#normalize the election results

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

Fuck the media explanations that Trump won because he was talking to them about the economy, because he was talking to them primarily about himself in his bizarre monologues that also covered the dick size of a dead golfer whose career peaked sixty years ago, windmills killing birds, kids coming home from school having had their gender changed maybe during recess, and a whole lot of Hannibal Lecter apparently because in the broken jelly of his brain there was some kind of association between insane asylums and refugees seeking asylum, and on top of that a lot of threats against and menace to women and anyone who opposed him, juvenile insults, and a whole thing about sharks and batteries, and a certain amount of slurring words and a whole lot of words in no particular order conveying no particular meaning, along with the promise to put the world's richest man in charge of the economy, who in turn promises to wreck it.

I get that there's a lot of economic unhappiness and real struggle, but that didn't start with the Biden Administration, which gave people pandemic relief at the beginning of its term, but Republicans wouldn't let them renew it, which is why people remember being better off four years ago. Meanwhile the Harris campaign promised to help with in-home healthcare, the cost of housing, and raising the minimum wage, and I know no one knew that any of these campaigns had content because the media was too busy rewarming frozen scandals. But also a lot of people got good green jobs from the Inflation Reduction Act and a lot of people got debt forgiveness, both Biden administration things that began as, respectively, the Sunrise Movement's Green New Deal and the debt activism that emerged from Occupy Wall Street (I've been thinking back to Occupy Wall and how it created space in 2011 for people to reveal how crushed by housing, medical, and student debt they were--Harris went after predatory housing lenders after Occupy, when she was California's attorney general.) Biden, who clearly modeled himself after FDR, was hailed in some quarters as the first non-neoliberal president since Reagan came 44 years ago to destroy the New Deal and the Great Society and make the poor poorer and the rich richer.

It is its own form of disinformation, how the mainstream media settles on explanations about what just happened and why when they happen not to be true. And we heard the same bullshit in 2016 when mostly white people voted against their own economic interest for a racist, sexist, incompetent member of the 1% and middle class people claiming to speak for the working class insisted this was all economic dissatisfaction. Trump is a puppet for forces that will make ordinary peoples' lives far harder and then they will blame Antifa or immigrants or something and the media will repeat these ridiculous allegations as though they deserve serious consideration.

One point no one should forget: abortion is an economic issue for anyone who can get pregnant. Immigrant rights are not just an economic issue for immigrants but for the whole economy, which would fall apart without them.

Brookings Institute: "The Trump campaign decided that Harris’ stance on transgender issues was the Willie Horton of 2024 and invested heavily in negative advertising that dominated the airwaves throughout the South.1 Anecdotal evidence suggests that this campaign helped weaken Harris’ effort to portray herself as a common-sense center-left candidate rather than an emissary from San Francisco."

Wired: "Trump ran a campaign that stoked culture war grievances and divisions, and was defined by lies, a desire for vengeance, and, at times, threatening rhetoric. In social media posts he threatened mass arrests of his political opponents in revenge for “stealing the election” in 2020 (though evidence conclusively shows the 2020 election was not stolen). Lawmakers, election workers, school board members, federal agents, and judges have been repeatedly targeted over the years with violent threats by his supporters who believe they were acting on his behalf. Trump repeatedly promised his supporters he would “destroy” the deep state, invoking the popular conspiracy theory of a nefarious web of faceless bureaucrats working to destroy the US from within. He cast himself, alongside the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 over election lies, as “political prisoners,” even “hostages” who were being persecuted by a “tyrannical” Biden administration."

Robert Hubbell: "Just as the media normalized Trump before the election, there is a wholesale effort to “normalize” the election results. Pundits are claiming the election was decided by voters’ concerns over inflation, immigration, or crime. Those issues are post-facto rationalizations offered by voters to conceal their real reasons for voting for a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser over an eminently qualified candidate."

