I was 19 years old in 1984 and Ronaldo Maximus was the first president I voted against. I admit that as a passionate young feminist, my vote was more for Gerri Ferraro than for Fritz Mondale, but there it is.
I live in Kansas and devoutly hope Laura Kelly will be retained as our governor, but if she's not it's a short trip to Missouri and legal weed. *sigh*
Roy’s take on the history is correct and I remember it all pretty much the same way, but I’ll be a modified Pollyanna and sound a slightly more hopeful note.
First, expect GOP whining to commence in 3...2…1 and I am SO here for it. Turns out, when you don’t offer any real solutions to the nation’s problems and your policy positions boil down to “I am going to fuck you over in every way imaginable, demand that you like it, and scream bloody murder if you don’t,” it is not the kind of winning message that leads to a wave victory.
I won’t make any grand pronouncements about What It All Means, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that nationwide, on balance, normies do not like election deniers, do not like that SCOTUS overturned Roe, and are put off by the rabid anti-trans obsession on the Right.
I also think it’s safe to say that conservatives have a FAR greater young voter problem than they realize, not just in sentiment but in the fact that these young people actually came out to vote in such large numbers, and in a *non-Presidential* election. Voting is a habit: you do it, you see you have an impact, and then you continue to do it. Obviously, in 2024 some of the people over 75 years old who voted R will either be gone or no longer able to vote, and they will be replaced by young people who were 16 or 17 years old on 11/8/22. A hopeful sign.
I keep asking myself what I did to deserve this garbage, but then remember Clint Eastwood's line from Unforgiven: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."
I was a freshman in college looking to get away from my Pennsyltucky upraising, and was shocked when my dorm-mates watching the 1980 election were cheering Reagan. Naively, I was told college would be full of liberals, and I would no longer feel so all alone. I was heartbreakingly disappointed.
Tony Evers won ("Boring wins" was a line from his electrifying victory speech) and Mandela Barnes is still in it, although he likely won't win (he's behind by about 30 thousand votes, and there are about that many votes in Milwaukee still to be counted but he won't get 'em all.)
I don't think I have ever in my life been so excited at the prospect of the preservation of the status quo.
Had just started Law School and joined the NLG in 1980 so I had a sort of support group to fall back into, but things just continue on the same path it seems to me. The slope to self destruction seems a little less steep when the Democrats are in charge, but it is all down hill no matter who controls it seems to me.
I've been reading a lot of Chris Hedges recently, he strikes me a lot like one of the more depressing Old Testament Prophets. Unfortunately they were right for the time I suspect he is to.
A good election night: I watched Dragula, almost finished my most recent at-home karaoke video, drank some cough syrup & was asleep by 11. Woke up without the slightest interest in perusing the results. I heard the good news about PA & that's enough for me for now.
We didn't win but neither did we get our ass beat. Considering the 8% inflation, a president with low approval ratings, a whole host of billionaires each spending the equivalent of the GDP of a small South American country on Team Toejam Degenerates - we did pretty good. We have put off the Apocalypse for another couple years.
I think Matty, Marge and Gym
are going to wear out there welcome real quick. And it's looking like a Florida Death Match for theRepublican presidential nomination. Think of all the great REBID we're going to get out of all this!
So much of my ingrained cynicism got released reading this... All I'd add, although Roy touched on it, is to emphasize the MSM's clear love of, which is to say support for, Ronnie. The MSM is the clear thumb on the scale.
And what I've been pondering the last few days is this: Let's say the average person wants to be informed. Not knowing better, where do they go and what are they exposed to there? I mean, my sense is that wherever they go, they'd end up not actually knowing much, or worse. Is that just old fart craziness or am I in the ballpark of being correct?
Oh, fine; can't keep it in: If we have to go with absolute terms, the election was bad with worse to come after all the Bush v Gore-style litigations and other subverting. Also not good: Too many races were too close.
