![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, today is the day: Election Day in the United States. It's the culmination of what's been an exhausting political year, and the most frustrating part is that we likely won't have a firm result for days, maybe weeks depending on how close the races turn out to be.
Republicans have been stacking the courts with unqualified judges who'll rule in their favor on the state and regional level, and they've wasted no time at all throwing up legal challenges specifically designed to make it harder for people to vote -- especially by mail or early drop-off. The Texas GOP mandated there can only be one ballot drop-off location in every county, no matter how big or populous. They've also tried to have curbside voting ballots thrown out as illegitimate. They've launched similar legal challenges in just about every battleground state so that even if they can't disenfranchise the electorate they can at least throw the outcome into doubt through shadowy claims of "fraud".
It's infuriating that they're doing this and that it will likely work out in their favor. The party platform seems to be geared towards straight-up disenfranchisement of any demographic that doesn't favor them, and at this point it's almost exclusively non-college-educated white Americans. Even still, there are huge chunks of other demographics voting for the GOP; college educated white voters, white women, way too many Black American men.
I just don't understand how anyone who considers themselves a good person could vote for Trump and the GOP. Before, I could appreciate that conservatives simply place different priorities on different values than I do. The tension between progressives and conservatives allows us to work out what we keep in this great American experiment and what should be changed to get us closer to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. I *liked* that tension, especially when I could debate with conservative friends about what we believed and come away with a greater appreciation for their position. Even if I didn't agree with it, I could respect it -- and I could respect them for wanting the same thing I did, the best country we could make together.
But the Republican Party of today is morally bankrupt. Everyone with any scrap of power sold their values to hold on to it in Trump's wake...or they've been throwing their collective effort behind McConnell's naked takeover of the judicial branch. Millions of Americans have been thrown into poverty because of this mismanaged pandemic while wealth is being even further concentrated in the hands of capitalist robber barons, and all the Republican Senate wants to do is further enrich these assholes or tilt the courts towards unchecked, unqualified conservatism for a generation or two. Folks being evicted from their home don't matter. Folks forced to choose between their health and livelihoods don't matter. Folks who are suddenly without insurance during a pandemic don't matter. Billionaires and court-packing does.
Gone is the dedication to small government, replaced by the allure of using the government as a way to put their thumb on the scales for anything they want. Through gerrymandering, disinformation, disenfranchisement, intimidation, lies, abandoning a system of checks and balances, they've made sure that progressives must work twice as hard just for an equal result. The past four years have told us that we're nowhere near a representative democracy, and it's precisely because the GOP built it that way.
No matter what happens from this election, at least 1 in 3 Americans want the "freedom" to be complete assholes without accepting any of the consequences from it. It's like they've given up on the idea of being social citizens. I think, if anything, it's made me more conscientious about what we owe to each other, and I'm trying harder to get myself in order so I can be the best citizen I can be.
The next decade will see enormous change. We've run out the clock on the climate, so the bill will be coming due in summers to come, but we have a chance to get serious about mitigating the damage and doing the stuff we should have been doing 20 years ago. We can recognize the Earth as our home, not just a resource, and honor our connection to it and to each other. That will require sacrifice, especially in the US. Our lifestyle footprint is simply unsustainable, and the chance to make more gradual changes has passed us by. Not through any fault of our own, even -- through the misinformation perpetuated by corporate interests who want to be rich and dead instead of only comfortable but alive. We've allowed ourselves to be lead to this dead end. Even if we reverse course, for a long time we'll only be fixing the damage that's already been done instead of, you know, actually making progress.
I just don't have much faith in humanity at this point. Even if Biden wins, which is enragingly not a given, we'll still have to hold their feet to the fire to enact the will of the people. It really shouldn't be this hard for us to do the right thing, and to build a society that encourages our leadership to do the right thing. In a just world, Trump, Miller, McConnell, and every single person who allowed the last four years to happen should be prosecuted for their crimes to society and kept far away from any power to do anything for the rest of their lives. Make them janitors, pay them minimum wage, and don't even let them vote.
I could go on about the simple fact I'd get tremendous heat for this from conservative circles when I'm sure I can find at least a dozen articles on right-wing websites that are a dozen times worse, but I've only given myself 30 minutes to rant about this today and my time is up. Now that I've had my catharsis, it's time to practice self-care and be there for friends and family who are also going through it today.
