1. Acceptance: Okay, fine. Whatever. They win. It's inevitable, really. A complicated or qualified truth is never as arousing as a good hate-charged lie. It's not that you can't make people be intelligent; it's that you can't make people care about things they don't care about. And half the country consists of people who don't care about the truth.
Maybe it's rooted in the universal denial of death: we all come equipped with a mechanism to ignore the unpleasantly true and embrace the preferable fantasy. In any case, half the country sees "hero" and "spunky mom" instead of "confused sellout desperately saying anything" and "lying, ambitious religious nut." It doesn't matter if it's "fair." It doesn't matter if it's "insane." A machine dedicated to exploiting the worst in people will always triumph against a movement asking for the best in people. Meanwhile, since the wall you beat your head against is not going to go away, it's up to you to stop, take your head with you, and walk away from the wall. I'm outa here.
2. Depression: Who am I kidding? This is a nightmare and the one thing you can't do in a nightmare is "accept" it. What am I doing to do -- leave the country? Ridiculous. Meanwhile, greed and vanity, using lies and fear, will once again manipulate ignorance and resentment. Biden's decent-man's sense of modesty and proportion is no match for the turbo-charged ego and effortless mendacity of Palin. The worst people in our public life will win again, and they'll do it using a secret weapon that's the most obvious weapon of all: their shamelessness. A hundred rabid sociopaths are salivating in anticipation of taking Rush Limbaugh's place because that's what America has become.
And so the "ordinary people" applaud for and collude in their own manipulation. And even if Obama ends up getting more votes, it's futile to hope that he'll really "win," because the machines are rigged and the voter rolls are trashed. There's nothing we can do about it and there's no use in even trying. We want a society of justice, fairness, freedom, and common sense, and we're doomed.
3. Bargaining: All right, look. Maybe it's not all either/or. Say McCain wins. We've still got Congress. Yes, they're spineless, ass-covering careerists who spend half their time selling their principles to raise money and the other half defending the system that requires them to do it -- but even they have some pride. Maybe it won't be so bad. McCain will surround himself with war mongers and thieves, but even Congress may have had enough of war and theft (and everyone will believe them if they say "we can't afford it"). So the two branches battle each other to a standstill. Nothing good happens and nothing too terribly bad happens. Then he dies, Palin steps in, and in two months our national life is a cross between Seven Days in May and The Beverly Hillbillies. Couldn't that be fun?
4. Anger: No. Bullshit. There can be no accommodating these complete and total imbeciles. That mob of credulous people, the teeming throng of decent, self-satisfied, naïve dodos who actually cheered that freak show in Minneapolis, the ones who chant "U.S.A." as though rooting for a college football team, the "patriots" who think "patriotism" means voting for the guy who tells you that his opponent isn't "patriotic," the people who every day live in a fantasy world of made-up "heroes," superstitious "faith," self-contradicting "values," invented "facts," and proud, defiant obliviousness of history, human nature, science, and common sense: How stupid can people be?
"Well, I don't really know Obama." Guess what, Mrs. Sixpack? You don't know your fucking spouse. You don't know your fucking self. If you did--if, at the breakfast table, you had the tiniest capacity for honest introspection, and the basic grownup skepticism even you bring to the task of buying a used car--you'd see how you've been played. First by Bush and by Rove, and now by their successors. The contempt they have for you is obvious in everything they openly say to you. Giuliani, McCain, even the self-parodying Romney all deserve Emmys for staying in character and resisting the temptation to turn to each other, point to the crowd, and say, "Can you believe these suckers?"
Because that's what you are: Dupes. Rubes. Marks. You deserve what you get. But we don't. So, memo to Dems: Fuck it. It's war. Call every lie a lie. Tell Palin it's cute that she admits she has the brains of a pit bull but it's not enough to qualify for the office. Shame McCain, over and over, for betraying literally everything he has ever stood for, and for inflicting that trailer-trash Rapture-ready mediocrity on the United States of America. Tell the morons that whoever tells you that someone else is an "elitist" is really telling you that you're an idiot. Take off the gloves, then put them back on, then take them off in slow-motion and throw them in McCain's face. Swift Boat his POW history. Criticize her adequacy as a mother. Ask him why sitting in a cell thirty years ago makes anyone qualified to lead the U.S. in the 21st century. Ask her if she believes in the Rapture and who she thinks will qualify. Ask her if she knows what the Fed does. Ask him if he knows what a server farm is. Are we men, or we moose? Do it.
