#the presidential election is not the end all be all of this election year!!
Text
Y’all understand that the purpose of voting uncommitted in the primary is another form of protest to get Biden to choose between a second term and ending military funding for the IDF right?
I keep seeing posts that are frustrated about this because they assume the people who are voting uncommitted are doing it because they hate Biden (and if that’s the case I get it tbh), but I need everyone to understand that there is an inherent strategy in this tactic. The Democratic Party is putting all of its money behind Biden and not putting any other candidates in the Primary, leaving Democratic voters with only one option - the same person who refuses to call for a Ceasefire and is continuing to fund a whole fucking genocide while we tirelessly protest, write/call in to our representatives, and post online to spread awareness. They’re not giving voters a choice electorally. So by voting “uncommitted” instead of simply voting for Biden (in HUGE numbers btw) they’re sending a clear message about where their priorities really lie.
The whole point of voting is to use your voice to tell your leaders what you want! Voters are the only thing standing between politicians and any power they wish to wield. By not voting for Biden in the Primary voters are able to hold him accountable and say “you’re not holding true to the duty of your office, the office we put you in and pay for, to represent us faithfully, so now you don’t get to keep that office.” It’s essentially telling Biden to wise the fuck up, because the ultimatum is genocide or no more power. He will lose the privilege of getting to lead if he doesn’t listen to the people he represents.
I get being scared about this. Protesting can be scary sometimes. Trump is a huge fucking threat to everything and everyone I love. He is a literal fascist who can’t be trusted to run a lawnmower let alone an entire country. But Biden and the Democratic Party are banking all their money on that fear being the sole motivator this November, so that they can continue with business as usual and not do their fucking jobs. They don’t want to listen to voters about calling for a Ceasefire because they want to continue taking money from AIPAC and other zionists, and because they don’t want further conflict between the US and anyone else. By voting uncommitted voters are sending the message that Biden is not doing his job (democratically representing the American people) and they are prepared to fire him for it.
#stop believing that this is just uninformed voters being stupid#there is a strategy behind this#also you should still vote for your local Dems for office!#the presidential election is not the end all be all of this election year!!#and with how the Supreme Court is looking you should all be way more invested in your local and state politics anyways because those are#the people who are actually going to protect you no matter who is President#okay now I’m done#not tagging this in any strategic way because I don’t want to attract people who will dox me lmao#but if you have US politics questions or wanna talk about this further get at me#personal shits
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Now that Eurovision is over, I want you all, especially the Americans, to take a good hard look at how the voting results turned out when people boycotted the event.
In the UK, the viewing figures were down about 2 million people compared to last year. Up to 2 million people made the conscious decision to not watch and not vote because of Israel's inclusion.
The final results of the public vote, Israel came in first place in the UK and got 12 points. Because the only people watching and voting were people who backed Israel or at least didn’t care one way or another.
This doesn't matter. It's a music contest. The boycott was still the right thing to do because it is just a show at the end of the day, and the viewing figures have more impact than the results.
But it is also a good object lesson to show you what happens if you boycott a vote over something that does matter. Choosing not to vote in, let's say, a presidential election will have similar results.
#eurovision#us politics#boycotting is for companies not for voting#if you think this post is about the minutiae of voting numbers in Eurovision congratulations on missing the entire point
16K notes
·
View notes
Text
is the main opposition party good? no. but at least 14 more cities will hopefully have their own student dorms for students, and the city mayors will be on scrutiny since the public will expect them to actually serve their cities and counties.
a truly historical result for turkiye with 7 cities voting for the main opposition party CHP for the first time since 1950, aka when turkiye changed from one party rule to multiple party regime. we hope that all mayors rule with transparency and minimum corruption.
#this post is targeted to ME#but i was so sad that i couldnt make a “erdogan's regime ended” post in last year's presidential elections#an ounce of hope for turkey and all of its people#turkey#turkiye#2024 turkiye local elections#destiel
1 note
·
View note
Text
this is the only text post im gonna make about voting for the US president:
under a 2nd biden term, cops will continue to shoot protestors in the head with rubber* bullets and suffer no consequences.
under a 2nd trump term, which may not end in 4-8 years, cops will go back to shooting protestors in the head with normal bullets like they used to, and suffer no consequences.
that’s where we’re at and that’s the choice you get. i am not willing to keep my own hands clean in exchange for a drastic and immediate increase in state violence, both direct and disguised as policies and regulations.
if you vote against trump, you might increase by a small amount the chance that you will live to see a presidential election where you get to make a good choice. if you don’t vote against trump, living to see that happen gets less likely.
voting is not even close to sufficient, but it is necessary, and it costs me little to nothing to do it.** to me that is the only possible ethical conclusion.
*rubber bullets are actually metal bullets with a rubber coating and they can and do kill people. nonetheless, they kill people significantly less often than regular bullets. also the bullet thing is a metaphor for all the varieties of state violence that will be committed by a trump administration. but also there absolutely will be an increase in the number of people murdered by cops if trump wins.
**there are a great many people in the US for whom voting does take considerable effort and sometimes sacrifice. if you are one of these people, you don’t owe anyone any loss of income or safety. but it may be even more strongly in your interests to vote against trump if you can.
#usapol#‘but i live in a red state’ me too! in 50 years when we finally get rid of the electoral college#an unbroken record of the less popular candidate winning the election will be extremely useful
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Genuinely forgot November 5th was the US Presidential Election and was like ya Don, Destiel is the only thing that can save us
[ID: A tweet from @/DonaldJTrumpJr reading: Guilty on all counts. The Democrats have succeeded in their years long attempt to turn America into a third-world shithole. November 5 is our last chance to save it. /End ID]
ID by @diamond-rings-and-gutter-bones
#destiel#spn#trump trial#stormy Daniels#hush money trial#donald trump#donald j trump#convicted felon#united states#us politics#politics#hush money#trump traitor#president trump#don jr#trump crime family#november 5th#current events#breaking news#news#us news#trump found guilty#trump#nov 5th
623 notes
·
View notes
Quote
The five Justices in the majority opinion, however, went farther than necessary to insulate insurrectionists from being disqualified from federal elections. They didn’t just rule that states cannot disqualify Trump, or Presidential candidates, but rather that states cannot disqualify any insurrectionist candidates for federal office. The Justices gave all the power to a notoriously dysfunctional Congress to do so, even though Section Five did not explicitly make Congress the sole enforcing authority of Section Three.
As in the Dobbs case that overturned 50 years of Roe v. Wade, the conservative principle of “judicial restraint” does not exist with this Supreme Court. Republicans like to blast “activist judges,” but as we see yet again, an “activist judge” is just someone who rules against you.
Under the Supreme Court’s expansive ruling, a state is currently unable to disqualify a candidate for federal office who engaged in insurrection, even if that person has been charged and convicted of insurrection. Even a federal court would be unable to bounce an insurrectionist from the ballot absent a law enacted by Congress.
There's No Restraining This Activist Supreme Court
This SCOTUS needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt with actual Justices, instead of these unelected activists who are opposed by nearly 8 in 10 Americans.
The Courts are not going to save us. The Courts aren’t even going to enforce existing laws that were written to protect us. The Courts are actively working against Democracy and doing everything The Courts can do to hasten Fascism’s hold on the levers of power. Fascism has already come to America. It is taking root in every state that is under Republican occupation, urged on and enabled by this SCOTUS majority, and their ideological partners in the House and Senate. The only way we can stop this from spreading like a Zerg creep over all of America is to overwhelmingly put Democrats into office and then force them to act.
If Congress won’t do something to limit the grotesque abuses of power by people who don’t interpret the law, but make law from the bench, it will be up to America to rise up and demand action.
I refuse to be ruled by 6 Christofascist Nationalists, and I refuse to sit quietly while people who have the legal means to do something throw up their hands and furrow their brows.
This is going to be our last election that matters, if we don’t.
I’m serious. If Trump somehow gets into the White House again, we will never have another election in my lifetime.
LISTEN TO ME: any vote that is not for Joe Biden is a vote to end Democracy in America. Any vote that is not for a Democrat is a vote to end Democracy in America. When I see people insisting they won’t support Biden or Democrats because they aren’t Left enough, I want to pull my hair out. The stakes are too high for all of us -- especially the most vulnerable among us -- to indulge temper tantrums.
It’s a very simple choice: you can vote for Biden and Democrats, or you can vote to turn America into a Christian Nationalist Theocracy, ruled by autocrats.
This will be our last free election, if Republicans are not resoundingly and forcefully rejected at all levels.
586 notes
·
View notes
Note
I never claimed Biden's policies never hurt anyone, but it is unfair to blame Biden for Covid when Covid began under the Trump administration and it was Trump's actions that led to its severity and damage. Biden at least attempted to mitigate Covid during the first year of his administration, but by then the damage was already extensive and the politicized culture around it made it impossible for Americans to cooperate and regulations to have any real affect. But blaming Biden for Covid is like blaming Hoover for the Great Depression.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Biden too. But no matter how awful our 2024 presidential choices are, they are our only possible choices for president. Our voting systems are messed up. 3rd party votes only work against us and lots of people also just opt out of voting, which is about as equally affective. The electoral college was founded on literal racism and slavery and is still imposed to this day. But that's the system we have to work with. It's rigged. It's awful. I KNOW.
