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peachyteabuck · 4 years

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under cover of darkness

summary: a 24-hour convenience store, the night shift, and the man who gets you through day.

a commission for @lovelycarose

pairing: eliot spencer x reader

words: 5510

trigger warnings: mentions of a break-in with canon-level violence, fluff, mentions of an unspecified chronic pain disorder

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There are some good things about the night shift. It’s easier to balance classes and your precarious mental health, plus the pay wasn’t terrible – a few extra bucks per hour were thrown your way after eleven and before five.

So you kept with it, one earbud in so you could listen to music while the hours ticked by at a pace so slow it felt like some supervillain had not only completely frozen time – but was also determined to thaw is at room temperature.

That was another thing about the night shift – the customers. It was mostly regulars, or tourists who forgot something at home but didn’t want to spend airport prices for a travel sized container of deodorant. None of them really stick out, none interesting enough to stick in your brain for long as you mindlessly pack their various items into white plastic bags.

That is, until he starts coming in. Tall and impossible big – it’s hard not to marvel at him as if he was a breathtaking skyscraper, like you had never seen something so magnificent. His flowing dark brown hair, his tight jeans…it’s all nearly too much for eleven-at-night-you. (Also for “I haven’t had sex in so long and I think I’ve eroded the ridges on my vibrator from using it so often and holy shit I would do anything to have that man under/above me” you, a you only made stronger and more desperate by how late it was and tired you were.)

He walks around with the confidence not often seen in newcomers, your eye used to college students too drunk to stand up perfectly straight. You’re used to people stumbling around with eyes-half closed, rubbing their temples as the bright white lights feel like cheese graters shaped like ice picks against their already hurting brains. You’re used to watching them stumble around, using some Neolithic instinct to find the cool fridges where they’ll rest their faces against the glass for an oddly long amount of time before opening it up to grab as many Gatorades as they could hold before attempting to grab one or two (or five) frozen pizzas, never able to access the higher order thinking necessary to understand that maybe grabbing one of the baskets by the entrance is important.

Or, on the other end of the spectrum you’ve come to know as normal: soccer moms searching for alcohol for their husband’s post-game barbecue. Moms with large dark circles under their eyes who probably read (and watched) the Fifty Shades movie unironically but still feels weird when their husbands suggest having sex in any position besides missionary with the lights off. Moms who went to college just to meet some mediocre-looking frat boy who votes Republican just because his father did and thinks thirty seconds of oral is enough foreplay.

They don’t spend as much time in the store as the drunk/high students, but it’s still just as entertaining watching them grab the food and drink – but not before lingering in the makeup aisle, staring at bold shades of red and waterproof mascara and the bright hair dye whose advertisements have terribly applied photoshop.

No matter the type – no matter the customer – they were nothing like the man who stood on the other side of the store, staring intently at your soft drink selection. None of them were beefy men with crumpled grocery lists, permanently furrowed brows, and the most beautiful five o’clock shadow you’ve ever seen. None of them wear thick black work boots that make not a single sound as they walk around the store, none of them wear jeans that are so criminally tight around a perfect ass.

Not even a perfect ass – the perfect ass. It’s symmetrical, looking as if it was drawn by a pin-up artist in the 50’s whose specialty involves drawing super buff men in poses meant for petite, slender women with perfect curves. As he walks you half expect sparks to form on his backside as if you were in some kind of Anime, or for each individual cheek to bounce up and down on their own asynchronous accord. Normally you’d be terrified of being caught staring – of him turning around and catching your eye and mocking someone like you for having the nerve to be attracted to him.

But that doesn’t happen, because for once in your life the universe is kind to you. For once in your life you’re allowed to listen to music and stare dreamily at the hot guy who checks the ingredients on every snack dip option you have available before choosing three different ones with a small, disappointed huff.

You watch him with that same silent intensity as he fills the bright red carrier he grabbed without a sound when he first strutted in, the packaging of the items crinkling being the only way to track his location when he steps out of your eyeline. If your boss wasn’t the one on security cameras you’d be angling all of them to follow him around the store, your eyes hungry for another look at him at whatever angle and whichever quality you could get. You feel like a fangirl obsessed with some boyband, your heart rate determined by the amount of the mountain of a man you can see between displays of holiday-themed candy and cheap make up.

You’re not sure how long it is before he’s approaching your counter (time appears to have lost all meaning the second he stepped into the store), but whether it had been five minutes or five years, he still takes your breath away. As he steps closer you realize he’s fucking massive – something your grandmother (a wonderful woman, but one lacking when social situations called for, among other things, any kind of brain-to-mouth filter) would call a “shit brickhouse.” He doesn’t even need one of the baskets as he prowls the aisles – scanning every item like a lion watches the Sahara through tall grass. It’s hard to look away, to go back to the book you’ve been trying to read the same page from since long before the little automated bell above the door had announced the man’s arrival – but the only distraction before had been the tiny, exhausted voice in the back of your mind that was shaming at you for not sleeping before the night’s shift.

Now, though, the voice has quieted to allow your tired eyes to follow him, pupils tracing along every inch of him.

The man checks out without a word; shaking his head when you ask if he has a rewards card and paying in cash. When you give him $7.26 in change, your hands touch for a brief moment and you nearly stop breathing – lungs suddenly void of their capacity to hold air as sparks fly from his callous fingertips to the bottom of your spine. He pulls away, eventually, because he has to – depositing the totality of the meager amount of money you’d just handed him into the donation box plastered with facts about victims of domestic violence right next to your register.

The box is made of an opaque deep purple plastic, the coins making a loud clink sound as they crash into the near-empty container. The man stares at it for a moment, swallowing an apparent lump in his throat as his eyes go blank for a fraction of a second before he digs into his pockets and fishes out a thick wad of perfectly folded five dollar bills before stuffing them into the hastily cut slot at the top.

Neither of you say anything as he does so, you too stunned by his generosity and him too occupied with making sure he had no more money hidden in his pockets to try and muster some vague capacity for speech. Still, as he turns and leaves, you cough to clear your throat and call out a loud and slightly hoarse “thank you!” to which he just turns and gives you a small smile in return.

The moment between the pair of you is fleeting but still makes your heart beat rapidly in your chest, swelling until your lungs feel tight against your ribs as you struggle to breathe. Fuck, you think. You haven’t felt like this since middle school when Jamie told you that your Katniss braid was adorable and you followed him around for two weeks until he agreed to take you on a “date” during lunch. You don’t even know this man’s name and you’re fawning over him as if you have another girlhood crush.

God, you need to learn his name.

Luckily, you find out the next time that his name is Eliot, even though the name embroidered in red above the right pocket of his dirtied coveralls says “Evan” in a fancy looped script (whatever, you don’t question it. You regularly wore your roommate’s sweatshirt from her alma mater even though you didn’t attend the university – must be the same thing, right?). That time all he buys is hair ties and chapstick – lots of hair ties and chapstick, just another thing you don’t question – but stays to talk with you about the Robert Frost poem you were annotating.

“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening?” he reads aloud, smiling a little as he does so. “Is that for class, or…”

“It’s for class, but I’m liking it a lot more than the other obligatory readings for my degree,” you tell him a small laugh. “Do you enjoy poetry?”

Eliot shrugs as he grabs the full bags. “Oh, ya know. Just the occasional piece. You have a good day now.”

You smile as he walks toward the exit, butterflies pounding in your stomach once more. “You too!”

God, you think as he disappears from eyeshot. You’ve got it bad, girl.

He comes in again, irregular in each way except for the fact he arrives. Sometimes he’s clean cut, standing straight as he takes his sweet time wandering the store – as if he has nowhere to be, no need to rush around.

On those days, he buys a lot of things. Duct tape, orange soda, hair ties, sour candy in all shapes and colors. He makes conversation, asking about the book you’re reading or what you’re listening to, asking about your classes when you wear a jacket embroidered with your university’s logo on the front. On those days, he waits a little – even when all his items are bagged and there’s no real reason for him to stay – picking up on anything that would give him another thread of conversation to pull at.

“Something new?” he asks when you dogear one of the first few pages of a poetry book your friend had lent you.

“Yup!” you perk up just at the sight of him, cheery now more than you had been the entirety of the day now that he’s arrived. “Told a friend of mine about the assignment I was working on the last time you were here, and she shoved this anthology into my hands.”