Brian Merchant, tech journalist extraordinaire: "Apart from Trump himself, there are few more obvious victors that Elon Musk; for $100 million or so and a few months’ display of unrestrained fealty, he just bought himself some real estate in the inner sanctum of Trumpworld. It may be the most fruitful investment he ever made, a bargain really. ...Suffice to say that Elon Musk is the closest that a Silicon Valley tech titan has been to the White House, in a position of overt and direct power. There is of course a long lineage of the Valley linking up with Washington for defense contracts, help in avoiding regulations, and other forms of material support—see: Malcolm Harris’s Palo Alto—but this is the next level. It could even, perhaps, be considered a logical culmination. It’s time to face facts. In Trump, Silicon Valley got what it wanted: A president that will kneecap antitrust efforts, embrace deregulation, and defang labor laws."

[Rebecca Solnit]

[benevolenterrancy]

i'm sure this joke has been done before but i'm new here so now it's my turn -- the bing-ge vs bing-mei extra sure is something huh

[sharkneto]

Me, for the past week: Man, I am sick of fixating on [insert minor anxiety], blowing it up into a constant worry that I have repeatedly had to talk myself down from. What the fuck is up with that

November 5th:

[icedb1ackcoffee]

to my fellow creatives: never stop making art. art is an act of protest.

[onesnoopyaday]

😬🐶

Snoopy #36

6/11/2024

[hadvarandralof]

i don’t live in america but i need to say i am so sorry. this is a terrible outcome and i am so immensely disappointed. i truly hoped and believed that he would lose. it is a disturbing tragedy that the majority would even consider putting somebody that vile back in power, let alone actually voting for it. i am sending all of my support to all the good people who tried their best to not let this happen and to those who will be directly affected by his policies. please keep fighting for the rights of women and the lgbt community, the lives of palestinians and ukrainians, the protection of immigrants, and the safety of people of color. it isn’t over and you are not alone.

[psychics-at-caltech]

For anyone who has never voted in an election where trump wasn't on the ballot, as best I can remember, the day of the 2008 election for me was roughly like so:

wake up

go to school

stop by my old elementary school on the way home

wait like 10 minutes to vote

vote

eat dinner

go on Facebook

turn on the TV and watch the first results roll in

go to bed

get a good night's sleep

wake up and find that the fabric of society had not been torn to shreds

have a nice laugh with my dad about how much smarter we are than other people in texas

go to school

gloat just a little bit to my friends who weren't old enough to vote and the idiots with republican parents in my IB history class

[future-crab]

.

[lesbianusahana]

Do not be fooled… although I made a big post to try and cheer people up from the Election Scaries I have silently been freaking the hell out. Should the inevitable happen I will [PUT ON THE BIGGEST TALENT SHOW THIS TOWN’S EVER SEEN]

[shippingmyworld]

anyone wanna come over next week and disassociate from this realty with me next week? if we're lucky we can clip into the berenstein bears universe for a few hours. i'll bring the snacks

[emotinalsupportturtle]

the main reason I will always be obsessed with David Tennant is that fundamentally, we share the same mental illness

[headpanemaniac]

I do not normally post private rambles here but I think I have to make an exception because WOOOOOOAH IT LOOKS LIKE WE FUCKING DID IT WE ARE FREE WE GET A CHANCE FOR A BIT OF NORMALITY I CANNOT BELIEVE IT the fuckers are OUT!!!!!!

[homoerotic]

i really hate when doctors won't give you the medicine you need and try and give weak excuses like "if i put you on this it'll be for the rest of your life" as if me taking a pill every morning is so bad that its the equivalent of having something literally wrong w my chemical make up that makes my life exponentially harder

[gromlyn]

as someone who went to a private christian high school this perfectly describes multiple kids I went to school with all I'm saying is private christian high school is the perfect modern au setting if you're looking for a setting that captures systemic abuses of power like westeros

i am pretty anti asoiaf modern aus bc they seem to exist to remove any problematic content. this is why my modern au where larys is a school shooter and alicent is a pro life bible thumper is way better and different. plus american high schools love to reward homophobic and misogynistic repressed hot guy cops so it’s an au where criston always comes out on top

[estrellazzz]

so curious about what memory looks like in the general population

If i asked the general population what they had for breakfast (if they even did) 2 days ago, would they be able to recall?

[slimyweed]

i was so happy with my little cultivated virtual sphere where i don’t hear any stupid socio/cultural/political opinions… reminder next us election to just tune the fuck out for a week