And like I said voting is not the end all of political action, and reading some of these comments, I can understand your anger. For most elections, yes, a vote IS an endorsement and support for a politician. But presidential elections just don't work that same way. When you vote 3rd party, you might as well just handed over your right to vote to your representative. And I guarantee you your representative is either going to vote for Trump or Biden.
The presidential election is NOT the only election on the ballot. And all other elections in the US make it possible for 3rd party candidates to win. I will vote 3rd party wherever possible locally, and I encourage you to do so too.
Still, reading through all these comments, I have yet to hear an actual solution to this problem that is achievable by November. Our choices are Biden or Trump. That's it. I hate it too, but if you have any better, feasible ideas, please let me hear it.
Except it is an endorsement. Biden literally thinks "they'll get over it" (it being the genocide of palestinians) by the time election comes. He thinks that we will vote for him anyways so he'll do whatever he wants. That's literally an endorsement. The reason the Vote Uncommitted campaign is gaining traction is to threaten Biden into doing something. If he doesn't feel threatened, then he assumes we are going to vote for him no matter what. So that means it's an endorsement.
If Biden doesn't listen to us, that's on him for losing the election. Not on the people who want him to do something else. And I don't want trump to win. I don't. But I will never vote for a person who so brazenly killed my friends and family, lied to my face, and was so unbelievably arrogant in that he thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Feel free to vote for Biden. Just don't say it's for anyone else.
299 notes
·
View notes
Text
the sound of snow
request: coriolanus with a girlfriend (wife in this case) who has hearing damange from the war
word count: 2.2k
content warnings: coriolanus being kinda awful in his speech but it's canon sooo, lucky flickerman trying to make a joke (spoiler: it doesn't land well), i think that's it?
a/n: ok i am not d/Deaf/HoH but i do have friends and former classmates who are, and i've done research before writing this. please correct me if i am wrong about anything. i left some things vague (such as hearing loss level), but overall i think it's decent?
also italics are when there's sign language being used :)
also also i had like three title ideas for this but i feel like they're all so bad but i liked this one the best
-----
Coriolanus had first met you back when you were both still wet behind the ears, unsure of how to navigate life after the Dark Days. His family had taken a direct hit when District 13 was no longer, his family’s fortune plundering into the depth unknown. Your family, however, had to face a different setback: a few rather close bomb blasts had stolen a majority of your hearing.
Coming from an affluent family, you were able to afford a private tutor growing up, teaching you and your family sign language, though as you grew old enough you were fit for a hearing aid in the left ear—the only one with enough hearing left to make it worthwhile.
All the while, you and Coriolanus never turned your backs on each other, choosing to let each other in on your trials and tribulations, knowing secrets were safe between the two of you. He had thus learned sign language from being in your home so often, Tigris and the Grandma’am having picked up on some of the more common phrases.
When you were both of age to begin at the Academy, your father fought tooth and nail with the Dean to ensure you were well-equipped with an interpreter when necessary, though you often went without one as you grew tiresome of the stares from your classmates.
During the 10th Annual Hunger Games, you say alongside Coriolanus as you two watched the tributes battle for victory, both celebrating when Lucy Gray was crowned the victor, both unaware of what fate waited your boyfriend the following day.
His stint in District 12 was something you two rarely spoke on, choosing to forget those few disastrous months while you were separated, you back in the Capitol studying at University while Coriolanus learned the hard way what it meant to be a Peacekeeper, to learn what it feels like to betray a friend, to learn what true power felt like.
Dr. Gaul had spoken to you prior to calling Coriolanus back to the Capitol, wanting your input if he would be a considerable candidate for her Gamemaker Apprenticeship, to which you informed her it was one of the biggest honors he would have wished for. Thus, Coriolanus was recalled back to the Capitol, back to you, where he stood alongside Dr. Gaul to prepare for years of Hunger Games, eventually landing as a true Gamemaker as Dr. Gaul began to take steps back in preparation for her retirement.
One day, however, Coriolanus had told her he was interested in becoming Panem’s next president, with Felix Ravinstill gone and no other heirs of the title, an election would take place. It was no surprise to the Head Gamemaker when the blonde brought the idea up, having seen him yearn and hunger for the coveted presidential position since he was fresh out of the Academy.
It came as no shock when he was announced at the Panem’s next president, you alongside of him as the First Lady. The country never knew what would become of the young couple, stars and revenge in their eyes.
-----
Coriolanus knew where he could find you once he returned from the Citadel, having met with Dr. Gaul for the upcoming 25th Hunger Games. He wanted them to be more of a spectacle than usual, to commemorate the quarter century since the end of the war.
He ignored the Avox who had opened the door to the private wing of the mansion, ignored the Avox who had his usual glass of whiskey waiting on a silver platter.
Opening the door to the greenhouse, Coriolanus’ eyes lit up as he saw you carefully pruning the rose bush planted in memorial of the Grandma’am. “Love?”
You looked up, and Coriolanus smiled when he realized your hearing aid was still in. You usually chose not to wear it while at home, preferring the comfortable silence from time to time.
“How was your day?” He asked, helping you untie the gardening smock you wore to protect the clothing underneath.
“It was fine, uneventful.” You replied, looking at the garden around the two of you. “How was Volumnia?”
Coriolanus was still gobsmacked that Dr. Gaul allowed his wife to call her by her first name, only a select few Capitol citizens were granted that honor, though he was one of them.
“She misses you, asked that you stop by sometime for lunch.” Coriolanus mused, plucking a rose out of the bunch in the vase. “Maybe you can help her come up with some new strategies for The Games, she loved your idea of stocking some food in the middle.”
You felt your cheeks heat up, not expecting the silly idea of arming the tributes with food to be such a hit in the Captiol. Betting had been at an all-time high for the tributes who had been able to get their hands on the stale, tasteless protein bars.
“I’ll see if she’s available on Thursday.” You knew the mad scientist would make room any day to meet with you. She had a soft spot for you, no one was quite sure why.
“You can ask her this evening, since we have that awful gala to start preparing for The Games.”
You looked at your husband, clearly forgetting about the gala. “I forgot that was tonight. I wouldn’t have pruned the roses if I had known.”
Coriolanus, who was cold-hearted and strict in public, simply waved off the nonissue. “You wore gloves, a smock, you look as beautiful as ever.”
You pressed your lips to his, disappearing to the bathroom for a shower prior to getting ready.
-----
Attending Capitol galas and evening events as First Lady of Panem was something you weren’t sure you would ever get used to. Cameras flashing, various news outlets trying to get a snippet of you and Coriolanus talking, microphones in your faces.
Not that they would get anything, as Coriolanus was only going to give hints at his next political plans, life events, anything really, to Lucky Flickerman, who he had become rather close with following his mentorship in the Academy.
“D’you want anything to drink?” Coriolanus asked, lips brushing on the shell of your left ear.
Nodding, you two moved over to the bar for a couple glasses of posca before starting the endless circle of meeting politicians, thanking Capitol elites for their support, and the nagging question of when you two would start a family.
You had eventually been able to break free from the conversation you and Coriolanus were stuck in when Lucky Flickerman himself took the spot in behind the podium, preparing to start the night’s speeches.
Taking your seats, you felt Coriolanus place his arm on the back of your chair, hand brushing up and down the back your right bicep, goosebumps breaking out in the area.
As Lucky began his speech, you moved closer to your husband, whispering in his ear, “I can’t understand what he’s saying.”
Coriolanus looked back at you, noticing the missing hearing aid, eyebrow raised.
“I forgot to put it back in after my shower.”
Without missing a beat, Coriolanus shifted in his seat and began to interpret the speeches for you, ignoring the not-so-subtle looks you two were getting, mainly from newer guests who weren’t used to seeing the president use sign language.
At the conclusion of Lucky’s speech, a Capitol employee scuttled over to the First Couple.
“President Snow, we can have an Avox translate if you’d like.”
Frowning, Coriolanus shook his head. “That’s alright, I can interpret for my wife.”
The employee didn’t seem to expect that response, simply blinking at the couple.
“Is that a problem?” Coriolanus asked, ignoring your hand on his knee.
“N-no, not at all. I just- you’re expected to make a speech tonight, too.” The employee tried to backpedal, not wanting to ruin his career tonight.
You chose this moment to speak up, not wanting Coriolanus to overreact. “It’s fine, Coryo’s quite apt at making sure I know what’s going on. Why don’t you be a dear and get me a glass of wine?”
The employee was quick to leave the conversation, and Coriolanus looked at you. “You’re too kind to them.”
Shrugging, you took the full glass without so much as a glance in the employee’s direction. “Someone has to be.”
Coriolanus let out an airy laugh as he stood up, dusting off some nonexistent crumbs from his burgundy suit. He squeezed your arm before departing from your side, taking his place where Lucky Flickerman had left open, the weatherman-turned-host made sure to give his hand a shake as they exchanged pleasantries.
Giving everyone a moment to settle down, Coriolanus cleared his throat before beginning, shocking nearly everyone in the room as he used both his voice and hands to conduct the speech.
“The Twenty-Fifth Hunger Games are right around the corner, so I thought I would give you all a twist I’m putting into the Reaping ceremony this year, and potentially the following Reapings. Dr. Gaul and I have had numerous discussions about how tributes are elected, and from prior games being rigged, we have initiated a couple updates to the ceremony and process.”
You were curious of the updates Coriolanus was talking about, unaware he was still dipping his toes into Gamemaking.
