-payer or free college tuition or comprehensive gun control done because the “average American voter” doesn’t want it.

I don’t get to see the data that DNC or GOP operatives have. Nor do I believe one side won or lost solely on the quality or quantity of its data. I have some idea, albeit nascent, why the Democrats refuse to come down hard for social programs that are primarily beneficial for the populous over the corporations (hint: Republican candidates aren’t the only rich ones out there). But I do know that the July Monarchy of Louis Philipe only lasted 18 years, during which he survived seven assassination attempts. It’s time to push towards the other end of the bell curve—to shift the message to a polarized edge case: single-payer is the only just system, free education will lift everyone, top earners owe more to society than vice versa and should pay their share, guns do kill people. If the Democratic party wants to continue to let the data dictate the policy, they will never move beyond a juste milieu. They will point to l’homme moyen and say, “this is our target.” The problem is that target is moving and unless they take control, then thanks to a general apathy surrounding and rejection of their candidates, it will continue to move to the right.

1In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for a year at Blue State Digital, though not on the Obama or Clinton campaigns, nor does anything I write here violate any sort of non-disclosure agreement.

Gabi Schaffzin is a PhD student at UC San Diego. On this, America’s celebration of independence from the British, he wants you to know that Bernie would have won.

via Cyborgology