After the Election

[mallorys_camera]

Nobody predicted the snow. Half a foot at least. Thick, white, wet snow, the kind that would make Bing Crosby – spiritual ancestor of recently defeated Presidential candidate Mitt Romney – very, very happy: I'm dr-r-reaming of a White Election Day… Although the snow will melt tomorrow.

The snow will complicate life for lots and lots of people hereabouts who are still reeling from last week's monster storm. I'm not one of them. No credit for that should go to me. Cassandra, as I say, is a paragon of organizational prudence. I am lucky to be in her circle.

Anybody with half a brain could have predicted the election, though. The election transpired exactly the way I thought it would, which is to say it wasn't even close. It was never going to be close. The fact is Americans dislike Mormons, and they're never going to elect one President, not even after Hillary Clinton and Andrew Sullivan finish out their double terms in office. But you won't read that in any of the electoral postmortems.

Did the Republicans' social conservatism contribute to the election loss? I'd like to think it did. You'd be surprised how many Pro-Life matrons had abortions in their wild and wooly youths. I'd like to think that in the secrecy of the voting booth where no one could see who they pulled the lever for, the memory of those confused, defiant girls they once were rose up before these matrons and guided their hands.

I didn't like either candidate, and I ended up voting Third Party. "Have fun throwing your vote away," leered Mrs. William Hare, version 2.1. Oh, hey. These days she's a pal of mine -- I sincerely believe she loves Robin as though he were one of her own. So I laughed. Gary Johnson did end up getting a million or so votes, which in certain contexts might be seen as quite a lot. Not in this one though.

###

Since it was obvious from the get go that Obama was going to win, I resented the extent to which the media put their bellows to the fires, escalating partisan feeling into something that was ugly, anarchistic, potentially dangerous. It was all so obviously designed to sell something. Thing is, I'm still not sure what was – is – being sold.

On Facebook which is as close as I get to the highway of – ha, ha – Real Life these days, a generally reasonable California acquaintance of mine just exploded when a well known conservative politician compared Hurricane Sandy to Hurricane Katrina: "Fuck you asshole, just fuck you!" This confused me so much that I sat there gaping at the screen for a couple of seconds. Did he really think the martyrs of New Orleans had some sort of righteous monopoly on storm suffering or was this just a knee jerk reaction to anything said by a self-styled conservative?

I understand the Obama luv, by the way. I voted for him myself four years ago. But in all essential ways – for which read: economic policies – Obama's presidency has been a continuation of the presidency of George W. Bush. It doesn't matter to me that he supports gay marriage. In fact, that gay marriage is even a rallying point at all perplexes me a great deal since a) the state has no business in marriage one way or another and b) people who've been able to get married all along have by and large turned their backs on the institution.

Elections and superstorms. Between one thing and another, I did very little paying work for close to 10 days, which -- since I operate so close to the margin -- has left me massively behind the money I need for this month. So for the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be doing very little else but working. That means for the first time in a decade I won't be applying for the Stegner Fellowship this year. Paying bills is more important than chasing dreams, Esse.

By the way – has anybody else noticed an increase in the amount of LJ spambots? It is really fucking annoying.

Comments

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that Katrina is the only "real" disaster to ever hit the USA. The others do not count and did not cause any true "suffering" -- only Katrina.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that too about Katrina.

Why do you think that is?

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

The media uses it as part of their anti-bush-bible -- he personally and with malice aforethought caused it to happen, you know.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

<3

[fasterpussycat.livejournal.com]

I hate when people say you are throwing your vote away if you vote third party. Obnoxious. Misses the point.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Really missing the point. As though legitimate choice is something that should be relegated to Starbucks lattes.