“Rather than each District’s mayor or elected spokesperson calling the names, we will have someone from the Capitol pull names. It will eliminate the possibility for rigging the tributes. In addition, who really wants to watch groups of children kill each other? With Reaping eligibility starting at age twelve, the Gamemakers and I have decided to increase the number of entries one gets as they age. When they reach the age of eighteen, each possible tribute will be entered into the Reaping six times.”
You weren’t able to hear everyone’s whispers, but you could see them looking at each other, taking in the news.
Coriolanus concluded his speech by introducing Dr. Gaul’s assistant, as the Head Gamemaker had something come up rendering her unable to attend the gala.
When he returned to your side, you looked him up and down. “Some updates, huh? Whose idea were they?”
Coriolanus had a smirk on his face, simply bringing his glass of posca to his lips.
-----
After all of the speeches were finished, some music began to play, letting the now tipsy and drunk Capitol elite take the dancefloor with eager steps.
Lucky Flickerman meandered over to where you and Coriolanus were still seated, discussing what Tigris deserved for her upcoming birthday.
“Not going to share a dance tonight?” He asked, looking between the two of you.
“Oh, Lucky, you should now, we don’t really dance. Only for the most special of occasions.” Coriolanus smiled, twisting the wedding band around his finger.
You wore a matching smile, though your reply wasn’t quite what Lucky expected. “And besides, Lucky, I’m not the best dancer if I can’t hear the music. You should have seen the first time we tried to dance together in the Academy.”
The mustached man opened his mouth like he was going to reply, but nothing came out except for a chuckle.
Coriolanus hid his smile behind the glass of water he had switched to, not able to tolerate the posca and wine like he had before.
It was one of his favorite moments after you two had officially started dating. The Academy had their annual prom, though it tended to be more of a fashion show than dance, as many students arrived in extravagant outfits that were ill-suited for dancing.
You had been in a sparking silver dress, heels a gift from your mother, red-tinted lips dropping when Coriolanus asked you to dance with him.
It had been enough missteps to last a lifetime, but the two of you took it in stride, promising each other to get a proper dance instructor before your first dance at the wedding years later.
“I do hate to break up the fond memory, honey, but we should be heading out.”
Coriolanus downed the rest of his water before standing, lending you his arm as you two bid goodnight to your friends and Coriolanus’ closest colleagues, before disappearing from the gala.
-----
You walked out of the bathroom from taking your makeup off to see Coriolanus sitting on the bed, sheets pulled back for your arrival.
“Who are you thinking will be the Capitol’s representative for the Reaping?” You asked, mind still going back to the Reaping updates.
Coriolanus closed the book he was reading, eyes looking you up and down as you climbed into the bed. “I don’t know yet. Why, do you have anyone in mind?”
You shrugged, pulling the sheets up to your chest, yawn escaping your lips. “No one in particular, but I’m sure I could come up with some names.”
Coriolanus laughed, setting his book on the nightstand next to him. “We can talk about it when you’re not going to fall asleep in mere minutes. Goodnight, love.”
“Mm, ‘night, Coryo.” You whispered, letting Coriolanus’ soft breathing and the distant sounds of sirens lull you to sleep.
-----
a/n: hey was this good should i do more in this universe let me know
#coriolanus snow x reader#coriolanus snow imagine#coriolanus x reader#hunger games imagine#hunger games tbosas#hunger games x reader#coriolanus x you#coriolanus snow#deaf!reader
467 notes
·
View notes
Text
1968 [Chapter 4: Zeus, God Of Thunder]
A/N: Can you believe we're already 1/3 done with this series?? I sure can't! I hope you enjoy Chapter 4. I'm so excited to show you where we're headed. The times are indeed a-changin'... 😉
Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.
Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.
Word Count: 7.3k
Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji @sunnysideaeggs @minttea07 @babyblue711
💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜
You unzip the floral suitcase that Alicent gave the nurses to pack for you. Inside are the hundreds of greeting cards sent by people from the Atlantic to the Rockies; downstairs, Eudoxia is distributing a dozen bouquets of flowers throughout the house with appropriate grimness, and more arrive each hour. You lift cards out of the suitcase by the handful and lay them down on your bed. Every movement feels slow, every thought muddled, bare feet in cold wet sand that swallows you to your ankles. The windows are open, the sheer curtains billowing. The wind whips in off the ocean, smelling of brine and sun glare, life and death.
Aemond emerges from the bathroom in a gale of steam. He finishes adjusting his eyepatch and then dresses himself: white shorts, blue polo. Aemond wears a lot of blue. It is Greek, is it American, it is the Democratic Party, it is the color of the sky that was once believed to hold Olympus, it is everything he’s ever been or wanted to be. He’s humming The House Of The Rising Sun. It’s the first time you’ve truly been alone since the night before he caught his flight to Tacoma.
Beneath the greeting cards you find the books, cosmetics, and three new sundresses, none of which you ended up wearing home. Alicent bought you a plain black shift dress, matching gloves and flats, and opaque sunglasses to hide your face from the journalists who waited outside the hospital. And there is one last item to unpack. At the bottom of the suitcase is a clear plastic bag containing fabric, white dotted with bruises of common blue violets. At first you are confounded, and then you turn it over to see the dark, saturated stain of crimson. It’s the sundress you were wearing the day you were rushed to Mount Sinai to have Ari. The nurses hadn’t known if you wanted to keep it, burn it, bury it.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Aemond’s brow furrows, like he’s surprised by the question. He goes to his writing desk and turns the chair around so it’s facing you. He sits, crosses one leg over the other, leans back and hides his hands in his pockets. His tone is gentle, but his gaze is hard. “By the time I heard that you’d had the baby, it was already over. You were out of surgery, he was in an incubator, and that was the immutable reality. I figured there was nothing I could do at that point to improve the outcome. And that’s true. Me flying back early wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“But you should have been there,” you insist, eyes wet, voice quivering. “You should have known him like I did.”
“Winning Washington was important.”
“Washington is a basket of votes, Ari was our child, he was real.”
“No one told me he was dying—”
“Because you didn’t pick up the fucking phone.”
Aemond is incredulous, like he couldn’t have heard you correctly. “It’s not like I was playing golf or drinking myself under some bar, I was campaigning 20 hours a day and it worked.”
“Nothing on earth could have kept me away from you when you got shot in Palm Beach.”
“So maybe it wasn’t just about Washington,” Aemond says, and his words aren’t gentle anymore. They are razored, dauntless, daring you to battle him. “It’s about the whole picture, it’s about the momentum. If I had underperformed in Washington, the dominoes would fall in Kentucky, and Utah, and Virginia, and then at the national convention in August, and then against Nixon in November. I don’t have the luxury of disappearing from the public eye to sit adoringly by your bedside when we both know there isn’t a single goddamn thing I can do to help.”
“It would have made you look like a better man.”
“But not a better president.”
And like a fracture being snapped back into place, you remember what Aegon said on that bloodstained night in Florida: You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you. You stare down at the ruined dress entombed in plastic, still clutched in your hands. You don’t dare to let Aemond see your eyes. You’re afraid you won’t be able to disguise the betrayal glistening there. You ask, a whisper, a whimper: “Why aren’t you sad?” I thought you loved him. I thought you were always so worried about him.
“Of course I’m sad,” Aemond says, more kindly now, patiently, like he’s speaking to someone who can’t be expected to comprehend. “But it’s different for the mother.”
You can’t reply. If you do, something lethal will pour out, smoke and poison and arrows, something that shoots to kill. Ari was quietly interred at the Targaryen family mausoleum in Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park. It had felt so wrong to leave his tiny casket there in a silent stone prison full of strangers.
Aemond is behind you now, trying to knead the tension out of your shoulders. And for the first time in two years, you wish he’d stop touching you. Your belly hurts, your head hurts, your heart hurts, you are a garden blooming with bruises and scars. “I know you aren’t in your right mind. Everything will be better soon. I promise.”
Tears gather on your eyelashes. “I miss him.”
“We’ll have others. Here, let me take that…” Aemond grabs the bag holding your ruined dress and it’s out of your reach before you can think to resist. “You should get ready for dinner.”
“Okay,” you reply numbly, now gazing down at your empty palms. Aemond leaves with his grisly parcel, and you never see it again. But once he’s gone you don’t shed your black mourning dress, blood-soaked pad, bandages, and shake loose your hair and step into the shower. Instead, you walk around the bed to pick up the mint green rotary phone on your nightstand. You speak to a series of operators before you reach the Harbour Rocks Hotel in Sydney. While you listen to the ringing through the intercontinental wire, you sit down on the bed. You’ve never felt low like this. You’ve never felt so unmoored from everything you had believed about your life.
A gruff, familiar voice answers. He’s just waking up, slurping on his morning coffee, dabbing his moustache with a napkin. “Hello?”
“Daddy, I don’t think I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
“What?” he asks, and immediately he is no longer groggy but desperately concerned. Your parents are away on a month-long tour of Australia and often incommunicado. By the time they received news of Ari’s death and called Mount Sinai in hysterics to speak with you, you had told them not to rush home. You were about to be released, and they would not make it in time for the funeral regardless. Aemond insisted on a swift, private ceremony, a detour on the drive back to Asteria, like it was something he couldn’t wait to put in his rearview mirror. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
“Aemond, he…” He’s not the man I thought he was. I don’t know him, I don’t trust him. “He’s not acting right, he’s not…he didn’t…Daddy, it’s like he doesn’t care. And I don’t want to be here anymore. Can I fly down to Tarpon Springs when you and Mama get back? Can I stay with you for a while? And then…and then…” You don’t even know what words you’re looking for. They don’t exist in your universe.