You like those days – you look forward to them each time you step through the large door marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY” in large white letters that stand out against the incredibly depressing brown that’s been peeling since the day you interviewed here, spots covered sparsely by the maintenance guy who you’ve never seen. Those days are good, fun – they make you smile hours after he leaves and occupy your thoughts until you go to bed, sometimes even making it into the margins of your notebook when you’re zoning out in class.

Sometimes, though, he comes in nearly limping – at least one eye blackened and dark navy baseball cap pulled as far down his forehead as he can.

It scared you the first time, watching as he grunted with each step, every item he grabs from the shelves seeming like it pained him, his face scrunching into a wince each time he raises an arm above his ribs. You checked his items (bandages, ice packs, gauze, antifungal cream, a few first aid kits) with bated breath, terrified of making his mood worse.

It isn’t until you tell him the total, until you finally look up from your hands – that you finally look him in the eyes. They’re always warm like plate of freshly baked macaroni and cheese (and always make you feel just as gooey), but now appear to be clouded with a type of pain you can’t pin down. He doesn’t say much – or anything – as you bag his items, placing them gingerly into the paper bag as if it was an extension of him.

You try to keep a happy face throughout the entire ordeal, not wanting to push him in case what happened was particularly bad. Eliot gives you a similarly small, but earnest one in return – even if he barely hides the wince in his side as he does so.

But that was the first time things seemed a little off – your first time, specifically – and the others get easier as time passes.

At first, “easier” meant a return to days similar to the good ones – telling him things about your day as you ring up all his first-aid related items. He doesn’t respond with as much enthusiasm, doesn’t have the same witty banter – but gives you a small smile that you recognize nonetheless. But then, as the weeks bleed into months, you learn how to handle both the terrible days, the bad days, and the good days all the same.

It’s on one of the good days that he buys tampons, a piece of every kind of chocolate item you sell, and enough Acetaminophen to knock out a horse.

“Your girlfriend is very lucky,” you tell him, blushing as you bag the items. For a minute you think you’ve embarrassed him, crossed some line as a sickening silence grows between you two like mold on two-week old leftovers in a fridge that was turned off. It’s just as disgusting, too, which is why you’re so happy that he still gives you a small smile when you dare look up from where your scanner’s red line centers on the barcode of one of the tampon boxes.

“Nah, just,” Eliot’s plump lips look so kissable it makes your heart pick up. “A roommate, uh. She needs this. Her boyfriend is doing some game night thing and couldn’t pick it up. So I, uh. I got drafted.”

You give a little snort as you grab the receipt, smiling wide as you place it in the bag. “Well, your roommate is very lucky to have you.”

Eliot laughs as he grabs his stuff, cheeks heating up as he blushes. “Can I kidnap you for a little while so you can come remind her of that?”

In a rare moment of confidence, you lean forward and grin. “Is it kidnapping if I want it?”

The blush rages as he sputters a response, eyes downcast as he turns to leave. You get no witty response back, but the way he turns to wink at you as the automatic doors part is enough of a rebuttal for you to feel satisfied with your quip.

No matter what kind of mood Eliot is in, you look forward to his visits, watching and talking with him. Each evening you get ready for work you wondered if he would come in that night, if you would be able to tell him about the dumb thing this guy in one of your seminars said, or how you won an argument during bar crawl over the weekend using some of the random things he had taught you during the very conversations you now wish to have with him. It’s nice, the nicest thing you have in a long time – and somehow that doesn’t scare you, and somehow that makes you feel even better each time you see him.

But then “The Day” happens, and it changes everything.

The evening of “The Day” you woke up from your pre-work nap with this unexplainable feeling that something was going to go wrong. This feeling deep in the bottom of your stomach that you can’t quite place, one that makes the back of your knees sweat and where your ribs feel just a little tighter. Each and every sound – the cars that drive way too fast down your street, the creaking in your house, the dogs that bark obnoxiously – seem loudly, harsher than usual. When you sit up in bed when your alarm goes off it’s like you can feel the muscles in your back contract, feel the bones in your joints grind against each other. There’s some electricity in the air like when it’s right before a storm – only the sky is clear and your weather app doesn’t predict any rain until next week (and, even then, it’s only a drizzle).

At first you think it’s just a bad pain day; not bad enough to keep you home, or make you forget even the idea of doing anything besides groaning in pain in your bed and taking as many pain medications as your doctor says you’re able to. Still, it’s quite noticeable, and occupies your thoughts as you go through each part of your pre-work routine. Even as you shower, turn on your coffee pot, do the minimal make up required to make it look like you didn’t just roll out of bed or are some Victorian orphan plagued by tuberculosis and possibly a deep sadness embodied by the terrible weather that crashes outside their overcrowded London orphanage – you can’t seem to get rid of the proverbial dark cloud that settles itself between your brain and skull, clouding your thoughts and making your stomach hurt just a little.

It doesn’t get better when you get into work, either. There’s a tenseness in the air you can practically taste – electricity in the air that settles over your skin and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up straighter than the carefully constructed sales display of some B-list celebrity’s nail polish collection, the one you spent hours fussing over during one of your very rare day shifts. It somehow only gets worse when Eliot arrives, whistling some tune that normally would be wistful and happy, but given the context sounds like something straight from a horror movie trailer that invades your otherwise-sweet daydreams for weeks to come; one of those songs that everyone knows but no one knows the name of that sounds really creepy when played slowly over a clip of some old, beat-up doll being held by an adorable little blonde girl with black-out contacts in.

You don’t tell him to stop, but the tune does slow when he notices your tense state when he passes to get to the soft drink aisle. When he gives you a questioning look you just shrug, hoping he forgets (or finds it in himself not to ask) about it by the time he finds what he needs. Judging by the song, lack of list, and spring in his step – it’s a good day, one where he intends to meander around the store and grab whatever it is catches his attention. Today that appears to be anything with sugar, most notably soda in every color but orange.

At some point he finds his way closer to you – more specifically he finds his way to the chocolate aisle, which faces your register – and strikes up a conversation. It’s just small talk, and doesn’t do much to distract you from the twisting in your gut, but you appreciate his efforts nonetheless. The small talk just feels like a dead-end – a polite road to nowhere that feels pointless to engage in. Still, it’s Eliot, so you give half-hearted answers and ask half-hearted questions and hope he doesn’t press you too hard on your slightly-sour mood.

And, because it’s Eliot, he draws a few small laughs and a couple of tiny smiles and it’s…nice. It’s not the usual “Good Day,” but it’s not a bad one, either.

But then it happens. And it happens quick – all of it.

Three men, dressed head to toe in black, enter guns a blazing as if they own the place. They’re wearing masks over everywhere but their eyes, the thick, black material likely silencing their voices if they weren’t screaming at the top of their lungs.

They enter in an oddly-triangular formation – one you’d describe akin to the Charlie’s Angel’s post if you weren’t scared out of your fucking mind. One of them runs to the aisle where you keep cold medicine, the other ransacking the liquor aisle and shoving heavy glass bottles of your most expensive bottles of alcohol into the black duffel bag slung around his shoulder. The last one – the one you think is the leader – keeps his eye on you as he steps closer to where you are at the register.

It’s the scariest fucking thing to ever happen to you, and what occurs next happens too fast for you to describe.

You blink once and find that you’re staring down the barrel of a handgun that’s definitely loaded and definitely has the safety off. The end shakes just a little, as if the robber is nervous, and you wonder why he’s the one scared. Both of your hands are up in the air, elbow bent at a ninety-degree angle while sweat pools at your brow and your bottom lip trembles. It’s the most terrified you’ve ever been in your entire life, and if you had enough in your stomach you throw up, you totally would’ve.

But then – Eliot.

You’re screaming at him to stop, to get away and hide and what are you doing? They’ve got a gun! Get away! You could be hurt! Eliot!

But then you realize that, holy shit, he’s actually taking the guy down. Holy shit, Eliot just punched that dude in the face. Holy shit, Eliot just punched that dude in the gut. Holy shit, Eliot just disarmed that dude while punching him.

It’s only when the guy that targeted you is screaming in pain from a dislocated shoulder that the other two realize something’s up and come rushing towards the man that stands just in front of your register. You’d scream if you weren’t stunned – eyes not sure where to look as Eliot disarms them with the grace of a professional ballet dancer at the same fucking time. He’s fierce but controlled – not breaking any bones but definitely leaving some bruises as he knocks them to the ground and kicks their guns across the carpet.

