#i'm also voting for like. things that will tangibly help people in my state and community. in florida. as a trans person

[sureuncertainty]

filling out my ballot is so fucking stressful, i'm out here double triple quadruple checking everything bc what if i somehow accidentally vote against the constitutional amendment protecting abortion aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[sirfrogsworth]

I was hoping this election would be a wake up call to the Left. I thought maybe people would start to realize we need to stop eating each other and organize and build power.

But I feel like it made things worse. Hopefully that is just a trauma response and we'll get our shit together eventually, but I am disheartened by the current infighting.

I'm also seeing people recommending guns. The reason the NRA didn't want the CDC to study gun violence is because they know guns aren't actually that great for self defense. And you are more likely to be the victim of your own gun than to stop any violence from harming you. One study showed a gun is about as effective as literally doing nothing.

Then I see people talking about "revolutionary organizing" and my first thought was that leftists would all end up just shooting each other.

We have the best ideas. I believe that very much. When you present lefty ideas to regular folks in their simplest form—without mentioning Marx or using stigmatized buzzwords—people are like, "wow, that sounds great!" Even Missouri voted for abortion and raising the minimum wage despite re-electing Josh Fucking Hawley.

Our ideas are our power. We need to stop fighting each other and start talking to people about how these ideas can help them. We need local representatives. We need to start running for city council, school boards, and state government.

All we have left is the long game. It's time to stop demanding performative action that has no tangible benefits and start playing that long game.

[thebreakfastgenie]

https://www.tumblr.com/thebreakfastgenie/766051466520690688/thats-exactly-what-im-hoping-for-too-im-voting

I think a deep flaw in the online left is that they're basically comparing the current far left with a far right wing that's made every effort to entrench themselves for decades by comparison.

They keep mentally thinking that both sides are equal in power, and thus the thing that will clearly help them succeed is the moral purity of their cause.

Except that's not the case at all. Because the reality is that the far right has done far more work to make their hate normalized than the far left has ever done for their beliefs and entrench themselves into actual positions of power, both due to a combination of cruelty being easier, and simply doing far more work by comparison.

The far right has spent years sticking their ilk amongst the populace, from the highest ranking positions to the lowliest high ranking positions possible in order to indoctrinate as many people as possible to their cause.

The far left by contrast has done diddly squat. They're the arrogant punk kid who waltzes in expecting to kick ass and take names and be lauded and praised for it simply because of who they are, while ignoring that either everyone is a neutral bystander who doesn't like grandstanders with more bark than bite, or an ally of the guy they're coming in to sock the face of.

And that's bitten them in the ass time and time again, because while the big evil guy is unpopular, he's also entrenched and just needs to win once to smack the upstart down.

But unlike actual main characters, the far left is so convinced of their righteous superiority that rather than wising up and building a real base of power and catching the far right off guard for a knockout blow, they just keep on throwing themselves over and over again with the same idea expecting different results.

Yeah... I think there's a combination of not understanding how asymmetrical it is and an attitude of "it's not fair!" Like, no it's not, so it goes though. We've watched the far right become so deeply entrenched they've taken over the mainstream conservative party. The right played the long game on the courts and the left was complacent about that for way too long. It's also a huge thing in local elections. The right has paid way more attention to school boards and other positions like sheriff that are elected in many places, even up to state legislatures. Far right candidates winning these elections really helped entrench the far right in addition to the material effects they've had on people's lives.

I think part of the problem is just that electorate is a lot more conservative than the left is willing to admit. There isn't a hidden groundswell of support for the far left. You have to do the work the hard way and a lot of leftists aren't willing to. You know that Contrapoints quote about wanting to "endlessly critique power?" She was right on with that. I think there are elements within the left that romanticize the perpetual struggle. One might say

He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl And he's always at home with his back to the wall And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross

On the other hand, a lot of voters like the far right and want them to win. They may not like them for rational policy reasons, because a lot of voters don't vote for those reasons (I know, it's maddening, but so it goes) but they like them.

One of the reasons I tend to align myself with liberals rather than leftists is liberals get stuff done. I've seen tangible progress from liberals within my lifetime. There are so many structural advantages favoring the right that it's a huge fight to keep them out of power. We can turn the tide but we have to do the work.

