i woke up early to vote and got a cool sticker
sko blue
Thanks to California's absentee voter laws I have now officially sent my first fax.
I have a bad feeling about this election. Expectations too high, both in results tonight and especially in outcome of the next two years.
Over 6.7 million votes tallied though! 2014 was only 4.7 million. Crazy. Can he run against Cornyn in another two years? The problem then becomes the fact that Cornyn actually has a personality. :( Edit: New York Times estimates that there will be 8.1 million votes. That's insane!
I've voted in every primary, general and special election since November 1992. I'm also old. I suspect there's a correlation. 'round here, we're Blue. So you most people vote absentee, you can vote online, you can print out a ballot online and mail it in, you can confirm whether your vote has been received and tabulated online. Funny how the bluer you are, the more people vote. Or is it the other way 'round.
I voted early this morning because I had go to school after work.
I'm in Korea with a +14 hour time difference. Furthermore, I have to be awake at 3:30am local as that is when my course registration slot goes live. At that point I'll go to bed and sleep through the election results. Unsure if this is a small blessing or curse. Being "live" for Trump was no fun so I'm leaning towards blessing. May we all live long and prosper.
Waking up to Trump was even worse.Being "live" for Trump was no fun so I'm leaning towards blessing.
My wife and I did the vote thing this morning before work. Our Senate race wasn't especially close. But our House race? Currently Abigail Spanberger is up by about 0.6%. It's like 1,900 votes. So I expect there'll be a recount. It's kind of appalling that Dave Brat did so well. Even other Republicans hate this guy. He's done like one town hall during his entire time in office, and only did so because he was shamed into it (at least in part by conservative media). And of course he held it in Blackstone, which is about the booniest part of his district. My hope though is that Spanberger's lead holds. Also, how about Wisconsin? It's too soon to say, but as of this writing, WaPo has the Democratic challenger to Scott Walker up by 0.1% with about 77% of precincts reporting. Even if Walker eventually wins, this was closer than I expected. I'm also hopeful that Maine gets rid of Shawn Moody. Morning update: Super psyched that Dave Brat lost. I guess all those women really were up in his grill. Almost as psyched that Scott Walker lost too. Brief correction: the guy in Maine, Shawn Moody, wasn't the terrible one. The terrible one was term limited out.
This is, for some reason, making me feel like we have become a monstrosity of a country. Why do people not vote? Well, watching the live stream of results, the DeSantis victory speech, etc. I can completely understand why. This is vulgar. And I'm sure it would be if the Democrats were winning, too. Tribalism in action.
You're young. It's always been terrible. I remember the '80 debates. They were terrible. I've studied elections back to Andrew Fucking Jackson. It's always been terrible. People who think this shitshow is somehow in any way new aren't idealists with their dreams being crushed, they're naifs that haven't paid attention their entire lives. NOBODY should be surprised by any of this.
So...what's the point? We're going to burn this planet to the ground before my generation or the following is able to do enough about it. None of these candidates on either side of the aisle are talking about climate. Sorry, I'm kind of in a shit mood, and following this election isn't making it any better. Turning off the YouTube for the night.
I'm in a shit mood, too. There's a passage in Omnivore's Dilemma where Pollan and Salatin are slaughtering chickens and Pollan observes something like how easy it is to do evil when you're surrounded by people who think it's normal. Salatin points out that there's a reason they only slaughter two days a month; nobody should do too much killin' in a row. It's a terrible system. It has many flaws. And if you opt out of it, the people who think it's GRRRRREAT!!!!!! get to call the shots. A couple days a month, you have to kill chickens. The rest of the time you eschew evil. There are more people in DC than there are in Wyoming. Wyoming has two senators and a rep; DC has fuckall. There are more people in Puerto Rico than there are in Iowa. Iowa has two senators and four reps; Puerto Rico has none. But as of tonight, there are about a million more eligible democrats in Florida and I'm not sure the racist wins four years from now. California was red for decades. Environment? Yeah, that one scares me, too. I've been pondering lately if Washington real estate is going through the roof because the winters are milder than they used to be. And I'm trying to talk a friend of mine up by the Canadian border into opening a vineyard. And eventually, all these old fuckers are going to die, and then they're going to have a hard time voting for coal. Take your victories where you get them.
I know you're right, but Jesus man, I can't help but be frustrated over the, admittedly imperfect, ballot initiatives such as the carbon tax and grocery loophole...mostly because of the fuck ton of money spent by industry PACs persuading voters. WA state is frustrating (and I'm preaching to the choir) when literally we get what we pay for and it's regressive as shit without a state income tax but the amount of "no new taxes" and implicit fucking racism I've seen in the past three weeks has me disgusted and wanting to scream.