It’s then – when the inferior robbers are writhing in pain on the ground – that he grabs the leader by the collar of his black hoodie and pulls the teenager’s wincing face close to Eliot’s raging one.

“I will give you one warning,” he hisses, teeth bared like an angered wolf as he spits. “one warning to leave this place and never come back. If this,” his left hand raises to gesture to you in all your petrified glory. “Nice lady tells me that you have returned to so much as buy a single stick of gum, I will track you down and find you and make sure you pay for the damage you’ve done here today. You got that?”

The still-masked teenager immediately nods furiously, eyes wide with terror and legs already kicking at the ground to leave.

Eliot gives a small, faux smile, and shoves the kid back down onto the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of him. “Good, now get the Hell out of here and don’t come back.”

Without hesitation, the would-be robbers scatter as fast as their damaged legs can carry them, clutching their bags to their chests as they rush to their crappy getaway van.

If you weren’t scared shitless you’d admit you’re a little turned on at the feat, especially as Eliot flips his hair from his face as he watches them speed away.

Your boss appears a few seconds later, apparently one more to watch from his safe room in the back than to interfere. Thank Heavens Eliot was here, you think. Facing those three kids on your own – even if they were, indeed, kids – makes your blood pressure spike once more.

“Should I call the cops?” he asks, looking at the wreckage around the store. The only silent alarm is located under the counter where the register is and, given your petrified state, you weren’t one to trip it.

Eliot just sighs and shakes his head, kicking a broken bottle of whiskey that for sure was going to stain the carpet. “No, they can’t do much – those kids probably don’t have a record and I don’t think you’ll get much out of ‘em if they do find the bastards. They’re young, broke, and I don’t know how much priority your case will be given.”

Your boss sighs, rubbing his face. It’s not as if they stole more than a few hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise, but being the victim of a robbery is still both tiring and rage-inducing – especially when someone like him has gone so long without incident. “But, I, what am I supposed to do? I just-“

Eliot grabs his wallet from his back pocket, reaching into it to fish out a small, professional-looking business card that he hands to your boss. “Call the number there come sun rise and tell them Eliot referred you. They’ll help you out with whatever you need.”

The man who signs your paychecks furrows his brow and reads the block print allowed. “Leverage, Incorporated? They can help me replace what I lost?”

Eliot nods, placing a comforting hand on your boss’ shoulder. “Everything.”

Immediately the man nods and steps away to go out the back exit, leaving you and Eliot in the center of it all.

It’s then – just as you’re alone – where the sun’s just coming up and the large windows in the shop allow its warm light to bath the both of you in a beautiful soft orange. There are no other customers there, and with your boss preoccupied with calming himself down, it really does feel like it’s just you and Eliot – just the two of you with the whole world still asleep around you. It’s nice, perfect.

He’s the one to break the silence, voice gruff as he flashes you a small, shy grin. “So, uh…you want to go for coffee?”

Your heart rams in your chest even louder than when you were staring the possibility of a gunshot wound to the face, the poor organ exhausted as your brain screams at you to accept his generous offer. It takes what feels like an eternity to muster up the courage to do so, but before you can Eliot’s already speaking once more.

“Not that you, uh,” he clears his throat. “Not that you should feel, uh, pressured, or anything. I just mean like, hey, you worked all night and just went through a pretty rough event, and you’re probably tired, and probably pretty hungry as well, and a coffee place just opened up a street away that I’ve heard good things about. I’ve wanted to try it out, for a while actually, and I wanted to, uh, see if I’d have the honor of you joining me…”

“Eliot,” you laugh as you step closer, placing your hand on his face to guide his eyes to yours. “Don’t be stupid. I’d love to go with you,” he smiles and it warms every bit of you. “Just let me grab my bag and clock out, I’ll meet you outside in a moment.”

He sputters through an “okay, sure, yeah,” before you both turn to leave – him out the front doors and you behind the large one your boss had just been hidden behind. Your hands shake just a little as you insert the little card into the dinosaur of a machine, the loud noise and sputtering sound it makes now white noise as you grab your purse and rejoin him outside.

When you arrive at the coffee shop (aptly named “The Bean Spot”) you order a caramel latte with a cheese Danish, Eliot getting a simple black coffee with cream along with a walnut muffin. You wait for your breakfast in relative silence, neither you nor Eliot sure what to say after such an event. When the food and drink are handed over to you, you find a spot tucked in the back with an excellent view of the whole place.

The coffee shop is nearly empty since it’s still so early in the morning – the only patrons coming in, getting their coffee, and zipping off to the next part of their day. It’s nice to be the only inert thing, the movements of the people around you providing a nice cover as they zip past, locking you and Eliot in your own little world as the world stretches its arms and prepares for another day of hustle and bustle.

By contrast, you and Eliot are wide awake, laughing as you swap horrible roommate stories and whatever else comes to mind. He asks about your degree but has enough class not to ask you about your graduation year (a rare feature of conversations these days), talking to you about all the books you’ve read and professors you’ve liked.

It’s odd – not bad, per say – but odd nonetheless, to be able to talk freely and openly and having him in front of you, within arm’s length as your knees barely touch under the small table. Seeing him in this space, a space more conducive to conversation and watching his hands as they pick at his blueberry scone and watching his mouth as the corners of his lips twist into a smile every so often and watching –

You blush at your own serial-killer-like thoughts, trying to suppress them with another sip of way too expensive but totally worth it coffee.

Eliot notices, because of course he does. “Hey, you alright?”

You nod, trying to calm your racing heartbeat. “Y-yeah, just-“

He smiles warmly, one hand moving to cradle your chin – to guide your downcast eyes to his. “It’s weird, seeing me in a new place, isn’t it?”

Once again, you nod. “It’s not that I don’t-“

“It’s okay,” his smile widens even as he now avoids your gaze, his hands moving to his lap as he fiddles with them. “It’s…I understand. Trust me, I get it.”

You exhale deeply, your shoulders falling a little. “I’ve thought a lot about this moment for, like, since you walked into the store for the first time…to have you here,” you gestured vaguely to the rest of the coffee shop, to the very few customers and baristas chatting about something you can’t hear and don’t care to pay attention to. “It’s…I don’t know. It’s not as if you’ve fallen short of expectations-“

Eliot gives a little chuckle, mumbling an “I sure hope so” with a glimmer in his eye that makes you want to jump on his lap and kiss him right there. Somehow, you find it in you to continue.

“It’s just super, super weird,” you tell him honestly. “And I don’t like it.”

The man in front of you leans forward, placing a hand over yours to calm you down.

“How about we get out of here,” Eliot murmurs, voice warm and thick like the caramel drizzle over your latte. “I have an espresso machine at my place, and could make you homemade baked goods a million times better than whatever you bought, and we can continue this in a space where the baristas don’t misspell my name on overpriced coffee.”

He gestures to the cup labeled Elliott, wincing as he does so. It makes you laugh, and you nod in agreement. Together you down the coffee and throw the empty cups along with the wrapping for your pastry away. It’s natural – the way the two of you move – as if you’ve known each other for a millennia, as if whatever it is between you two that’s formed is already as strong and sturdy as an oak tree.

Eliot places one of his large hands on the small of your back as you exit the cafe, thumbing at the fabric of your sweater as you wait to cross the street. It’s comforting – just a flash of the fire that he started for you back at the store a mere hours earlier, heat warming your blood from your toes and up your spine. As he guides you to his apartment his hand finds yours, his fingers fitting neatly next to yours as he points out parts of the city you’ve never slowed down enough to see.

You may not have known Eliot for very long, but even within that short amount of time (and even shorter conversations) he had become a safe house for you, one that you could easily make a home.

And, unbeknownst to the other person, the both of you intended on doing just that.

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer/reader #eliot spencer fanfiction #eliot spencer #leverage #lukis does commissions #lukis writes stuff

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anexplanationofunfortunateevents · 4 years

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this is an alarmist post

This post might sound alarmist because I don’t know the respectable, non-alarmist way to put this. He’s going full final-days-in-the-Fuhrerbunker. I want to be alarmist. We need to be alarmed.

