Clear and chilly this close-to-evening Monday here in California’s Central Valley — another fine autumn day as we hurdle toward tomorrow a week away.
I voted today!
Well, posted my ballot envelope per in-mail/early voting, and although I’ve always kind of preferred the same-day/election-day, in-person experience, this particular election is too way-important to dribble about waiting for the next eight days to pass. Any kind of shit could come along between now and then, and there’s an urgent need to be counted.
In eight days the real-end, ass-clincher begins, and we see if we survive or not.
And a lot of heavy-duty shit weighing on the line. Last night, the T-Rump and his horror show exploded on a horrid display of how shitty and repugnant the Republican brand has become, and the really, really shitty life awaits us if that bunch of assholes take control. This election is a mystery of fucked-up times.
Obvious in the projection of horrible, terrible lying shit:
He said America is a 3rd World failing nation, he’s been predicting a 1929 stock market crash and Great Depression every week for 4 years, said the auto industry will cease to exist in 2 years, Israel will be wiped out in 1, then WW3 will vaporize the world. Unless we vote Trump. pic.twitter.com/GUnrrGVF5i
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 29, 2024
Yet the right way is also obvious and so freaking-ass seriously important:
“Rarely has American democracy felt so precarious as we await November 5. Will voters decide that Donald Trump, who has mused about suspending the Constitution, is fit to protect it? “https://t.co/qxFPfrviDE
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 28, 2024
Molly Jong-Fast at Vanity Fair today:
I grew up thinking Reagan was the most destructive force the Republican Party could produce, and later, watched as George W. Bush led the country into war under false pretenses. Still, neither of them outright rejected the larger notion of what the country is. Neither openly mused about ending the American experiment nor vowed to be a “dictator” if able to return to power.
As I watched Sunday night, I thought about the rest of the country, my fellow Americans, the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants. We are about to be faced with a test—a question, really: Can we reject the nativism, the racism, and the dysfunction that is Trumpism? Are we not better than this?
I think and hope we are, at least in large enough numbers eight days from now.
One week and a day:
In-person voting vs the USPS, or not, yet once again here we are…
Image out front is a close-up portion off a bigger picture (below on the right, of course) — photo on the left was taken just after I arrived home from the polling station (voting in the midterms, Nov. 8, 2022). Then an in-person/election day scenario. Today it was the post office.
I could have slipped the envelope into the out-going mail slot in the lobby, but since I had an actual package to mail and needed to see a postal clerk anyway, I could create a seemingly near-fantasy facsimile to voting on election day by turning it in as I do my other mail business. Once called to an open window, I handed it over. The lady clerk looked at the envelope, then at me, and in a jiffy, smiled in a catching Kamala Harris kind of way.
A small feel-good feeling, with maybe a hint of hope.