I don't know how much sense I made I'm a little groggy.

[asmallorb]

Regarding the 2024 Election: Do not despair.

I left Tumblr for Cara a while back but I'm here again to make myself heard on the matter. This is a post I've been wanting to make to my US friends for a while, and certain events have spurred things forward. Do not despair. Always remember the future is unwritten. No matter what your friends or family say, no matter how much media pressures you that things are a certain way, no matter what polls say - your vote is not and never will be pointless. Both here in the UK and France there was a lot of uncertainty around whether the conservative parties would take the vote. But voter turn out proved them wrong. In an example closer to home for you; Oklahoma County came very close to flipping in 2020 as Biden and was only 3,326 votes shy. So yes, even if you are in a state where the rural mentality is dominant, that still shouldn't discourage you from making your own voice heard. Can you imagine if everyone who didn't bother to vote turned up and made the difference? Your vote matters. Period. So please, if you haven't registered to vote in the upcoming elections. Do so. ANYONE who says that your vote doesn't matter in the state that you're in, or discourages you from voting for whatever reason - doesn't want you to vote. If you feel like your vote doesn't matter, vote anyway. If you expect protesters to be around polls ready to intimidate you, go with friends, family or vote over post. In the US record numbers of younger voters have already signed up to vote, go be one of them.

I would also strongly advise adding some palate cleansers to your news feed. Because here's a hard truth that few are willing to accept - there is good in this world. There are good people doing amazing things and making real tangible progress that you are benefitting from right now and don't even know about. People think that negativity = being realistic and that gives them a free pass to not participate in making a better future, when in fact the opposite is true. While I myself am a firm believer of preparing for the worst, it's important to have room in your mind for hoping for the best as well. Because if you just roll over and accept the worst outcome, guess what, it will happen because you let it happen. I highly recommend Fix the News. https://fixthenews.com/ and the blog @reasonsforhope.

One last thing:

Don't let perfect be the enemy of done.

Yes, the democrats are not perfect. And should be called out by the people they're supposed to serve when they fail.

But struggling over if they're the perfect candidate is not going to help in this situation.

Vote, donate, talk to friends and family.

And most of all: do not let yourself regret not participating when you had the chance.

[euroquision]

EuroQuision is no longer active (...sort of)

Hello friends! It has been only 5 days since I've had to peace the f*ck out of Twitterland, the odorous theme park with more bots than Disney has animatronics. After making the mistake of trying to speak critically of all presidential options and instead emphasizing the relevance of local and state elections, my once-reliable and loveably problematic community turned full Blue Conservative and came to the following conclusions about me in a span of 48 hours:

I'm a Russia-sympathizer / trying to spread pro-Russia propaganda

I do not care about the rights of any woman, non-white person, or queer/trans citizen of the US

I want Tr*mp to win the election

And all in all ppl agreeing that I was at one time bearable, but now am just annoying and braindead

How did we come to those four conclusions? Well, points 2, 3, and 4 all came from the very act of stating I won't vote for Kamala or any presidential candidate and will only instead focus my online discussion on politics about local and state elections. Point number 1 was because I also had the *audacity* to suggest Jill Stein as a 3rd party candidate after so many Liberal followers of mine kept complaining for "another option if you hate Kamala so much." Little did I know that Jill Stein has said and done some pretty Russia-sympathetic things in the past. But even though I did not know this whatsoever until July 23rd, people took that and ran, saying I'm a Russia supporter or propagating for them. Now, the very fact that people who have followed me for YEARS could think that's suddenly true really tells me what kind of "crowd" we're dealing with on Twitter. Despite the fact the twitter eurofan community has on-record been wonderful, welcoming, proactive, and geopolitically aware, I'm reminded that no community is going to be perfect, and the kind of political discussions I have with people in the world is not the convo Twitter eurofans want to have. So even though my feelings were deeply hurt and I legitimately mourned the loss of what I wanted to continue being a growing thing now being lost. But a few very smart, emotionally mature people in my life reached out to me and helped reassure me that despite the chaos, things said about me for the intention of just being awful aren't true.