On one level, I’m pretty sure you know this. You can probably see a vague reference to “what happened in Portland” and know exactly what the writer means. Unidentified little green men in military-style fatigues deployed against peaceful protesters. Protesters kidnapped off the streets in “proactive arrests.” ordered by someone illegally acting as the head of DHS. Journalists attacked. Middle-aged women beaten and tear-gassed. The mayor of Portland tear-gassed. It was, of course, worse than it looked, and only the most telegenic of concurrent power grabs.

But it’s really hard to stay at the appropriate level of alarm for even three hours – and we need to stay there for the next three months. It’s exhausting no matter what, and nearly all of our current information environment makes it even more difficult than it needs to be.

Most of what the mainstream media has to say about the election isn’t reporting so much as it is fanfiction. Characters with familiar names and recognizable faces feature in an alternative universe where “normal” political forces (which were defunct ten years ago) apply. Sniping about “messaging,” pathologically boring lectures about “enthusiasm” – it would be annoying anti-Democratic concern-trolling in a world where a free and fair election could be taken for granted. In the real world of powerful and accelerating anti-democratic threats, it is both dangerous and bizarre, like dumping a fifth of vodka into a Super Soaker and trying to use it to put out a brush fire.

The mainstream conversation is so disorienting that it’s understandable why there are also a fair amount of influential progressive commentators who have burrowed themselves into the reverse narrative. It doesn’t matter what we do, Trump is just going to steal the election anyway; it doesn’t matter if he loses, he’s going to refuse to leave anyway. A subset of these fatalists swing all the way around to conventional Pundit Brain: Trump has already blown up all the rules of democratic politics because Democrats aren’t using the One Weird Trick that would make them good at democratic politics!*

Before jumping down the rabbit hole of whether these narratives are true, it’s important to emphasize that they are not constructive. We are in a crisis. In a crisis, you need to help people understand that something abnormal is happening AND that there is something they can do to make things better. Communicating to people that things are fine, as the mainstream horserace normal politics model does, isn’t helpful, because it helps people rationalize the false but comforting belief that everything is fine. Communicating to people that things are hopeless, as the doom-mongering counternarrative does, is even less helpful. If you’re acting normal about something abnormal, there’s at least the off-chance you’ll get lucky and unwittingly bluff your way through the short- and medium-term. But if you’re constantly getting the message that you’re screwed no matter what, it’s human nature to either a) go into denial and double down on an unproductive response, which is irrational but understandable or b) get cynical and give up, which is an entirely rational response to a situation that actually is hopeless.

Trump is already trying to steal the 2020 election. He has help from the henchmen he has put in charge of important federal agencies and from the white-shoe lifers in the Republican legal establishment. Anything you can imagine he might do, you should assume he has at least considered it. He will consider things that would never even occur to you.

He hasn’t succeeded yet. He can be stopped with overwhelming turnout. We know this because of the 2018 midterms. Autocrats who are successfully smothering a democracy do not allow the opposition party to win partial or full control in regional governments, take over half the federal legislature, and gain a foothold in the presidential line of succession. That’s not how autocracy works. If you come across a commentator who is under the impression that a burgeoning dictatorship just gives away that kind of power for the lulz, consider taking that person’s opinions on the subject with a grain of salt.

Thanks to the 2018 midterms, House Democrats have been able to foil some of Trump’s schemes and warn the public about others. Even with Individual 1’s desperate thrashing at the intelligence agencies, we’re getting a lot more specific information about Russian attacks on the election than we were this time in 2016 from the Obama administration.

One more important thing we learned in 2018: just because Trump would do something, doesn’t mean he will. Here’s the Once and Future Speaker a few weeks after reclaiming her title:

At least Trump “didn’t declare the election illegal,” Pelosi said. “We had a plan for that” — though really, she acknowledged, the only workable plan was “to win big. Had it been four or five seats, he would’ve tried to dismantle it.” In his news conference the day after the midterms, Trump spoke respectfully of Pelosi….

The Spectacularly Failed New York Times buried the lead as usual, but there are a few really important points packed in here. Democrats did, in fact, have a plan for that, which you’re going to need to remind yourself if you try to follow political commentary in the next few months. For whatever reason, a surprising number of supposedly anti-Trump writers are eager to undermine Trump’s opposition with false claims that Democrats are bumbling naifs who in 2020 still haven’t realized that Trump might not respect the results of an election.** This demoralizing premise is, as you can tell from the Wayback Machine link, not true, but for some reason it remains a popular lie, so it’s worth debunking.

More importantly, we didn’t know about the plan until afterward because they didn’t need it. Trump has blinked before, so there’s no reason to assume he won’t blink again. We shouldn’t assume he will do the same thing in 2020 that he did in 2018, because it’s a different situation! Just that people who have assumed Donald Trump will act in a completely different way than he has in the past usually end up with egg on their faces.

My two cents – AND THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO YOU CAN SKIP IT – is that any kind of post-election autocratic power grab would probably need decisive action from Trump within days, maybe even hours, of polls closing. That, in turn, would require Trump to absorb the narcissistic injury of a loss immediately, which he has been psychologically incapable of doing for the first 74 years of his life. Remember, he didn’t have to come to terms with the curb-stomping he received in the midterms right away. At first he could tell himself that Republicans holding onto the Senate (by the skin of their teeth when they should by all rights have swamped it, but whatever) represented a “split decision” and even a moral victory for him, so he could afford to go into, like, con man autopilot mode and try to charm “Nancy.” Everyone else adjusted to the Democratic victory the next day, and the next night, people got into the streets warning him not to try any bullshit. It was only after bigger districts finished counting and mail-in ballots were counted that it sunk in for him how badly he had lost and what the consequences would be. Then he soothed himself by shutting down the government indefinitely, which he seemed to feel was a display of his power – until “Nancy” pantsed and dog-walked him so he had to slink off and pretend it never happened.

If an election which was more or less as legitimate as the 2016 election (questionable but not Belarus) were held today, I think the most likely result would be a scenario a lot like the midterms: East Coast states make it clear which way the wind is blowing to most people, but Trump goes to bed at 3 AM thinking he’s close enough to fight it out in court. Over the next couple of weeks the mail-in ballots get opened, Miami and Philadelphia finish counting, and the real numbers start penetrating even his toxic bubble. Eventually someone reminds him that his armed Secret Service detail can escort him off the premises no matter what he does, so he loses what little nerve he has and skips Biden’s inauguration to go golfing at Mar a Lago. Or maybe Sochi.

But again, that is not a guarantee or even a prediction. The FACT is that anything can happen in the next three months, and Trump and his goons are putting a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone does happen. I spelled out my opinion of what seems most likely at the moment because it can get really easy to dwell on the worst-case scenario, which leads to fatalism and inaction. The least-bad scenario is actually more plausible than it’s been for the last few years, if we motivate ourselves to get it done. We can’t waste all our time and energy thinking about what he’s going to do, because we need to think about what we’re going to do. Voting is the core issue as always, but it helps to be more concrete.

If your state has early in-person voting, and if you can do so safely, vote in-person as soon as you can. Every state’s vote by mail infrastructure was going to be strained this year before these dirtbags decided to sabotage the postal service. If you can cast your vote early, you can help make the lines a little shorter on Election Day while leaving vote by mail resources for people who need them.

If you are a person who needs vote by mail resources for whatever reason, use them! Request your ballot now. Fill it out and return it as soon as you get it. You might not have to mail it back – your county may have drop boxes, or maybe someone can bring it to the local elections office for you. If that’s a safe option for you, please take advantage of it. If it’s not a safe option, mail your ballot back as soon as possible. You’re not helping anyone from the ICU.

If you and the people you live with are relatively low risk, or if you’ve survived COVID and your health care provider thinks you have immunity for the next few months, consider volunteering as a poll worker. Usually a lot of poll workers are retirees, who are by definition in a high-risk group. If enough of them decide to sit this year out – and that’s the smart, responsible choice – then polling places end up closing, which helps Republican voter suppression by making the lines longer. The more volunteers your area has, the more polls they’ll have open, which makes it that much easier to let people vote quickly and at a safe distance from each other.

This last one isn’t directly about voting, but it’s still pretty important: get used to pushing back on bullshit. There already is another effort to drive down turnout by inundating voters with disinformation. Last time we weren’t ready; this time, we have no excuse.

*Avoiding sources because this stuff is toxic. If you think I’m making this up because you haven’t seen it anywhere, good.

**Look, nobody*** is more sympathetic to The Men and their psychological frailties than me, but seriously, guys, some of you need to log the hell off for a few days.