5. Denial: Calm down. It can't be as bad as I think. The world doesn't really work that way. There are too many intelligent, fair-minded people to allow this grotesque possibility to come to pass. Bush in 2000, Bush in 2004: an affront, a crime, yes, but it's understandable that it was close enough to steal. But this? This fumfering old moral has-been, who no longer knows what he believes, and his provincial beauty pageant runner-up who thinks gall is the same thing as intelligence? People can't, when all is said and done, be that stupid. Some, yes. But not all, and not most. And the voting machine problem, the vote caging, all that? People are aware of it and dealing with it. It'll be okay. I really believe that.
(Repeat from #1)
Cross-posted at What HE Said.
It WOULD almost be fun! Thanks, Ellis. Your excellent and witty posts are always help to lift the gloom. I've decided to treat this election with the expectation that Obama will lose.
Then if he somehow becomes president, I'll jump for joy.
I don't want a repeat of 2004, waking up and actually crying salt tears on the morning of November 5th to find that you guys down there had NOT elected Mr. Presidential, can-actually-string-words-together, whipped-George-Bush-in-the-debates, foreign-country-aware John Kerry but somehow had elected George Bush....again.
what frightens me is that there are so many people who are almost obsessed with their
holier than thou attitude. It's not about democrats and republicans people, it's that
we have been shown how much this country has not changed and to those of us who
have been thinking we all had moved on to a less bigoted country, well we find ourselves
having to defend the fact that we don't see a black many running for President, but rather
a young energitic intelligent man, not just to the bigots, but rather to friends, neighbors,
and family.We for the most part walk away feeling confused as to why we can't comprehend
their beliefs. I've seen a lot of ugly thoughts come from those who I had respected. If McCain
wins, I guess then, the Mayans were right about our world ending by 2012
On the minus side, it takes little effort to document the public’s profound ignorance of politics. Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter’s 1996 book, What Americans Know about Politics, and Why It Matters, revealed that ordinary citizens have been ignorant of politics for decades. There are many published studies that show the public’s mind-boggling ignorance of politics, and assess its implications for democracy. Hence, grief is not unreasonable.
On the plus side, Erik Severeid—longtime journalist and commentator for the CBS evening news—wrote: "Never overestimate what the American public knows about public affairs, and never underestimate the public’s ability to make sense of what it does know." We must hope that the public is able to make enough sense of what little it knows I guess. Events of the past week, combined with a strongly felt desire for change, may encourage people to entertain Obama as the most reasonable alternative. There is hope! It ain't pretty, but the people may yet find their way to the best answer.
Scary prospect that some of us are going through these stages, but I am not giving up hope. Obama is leading in most polls and it is tight in swing states. I like to focus on the positive, not the scary alternative.
Our country cannot die and therefore we will not grieve. We will celebrate on November 5th. I'm taking the day off to celebrate and drink some champagne!
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Mr. Stevenson "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson called back "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
Adlai Stevenson
I am afraid that we (as always) are not in the majority.
It makes me think this nation should just split, now that slavery isn't an issue why don't we give the south what they always wanted and let them seceed? This country is completely schismed ideologically and I don't see how that could be resolved. Have a window where people can immigrate to whichever side they want, like when the Muslims and Hindus split up Pakistan and India.
I do believe in a democracy people should live how they want, and that INCLUDES the right. But when there is no clear majority no one ever really gets what they want, you just have endless bickering and games of tug of war. I would fully support the United States splitting into two nations.
I encourage red states to secede, blue states to unite. I don't know where I'll go if AMERICA doesn't win by electing Obama our next President. It's time for a revolution of voters on November 4th to vote for change. Yes, we can!
This is all almost enough to make a godless democrat go to church to light a candle.