Not ideal

We’ll return to the Coens countdown Thursday or Friday. Enjoy the free post. Well, as best you can, anyway.

I’m making this post free to all subscribers. If you want to read all of my twice-weekly posts going forward, check out the paid options.

Election Day came and went, and it sucked in a very unexpected way. We sort of expected that Biden would get completely trounced, and then Harris became the ticket and it felt exciting and for the first month or so, there was a lot of talk about how the vibes felt so different from what the Democrats had been trotting out there for the past I-don’t-even-know-how-long. I felt it, too. It felt new. It felt like they weren’t fucking something up for the first time in my adult life.

And in the end, it wasn’t so much that they fucked up (although they did, in very important ways that their base and the people who probably would have been convinced to vote for them were screaming at them to recognize for the duration), but that at least half of our country — our dumb, repulsive country — is more than happy to let people who don’t look like them suffer, and for probably 80 percent of them, that’s the entire point. It’s a promise of racism and misogyny and punishing LGBTQ+ people, because they think those people should die. For the other 20 percent, it’s that they’re perfectly happy to let people suffer if there’s a chance gas and eggs will be cheaper, or that they’ll get some sort of tax break.

I’m lucky enough to — by sheer roll of the cosmic dice — be a straight white man who lives in California. I’ll be fine. My family will largely be fine. Whatever fresh hell awaits us at the federal level, the bluer states will do their best to shield their residents from those negative effects. (Or at least, I hope/anticipate they will.) For many, many people all across the country, life will get worse. Depending on how much Project 2025 and/or the new SCOTUS justices that are incoming dismantle the framework of the country and the safeguards that protect individual and collective rights, life may get worse for them forever.

But (and given what I just wrote, this may seem foolish) just because we know have absolute, genuine maniacs threatening to take the wheel and steer us into an authoritarian dictatorship, it doesn’t mean the worst parts of their agenda have to infiltrate every American’s life in every state. Get active in local government and local agendas; the ones that will directly impact you where you live. That’s where you can affect change and benefit from the results of that change directly and noticeably in a short period of time. If half the things Project 2025 and Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and RFK Jr. want come to pass, people will understand how bad things are, and quickly, and the 2026 midterms will be here, and hopefully people will be suitably angry or mobilized.

We lived through the first Trump administration, and now here they are again with a narrow majority. SCOTUS decisions will continue to suck and get worse, but the last time these fucking yahoos were in control of the government the single thing they managed to accomplish was a tax cut for the ultra-rich. I think they’re still such a mess and have so few votes available to lose that they won’t necessarily be able to strongarm everything through. Probably not even most of the things they want. It’s possible that there are enough people who hate them and fear them on both sides that Musk and Kennedy don’t get confirmed to their positions. Let’s hope they’re as bad at being bully dictators as they were last time, even if Trump dies in office and we end up with an OVERTLY bought and paid for president in JD Vance.

It sucks that people want racism and misogyny and the punishment and suffering of people they don’t identify with. But we’re all still here and we’re still living, and we have compassion for the people who deserve our compassion. We have love for the people who deserve our love. The amount of those people are fewer than they were yesterday, it turns out. But if you don’t keep moving forward and find a better way for yourself and the people you care about, you won’t be able to get anything done.

Now, more than ever, we need to keep getting things done. Fuck the people who want suffering and forget about them. They’re of no use to you. Build community, find joy where you can, and move forward. Just keep moving forward. It’s the hope that kills you in sports, but it’s the despair that kills you in life. Hope is the only chance we have.

Take care of yourselves.