***For certain non-traditional values of “nobody.”

#democracy #2020 election #authoritarianism

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paper-rose-doodles · 4 years

Text

why georgia flipping blue matters

I’m seeing a lot of chatter about Georgia going blue, running the gamut from exhilaration to confusion. And it makes sense that non-US folk might not get why it’s so historic. Georgia isn’t the US’s largest state; it doesn’t have the most electoral votes. So why does it matter? Well, I’m a Georgia voter, and I’m here to tell you!

The thing you have to understand about Georgia and other Southern states is that they typically vote red (Republican/conservative). There’s this stereotype that the South is just...like that. That the average Southerner is a white, land-owning, gun-owning man who loves Trump and hates minorities. The thing is, that’s not the average Southerner; that’s just the Southerner who has had more voting power historically.

Take Georgia. The 2019 census tells us that only 52% of Georgians are white (non-Hispanic). Only 63% of Georgians live in a house that they own. Over half are female. So why do states like ours traditionally vote conservative? It’s because of the informal barriers to voting. Historically, the US has discouraged mail-in voting, ostensibly because it’s more “prone” to voter fraud (it is not) but in reality because the US political system doesn’t really want everyone with franchise to exercise their right to vote.

People outside the US don’t always understand that it’s not easy to vote in a lot of US states. Yes, you all know about the formal barriers - ID checks, voter list purges, voting tests - but the informal ones are even more insidious. Take transportation. Outside of large northern cities, the US doesn’t have reliable public transit. In Atlanta, our rail system runs on just three lines and bus connection is sometimes spotty. And that’s for the formal city of Atlanta - the suburbs don’t have any rail support at all. Most southern cities don’t have intracity rail. Add to that, most southern cities are sprawling; it’s really impossible to walk anywhere you need to go and expect to get there in an hour or less. If you don’t have a car, voting becomes harder for you.

Now, let’s take voter protection laws. Theoretically, American workers are protected by law if they want to take work time off to vote. However, those laws vary by state and are not usually comprehensive. Most voter protection laws only apply to full-time workers, and only within specific time frames. It’s really easy for employers to wiggle out of them, and worse - we don’t have good worker protection laws in most states, so we don’t feel safe pushing back against our employers when it comes to our rights. Almost 3/4ths of American workers work in “at-will employment” states, which means it’s legal in our state to fire an employee for any reason without giving an explanation. Let’s add to that the current state of American employment. We increasingly have a gig-focused and part-time economy: companies would rather hire two part-time workers than one full-timer because they don’t want to provide healthcare and retirement benefits or sick days (reminder: we don’t have nationalized healthcare here!), and this trend disproportionately affects POC, particularly WOC. Brookings estimated in 2018 that 14% of African-American workers and 10% of Latinx workers are “underemployed,” a broad term covering workers whose jobs do not reflect their skills and education and those who are forced into part-time work because there are no full-time positions available. If you don’t have a secure job with a civically-minded employer, voting becomes harder for you.

And childcare! In the US, 23% of children live in single-parent households. With schools closed for Election Day (and many students learning remotely anyway due to COVID), single parents (who are overwhelmingly female) don’t have childcare options. If you’re a single parent with no support, voting becomes harder for you.

What it comes down to is informal voter suppression. Our system is built in a way that discourages franchise among the majority of our population. And that’s on purpose. Remember, our electoral college - the body that chooses the president - was devised to protect the interests of Southern slaveowners.

And that’s why Georgia flipping to blue (Democrat) is so earth-shattering. Because Stacy Abrams, a WOC and ardent political organizer, saw all of these barriers to voting and decided to focus on true enfranchisement. Her movement wasn’t about changing anyone’s minds. It became clear pretty early on that there were no “undecided” voters in the 2020 election, just Trump voters who didn’t want to admit to their children and loved ones that they were voting for that man. Instead, Abrams went grassroots, using community power to undermine the forces that keep people disenfranchised. Voter drives. Carpooling to polling sites. Poll worker sign-ups (by the time the general election came around, you couldn’t volunteer to be a poll worker in Atlanta. They already had too many). Constant encouragement to vote, vote, vote.

A little context: Stacy Abrams lost the Georgia gubernatorial race in 2018 due to some of the most blatant electoral improprieties in recent memory. Her opponent, Brian Kemp, refused to step down from his role as Secretary of State despite being called to do so by minority activist organizations and Former President Jimmy Carter (as Secretary of State, Kemp was in charge of making sure the election was fair...an election he was running in). A large county in the Atlanta Metro violated the Voting Rights Act by refusing to count absentee ballots (minority voters were disproportionately affected by this decision, since they have a harder time voting in-person due to...see the previous paragraphs). Voting districts with high proportions of minority voters didn’t have enough voting machines, so the lines were hours long. Voting machines just...went missing. And despite all that, it was still the closest gubernatorial race in 20 years.

And after that, Abrams made it her mission to make sure we have fair elections, no matter what the outcome was. She’s a god-damned American treasure. And she has set the precedent that voting activists need to follow. It’s not about your candidate vs. their candidate. It’s about making sure everyone gets to vote and that everyone’s vote counts. And that’s what democracy should be.

#election 2020 #stacy abrams #georgia #politics

8 notes · View notes

sunritual · 3 years

Text

Let’s try this again

They should make a law where if the police don’t read you your Miranda rights you get out of jail free, like if you don’t get your receipt at fast food restaurants you get a mail free

The shaggy law - There should be a law that if you continuously and shamelessly deny doing something, no matter how indisputably obvious it is that you did it, you should get off free for pure savegery.

Confederates as “rebels for tradition” is laughable

Ram rainbow spiral horns profile.

People think grammar rules are etched into the universe — they’re not. When people say AAve is incorrect and ignorant, they say that their conception of how one should speak is inherently correct despite no evidence/truth. Grammar is agreed upon not mandated

Hippie sauce infusion pizza joint

Plain nude balconette with little purple and pink flowers at wiring

How could anyone predict anything happening but how could any be surpised either

Hierarchies - nahhhh

Humans aren’t inherently higher than any other creature or thing, but as humans i don’t think it’s wrong to prioritize other humans. There no better or worse but there is optimal for certain environments and lifestyles.

What differentiates a piece of art from a slightly different replica - when is it an entirely different piece altogether? Moving a figure slightly? Adding a splash of paint ? Changing a color to the point where no one could tell? Is the persons perception the deciding factor or what’s actually on the canvas. If abstract art is about the perception, and the waning behind it - does it change with these things?

An exhibit where people are invited to paint over and destroy or change the art

The differences between us and other. Are feeble - not illusory but

Periwinkle sky blue black and white each of a half circle . Faded out

Uni should be about exploring ideas — new and old famillar and foreign - honeing writing reading reasoning debating listening etc skills.

Umm, Karen were your parents married when you were born?

Ummmm no, umm i mean , uh ,yes —what??

Then why are you policing what other people do?

Dark blue light blue orange lemon circles layer on top of each other, several difffent sizes

Job apps tip!! For every job you apply to , Change your last name on your resume to the last name of the hiring manager and they will think you are related to them and hire you with nepotism. ( then, or coarse, legally when you get the job)

Unpopular opinion: i don’t really mind diarrhea

I for one think it’s incredibly brave of the brats girls to reclaim such a derogatory term

Starting every Describtion of every British show with “its kind of like skins but..”

Beanie baskin took that treat she snatched it - she ain’t even askin

The squad bod - a group of ghost friends share one body in which they have to live their lives -

My playlists are a matter of fact, not opinion. They reveal truths about the human experience

A cats gorilla imeritive of aesthetics.

I don’t chose them, they are not for joy but for truth. They are not intelligible but feel able

📝 narrative - longing

👼 chaotic

🌾 childlike wonder

Things that seem homo and phobic ATST

- Woodstock

- Brown eyed girl

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on ya when you think everything BG a gone wrong and everything bows up in your face

If women can’t do drag because they have an advantage then what is drag? Is it having good looking tits and a waist ? Looking like woman? or is it about having charisma uniqueness nerve and talent?