Republicans have been stacking the courts with unqualified judges who'll rule in their favor on the state and regional level, and they've wasted no time at all throwing up legal challenges specifically designed to make it harder for people to vote -- especially by mail or early drop-off. The Texas GOP mandated there can only be one ballot drop-off location in every county, no matter how big or populous. They've also tried to have curbside voting ballots thrown out as illegitimate. They've launched similar legal challenges in just about every battleground state so that even if they can't disenfranchise the electorate they can at least throw the outcome into doubt through shadowy claims of "fraud".
It's infuriating that they're doing this and that it will likely work out in their favor. The party platform seems to be geared towards straight-up disenfranchisement of any demographic that doesn't favor them, and at this point it's almost exclusively non-college-educated white Americans. Even still, there are huge chunks of other demographics voting for the GOP; college educated white voters, white women, way too many Black American men.
I just don't understand how anyone who considers themselves a good person could vote for Trump and the GOP. Before, I could appreciate that conservatives simply place different priorities on different values than I do. The tension between progressives and conservatives allows us to work out what we keep in this great American experiment and what should be changed to get us closer to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. I *liked* that tension, especially when I could debate with conservative friends about what we believed and come away with a greater appreciation for their position. Even if I didn't agree with it, I could respect it -- and I could respect them for wanting the same thing I did, the best country we could make together.
But the Republican Party of today is morally bankrupt. Everyone with any scrap of power sold their values to hold on to it in Trump's wake...or they've been throwing their collective effort behind McConnell's naked takeover of the judicial branch. Millions of Americans have been thrown into poverty because of this mismanaged pandemic while wealth is being even further concentrated in the hands of capitalist robber barons, and all the Republican Senate wants to do is further enrich these assholes or tilt the courts towards unchecked, unqualified conservatism for a generation or two. Folks being evicted from their home don't matter. Folks forced to choose between their health and livelihoods don't matter. Folks who are suddenly without insurance during a pandemic don't matter. Billionaires and court-packing does.
Gone is the dedication to small government, replaced by the allure of using the government as a way to put their thumb on the scales for anything they want. Through gerrymandering, disinformation, disenfranchisement, intimidation, lies, abandoning a system of checks and balances, they've made sure that progressives must work twice as hard just for an equal result. The past four years have told us that we're nowhere near a representative democracy, and it's precisely because the GOP built it that way.
No matter what happens from this election, at least 1 in 3 Americans want the "freedom" to be complete assholes without accepting any of the consequences from it. It's like they've given up on the idea of being social citizens. I think, if anything, it's made me more conscientious about what we owe to each other, and I'm trying harder to get myself in order so I can be the best citizen I can be.
The next decade will see enormous change. We've run out the clock on the climate, so the bill will be coming due in summers to come, but we have a chance to get serious about mitigating the damage and doing the stuff we should have been doing 20 years ago. We can recognize the Earth as our home, not just a resource, and honor our connection to it and to each other. That will require sacrifice, especially in the US. Our lifestyle footprint is simply unsustainable, and the chance to make more gradual changes has passed us by. Not through any fault of our own, even -- through the misinformation perpetuated by corporate interests who want to be rich and dead instead of only comfortable but alive. We've allowed ourselves to be lead to this dead end. Even if we reverse course, for a long time we'll only be fixing the damage that's already been done instead of, you know, actually making progress.
I just don't have much faith in humanity at this point. Even if Biden wins, which is enragingly not a given, we'll still have to hold their feet to the fire to enact the will of the people. It really shouldn't be this hard for us to do the right thing, and to build a society that encourages our leadership to do the right thing. In a just world, Trump, Miller, McConnell, and every single person who allowed the last four years to happen should be prosecuted for their crimes to society and kept far away from any power to do anything for the rest of their lives. Make them janitors, pay them minimum wage, and don't even let them vote.
I could go on about the simple fact I'd get tremendous heat for this from conservative circles when I'm sure I can find at least a dozen articles on right-wing websites that are a dozen times worse, but I've only given myself 30 minutes to rant about this today and my time is up. Now that I've had my catharsis, it's time to practice self-care and be there for friends and family who are also going through it today.