“Listen, honey,” your father says with great tenderness. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah.” You’re trying to stifle your sobs so no one downstairs hears you.
“You’ve just been through something terrible. So terrible I can’t even imagine it. And of course you’re feeling out of sorts. But Aemond is your husband, he’s your protector and your ally, your best friend, your partner in life. He’s not the one responsible for what happened. You can’t misdirect your heartache at him.”
“But he’s…Daddy, there’s…there’s something wrong with him.”
“Oftentimes, it’s easier for women to talk about their emotions, both good and bad. But for men—especially men like Aemond who are so self-disciplined by nature—it can be like pulling teeth to express themselves. They don’t like to be vulnerable. They actually think they’re failing in their commitments to their wife if they let her see how much they’re struggling. Aemond is hurting just like you are. He might not show it in the way you expect, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Of course he cares.”
How do you know, Daddy? Have you cut him open and studied his brain, his ropy nerves, the dark chambers of his heart? “I thought he saw me like you see Mama, I thought he included me in everything because he loved and respected me, but that’s not it. He just needs someone to help him get elected, that’s all Ari and I were to him, and I can’t…I just can’t…the thought of him touching me now…”
“Sweetheart, Aemond is a good man,” your father says. “He does love you. He does respect you. And he’s doing such incredible things for this country. I have friends in Florida who’ve been voting Republican since Hoover, but they’re crossing over for Aemond. They think he’s the one to clean up this mess. Vietnam, poverty, civil rights, the riots, the shootings, the hippies, the drugs, the Russians, the Chinese, someone has to pick up the pieces and create something that makes sense. Do you think Nixon or Humphrey would end the war by this time next year? Do you think either of them would compel the South to enforce voting rights or desegregation?”
“No,” you say, closing your eyes. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what I’ve learned about Aemond.
“Here, your mom wants to say something.” Your father vanishes; your mother’s voice comes piping across the copper submarine cables that span the length of the Pacific Ocean. You wonder—randomly, distractedly—if any of the wires connecting you to Sydney run through Arizona, the place Aegon told you he didn’t want to leave.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“I’m here, Mama.”
“Oh, honey,” she sighs, distraught, hearing the exhaustion and misery in your voice. “You’ve got the baby blues, and no baby to hold good and close to help them run their course. I’m so sorry. It’s just awful, so awful.”
You speak before you know what you’re going to say. “I don’t want to be married to Aemond anymore.”
“You’re confused, sweetheart. Your hormones are all over the place, you’re in pain, you’ve just had major surgery, and after this year with all the stress from the campaign and that horrific shooting in Palm Beach—”
“He’s not like Daddy.” Tears are flooding down your cheeks; your voice is hoarse. “I thought he was, but he’s not.”
“You cannot make a mistake like this,” your mother says, and she’s turned from silk to steel. “If you do something drastic now, you’ll wake up in a month or six months or a year and realize you’ve ruined not just your life, but the chance this country had at a better future. Don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Every marriage goes through tough times. Every husband needs to learn how to care for his wife, and every wife how to best support her husband. That’s natural, and you’ve only been married two years. Of course you and Aemond are still learning how to navigate life together. It only seems so much worse because of what’s happened to the baby.”
Is she right? Am I wrong? “I don’t know,” you say weakly.
“If you leave now, what happens?” your mother demands. “You abandon the campaign and Aemond’s support plummets. You are a divorcee, a sinner, a failure. You don’t get your son back. But you do lose everything you’ve helped build. Marriage isn’t an experiment, ‘oh let’s give it a try and if we hit any bumps we’ll call the whole thing off.’ No. It’s a covenant. Marriage is for life.”
Yes it is, in just about every faith, and certainly for the Greek Orthodox Church. You are suddenly consumed by mistrust for your own body, this flesh that failed your son and now is deceiving you with doubt so heavy—like cold iron or lead or platinum—it masquerades as truth. How could you imagine a life after Aemond? What waits for you in Tarpon Springs besides the promise of an eventual remarriage that is banal, powerless, bleak, exactly what you’ve always plotted so willfully to avoid?
“Do you understand me, honey?” your mother asks, and she’s soft and kind again. “I don’t mean to be strict with you. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”
“Yes.” There are people getting massacred in Vietnam right now; there are people who can’t afford roofs over their heads. Who am I to complain? Your tears have stopped; your breathing is now slow and measured. “Yes, Mama. I understand.”
After you’ve hung up, you stay where you are for a long time, your hands folded limply in your lap and gazing at the paintings hung on the pale blue walls: small replicas of The Birth of Venus, Romulus and Remus, Prometheus Bound, Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, Echo and Narcissus, Jupiter and Io. Then you get up to sift through the greeting cards you’ve piled on the bed, not really seeing them. Only one captures your attention. Only one jolts you out of the fog like a flash of lightning through dark churning clouds.
You take the card Aegon gave you back when you were still a mother and set it upright on your nightstand, consider it for a while, wander into the bathroom to scrub the despair from your skin and change into something less somber for dinner.
~~~~~~~~~~
You’re playing Battleship with Cosmo by the edge of the swimming pool while all the other children splash around, howling with laughter and diving for toys they throw to the bottom and then fetch with their teeth like golden retrievers, G.I. Joes and Barbies and Trolls and even a waterlogged Mr. Potato Head. The nannies are observing intently, poised to leap in if anyone should appear to be at risk of drowning. If Ari had lived, I wouldn’t have wanted nannies to raise him, you think. I would have wanted him to have a normal childhood. I would have wanted to know him.
“Your turn,” Cosmo says with a grin. He’s the one who looks the most like Aegon, or how you imagine Aegon must have looked before the pills and the booze and the long caged decades. His hair is so light a blonde it’s nearly white, his eyes huge and glimmering and mischievous. Battleship is a bit advanced for a five-year-old. Cosmo keeps guessing the same coordinates over and over, so you periodically lie and tell him he’s sunk one of your ships. When you launch a successful attack against his, he seems to think it’s fair game to relocate the vessel to a more advantageous location.
“D7.”
He picks up his aircraft carrier and repositions it. From the record player drifts California Dreamin’. “Nope! Nothing sank!”
“Wow. I’m so bad at this.”
Cosmo is snickering. “Yeah, you are. Really bad.”
“If I got drafted, the Army would be better off leaving me at home. I’d just be a nuisance.”
“What’s drafted?”
“Never mind. Your turn to guess.”
“J12!”
The grid only goes up to 10. Nonetheless, you slap your own forehead dramatically. “Oh no, not again! You sunk my battleship!”
“Yay!” Cosmo cheers, then turns to the Jacuzzi. It’s brand new, just installed last month. “Mom, did you see? I’m winning!”
You glance over at Mimi. She has passed out, her latest Gimlet drained and her head resting atop her crossed arms, propped on the rim of the Jacuzzi. “Uh, Cosmo, run inside and ask Doxie to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay?”
“Okay.” He scampers off, toddling on reckless little legs.
With no shortage of difficulty, you manage to stand. Each day your abdominal muscles feel less like they’ve been shredded and then mended with threads of fire, but the pain is still bad, very bad, and there are spots of skin on your belly that are numb when you skim your fingertips across them. You will have a long vertical scar like Aemond’s, an irreparable reminder of the blood you’ve paid to the cause. And for all your anguish, this particular fact doesn’t torment you. It is proof that Ari existed, however briefly, however futilely.
You amble over to the Jacuzzi, your roomy lavender dress flowing in the wind, and shove one of Mimi’s shoulders. “Mimi, wake up. Get out of the water.”
She mumbles incoherently in response. You reach for her before remembering you can’t lift anything. You look around. Alicent and Helaena are on lounge chairs at the other end of the pool; Alicent is trying very hard to look interested while Helaena shows her about 100 different butterfly species pictured in a kaleidoscopically colorful book. Criston is off giving Ludwika a tour of the property, flanked by a flock of Alopekis hoping for treats. Ludwika is Otto’s wife of six months but only newly arrived, 30 years old, perpetually unimpressed, modelesque, golden blonde, if Barbie was from Poland. Aemond, Otto, and Viserys—his sparse threads of silver hair hanging like cobwebs around his gaunt face, grimacing and clutching the armrests of his wheelchair—are conspiring on the lawn between the main house and the pool. They haven’t noticed your predicament. Fosco is sauntering by wearing some of the tiniest swim shorts you’ve ever seen. He is the son of an Italian count, gangly and chatty and from what you’ve seen almost certainly addicted to gambling.
“Will you help me move Mimi, please?” you ask him. “I’m afraid she’s going to drown.”
“Of course, of course, no problem. Let me handle it. Do not hurt yourself.” He has her half-dragged out of the Jacuzzi before Mimi startles awake.
“What’s going on?” she slurs. “Put me down, I can walk.”
“I doubt it,” you say.
“You are alright?” Fosco asks Mimi as he steadies her on the cement, wet with pool water. She clutches at his forearms helplessly.
“I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”
“Mimi, go inside,” you say. “Eat a sandwich. Tell Cosmo you’re proud of him for winning Battleship.”
“Battleship? Well, that’s just ridiculous. He’s five. Five-year-olds can’t play Battleship.”
“And yet you will congratulate him regardless.”