Examining Tik toks through different philosophical lenses

What makes it so they put parenthesis around lyrics in a song? What intonations and such make it parenthesis worthy

What’s an article of clothing from your childhood that you viscerally remember for seemingly no reason

I feel like the problem with the property brothers is they had too good of a childhood

Do you ever wonder if personality traits would be diffferntnin different cultures? Would a quiet person be even quieter if they were brought up in North Korea? Or the same amount of talkativity? Do we have the traits no matter what, or are we inclined to be more of one way than the others around us. Are personality traits created by comparison to those around?

Maybe the anxiety comes from knowing your not “supposed” to be as quiet as you are. You don’t really want to talk, that’s okay , but it’s expected that you do. So you are anxiety that your not living up

I find happiness every single day

This feeling has made me so appreciative of my mental state usually. How many people feel like this on the regular? How many people have this as their default? I am so lucky. My default is happy. I have my issues, but i need to appreciate the gift i was given. I was given elation. Childlike wonder. Curiosity. Adventurousness. Self completion and fullness. The rest will come.

If you see a celebrity you want to talk to in public but don’t want to bother them, make sure they don’t see that you saw them and start a fake conversation telling a friend that they should buy a product they are a sponsor for, and that they should use their coupon code. When they approach you to thank you for being such a loyal fan, obviously pretend to be shocked that they just so happened to be there

Christianity excuses selfish politics and beliefs

Things i never would’ve noticed if they weren’t pointed out to me:

-Left and right handed ness

Rating sports teams by uniform colors

Balloon animals but make it clothing!

Logics doesn’t care about your feelings, but it certainly cares about your biasees.

He who findeth keepith, whilst he who loosith weepith.

Religious thought often starts at the conclusion they want and attempts to make arguments justifying it.

Jewish debate starts with an agreement that we are going to follow the book, but argues about what the book truly says. Not good enough when you are still just following the book

Why did Jesus need to die for our sins

Dream - swimming in a lake and bump into something you think is a human tying to save to but is it! Oct 29 9:03

Candle company logo etc

I’m sorry for your loss

It’s not oka

If people can accept that stupid bad jokes can be

Is there a reason for each thing existing? Sufficient reason

Understanding if an area is a matter of perspective or fact? Is it Emperical ?

If you assume you have free will you limit your critical thinking ability and therefor stour actual free will - you need to navigate technology such as algorithms that show you why at you want to see or you completely loose free will - you cannot chose when you don’t even know a choice. there is Somthing controlling you

Revelation is within it doesn’t involve others - can happen in a moment

Revolution- requires work and years and years of convincing others m

What counts as a second chance? What counts as a first chance? What does giving someone the benefit of the doubt entail ? Letting them out of jail , or letting them have a 2nd term as president.

**Picture of coke or Pepsi book**

Trump supporters be like: THIS is the BALLOt sleepy crooked joe SEND to MY neighbor. So much FOR democracy

One flew over the coup coups nest

Ashge-nazi = Jewish trump supporter

The heathers of the USA are Cali, New York and Texas. Florida, too

Shape shifting would solve all of this. I could go to Washington DC, pretend to be trump, concede then leave. It would be hilarious, however if me and trump looked identical and had to so the most idiotic crazy shit to prove to America that we indeed are the true DJ.

Coup busting outfit - light cute short sleeve camo shirts , army green super utalitarian cargo pants , double sash belts in leather with grommets studs or spikes (to be decided by team (with democracy) or left up to the individual) leather (vegan available) lace up knee high boots (maybe with spikes if not too 2012) and the pies de resistance two army green denim shoulder high gloves that fold down as far as needed for the comfort of the fighter. Will be adorned with patches decided by the wearer. Edges will be frayed to honor to the coup busting aesthetic and spirit of the endeavor. We can decide on a signature lip color, but spf is required for all fighters. Of coarse we will have those football stripes below the eyes, don’t be stupid.

How far away can something be from a face and still have humans think it’s a face

Senator Portman - i hope you are well, and want to thank you for the hard work you have put in to this election. However, it has become abundantly clear that joe Biden and Kamala Harris have secured more than enough electoral and popular votes to warrant recognition as president and vice elect. Upon reading the transcripts of he hopeless court cases, there is absolutely no evidence of vote measurable fraud. is time you stand up for democracy and face reality by congratulating he pair on their success. Americans and scared and they need a powerful republican voice to demounce the unsubstantiated conspircy theories that attempt to thwart democracy in this beautiful county. Please do the right thing , and stand with sanity, freedom and democracy. History books and citizens will thank you. May god bless you, your staff and loved ones

Could mermaids exist through evolution in the future

Me learning about real us history - all the nations destroyed by the USA—- I’m the baaad Guy

The rest of the world - duh dodododosodo

Print that looks like a page of writing that has been sourced in water so it’s bleeding and darker in speckles

Zamps= examples

Clothes with green screen cut outs

Robots don’t need to be sentient to destroy us.

Navy mock neck long sleeves big orange and little white stripe on tube cage sides

A veritcal line stretch waistband

Cross cross and straps back

Square high neck

Scarlet polka dots around can light blue text and beach image as front

Blue stroke red inside square, blue triangle rainbow with eye and funky font

Y either know a particular topic or not , but it’s hard to pin down intelligence on one category

Cream background , ice cream pink script name kinda bev hills hotel script looking ish

Move your mouth in a differ way

Supersonic vibrating butt cleaner

Half magenta half red violet a blue teacup in the center with white floral frills thick serif font

Pink background am orange flower in a vase white present ribbon n red as a table

An app that familiarizes people with science - through experimental learning ― hands on experiences that make it seem less top down and authoritarian , and more like a set of steps that we take, things that anyone can do to get closer with nature and the world

A social media philosophy app - teaches what others said and gives people a chance to express their views , postulate, argue, etc gadfly? How would be avoid a shit show, how can we make social media more humanitarian. how can we care about people while also expressing deeply held ideas , how can we encourage users to examine their deeply held ideas without alienating them. How can we discourage hatred and abuse and groupthink with design? How do we slow people down and encourage them to recognize the human behind the screen. Street epistemology? Socratic dialogue?

Socrates - asking questions. Breaking it down to bits. Deeply understanding their argument. Asking about different possibilities and circumstances. Take vast assumptions and show scenarios that make go against them.

Build fact checking into apps

Narrative self vs experiential

Walks you through steps of the sciefitifc method and encourages you to explain how you feel each step actually helped you- then walks you through a scientist doing the same for their reasarch

Republicans only want to be free in the specific ways that benefit corporations

Are Christians more willing to support the death pen early because they already believe in the cruel and overstepping punishment of hell?

Where did the idea come from that you need to remain impartial when trying to persuade

The idea that there is someone in a similar but different dwelling, hearing similar but different sounds and feeling similar but different feelings is wild

We synthesize sets of traits, and particular actions in a super biased culturally constructed way

With the way we see things as humans- we categorize things into groups that aren’t really reaaal ― paratheletic groups

I just want the people and jobs that benefit society

Connection to nietzsches Dionysian art and eckheart tolle/Taoism

No matter your personality, there is probably a part of the world that you would fit in with naturally.

An ordinary girl is selected as one of the representatives of earth in the first meeting of various alien species after one advanced planet discovered and United 10. Confused as to why she was chosen, she goes on her journey meeting

Wha ba Bada da da da da dada he’s a wha ba ba dadada as a matter of fact it’s not my fault if you came up here thinking that you would win

Wanting to break boundaries and rules for the sake those who are hurt by the rules

You are imagining the best case scenario of the life you want to have and experience Ming the reality of the life you so have.

Yes her drips cosmetics line to students i. Class

Chez it people can goldfish people

Your personality flows where a system needs it to go to maintain balance

0 notes

forunfeltimaginations · 3 years

Text

Let’s try this again

They should make a law where if the police don’t read you your Miranda rights you get out of jail free, like if you don’t get your receipt at fast food restaurants you get a mail free

Confederates as “rebels for tradition” is laughable

Ram rainbow spiral horns profile.

Hippie sauce infusion pizza joint

Plain nude balconette with little purple and pink flowers at wiring

How could anyone predict anything happening but how could any be surpised either

Hierarchies - nahhhh

An exhibit where people are invited to paint over and destroy or change the art

The differences between us and other. Are feeble - not illusory but

Periwinkle sky blue black and white each of a half circle . Faded out

Uni should be about exploring ideas — new and old famillar and foreign - honeing writing reading reasoning debating listening etc skills.

Umm, Karen were your parents married when you were born?

Ummmm no, umm i mean , uh ,yes —what??

