Takeaways of the Night
Nov. 4th, 2020 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
citrakayahYep, you knew this was coming. Everyone else is doing it, so here are My Thoughts On The Election. Why the fuck not. They're quite cynical, but such expectations at least prevent me from being taken aback by horrific losses.
1. Joe Biden will probably win. But not by much, if he does, and that it is this close is a clear sign of general incompetence. Probably on the part of the Biden campaign, but honestly there's plenty of blame to go around and I'm not sure how we could tell. You got those stories about What Went Wrong back in 2016 and people are still arguing about it; I think they always will be. Maybe people were just too sexist. Maybe Clinton was historically unpopular. Maybe neoliberal economic policies provide fruitful ground for racist populists to gain power.
To some extent all those things were probably true--but to what extent? How much did they matter? Fuck if I know; don't quite believe anyone else does either.
2. The Democrats will almost certainly not take the Senate. Our chances of doing anything about global warming have gone down from "insignificant" to "basically zero." Our chances of dealing with the biodiversity crisis, separate from global warming, were already pretty much nil but things will get worse faster than they otherwise would.
3. If he loses Democrats as a whole are probably going to react like they did last time around, which means a very substantial fraction of them will blame the social democrats (and the left as a whole). If they lose the Senate but win everything else... fuck if I know.
4. Missouri voters approved a gerrymandering measure that partially reversed the anti-gerrymandering bill they passed two years ago. Congratulations Missourians.
5. Colorado looks set to reintroduce gray wolves, which is one piece of unadulterated good news.
6. Drug decriminalization took a few steps forward, because just like one of the few things the leaders of our parties can agree on is that marijuana should remain illegal, one of the few things the base of our two parties can agree on is that locking people up for smoking pot is fucking stupid. Also shrooms look to be the next marijuana. As they should be.
Could shrooms help depression? Maybe not but it's not like the other stuff worked.
7. I loathe the taste of alcohol.
Anwyway. There's other stuff, but I'm done. This is what I've got out of things; I'm interested in other people's thoughts.
1. Joe Biden will probably win. But not by much, if he does, and that it is this close is a clear sign of general incompetence. Probably on the part of the Biden campaign, but honestly there's plenty of blame to go around and I'm not sure how we could tell. You got those stories about What Went Wrong back in 2016 and people are still arguing about it; I think they always will be. Maybe people were just too sexist. Maybe Clinton was historically unpopular. Maybe neoliberal economic policies provide fruitful ground for racist populists to gain power.
To some extent all those things were probably true--but to what extent? How much did they matter? Fuck if I know; don't quite believe anyone else does either.
2. The Democrats will almost certainly not take the Senate. Our chances of doing anything about global warming have gone down from "insignificant" to "basically zero." Our chances of dealing with the biodiversity crisis, separate from global warming, were already pretty much nil but things will get worse faster than they otherwise would.
3. If he loses Democrats as a whole are probably going to react like they did last time around, which means a very substantial fraction of them will blame the social democrats (and the left as a whole). If they lose the Senate but win everything else... fuck if I know.
4. Missouri voters approved a gerrymandering measure that partially reversed the anti-gerrymandering bill they passed two years ago. Congratulations Missourians.
5. Colorado looks set to reintroduce gray wolves, which is one piece of unadulterated good news.
6. Drug decriminalization took a few steps forward, because just like one of the few things the leaders of our parties can agree on is that marijuana should remain illegal, one of the few things the base of our two parties can agree on is that locking people up for smoking pot is fucking stupid. Also shrooms look to be the next marijuana. As they should be.
Could shrooms help depression? Maybe not but it's not like the other stuff worked.
7. I loathe the taste of alcohol.
Anwyway. There's other stuff, but I'm done. This is what I've got out of things; I'm interested in other people's thoughts.