She can feel your impatience, your judgement, sharp like wasp stings. Mimi retreats like a kicked dog to the main house, somehow summoning the will to remain mostly upright.
You look to Fosco. “Do you know where Aegon is?” You want to see him, but you also don’t; each time you’re in the same room now is a disorienting storm of familiarity, curiosity, painful reminders, annoyance, awkwardness, longingness to again feel as close to him—to anyone—as you did during those fleeting moments at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
Fosco chuckles. “Where is he ever? Napping, sailing, drinking, on the phone with one of his lady friends. I could not say. I have not seen him recently.”
“Okay. Thanks anyway.” The music stops—the record needs to be flipped over—and now you can just barely hear what Aemond, Otto, and Viserys are discussing.
“And you criticized me for going too young,” Aemond says to Otto. “What’s your age difference with Ludwika? 40 years?”
“She’s good publicity. She defected from the Eastern Bloc in search of the American Dream.”
“Being married to you?” Aemond quips. “I think she found the American Nightmare.”
“Speaking of wives,” Otto continues. “I assume since yours had one surgery, that’s how all the future children will need to be born, is that right?”
Aemond nods, frowning. “Yeah. And the doctors said she shouldn’t have more than three. It weakens the uterus, I guess, all that slicing and suturing. Do it too many times and ruptures get more likely, and those can be fatal.”
“Very unfortunate,” Viserys rasps. “Children are our greatest legacy. I wanted at least ten, but your mother…well…after Daeron, it just never happened again.” And you know that this is just one of the ways in which Aemond had planned to win his father’s admiration: by contributing more new Targaryens to the dynasty than anyone else. Now that’s impossible.
Otto sighs wistfully. “To have a brand new baby to parade around in the fall…that would have been wonderful.” For the first time in two years, you can sense that you have disappointed him. Fosco is watching you, uneasy, ashamed, sorry without knowing what to do about it.
“Absolutely,” Aemond says, as if this is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind. “But it’s done now. There’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been. We must look forward. It’s feasible that…well…if we try again and get good news by October, we can announce in time for Election Day…”
You can’t listen anymore. Your belly aching, your bare feet hurrying through warm emerald grass, you traverse the lawn and disappear into Helaena’s garden, painstakingly tended and continuously expanded since she was a little girl. There are marigolds and daffodils, tulips and roses, azaleas, asters, butterfly bushes, chrysanthemums, lilies and lupines, sunflowers, violets, life blooming in a hundred different shades. There are tiny statues too, tucked away in random places, stone angels and untamed creatures, alligators and turtles and rabbits and cats, the only sort the Alopekis will tolerate. At the very center of the garden is a tall circle of hedges with only one opening, an arched doorway cut into the thick lush green. You’ve been here before, though only with Aemond. On a property shared with so many family members—and the occasional intrusive journalist—it’s a good place to escape prying eyes. You pass through the threshold with a hand resting absentmindedly on your belly, as if you’re still pregnant. You keep doing this. Each time you remember you’re at the end of something rather than the beginning, it carves you open all over again.
Around the inside perimeter of the circle are twelve sculptures positioned like numbers on a clock: eleven Olympians and Hades, confined to the Underworld. In the middle of the clearing is the largest stature of all, a wrathful Zeus hurling lightning bolts and surrounded by a gurgling fountain of glass-clear water. Under the shadow of Zeus, Aegon is sprawled on the ground and smoking a joint. “So you’re hiding from them too, huh?” He gives you a sly, welcome-to-the-club smirk, then offers you his joint. “Want a hit?”
You shake your head, not taking another step towards him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He is confused. “Done what?”
“Any of it.” I told him about my life before. I made the mistake of thinking I could go back.
Aegon still doesn’t seem to understand. “You’re scared I’m gonna snitch?”
You shrug, evasive. It’s not just the fact that he knows. It’s the sensation that you’ve unlatched something—an attic room, a jewelry box, a birdcage—and now you can’t get it locked again, and the door rattles with every footstep and storm wind, and you are no longer Aphrodite or Io but Pandora, a hunger growing in your stitched womb like a child.
“What? What’s wrong with you?” And that’s always how he says it, not what’s the matter or are you alright or what did I do or how can I fix it?
“I’m kind of…embarrassed, I guess.”
“Embarrassed,” Aegon echoes. “Because of me?”
“I feel like I said and did a lot of things that were out of character because I was emotionally compromised.”
“They were out of character for who you’ve been trying to convince everyone you are since you married Aemond, sure. But they weren’t out of character for you.”
He’s treading too close now, arrows piercing their mark, a tremor near the epicenter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Au contraire, I have acquired many interesting revelations recently.”
“Where’d you learn French? From Mimi?”
His smile dies. “Boarding school.”
You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to be around Aegon without either hating him or letting him see parts of yourself that you’re trying to drown like Icarus in the waves. You glance yearningly towards the doorway cut into the hedges.
All at once, Aegon is furious. “You don’t want to talk to me? You want to go back to how it was before, you want to pretend Mount Sinai never happened? Fine. You got it. Wish fucking granted. Whatever you have to do.”
He turns away from you. You flee from him. But that night when Asteria is hushed and still—Aemond, Criston, and Otto are attending a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia, and you are temporarily excused from accompanying them as you recover—you creep down into the basement of the main house to apologize. Mimi sleeps in a bedroom on the second floor, but here Aegon can keep odd hours and drink and smoke to his heart’s content, and even entertain clandestine guests, girls who are beautiful and giggling and never invited twice.
Aegon isn’t here. He might be passed out somewhere, or at a party, or maybe even upstairs with Mimi, and something about this idea twists through your mending guts like a blade. In his absence, you take a quick look around his room, something you’ve never done before. You hadn’t had any interest; it wouldn’t even have occurred to you. There’s a large green futon, a matching shag carpet, a television, a bookshelf full of notebooks and paperbacks—Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Ken Kesey—and vinyl albums, a record player, and his two acoustic guitars. The first is unpainted maple wood covered with stickers. I’d rather be nowhere reads one; Burn pot not people proclaims another. The second guitar is the souvenir he bought in Manhattan, an aquamarine blue six-string.
There's something strange on his end table. Along with a dozen empty cups is a full ashtray, and there’s a folded piece of paper tucked underneath. You slide the paper out and open it. It’s the receipt you used to solve the long division problem in your hospital room.
Why would he keep this? you think, mystified. There are footsteps above your head, and you quickly return the receipt to where you found it and leave before your trespass can be discovered.
When you emerge from the basement, Fosco is waiting in the hallway and carrying a Tupperware container filled with something that resembles kourabiethes, Greek shortbread cookies. “I thought I saw you sneak down there. What were you looking for?”
You scramble for an explanation. “One of the dogs is missing. Alicent wanted me to check the basement.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” He passes you the Tupperware container. “These are for you. I hope they are not too bad. I baked them myself.”
“Are they…” You shake it. “Biscotti?”
“They are ossi dei morti,” Fosco says. “Bones of the dead. We make them to remember loved ones we have lost. They are hard, so you should dip them in coffee or tea before you try to eat them.”
You open the lid. Inside are long thin cookies coated with powdered sugar. You inhale almond flour, cloves, cinnamon. And you are so touched you cannot find your words.
“You know, there still places in Italy where mothers wear black for years to mourn their children.” This is not trivia; it is an acknowledgement. Your son is gone. There is no shame in the grief that is left behind. In another house, it would be expected, it would be required.
“Thank you, Fosco.”
He smiles warmly. “We are in this together, no? We are pieces of the same machine.”
Then he plods off towards the living room, sliding a rolled-up horse racing program out of the back pocket of his tight plaid pants.
~~~~~~~~~~
You’re in Louisville, Kentucky, where thunder quakes the eaves. An hour ago, Aegon was popping Valium and leisurely plucking at his pool water blue Gibson guitar, slumped against the wall, nipping at a flask filled with straight Bacardi. But he’s not anymore. Now he’s gathered around the small color television with you, Criston, Otto, Fosco, Helaena, and Ludwika. The news is just breaking. There was a civil rights protest at the University of Kentucky in Lexington one hour to the east. Someone threw a rock, or someone claims someone threw a rock, or someone threw something that was mistaken for a rock, and in any event the situation escalated from there and local police who were monitoring the demonstration opened fire on a crowd, killing five students and injuring another dozen.
Outside, word is spreading through the crowd of over 2,000 people that have gathered for Aemond’s planned speech at the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, a New Deal project finished in 1938. Rain is pouring, and the venue has no roof. Aemond is already 20 minutes late. The voices are becoming louder, more demanding, more wrathful. They’re shouting that Aemond is too afraid to face them now, that he’s trying to figure out what his statement will be, that he’s cowardly and calculating; and if President Lyndon Baines Johnson was here tonight instead of cursing his bad stars up in Washington D.C., he would certainly have something to say about the capriciousness of voters who love you, hate you, carry you higher, drag you down, all without ever knowing you.
In truth, Aemond is not stalling on purpose. He’s in the bathroom trying to get his prosthetic eye in. It’s been giving him hell all afternoon. He wears his eyepatch at home, but he’s never made a public appearance without his glass eye clean and perfect in his voided socket.
“He’s going to have to say something about it,” you tell the others as you watch the news coverage.
“Say what?” Otto snaps. “If he doesn’t treat those dead kids like martyrs he’s going to get booed off the stage. If he condemns the police he’s going to lose the suburbs. They’ll run to Humphrey now and Nixon in November.”