Then why are you policing what other people do?

Dark blue light blue orange lemon circles layer on top of each other, several difffent sizes

Unpopular opinion: i don’t really mind diarrhea

I for one think it’s incredibly brave of the brats girls to reclaim such a derogatory term

Starting every Describtion of every British show with “its kind of like skins but..”

Beanie baskin took that treat she snatched it - she ain’t even askin

The squad bod - a group of ghost friends share one body in which they have to live their lives -

My playlists are a matter of fact, not opinion. They reveal truths about the human experience

A cats gorilla imeritive of aesthetics.

I don’t chose them, they are not for joy but for truth. They are not intelligible but feel able

📝 narrative - longing

👼 chaotic

🌾 childlike wonder

Things that seem homo and phobic ATST

- Woodstock

- Brown eyed girl

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on ya when you think everything BG a gone wrong and everything bows up in your face

If women can’t do drag because they have an advantage then what is drag? Is it having good looking tits and a waist ? Looking like woman? or is it about having charisma uniqueness nerve and talent?

Examining Tik toks through different philosophical lenses

What makes it so they put parenthesis around lyrics in a song? What intonations and such make it parenthesis worthy

What’s an article of clothing from your childhood that you viscerally remember for seemingly no reason

I feel like the problem with the property brothers is they had too good of a childhood

I find happiness every single day

Christianity excuses selfish politics and beliefs

Things i never would’ve noticed if they weren’t pointed out to me:

-Left and right handed ness

Rating sports teams by uniform colors

Balloon animals but make it clothing!

Logics doesn’t care about your feelings, but it certainly cares about your biasees.

He who findeth keepith, whilst he who loosith weepith.

Religious thought often starts at the conclusion they want and attempts to make arguments justifying it.

Jewish debate starts with an agreement that we are going to follow the book, but argues about what the book truly says. Not good enough when you are still just following the book

Why did Jesus need to die for our sins

Dream - swimming in a lake and bump into something you think is a human tying to save to but is it! Oct 29 9:03

Candle company logo etc

I’m sorry for your loss

It’s not oka

If people can accept that stupid bad jokes can be

Is there a reason for each thing existing? Sufficient reason

Understanding if an area is a matter of perspective or fact? Is it Emperical ?

Revelation is within it doesn’t involve others - can happen in a moment

Revolution- requires work and years and years of convincing others m

What counts as a second chance? What counts as a first chance? What does giving someone the benefit of the doubt entail ? Letting them out of jail , or letting them have a 2nd term as president.

**Picture of coke or Pepsi book**

Trump supporters be like: THIS is the BALLOt sleepy crooked joe SEND to MY neighbor. So much FOR democracy

One flew over the coup coups nest

Ashge-nazi = Jewish trump supporter

The heathers of the USA are Cali, New York and Texas. Florida, too

How far away can something be from a face and still have humans think it’s a face

Could mermaids exist through evolution in the future

Me learning about real us history - all the nations destroyed by the USA—- I’m the baaad Guy

The rest of the world - duh dodododosodo

Print that looks like a page of writing that has been sourced in water so it’s bleeding and darker in speckles

Zamps= examples

Clothes with green screen cut outs

Robots don’t need to be sentient to destroy us.

Navy mock neck long sleeves big orange and little white stripe on tube cage sides

A veritcal line stretch waistband

Cross cross and straps back

Square high neck

Scarlet polka dots around can light blue text and beach image as front

Blue stroke red inside square, blue triangle rainbow with eye and funky font

Y either know a particular topic or not , but it’s hard to pin down intelligence on one category

Cream background , ice cream pink script name kinda bev hills hotel script looking ish

Move your mouth in a differ way

Supersonic vibrating butt cleaner

Half magenta half red violet a blue teacup in the center with white floral frills thick serif font

Pink background am orange flower in a vase white present ribbon n red as a table

Narrative self vs experiential

2 notes · View notes

spraxinoscope · 4 years

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Oct. 14: Why I still think Trump has a ~75% chance of winning

Epistemic status: Who even am I? You shouldn’t listen to me. But see the final section for details.

By ‘winning,’ I mean still being president on 1/22/21, and there being no serious actionable plan to get him out.

2500 words of paranoia and bad math after the cut.

Polling factors:

Today, 538 gives Trump a 13% chance of an EC victory, so let’s use that as a starting point. As Nate Silver will tell you every chance he gets, 2016 presidential polls were only off by a few percentage points, and that’s probably still true. But a similar (or even smaller) systematic polling error would be enough to flip some battlegrounds, bumping Trump up to something like 25-30%. Have pollsters managed to correct for the systemic errors of 2016? There’s true meaningful debate around this, but the balance of evidence seems to be that the pollsters never figured out what caused the errors, and so were not able to fix them.

Note that Trump’s decline in the polls is driven by voters who approved of the president until very recently. Consider the sort of person who still had a favorable of opinion of Trump right up until fall 2020. Generally, dips in Trump’s favorability ratings seem to have been due to conservative infighting. Often, when a person stops supporting Trump, it’s because he is being insufficiently racist. These constituents’ loyalty may be wavering, but they are not likely to switch sides.

As a complete asspull hypothesis, I’d guess that some people who tell pollsters they no longer support Trump are trying to pressure him into adopting more hardline policy and will never vote for a Democrat.

I would posit that the 13% number is the absolute hard minimum chance of Trump winning an EC victory, fair and square. Error bars push that number higher. Taking average polling data over time also pushes that number higher, since it’s almost never been this low.

Dysfunction factors:

So, those are the odds for a free and fair election. What are the odds of the election being free and fair? I’m glad you asked! Zero.

Election integrity has taken major hits recently. Citizens United turned elections into ad campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder made laws against discriminatory election practices unenforceable. The Hatch Act is also not being enforced. The numerous alleged campaign finance law violations brought against the 2016 Trump campaign all amounted to nothing (except jail time, and subsequent pardons, for some functionaries).

Fine, let’s say elections can never be perfectly fair, but even if we grade on a curve and request that elections be as fair as possible, we’re still not doing great, and it’s been getting worse since 2010.

Hey, remember all those jokes from like 2004 onwards about how unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines are? That shit never got fixed. Remember the story from this week about some 90,000 New Yorkers getting the wrong mail-in ballots?

Remember when the Russians got into the Illinois voter database in 2016? The institutions that were supposed to defend against that kind of thing have since been gutted or captured by republicans.

Hey, remember when the Iowa primary was so dysfunctional that they ended the vote count without ever producing a final tally or figuring out what the problems were?

Election integrity groups have been sounding the alarm continuously on this one. Electoral commissions and underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained in use of modern systems. This is a huge problem all by itself, and it gets worse when applied to the next issue.

Malfeasance factors:

In my American public school civics education, I learned that Richard Nixon was a crook who paid some burglars to spy on the democrats, because of how crooked he was. I did not learn that ratfucking is bog-standard procedure, in every election, all over the world. I had to learn that on my own, later. Generally speaking, the election integrity talking heads take the opinion that most countries routinely interfere in the elections of most countries, and the Ds and the Rs have never not been spying on each other. The extraordinary thing about Watergate was that Republican congressmen were weirdly amenable to allowing an investigation into one of their own, a mistake they have never since repeated.

Some amount of ratfucking is to be expected. The nation has weathered this factor before. But, like electoral competence, this may be getting worse over time. State governments have very wide purview when it comes to voting procedure, and Republican states are wasting no time in finding creative new ways to toss out ballots. The most common reason for a mail-in ballot to be rejected is that the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. There is no official criteria or standard practice for how close a signature has to be to count as a match. Signatures are not useful security for anything, anyway.

Georgia’s 2018 election was arguably illegitimate. Irregularities included voting sites closed at the last minute for unclear reasons and fraudulent ballot collectors stealing ballots. Calls for recounts all failed. Other southern states are on thin ice. All the big Texan cities are getting one ballot drop box each, in case you thought Texas would be allowed to turn blue.

Red states already have various laws permitting them to throw out ballots that arrive after the election. Sabotaging the post office or throwing out all uncounted ballots soon after the election, as most sitting Republicans in congress and governors have already gone on record to suggest may be necessary, is a violation of the letter but not the spirit of existing restrictive voting laws.

