that might make you giggle, or at least make you feel less shitty.
I was coming home with groceries on Saturday when a large, expensive white SUV was idling in the middle of the street, blocking my way. A blonde woman dressed in red, white and blue hopped out, went to a door, came back in under a minute, glanced at her phone, crossed the street, came back…all while her vehicle blocked the road. I had no idea what she was doing, dropping flyers for a business maybe?
Eventually whoever was driving noticed that they were blocking the road and made room for me to get around, and I proceeded to my home to unload the bags of groceries.
I live in a small condo community where each building has a central courtyard. We enter and leave via the courtyard and a shared sidewalk, so we all see each other a few times a day. I’m describing this because it becomes relevant, I promise.
My elderly Fox-watching, Trump-voting, Evangelical church attending neighbor was outside doing his weekly cleaning of his stairs. Perky blonde woman approached him and announced she’s running for county commission.
Neighbor promptly asks her party affiliation. “Oh, I’m a Republican!” He was glad to hear it, and they proceeded to commiserate that our formerly deep red county is now PURPLE! Can you imagine? More sharing about the horror of LIBERALS invading their world, and how they must be stopped! I’m listening to this from across the courtyard as I go back and forth with groceries, torn between inwardly giggling and eye rolling.
After shared horror at the evil of liberals, she asked for his vote and turned to leave. As I was coming down my stairs I was less than 12 feet from this woman, and I put a pleasant expression on my face, prepared to just smile and say hello, unless I was asked for my vote, when I would smile brightly and tell her I was voting for her opponent, but have a nice day!
It never happened. I swear to God, the woman saw me right there and scurried away without making eye contact, let alone a nod or “Good morning.” This was noticeable in an area where everybody greets everybody. (I have occasionally raised a bag of dog poop in greeting to return waves from people I don’t know. It’s just what we do here.) It was definitely weird for someone running for office to duck somebody like that. Of course she was only door-knocking Republicans, but avoiding ANY contact with me was…weird. So, two interesting things:
This is a historically deeply red county. My condo neighborhood is still mostly fairly affluent, mostly retired white folks, and last time I checked was still mostly Republican. Red, White and Blue Karen (not her actual name) should have made many contacts and chatted with many neighbors. She only approached one neighbor in my building, and had hopscotched down the road, spending only seconds dropping her flyer. Interesting. She obviously had a map of registered Republicans on her phone, and was sweating her ass off for very little return.
But HILARIOUS: Apparently having to be polite and say hello to a Democrat was too much for her! I wanted to laugh while watching her red, white and blue ass scuttle down the driveway. (Yes, she did know I was a Democrat. Party affiliation isn’t a secret here, and she was consulting her phone before every contact so she knew an Evil Liberal lived at that address.)
Dear Democrats: There are way more of us than there are Republicans. But they vote in every election, for school boards and county commissions and freaking dog catcher, and sadly, Democrats tend to sit out local elections and don’t turn out in big numbers for the midterms. Republicans have an outsized share of power because WE LET THAT HAPPEN. That shit has to change RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
Which is why my focus will be on people and organizations registering new voters and convincing the apathetic to get off their asses to save our country, and also getting Val Demings into the Senate. We can do it. We have to do it. Apathy is not an option, and neither is defeatism.
To quote one of my favorite podcasters: “Don’t drink despair juice.” I actually was listening to their podcast while editing this and Bluegal just said this, and it’s perfect. “Walk the path and make the path. ” (Driftglass quote.)
If you are blessed to live in a safe state where you don’t have horrible Senators (and a fascist governor) to defeat, may I humbly ask if you could send Val Demings a few bucks? She’s the real deal. I actually got to meet her during her first run for Congress, and she’s just as awesome as she seems on TV. (She’s also a lot shorter than I expected, her voice is six inches taller than she is.)
If you have trash to take out in your own state, please focus on that, of course.
And that was my political post for the month of July, because any commentary would just be incoherent swearing. Back to de-cluttering and Disney and sanity-saving topics.
There is a sh*t ton of “Dems keep saying to vote for them, but they don’t deliver…” posts on Twitter these days that make me stabby. Republicans ran on repealing Roe for FIFTY YEARS. Single issue voters didn’t say in 1980, “well, they didn’t do it, I’m done.” They kept at it. Politics is a long game and I’m afraid that there are too many folks in this country that are metaphorical two year olds when they don’t immediately get what they want.
THIS! Though it helps my blood pressure to remember that the vast majority of voters are not on Twitter and it is not representative of voter sentiment. Plus, half of that shit ton of tweets are designed to depress turnout (yes, including the ones from some blue checks you liked). I’m ready to slap one child from Florida in particular. Honestly, while I was enraged and depressed about Roe, it helped to remember that Republicans are now the dog that caught the car – Roe drove a lot of fundraising and got R’s to the polls and now it’s gone, meanwhile, a lot of Millennials and younger are suddenly paying attention and feeling motivated and primed to grab the wheel. If this helps people realize they have to pay attention to EVERY election and can’t just wake up every 4 years to vote for a president, some good might come from this. That’s why I’m channeling my limited time and resources into GOTV.
This is true. I will breathe deeply and focus on positive actions to help with GOTV in my area too. I’m also feeling good about PA’s chances for the Dem candidates winning the governorship and senate seat. The Repub governor candidate is a deep MAGA idiot and the senate candidate is Dr. Oz, resident of NJ which turns off a lot of MAGAts who also don’t trust a Hollywood type despite the Trump endorsement. Keeping a January 6 participant who has promised to make abortion illegal out of the Governor’s mansion is motivating to a lot of folks too.
I love you! for working on Get Out The Vote.
Here in Wisconsin, the Dems mostly wring their hands and say Oh Noes! Very frustrating. Not even putting up a candidate in a couple of U.S. House seats. When I phone bank, they make us read from a script – well, they try to make us read from a script. Me. They try to make Me read from a script. And our governor ticks all the right boxes but man, I have no respect. I’m pretty sure he says “Golly” an awful lot, bless his heart. Ugh.