The weather report called for storms—which is why Alicent, Mimi, and the children are already back at the Seelbach Hotel for the night after a long day of shaking hands and smiling gamely—but no one expected it to get this bad. The room you’re huddled in is just off-stage, so you can see it all: the wind ripping signs and flags from people’s hands, drenched clothes, sopping hair, snarling faces, rain turning puddles to rivers. The stomping of boots is now as loud as the thunder. Rocks and bottles are being pitched at the stage.
“Is America always like this?” Ludwika asks, scandalized.
“No, not at all,” Otto says. “Goddamn animals…”
Aegon replies, not taking his eyes from the television: “You’d be mad too if cops were shooting your friends and the only graduation present you had to look forward to was getting disemboweled by guerillas in Vietnam.”
“I’ve had it with you and your Marxist bullshit! You want to liberate the dispossessed masses? Why don’t you start by donating your monthly drugs and rum budget to the—”
“We should cancel,” Fosco says. “Just call the whole thing off. Tell them Aemond is sick or something.”
“That’s the headline you want? ‘Senator Targaryen hides from grieving supporters who braved a thunderstorm to see him’?! Just give the White House to Nixon now!”
“I don’t think we can cancel,” Criston says softly. “I think if we tried to leave, they’d swarm the car.”
“It’s a riot,” Otto moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “This is what happens when you court voters like this, college kids and hippies, professional malcontents…”
“Aren’t there police outside?” Ludwika says anxiously.
“Yeah, a handful,” Criston tells her. “And if they try to do anything this will erupt and we can add to the body count in Lexington…”
You leave them and follow a hallway to the men’s bathroom; on the periphery of your vision, you can tell that Aegon is watching you go. You push the door open and find a row of stalls and three sinks, one of which Aemond is standing in front of as he stares into his reflection and attempts to shove the prosthetic eye into his empty, gore-red left socket. His suit is navy blue, his hair neatly slicked back, his shoes so polished they’re reflective like a mirror.
“Fuck,” he hisses, flinching. His right cheek is wet with tears of frustration and agony. It’s July 26th, and tomorrow are the final three state conventions in the Democratic primary. Humphrey is almost certain to take Utah; Virginia will go to Governor Mills Godwin, who is only running in his home state to control the delegates and will hand them over to whoever he feels is most worthy in August. But Aemond is the favorite to win here in Kentucky. Or at least, he was an hour ago.
“What can I do? What do you need?”
“You can’t do anything. It’s…it’s this goddamn nerve pain, it feels like I’m being fucking stabbed, I can’t get the muscles to relax enough…”
Like an apology, you say: “Aemond, the crowd is getting out of control.”
“So you came in here to rush me?”
“No, I’m here to help.”
“You’re not helping. You’re doing the exact opposite.”
“I think you should give this speech with your eyepatch on. It looks good, and you’ll be as comfortable as possible, and the crowd won’t have to wait any longer than they have already.”
“No.”
“Aemond, please—”
“No! FDR didn’t make speeches in his wheelchair and I’m not making mine without my eye in.”
“Do you want me to get you Aegon’s pills? Rum, weed?”
“You don’t think I’ve already taken something?” He tries to force his eye in again and strikes his fist against the sink when he can’t.
Then you ask gingerly: “Do you know what you’re going to say about the shooting?”
“Get out!” Aemond shouts. “You’re making it worse, just get the fuck out! Go!”
You bolt from the bathroom, hands trembling, throat burning. You don’t want to return to the television where the others are standing; you’re worried they’ll be able to tell how upset you are. You go to the edge of the stage, arms crossed protectively over your chest, and peek out into the crowd. Above their chants and jeers and howled threats, lightning splits the sky.
I don’ t think we’re going to be able to find our way out of this one. I think this is the end of the road.
“Hey,” Aegon says, tapping your shoulder. “Back up.”
“I’m fine here.”
“No you’re not.” He grabs your arm and tugs you farther backstage. Seconds later, an Absolut Vodka bottle explodes into crystalline shrapnel where you were standing. You yelp and Aegon gives you a little eyebrow raise. I told you, he means.
“Someone has to go out there,” Otto says, still lurking by the television. Fosco is comforting Helaena, who is quietly weeping; Ludwika is watching the news coverage in horror, surely reconsidering all her life choices. A sixth University of Kentucky student has been declared dead. “We can’t wait.”
“No we can’t,” Criston agrees. Then they both turn to you expectantly.
Your blood goes icy. Tonight was meant to be your first official appearance since the baby. Your hair is up, your dress a navy blue to match Aemond’s suit, gold chains around your wrist and throat, a gold chain of a belt. You thought you were ready. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Don’t you look at her,” Aegon says, sharp like a scalpel, like a bullet, like something that punctures arteries and lungs. “They’re throwing glass. You figure something else out, don’t even look at her.”
Otto relents, perhaps halfheartedly. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Criston starts heading for the bathroom to get Aemond. Otto is watching the television again, his face vacuous as his ambitions are carried away by a flood of rain, wind, rage, blood. Aegon snatches his guitar from where he left it by the wall. He tosses the strap over his head, gives the strings a few experimental strums and retunes them, starts walking towards the stage.
“Aegon, what are you doing?” you ask, panicked.
“Someone has to distract the crowd.”
“No, stop, you can’t—”
“Hey,” Aegon says. And when you glance past him at the uproarious, storm-drenched frenzy, he turns your face back to his to make sure you’re listening. His hand is insistent but gentle, his voice steady. “Don’t go out there. Okay?”
“Okay,” you agree, startled.
He gives you one last small, parting smile, a flash of his teeth, a daring glint in his murky blue eyes. Then he’s out in the torrential rain, soaked to the skin in seconds. His frayed green Army jacket clings to him; his hair is ravaged by the wind. As he takes his place behind the microphone, a stone that someone has hurled skates by him and nicks the apple of his left cheek. You can see a trickle of blood snaking down his sunburned skin before the rain washes it away; you feel a desperate gnawing dread that someone will hurt him, not just here but anywhere, not just now but ever. The crowd is still seething, shouting, stomping their feet to join the inescapable growl of the thunder. Aegon’s pick flies over the guitar strings as he begins playing, raindrops cast from his fingers like spells. At first, you can barely hear him.
“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin’”
The audience is settling down now. Some of them are singing along. You can feel that Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, and Helaena are gathering around you, but you don’t grasp anything they’re saying. You can’t tear your eyes from Aegon. It’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, this radiant sunbeam of a man, a light in dark places, a constellation that whispers myths through the ink-spill indigo of the night sky. How could you ever have hated him? How could you ever have thought he was worthless?
“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Aemond and Criston appear beside you at the edge of the stage; Aemond’s prosthetic eye has at last been successfully placed with no lingering evidence of a struggle. You expect him to apologize for what he said in the bathroom, but he doesn’t. Instead he says when he sees Aegon: “What the hell is he doing?”
“Saving your career,” you reply simply.
“Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside raging
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Now Aegon peers pointedly off-stage to where Otto Hightower is gawking. Aegon beams, throws his head back to get his dripping hair out of his eyes, comes back to the mic.
“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Everyone you can see in the crowd is singing and swaying. It’s not just a Bob Dylan song from 1964 but an anthem, a prayer, a rallying cry, a dire warning for the powers at be.
“The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin’”
The audience is applauding and whistling. Aegon steals a glimpse of where you are standing backstage, checks that Aemond is still there with you and that he’s ready.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aegon broadcasts with a wicked grin. “I am now proud to present the next president of the United States of America, Senator Aemond Targaryen!”
And Aemond is crossing the stage, no trace of pain or self-consciousness or prey-animal fear, no mere mortal but someone chosen by the gods, and the rain is slowing to a drizzle, and the clouds are opening to let through rare pinprick aisles of daylight, and the riotous spectators are now his disciples, exorcised of any rage they’ve ever felt for the scarred senator from New Jersey. He and his family are not the enemy; they are the solution. They are revolutionaries who have bled for the cause. They bring with them the change that is required. Aegon steps back and the rest of you join him in a semi-circle like a crescent moon behind Aemond. When you walk out onto the stage, the cheers swell to screams.
Aegon takes off his guitar and then leans into you. “He’s lucky you aren’t 35,” Aegon whispers, soft lips that curl into a smile as they brush your ear. And he’s teasing you but he’s not mocking, he’s not mean. He’s so close you share the same atmosphere, the same gravity. “Maybe when he finishes up his second term you can start building your resume for your first.”
“I want your endorsement.”
“From the disgraced former mayor of Trenton? What an honor. You’ll have to fight for it.”
You ball up a fist and playfully bump your knuckles against his chin. He pretends to bite at you. And you laugh for the first time since a doctor and priest entered your hospital room 13 days ago. Aegon slings an arm around your shoulders, pulls you against him, soaks you in his rain.
“Today in Lexington, we lost six brave and brilliant souls,” Aemond says, his voice booming through the amphitheater. A hush ripples through the crowd as they listen, enraptured. “Their sacrifice was for the most noble of causes, but they should never have been forced to pay the ultimate price. They deserved long, full lives in a better America than the one we now call home. This tragedy is a symptom of the sickness that has infected this nation, a fatal failure to empathize with our fellow countrymen, a deafness to pleas for justice, a blindness to mercy. But the remedy is within all of us, for it is our own humanity. When we purge the diseases of war, prejudice, and ravenous greed, we will reclaim our best selves—our true selves—and our nation will at last be cured.”