Anyway, that's the only time I wanna waste talking about twitter, because I'm someone who talks my shit and stands on it too. Yeah, sometimes my shit will stink, and I can admit that when it does. I am not immune to the behavior I just faced; I've been there too dunking on people who deserve it -- like Adam or Shawn from EuroTikTok hopping the pond to tell everyone on twitter they suck and then getting mad when ppl don't like that and dunk on them back. However, on a topic like this and with so much deliberate misunderstanding fueling the snide indignation from people who would've called me "bestie" a day earlier feels *different.* So different to the point where I legitimately considered wiping EuroQuision from the internet. But I chose not to, and here's why!

First, I think there needs to be as much tangible, shareable evidence of public scrutiny of systems of power that are corrupt, and that goes for the ridiculous circus that is Eurovision. Ppl will be so quick to call it "unserious" while ignoring countries put millions of dollars into this every year. Last I checked, gov'ts don't pour money like that into something "unserious." There's a reason Eurovision is as big as it is and how the inclusion of "Israel" is so monumentally complicated. So I want the internet, for as long as possible, to be something that can contain the evidence of people saying "I disagree with the EBU's decisions about these world events. I disagree with their treatment of colonized populations and prioritizing of safeguarding European/White optics and feelings throughout its entire history." And even though good things have genuinely come from ESC's existence (globalization, musical/cultural expression, Ukraine's 2016 win, etc), we can see ESC 2024 itself as an example how in the bubble of ESC, the show itself will only let you remember the good parts. No live show will E V E R dare to show the footage of HATARI in the 2019 televote, and we know the EBU will deplatform their own Eric Saade for *gasp!* having a scarf on his wrist. ESC history is *revisionist* history, and the crowd on twitter only seems to be temporarily concerned about that.

So yeah, inevitably I came to the conclusion that every human must come to: Twitter ain't it, like goddamn. But I'm only here to say that once and move on with my life because despite my final tweet and deactivation of my Patreon, EuroQuision is NOT gone and will not actually be stopping. Consider this a shift in scope and purpose, along with reprioritizing my real life responsibilities. Firstly, about the Patreon: I deactivated it and more than likely will not make another in the future purely because I know that in the future, EQ cannot keep up the production schedule needed to make what I wanted to make and promise to deliver to people like I want. Most importantly, I want to create things for EQ without the additional pressure of trying to cultivate, retain, and reward a growing audience when I know I won't be able to maintain that long term. This way there's less pressure on myself, and I will develop a better relationship with it all.

So, what's EuroQuision gonna be now? Well, it's not really gonna be a "fan" account, mostly considering I have no reason to be a "fan" or Eurovision from here on out/until some drastic changes are made. Instead, I wanna continue being a wide variety of things: musical analyst, historian, fun-fact-provider, overall nerd, and most of all: Protester. To put it into context: I currently have two YouTube video essays; one about the boycott, and one about nightcore. Even though I deeply love both videos and am proud of the effort I put into them, I can easily say which one was worth the time and effort. No shame to my Nightcore roots, but I think the more "important" topics are going to be what I dedicate my YouTube real estate to in the future. On that note, I'll also be on tumblr and reddit much more! I truly love writing and discussing Eurovision at length, and not over quips and punches in the form of 200-ish character tweets. I have too much to say and we can also see the ways communication is truncated by-design thanks to Twitter, and therefore incidents like the one we went through up above are likely to happen.

I wanna end this VERY long post off with a very specific declaration of a couple things that will never change from the EQ name: Free Palestine now and forever. Free Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, EVERY country and person put in harm's way because of the American empire. I do not enable fascism to remedy fascism, and my practiced ethics will always prioritize my community, my family, and the people around the world my elected leaders tell me I should hate. I will continue to donate 100% of my TikTok revenue and possible YouTube revenue to Palestinian relief funds. I do not support the financial or social support/apologism of the EBU.

Anyway, I think I covered all my bases, and if you're someone who disagrees with any stance or belief I've stated in this thesis (lol), kindly just allow yourself to unfollow/not engage with me. Tumblr and Reddit will be around for my ramblings and theories. As for YouTube, I can tell you now that I have a LARGE video essay in the works right now. Literally NO idea when it'll be done/released, but it exists! Thank you for being here, if you still choose to do so!