22 in 1980, newspaper/Time magazine addict/aspiring rock drummer in Nova Scotia. I was convinced the bombs were almost on the way when Reagan was elected. They never came. Later, when the Wall came down and the USSR fell apart and I was in Uni and the MBAs were ascendant, I thought maybe I was wrong about it all. Reagan defeated communism! (Honestly, the only hate I've ever had for Russians was that for a few years they were better at hockey, because they played a Commie style!). Dark days. In a Classics Dept. at Uni I got sucked in for a while by bullshit like Allan Bloom and the concept of a "free market" and all that fucking jazz. Not really sure how or when exactly I snapped out of it, but wanting women to like me probably played some role; and my actual studies: Classics and Philosophy. (I've actually got a bit of free time from the drudgery of work this evening and tomorrow morning (Aristotelian "free time"!), so I can reflect on how fucking utterly grateful I am that I got to read and translate Homer, Plato, and Aristotle; I got to read and study Shakespeare; I learned about Ancient and Medieval history; I can tell you in a sentence or two about any of the great philosophies and religions of the world. I KNOW this stuff because I had a fucking LIBERAL education, and I know that is what conservatives DON'T want anyone to have. Critical Race Theory? Fuck, the words "critical (anything)" freak them out. You're right, Roy, their culture war is a war on culture. Anyway, sorry for the rambling, hope you guys do ok in the elections
Another thought. We were at a high point in US domestic policies after LBJ. Nixon really didn't care so much about domestic stuff so that wasn't not as damaged as it might have been after two terms of Nixon and Ford. And the interregnum of Carter. So with the start of Reagan we had a lot further to fall then we have now, so it would have taken a little longer.
I’m normally as cranky as the next fellow, but we here in Illinois had a very good night. Our governor swept aside the nutjob opposing him, my Congressman and neighboring reps won by more than expected, and a worker’s right amendment passed. I’ll enjoy these few moments before returning to my regularly scheduled mood.
I remember the Reagan Recession. So many of our patients lost their jobs and health insurance, we had to dissolve our little family practice and move away. The harm to me was minimal compared to my patients but I was appalled when Reagan win re-election. His senile dementia was already apparent, even to my rock-ribbed Republican dad, but people voted for him anyway, including said dad. Racism and antisemitism were strong back then, as they are now, strong enough to put a halfwit actor in the White House for four more years. We’ll see about Trump - his toxicity outweighs his popularity so the results will depend on MAGATs in the state legislatures and secs of state offices.
I was 19 years old in 1984 and Ronaldo Maximus was the first president I voted against. I admit that as a passionate young feminist, my vote was more for Gerri Ferraro than for Fritz Mondale, but there it is.
I live in Kansas and devoutly hope Laura Kelly will be retained as our governor, but if she's not it's a short trip to Missouri and legal weed. *sigh*
Roy’s take on the history is correct and I remember it all pretty much the same way, but I’ll be a modified Pollyanna and sound a slightly more hopeful note.
First, expect GOP whining to commence in 3...2…1 and I am SO here for it. Turns out, when you don’t offer any real solutions to the nation’s problems and your policy positions boil down to “I am going to fuck you over in every way imaginable, demand that you like it, and scream bloody murder if you don’t,” it is not the kind of winning message that leads to a wave victory.
I won’t make any grand pronouncements about What It All Means, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that nationwide, on balance, normies do not like election deniers, do not like that SCOTUS overturned Roe, and are put off by the rabid anti-trans obsession on the Right.
I also think it’s safe to say that conservatives have a FAR greater young voter problem than they realize, not just in sentiment but in the fact that these young people actually came out to vote in such large numbers, and in a *non-Presidential* election. Voting is a habit: you do it, you see you have an impact, and then you continue to do it. Obviously, in 2024 some of the people over 75 years old who voted R will either be gone or no longer able to vote, and they will be replaced by young people who were 16 or 17 years old on 11/8/22. A hopeful sign.
I moved from CA to MA in 1979 and told people there was no way Reagan could become president, he was way too extreme.
Sigh.
I dunno Roy, I think you’re absolutely a goddamn ray of sunshine!
I keep asking myself what I did to deserve this garbage, but then remember Clint Eastwood's line from Unforgiven: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."
I was a freshman in college looking to get away from my Pennsyltucky upraising, and was shocked when my dorm-mates watching the 1980 election were cheering Reagan. Naively, I was told college would be full of liberals, and I would no longer feel so all alone. I was heartbreakingly disappointed.
Tony Evers won ("Boring wins" was a line from his electrifying victory speech) and Mandela Barnes is still in it, although he likely won't win (he's behind by about 30 thousand votes, and there are about that many votes in Milwaukee still to be counted but he won't get 'em all.)