The amphitheater is illuminated with not only strobing lightning but the flashbulbs of cameras. The journalists have arrived just in time.
#aegon ii targaryen#aegon targaryen#aegon targaryen ii#aegon ii#aegon targaryen x reader#aegon x reader#aegon x y/n#aegon x you#aegon ii x you#aegon ii x y/n#aegon ii x reader#aegon ii targaryen x reader#aegon ii fanfic#aegon ii fic
209 notes
·
View notes
Text
How to Punish Democrats in the United States for Being Pro-Genocide
I've seen a lot of posts about abandoning the Democratic party. (Because, really, is Be Anti-Genocide really that much of a fucking ask??)
And I've seen a lot of posts about how not voting Democrat means the Republicans will win, which means we'll end up with politicians that are both pro-genocide and a bunch of other awful shit. (Yep. This is true.)
But I haven't seen a lot of posts going around about other things people could do, especially with primaries literally being next year in which the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are up for re-election.
For those not familiar with primaries, they are elections that take place before the general election and are the mechanism for how the general election candidate for a political party is selected. So a primary won't be Democrat vs Republican, it'll be Democrat vs Democrat or Republican vs Republican.
To start, yes, a lot of the below require a lot of time and effort. Yeah, the reality is is that the world's a shitty place because people who want to change it are struggling to exist under late stage capitalism. If there's something on this list you can't do, that's fine. What can you do?
This post is mostly not going to focus on Biden. He's not the sum total of the Democratic party, and if more of the party was against him, he'd have a harder time getting traction. That said, if you do have a presidential primary with him on the ballot, you should absolutely vote against him, just on principle.
Depending on the state, you may need to be a registered member of the Democratic Party to vote in the Democratic Party Primary. And, look, registering as a Democrat doesn't mean you have a legal obligation to vote for a Democratic candidate in the general election. There's no loyalty pledge you have to sign that says you agree with every single position the Democratic Party holds. There's not a membership fee. Literally, all it does is mean that your little voting card says you're a Democrat, which establishes that you want to have a say in how the Democratic Party is run. That's it.
Alright, first step. Who are your two Senators and one House Representative? Here's a link to find that information: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials
Second step: Are your elected officials Democrats? (Or Independents that caucus with the Democrats?) And are they pro-Genocide?
If they're a Republican, than your goal is to elect an anti-Genocide Democrat. (Or anti-Genocide Independent who'll caucus with the Democrats. Same difference. I'm just going to use "Democrat" from here on out, and you can substitute in "Independent" if it applies.) You still care about primaries, though. It's just that in the General election, the Republican candidate will be incumbent rather than the challenger.
If they're a anti-Genocide Democrat, send them a letter telling them you appreciate their position, and most of the rest of this post doesn't apply to you.
If they're a pro-Genocide Democrat, is there someone running against them in the primary? https://ballotpedia.org/ is a great resource here.
If they've got a primary challenger, is their primary challenger anti-Genocide? If they are, write them and tell them you appreciate their position. Then write to the incumbent and tell them that them being pro-Genocide is why you aren't voting for them in the primary. If the primary challenger is pro-Genocide or doesn't have a stated position, write to them and try to get them to adopt an anti-Genocide position. Pay attention to town hall events, and don't hesitate to contact the campaign. Primaries don't get a lot of attention, so if you can get a primary challenger to switch positions, there's not a big risk of blow back for them doing so. (In a general election, switching positions can get a candidate labeled a flip-flop, so keep that in mind.)
If there's not a primary challenger or if you need a better primary challenger, who in your community can run as one? Check with your local leftist organizations. Check deadlines and requirements to get a candidate on the ballot. It usually requires getting a certain number of signatures on a petition from people in your area.
Now that you've got an anti-Genocide primary challenger, consider volunteering for their campaign. And, something to keep in mind, turn out for primaries tends to be low, and the smaller the population size of the district, the lower that number will be. It may only take a few hundred votes to swing a primary election, if you've got a smaller district.
While all this is going on, you will no doubt be flooded with messages from Democratic candidates begging for money. For each, check their position. If they're pro-Genocide, don't give them money and then call, email, or write them telling them that their pro-Genocide position is why they aren't getting money. If they're anti-Genocide, and you can afford it, give them a bit of money. Yeah, in the bigger elections, there's ridiculous amounts of money in play, but a primary challenger might not necessarily be rolling in it.
Finally, vote in the primaries.
291 notes
·
View notes
Note
The weird radical/revolutionary politic larpers on this site are so allergic to political pragmatism I swear lmao. I am definitely left of the Democratic Party and I am certainly voting for Joe Biden in November. Not because I like him (I don’t). He is absolutely horrific on Gaza and that’s only the top (and priority considering there is a genocide going on there) of a list of complaints I have about him. I even voted uncommitted in my state’s presidential primary (the Pennsylvania one; I had to write it in) to protest. However, I’m still thinking pragmatically. Trump has said things that make me credibly think he will be worse on Gaza (insane that being worse on Gaza than Biden is possible but it is unfortunately), and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Project 2025, the potential for him to appoint more deeply conservative justices, more of his aggressively screwing over poor and middle class people with his tax policies. And does anyone else remember the spike in hate crimes after the race was called for him in 2016? Before he was even inaugurated? Whether people vote or not in November we will still have to deal with one of these two men in office come January unless all of the internet ancom larpers overthrow the government by then (doubt), so I’d rather deal with the one who will be marginally less bad and who didn’t try to overthrow the government. Can’t have your revolution if nobody’s alive cause you kept pushing off politically participating because there was no perfect option. 👍
Political pragmatist anon, sorry for ranting in your askbox but I feel like I lose brain cells watching these people talk. The other day I saw someone say Biden is bad because Roe v. Wade fell under his administration… even though the reason for that was Trump appointed justices. 💀 (2/2)
Fucking insane. Sincerely.
It's a completely, flatly binary choice for anyone with a brain stem and sincerity. It's distilled into the two below images:
Where all major third party candidates are even on the ballot
How many electoral votes the largest of those (green party, a.k.a. Jill Stein) would win if they won every single state they're on the ballot for.
They are literally, legally, incapable of winning the election. They are not on enough state ballots to win and Jill Stein would need to somehow win California and Texas to even "win" all the states they're on the ballot for. Which, again, would still not be enough to win the presidency and throw it to the currently existing Republican House of Representatives. Which would put Trump in office.
It's that straightforward. That simple. That BLARINGLY obvious to literally everyone except these people.
On the one hand you have:
Significant and continuous support for Israel and it's genocide
Record levels of pardons for low-level drug offenses
the gearing up of the strongest anti-trust regime since the early 20th century
the most aggressive NLRB I've seen in my lifetime, with massive wins and institutional changes to help workers
Including getting Rail strike workers a week of sick-leave that gets paid out at the end of the year, which is better than NYC and LA sick leave laws
Millions of people (not enough) getting student debt forgiveness
Some trillion dollars (not enough)of investment in renewable resources and infrastructure
Proposed taxes on unrealized capital gains (a.k.a. how billionaires never have any money but can still buy Kentucky, Iowa, and Twitter)
Effectively an end to overdraft fees
The explicit support of leftist world leaders like Lula de Silva. Who he has explicitly worked with to expand worker rights in South America.
Has capped (some, not enough, only a tiny amount really but it's something) some drug prices, including Insulin.
Reduced disability discrimination in medical treatment
Billions in additional national pre-k funding
Ending federal use of private prisons
Pushing bills to raise Social Security tax thresholds higher to help secure the General Fund
Increasing SSI benefits
and more
vs
Said Israel should just nuke Gaza and "get it over with"
Personally takes pride in and credit for getting Roe v Wade overturned
Is arguing in court that the President should be allowed to assassinate political rivals
Muslim Ban Bullshit, insistently
Actively damages our global standing and diplomatic efforts just by getting obsessed with having a Big Button
Implemented massive tax cuts on ich people, tax hikes on middle class and poor people, and actively wants to do it again
"Only wants to be a dictator for a little bit, guys, what's the big deal"
Is loudly publicly arguing that the US shouldn't honor its military alliances after-the-fact
Tore up an effective and substantial anti-nuclear-proliferation treaty with Iran
Had a DoEd that actively just refused to process student debt forgiveness applications that have been the law of the land for decades now
Has a long record of actively curtailing and weakening the NLRB and labor movement, including allowing managers to retaliate against workers, weakened workplace accommodation requirements for disabled people, and more
Rubber stamped a number of massive mergers building larger, more powerful top companies and increasing monopolistic practices
Fucking COVID Bullshit and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths
Openly supporting fascists and wannabe-bootlicks ("Very fine people" being only the beginning of it
It's really not fucking close.
#biden#trump#gaza#palestine#politics#original content#union rights#realism#2024 election#jill stein#rfk jr#cornell west
129 notes
·
View notes
Note
Do you have any idea why people are so fixated on Biden’s age but not Trumps? I know he’s 81, but Trump isn’t exactly far behind at 77: in fact he’s the second oldest. This keeps stumping me: it’s not a big gap in age
There are a few reasons for this, yes. As you might imagine, all of them are very stupid.
