aftermath/calm

[jazzfish]

Today things arrived: my fancy table with included coffee table in which to store the leaves; new blades for my electric razor; a game I've been wanting. Today I went grocery shopping.

Today I ... was present at work, and even did some.

It took me til sometime this morning to make the connection that I've been here before. Back in 2004 I genuinely thought that the revelations about US torture in Iraq would make a difference, that Americans would rise up in disgust and vote the Republicans out. Instead they collectively said "works for me." Same thing this time around. Though at least there are proportionately slightly fewer of them. Baby steps, I guess.

I'm also very tired. It's hard work being an Emotional Support Canadian on five hours of sleep.

I have no doubt that Biden will win the Presidency. The Senate, though, is functionally lost (it is theoretically possible to get a 50/50 split but that requires winning two runoff elections in Georgia in January), and so we're back to treading water, and then 2022 will be a massacre.

Oh well. There's a reason I left, after all.

Comments

[frayadjacent]

I had the same thoughts, remembering my shock and disappointment in 2004.

[jazzfish]

In fairness to young Jazzfish, I partly felt that way in 2004 because that was how it worked for me. Prior to April 2004 I was a quintessential disaffected white dude, "socially liberal but fiscally conservative," i.e. don't pick on gay people and don't spend my money on other people. I'd been vaguely uncomfortable with the direction of the Bush admin (and opposed to the Iraq war) but not enough to care. Then I saw the photos out of Abu Ghraib, and that did it. And I couldn't imagine that there were people who that /wouldn't/ appall, much less a majority of them.