I don't think I have ever in my life been so excited at the prospect of the preservation of the status quo.
Had just started Law School and joined the NLG in 1980 so I had a sort of support group to fall back into, but things just continue on the same path it seems to me. The slope to self destruction seems a little less steep when the Democrats are in charge, but it is all down hill no matter who controls it seems to me.
I've been reading a lot of Chris Hedges recently, he strikes me a lot like one of the more depressing Old Testament Prophets. Unfortunately they were right for the time I suspect he is to.
A good election night: I watched Dragula, almost finished my most recent at-home karaoke video, drank some cough syrup & was asleep by 11. Woke up without the slightest interest in perusing the results. I heard the good news about PA & that's enough for me for now.
We didn't win but neither did we get our ass beat. Considering the 8% inflation, a president with low approval ratings, a whole host of billionaires each spending the equivalent of the GDP of a small South American country on Team Toejam Degenerates - we did pretty good. We have put off the Apocalypse for another couple years.
I think Matty, Marge and Gym
are going to wear out there welcome real quick. And it's looking like a Florida Death Match for theRepublican presidential nomination. Think of all the great REBID we're going to get out of all this!
So much of my ingrained cynicism got released reading this... All I'd add, although Roy touched on it, is to emphasize the MSM's clear love of, which is to say support for, Ronnie. The MSM is the clear thumb on the scale.
And what I've been pondering the last few days is this: Let's say the average person wants to be informed. Not knowing better, where do they go and what are they exposed to there? I mean, my sense is that wherever they go, they'd end up not actually knowing much, or worse. Is that just old fart craziness or am I in the ballpark of being correct?
Oh, fine; can't keep it in: If we have to go with absolute terms, the election was bad with worse to come after all the Bush v Gore-style litigations and other subverting. Also not good: Too many races were too close.
22 in 1980, newspaper/Time magazine addict/aspiring rock drummer in Nova Scotia. I was convinced the bombs were almost on the way when Reagan was elected. They never came. Later, when the Wall came down and the USSR fell apart and I was in Uni and the MBAs were ascendant, I thought maybe I was wrong about it all. Reagan defeated communism! (Honestly, the only hate I've ever had for Russians was that for a few years they were better at hockey, because they played a Commie style!). Dark days. In a Classics Dept. at Uni I got sucked in for a while by bullshit like Allan Bloom and the concept of a "free market" and all that fucking jazz. Not really sure how or when exactly I snapped out of it, but wanting women to like me probably played some role; and my actual studies: Classics and Philosophy. (I've actually got a bit of free time from the drudgery of work this evening and tomorrow morning (Aristotelian "free time"!), so I can reflect on how fucking utterly grateful I am that I got to read and translate Homer, Plato, and Aristotle; I got to read and study Shakespeare; I learned about Ancient and Medieval history; I can tell you in a sentence or two about any of the great philosophies and religions of the world. I KNOW this stuff because I had a fucking LIBERAL education, and I know that is what conservatives DON'T want anyone to have. Critical Race Theory? Fuck, the words "critical (anything)" freak them out. You're right, Roy, their culture war is a war on culture. Anyway, sorry for the rambling, hope you guys do ok in the elections
Speaking as someone about Roy's age, this is correct to the last punctuation mark.
Another thought. We were at a high point in US domestic policies after LBJ. Nixon really didn't care so much about domestic stuff so that wasn't not as damaged as it might have been after two terms of Nixon and Ford. And the interregnum of Carter. So with the start of Reagan we had a lot further to fall then we have now, so it would have taken a little longer.
I’m normally as cranky as the next fellow, but we here in Illinois had a very good night. Our governor swept aside the nutjob opposing him, my Congressman and neighboring reps won by more than expected, and a worker’s right amendment passed. I’ll enjoy these few moments before returning to my regularly scheduled mood.
I remember the Reagan Recession. So many of our patients lost their jobs and health insurance, we had to dissolve our little family practice and move away. The harm to me was minimal compared to my patients but I was appalled when Reagan win re-election. His senile dementia was already apparent, even to my rock-ribbed Republican dad, but people voted for him anyway, including said dad. Racism and antisemitism were strong back then, as they are now, strong enough to put a halfwit actor in the White House for four more years. We’ll see about Trump - his toxicity outweighs his popularity so the results will depend on MAGATs in the state legislatures and secs of state offices.