First and most critically is the way Trump's violent extremism has been completely neutered, mainlined, and normalized by the mainstream media. That's why we still have said media largely treating this as a normal presidential election, instead of that of a successful incumbent against literally the most deranged, unfit, treasonous, criminally and civilly liable, already-led-an-attempted-coup, deep-in-hock-to-Russia, adjudicated rapist, 91-felony-counts-indicted career cheater, grifter, and failed businessman who nonetheless appeals to the still-very-powerful isolationist, racist, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist elements in this country. Crucially, he also appeals to the billionaire class that owns the media and who will benefit from Trumpian tax, economic, and labor policies (especially now that Biden used the SOTU to once more call for a minimum 25% corporate/billionaire tax rate). The media also openly wants Trump back in office, as all the shitass insane things he did (and will do) are good for ratings, and allows them to act like the Principled Truth Tellers, instead of shilling so hard for a greasy orange fascist that we may well lose our 250+ year old democratic republic if he, God forbid, is elected again. Profit is more, well, profitable than truthful reporting, so the media has been completely disincentivized to cover this in any accurate way. We presume they will all wake up with shocked Pikachu faces when Trump packs them off to concentration camps with everyone else he hates, as he has openly promised to do.
Because we're also starting from an underlying premise that everything is the Democrats' fault, this means the party should be blamed for running said successful incumbent for reelection, even if he has low poll numbers which have in fact largely been produced by the media's relentlessly stupid and dishonest coverage. I was reading an article in the AP today about how 15 major student/youth groups have endorsed Biden and plan to work for his reelection; even so, the author could.not.stop going on and on about how Zomgz Old Biden was and how supposedly most Americans thought he was mentally unfit for the job (which is a straight-up lie produced by the endless "Zomgz Biden Old!!!!" handwringing have been subjected to without end. Weird how that works). That is also why we have all those idiotic "Biden should step down!!!" opinion pieces by Very Smart Pundits, notwithstanding the fact that a) it would be completely insane, b) it would be completely insane, and c) somehow nobody seems to think that hey, maybe the Republicans shouldn't nominate an openly seditionist generally god-awful fascist shitweasel who has already been the worst thing to happen to American politics in the twenty-first century (I'd say also the twentieth century, but unfortunately that was when we had Reagan).
In other words, Trump is just taken as a given, while the media spends all its time attacking Biden, calling on Biden to step down, amplifying "concerns" about Biden's age, producing idiotic narratives about Biden, distorting or ignoring the things Biden has done, and then writing concern-troll navel-gazing pieces earnestly wondering why people don't like Biden. (Apparently people's opinion of Biden drastically improves when they learn what he's actually accomplished, but the relentless parade of lies somehow makes it difficult for them to learn what those actually are. Again, weird.) Likewise the endless coverage we get of Biden's smallest slips or stumbles, while the media resolutely ignores Trump's full-on recent descent into absolute raving dementia. Hello, double standards!
This is also fueled by a heaping helping of racism and misogyny, because if God forbid Biden does die in office, what happens? The vice president takes over! We have a clear and constitutionally established precedent for this that has happened many times before! Except, oh no scary!!!, Biden's vice president is a brown woman, and that means SHE WOULD BE IN CHARGE!!!! TERRIFYING!!! So all the scaremongering around Biden's age, aside from being generally dishonest and stupid, has as its implicit message that sure, maybe you're fine voting for an old white man, but are you really comfortable doing that if it means a brown woman might also have the chance to be president?? I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD BE!!!!!
Anyway, yes. It's a complete straw man argument, it's fueled by bad faith and stupidity, and as with most things in the current American media environment, it's geared toward helping Trump win. Because you know. Something something BUT HER EEEEEEEEEEEEMAILS BUT BIDEN WAS OOOOOOOOOOOOLD.
163 notes
·
View notes
Note
I hate democrats with all my very heart but I can't in good faith advise to vote 3rd party in these hell years when they would see every trans person hang and be off hormones. When the transphobia is not at its height (Eg, like. a few years ago) I would 100% agree with you, but the stakes are too high. If the states falls to transphobia, even more countries will follow it. I think it's harmful to consider not voting D this upcoming election. Once they got off tihs current bend, I could get behind where you are coming from.
"this is helpful and not lacking critical analysis at all"
"if the states fall to transphobia"
Where have you been?
GA & VA are blue states this year btw. It's gotten worse since May and and April, too. The mid terms didn't save anyone.
Also if you, the person reading this, have considered voting 3rd party pls know it's not nearly as unpopular or as unlikely of a win as Democrats want you to think it is.
People would vote for a good 3rd party candidate, actually.
Dems convincing you its a long shot is absolutely a self-preserving psyop hoping to convince you otherwise. Its a half-assed theory that blatantly denies what we learned from 2016 and can still see in polls.
And that's 3rd party candidates stand a shot of they can get in the primaries for the general election. People want progressives. People were pissed and turned to voting for Trump when Sanders fell out- not Clinton.
They need and want another option and it's not a long shot or unlikely. They just need to make it to the primaries.
Enter Cornel West
Cornel West is not running as a Democrat and thus does not need to battle Biden for a spot on the general ballot in November of 2024....
✨ Which gives you and all your friends plenty of time to learn about him ✨
So here are some of his policies and also his campaign site
I'm a decolonial anarchist that hates the state and sees voting as nothing as upholding the state. I make no room for Democrats because Democrats lack the ambition to challenge anything about it.
But unless Cornel West drops out or ends up being some awful closeted abused... Im going to vote for him.
A lot of his politics and campaign goals align with my politics. I wouldn't feel like I was settling if I voted for him.
And a lot of this stuff isn't unreasonable or unrealistic either. Like I just made a post about how the NDAA budget proposal for 2024 is being increased with enough money to solve clean water, homelessness, and implement free college tuition for the whole USA. And Republicans are fighting for more.
And that's just the budget for two years, it'll probably be increased by another hundred billion in a couple years. Nobody blinks when the military budget is swelling like that.
But we should when we can be using that kind of money to solve real problems that real people are having and face and would change lives literally overnight. They just throw that money at the military where most of us never see it again.
But this stuff can be real.
#asked#answered#electoral politics#cornel west#2024 election#usa election#us voters#democrats#liberals#leftist#anarchist#socialist#libertarian#communist#workers rights#trans rights#queer rights#disability rights#direct action#mutual aid#lgbt#indigenous#ndn#biden#usa polls#politics#capitalism#human rights#climate change#ndaa
592 notes
·
View notes
Text
browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.
Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.
But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.
If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.
I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017
…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.
I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.
Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.
Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.
I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.
This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.
199 notes
·
View notes
Text
Saw someone actually lay out how messed up the situation is in Wisconsin to relatively little notice on another site & I didn't know that situation was like. That unknown. But
Wisconsin is no longer democratic & is a test case for right-wing rule's endgame
Not democratic in a political party sense. Not democratic in a "it is no longer a democracy in most senses" sense
It went for Biden in 2020 (& blue every recent Presidential election bar 2016) and Democrats won every state office in 2018...
...but it's impossible for them to have a majority in the legislature. Even the 50/50 split implied by election results is impossible
After a Democrat won in 2018 they stripped the Governor of all his power. All he can do is veto bills & call special sessions...
...which end in seconds bc the right just immediately gavels them closed. Sessions on gun violence & abortion ended instantly, with no debate, and thus nothing but far-right laws can even go up for a vote
Not only do they not confirm his appointees but they won a court case saying anyone appointed by a past Governor can stay in after their term if no one new is confirmed
Since the right won't confirm anyone new, people appointed by Scott Walker effectively have their offices permanently, four years later
People going "just vote!" feels so weird bc, yeah, in this case voting is vital, we need a Democratic governor to veto bills, but also you can literally "just vote" & nothing else. Changing the system or even the smallest positive advance is impossible. The best result is upholding the status quo & delaying the right's full takeover of the few offices they don't control by another four years, something you can't count on being able to do bc they've spent the past two years testing the waters of letting the legislature just overrule election results completely
Anyway this is the future, today! and we live in hell
5K notes
·
View notes
Text
[France24 is French State Media]
All elections including the presidential vote set to take place next spring are technically cancelled under martial law that has been in effect since the conflict began last year.
"We must decide that now is the time of defence, the time of battle, on which the fate of the state and people depends," Zelensky said in his daily address.
He said it was a time for the country to be united, not divided, adding: "I believe that now is not the (right) time for elections."
The frontline between the warring sides has remained mostly static for almost a year despite a much-touted Ukrainian counter-offensive, with Russian forces entrenched in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Officials from the United States and Europe -- Kyiv's key allies -- are reported to have suggested holding negotiations to end the grinding 20-month-old conflict.
But Zelensky has fiercely denied that Ukraine's counter-offensive has hit a stalemate, or that Western countries were leaning on Kyiv to enter talks.[...]
Zelensky's approval rating skyrocketed after the war began, but the country's political landscape has been fractious despite the unifying force of the war.
Former presidential aide Oleksiy Arestovych has announced that he would run against his former boss, after criticising Zelensky over the slow pace of the counter-offensive.
Sorry Bud, not the answer western countries are looking for right now [7 Nov 23]
#hope no personal harm comes to him but hes probably gonna get couped#'nobodys talked to me about concessions for negotiations' may very well be true is all im saying
183 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
cake-rage-flip
WELL I GOT HERE ,NOW WHAT?
maythray
this performance spoils song. brian uncake
teenagecatdelusion-blog
Без названия
captainrocketfish-blog
Fixed @ 50mm
touhou-sprite-edits
the funny touhous