[mars-the-4th-planet]

October electoral college polling map + an explanation of my stance on the election!

It's been a while since I posted an election polling map, but here it is!

Biden seems to be hitting a high point in the campaign after it was stagnating for a while, and it couldn't come at a better time (the election is just next month!). He is breaking previous records and outpacing where Hillary Clinton was at this point by over five percent nationally and doing better than her in several swing states. And that was before the email scandal got reinvestigated!

Since I've done so many already over the course of 2020, and since then I've learned more about it, I've worked very hard to make it as accurate as possible. Such as differentiating Maine's districts and omitting polling sources that are reputed for being consistently about 7+ points off of every other source due to oversampling and poor methods. I don't really understand why anyone would try and make their data off on purpose. Making your side look like they're doing better than they are is not helpful to anything. It doesn't make your side more likely to win after all.

But remember, these polls only show how people feel about the candidates and say nothing about voter enthusiasm/determination to vote. Who actually wins depends on people going and voting for them. And with the voter surpression by the GOP, that may not be super easy. So please, if you want to see trump lose, do not assume that your state is a guaranteed win! Go and vote! (I assume you want to see trump lose if you are following me, I'm pretty consistently left wing.)

Why should you consider voting for Joe Biden if you're a leftist and wanted a different candidate like Bernie Sanders, (I know I did) or prefer the green party? Let's go over a few things that Joe Biden will improve.

First and most importantly to me, the environment. I don't want climate change to be accelerated. I want it to be combated to prevent an ecological collapse that would ruin my life, if not outright take it. If you care about the futures of young people, that's a pretty big plus to Biden... He may not be at the same level as AOC or Sanders in that regard, but he will do anything that is economically viable to help the environment which is more than we can say about the Incumbent.

Secondly, his policies for people with disabilities are much better than trump's. He wants to raise the financial ceiling for when one loses their disability benefits, he wants to end the marriage penalty, and increase protections. The lives of Americans with disabilities will be tangibly better under a Biden presidency. If you care about people with disabilities, it's something to consider. I say this as someone with a disability and in a relationship with someone else with a disability.

Thirdly, his policies towards working class families are better. He is offering affordable and in some cases even free daycare and preschool for families where both parents need to work. He also wants to keep the food stamps program. If you care about struggling poor families, its something to consider. I say this as someone who has relied on food stamps when I was little.

Forth, Biden has a better temperament. This means he is more likely to keep a steady mind during situations where we need a leader who is able to remain calm. Trump has been in charge of the nuclear arsenal and our entire military for four years, and people have lost their lives because of it. We cannot trust trump with these powers any longer.

Fifth, democrats are trying to pass legislation on making our elections more free and fair. It will never pass under trump. Biden is simply better for preserving our democracy and improving it to make it more actually democratic.

Sixth, Trump is trying to bring in more conservative judges who threaten the rights of the lgbt, women, and racial minorities. And they serve for life. It could severely set back the United States and undo even more progress if trump is re-elected and gets his way.

Seventh, he will manage Coronavirus better by actually listening to experts and scientists. Trumps politicizing of the virus has gotten a lot of Americans killed and could get a lot more killed. Including himself and his family. Things have gotten completely out of control, and it's mainly trump and his supporter's faults.

Lastly, trump is out to get people. Worryingly so. He weaseled out of condemning white supremacists and practically endorsed them by deflecting that they weren't the real problem and that their goals were good. He agreed that someone needs to "do something" about antifa and the left in general. Not only that, but he has retweeted a video of his supporters going "white power!" and another tweet saying "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". He has also refused aid to states with left wing governors such as Michigan, making things worse in that state solely because he has beef with the governor. And one of the most blatent examples is his militaristic attack on peaceful protestors because they were in the way of his bible photoshoot. His behavior has been far right of some kind for sure, many would call it fascist. Trump himself identifies as a Christian Nationalist, which is practically the same as a Fascist but more religious. I would easily take a Liberal over a Christian Nationalist if it were up to me.

I hope you enjoy looking at my little graph. Would appreciate feedback to it and the argument I made, and would especially like to know what @atheistforhumanity @feelingbluepolitics and @acabats think about it. (note that my views do not represent theirs so if I said something here that annoyed you, don't go bug them about it.)