It's my understanding that, when a candidate admits socially toxic views, the electorate has a way of shutting that whole thing down. -Random voice on the Internet
Yesterday, millions of Americans did just that. They shut that whole GOP/Mitt Romney thing down. Now the president can get back to the business of running the country while conservatives dry their powder in ovens and check up on their stocks of canned rations, MREs and 7.62mm x 39 ammo (because 5.56mm is for silly cheese-eating UN sissy boys).
A few observations during Election Day:
- I was worried that Florida was gonna do what it did in the 2000 election and fuck things up for everyone. As it turned out, Florida didn't even matter. As soon as Ohio came into the picture, the race was over. And as soon as Colorado came into the picture, Ohio didn't matter any more, either.
- Women were not amused by the GOP's rhetoric regarding their rights, namely reproductive rights. As it turns out, downplaying things like rape and incest while demonizing birth control and abortion tends to make the womenfolk a wee bit pissed - pissed off enough to turn out in force. The end result? A record number of women are now in the Senate, and guys like Todd Akin suddenly have more time to squeeze in a round or two of golf.
- Despite all of the shady ass attempts to prevent people from voting, whether it be through voter ID laws, faulty machines or passive aggressive attempts at inconvenience, people are going to put in their two cents on who's gonna run the country. Case in point: my own mother, currently getting up there in years, stood in line for three hours just to make her vote count. It probably wasn't as bad as the woman who voted while going into labor. Or the guy who had a heart attack while voting.
- Hurricane Sandy might have kicked the eastern seaboard's ass, but it wasn't enough to stop them from voting. Good thing those folks did vote, because there's yet another storm headed their way.
- George W. Bush rode the re-election wave on 284 electoral votes, which earned him a mandate. Why? It just did, apparently. Barack Obama has no mandate, according to Charles Krauthammer, not even with 303 paltry electoral votes. No, it doesn't compute - that's the point. Even if Obama won all 538 electoral votes, nabbed 85% of the popular vote and got the ringing endorsement of the Founding Fathers resurrected once more, he'd still wouldn't have a "mandate."
- Mitt Romney didn't even have a concession speech on hand. That's how conceited this guy was. Also note that not once did he mention his opponent by name - he just referred to Obama as "him." You could sense he was this close to shooting a
- Many white Americans are having a hard time reconciling the president's victory with their all-consuming desire to return the country back to
- Everyone hates Nate Silver. That's what you get for showing up pundits and making statisticians look stupid.
- Donald Trump is making great strides towards pushing himself towards total and complete irrelevance every time he opens his mouth. Makes you wish he reserved his bombasticness for The Apprentice. Imagine Gordon Ramsey getting into political commentary.
- Despite spending a record amount of money on the 2012 electoral campaign, no amount of money could buy the votes wealthy conservatives needed to get their guy into office and their agendas pushed forward. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Linda McMahon and many others spent ridiculous sums of money - and now they have nothing to show for it.
- Obama cried a little, and that's okay.
- This will more than likely be the last time you hear about or see Mitt Romney. After this, he's done.
Speaking of which, I spent most of my time on Twitter drinking the tears of distraught Republicans who now have to contend with the aftermath of their hopes and dreams, as well as the added prospect of living with themselves and their own hatred and prejudices for another four years. It's where I stumbled upon Vicky Jackson's baleful eulogizing of the coming Great Dark Epoch. Imagine if these people actually had their way and if Romney had won.
I also stopped listening to pundits a long time ago. It's a waste of my time and they're not telling me anything that I don't already know or can't find out on the Internet. As a result, no CNN/FOX/ABC/NBC on TV. Just independent and local news sources, Tweets, Tumblr and the occasional foray to CNN.com or ABC.com for verification's sake.
Okay. Party's over. Bradley Manning's still being tormented to the point of madness in a military prison. Julian Assange is still an enemy of the state. We're still wasting lives and money and futures in Afghanistan. We're still murdering Afghan and Paki civilians at an ever increasing rate by remote control. We're still on the hook for any future failure of a fundamentally unreformed banking system. We're still a prison industrial nation.
I hate people who do this. I really do. It's annoying as fuck and it should stop. At least those are my first thoughts seeing someone go off on this tangent.
President Obama is still in office. Keeping him in office was Job One. Now with a bit more political capital, he can now work towards unfucking all of the above, something that would not be happening under a Romney administration. But at least you'd be able to nurse your thumb in a corner over the above. Some people just like doing that and that alone. Remember the concept of "beautiful suffering."
Also remember that saying "fuck the world, I'm getting off" is what led to the awful, awful blood bath that gave the GOP the House in 2010.
By the way:
We've got work to do, folks! Don't forget there are people who say things like this and many who agree: twitter.com/SarahThyre/sta…
— Sarah Thyre (@SarahThyre) November 7, 2012
This country has a long road ahead of it. And that's all I'll say about that.
Wait, did Puerto Rico just become a state?