The big thing, of course, is that the right wing media landscape has been fully saturated with the idea that Democrats will engage in conspiracies to steal the election, and action will need to be taken to thwart these plots. To that end, Republicans at all levels of government, including at the DOJ, have repeatedly signaled willingness to take unprecedented measures to stamp out fraud. These include numerous voter purge plans, new criteria for dismissing ballots, and sending the DHS or other law enforcement agencies to take custody of ballots.

In addition, the MAGAs are organizing ‘poll watcher’ groups to secure urban voting sites. Even if these groups fully obey the law and do not engage in anything that could legally be termed intimidation or harassment, that’s still a lot of leeway. Of course, over the last couple years, we’ve all learned that right wing protesters can sometimes bend or break the law and get away with it, and sometimes receive cooperation from the police. This goes triple for blue cities in red states, which is exactly what we’re worried about.

Malfeasance in general is made easier by the unprecedented levels of geographically-sorted voting blocs. It is trivially easy to tell whether a district will go hard for Trump or hard for Biden. So, whether interference is coming from law enforcement officers, protesters, or semi-sanctioned militias, they will know which lines to intimidate and which boxes to steal.

Russiagate set a clear precedent: It doesn’t matter if it’s blatant, outrageous, or corrupt. Republicans do not want to defect, and right wing media will keep the base in line. Democrats will be outraged, and then fold. There are no remaining nonpartisan referees to appeal to.

Pundits like to imagine that sitting Republicans in congress will not blatantly steal an election for fear that it will lead to them getting voted out of office, to which I would suggest that the obvious answer is the correct one: Voted out how?

Democrats shooting themselves in the goddamn foot factors:

Trump likes to say that the election will be illegitimate if he loses. Mainstream news outlets like to push back against this. The NYT, for instance, has been loudly insistent that the election is totally secure all year.

It’s not, and they’re morons. No experts agree with them on this. Trump fabricating a bunch of fictional threats does not invalidate the numerous actual threats.

Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer would not be anyone’s first pick for the task of contesting an election, but that’s who we got.

Possible October surprises:

Hey, what do you guys think this year’s James Comey is going to be? The only real prediction I have is that something very destabilizing happens in the week before the election, but the particulars could be anything. Some fun possibilities:

DNC hacked again

Federally sanctioned repeat of the 1985 MOVE bombing

Hunter Biden cocaine sex tape

Anything that startles people, destabilizes institutions, and distracts from other issues is a viable possibility.

Scenarios after a contested election:

There are plenty of bluechecks and think tanks who have already gamed this out in detail. You don’t have to take my word for any of this part. The choices are:

There are rival sets of state electors, and Congress decides which ones count. Result: McConnell and Barr play Calvinball until they get the outcome they like, Trump remains in office.

The supreme court decides. Result: Trump remains in office.

The militias decide. Result: Trump remains in office, plus the Handmaid’s Tale happens.

There’s an orange revolution. After months of protracted struggle, Trump is ousted from office. However, in the meantime, ~8 states have seceded and Russia has annexed Alaska. In the ensuing chaos, John McAfee claims the presidency.

Probability estimates:

Trump’s odds of a ‘legitimate’ EC victory are only at 13% as of this moment, but the running average is higher, with occasional spikes above 30%. Polling errors add a little extra. Let’s say 25%.

Trump’s odds of losing the EC vote, but clawing it back through malfeasance until enough Republicans agree that he’s won, are very low in the case of a Biden landslide. But a landslide is unlikely, and as the results are closer, the probability of Republicans declaring themselves winners approach one. Note that, at least from mainstream news coverage, this won’t look like the power grab that many democrats fear. It will look like a lot of confusion and disarray, with an unclear EC count, followed by a cascade of authorities and sources declaring Trump the winner and securing the acceptance from government bodies one at a time. For the most likely election outcomes in which Trump doesn’t win straight up, I’d say a 30% chance Trump remains in office.

The election being a total dysfunctional disaster, with multiple states unable to certify results, is at least 5%. At least! In such a case, I’d give Trump an 80% chance of remaining in office.

In general, I believe that the only way that Biden gets to be president is if everything basically holds together and works like it’s supposed to, and also Trump legitimately loses the EC. There is one way for everything to go right. There are many ways it can go wrong.

The NYT has fixated on the possibility that Trump clearly loses, but refuses to leave office anyway. I’d give this no more than a 1% chance of happening. But I think there’s a major blind spot around the possibility that we have no idea who won, because the whole thing is obfuscated by multiple layers of confusion and malfeasance. What tools to democrats have for investigating malfeasance? What tools do they have for persuading people that they won when the results are in question? What tools to they have for enforcing election laws that they didn’t have in 2017?

I think they have approximately one asset, and it’s a populace that’s willing to rise up in defense of their rights. But the DNC spent the last five-ish years antagonizing and alienating anyone left of Dianne Feinstein, so, the efficacy of a potential national mobilization has been severely compromised.

Any protracted contested election scenario either favors Trump remaining in power, or the eventual balkanization of the US. One reason there are no good scenarios for a contested election is that mainstream media has been so adamant that the election is secure. When the Democrats are trying to contest results, they will be struggling against their own narrative.

Then, I add a 10% chance that a last minute October surprise tips the race to Trump. It happened last time, and Comey wasn’t even trying; now that every government office is staffed with Trump appointees who are trying, they have a decent shot at this.

Summing up these odds, I arrive at Trump having around a 70% chance.

Then, I add another 5%, because I bet there’s things I haven’t thought of, and every year there’s some small chance that the far right will go all in on a race war, and this would be a good opportunity for them.

I will take actual bets on these odds.

My biases:

Numerous.

I grew up in a red community in a red state and was bullied a lot by kids who grew up to be far-right; I have a chip on my shoulder about this that precludes dispassionate analysis.

I believe the RNC has looked at US demographic trends and likely consequences of climate change, and has accepted a certain amount of fascistic will to power as a necessary evil. This is mere supposition on my part.

Despite the fact that I am more or less an asshole stoner burnout weeb, I remain convinced that the editorial staff at the NYT and several other major American journalistic institutions are somehow even dumber than I am. Although this may sound unlikely, this assumption has been invaluable for making predictions about the world.

I am a paranoid person.

My motivations for writing this:

Believe it or not, I’m only doing this to assuage anxiety. I’ve been convinced that Trump’s odds for remaining in office have been significantly higher than polls would suggest since 2018, and it’s maddening to see so few other people agree even though my core assumptions keep not going away.

If anyone read this far: I’m sorry, and I hope this motivates you to vote, if you weren’t going to already. If Trump remains in office, protests against him will benefit from having the mandate of a clear popular vote win, even if not an EC win, so I do believe that even people outside battleground states should vote.

I don’t know about Tumblr, but on Twitter, ‘no-hopers’ are characterized (fairly or not) as being defeatist Bernie bros who think that Trump should win the election to teach the DNC a lesson. I disavow this idea in the strongest possible terms. I think Biden can win and urgently should win. But every time I see someone talking about the Biden presidency as if it were a sure thing, it takes another year off my lifespan.

No matter what happens, we will be fighting racism and corruption for the rest of our lives, because that’s what ethical behavior entails in this world. But a Biden term vs. a second Trump term are in no way equivalent, and things can still get worse.

In conclusion, [that picture of the guy at the folding table with the ‘prove me wrong’ sign]

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haberdashing · 5 years

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I feel like there’s a lot of misinformation floating around regarding what would happen if Donald Trump got impeached, and while I’m not an expert on the matter, I’d like to clarify a few things.

I’ll be referencing the U.S. Constitution here and there, and while there’s a number of places to read it online, I’d recommend constitutionus.com. Clear, plain text, easy to read and follow along.

First off, impeachment is not the same thing as being removed from office. Bill Clinton got impeached, but didn’t lose the presidency because of it. Impeachment basically means bringing charges against a federal official; only if they’re subsequently convicted of those charges would that official be removed from office.

What does post-impeachment conviction take, you ask?

Per Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution (bolding mine):

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

We’d need a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict Trump and get him out of office. The GOP-led Senate. It’s not impossible, but it’d be an uphill battle.

And what happens if we do manage to get the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to oust Trump from office? Removal of Pence and his entire Cabinet? Getting rid of everything he’s done in office? Pretending like the last two and a half years were just a bad fever dream?

Per Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 (bolding mine):

Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

What happens is Trump gets out of office and can’t get it back, or get any other federal government position. That’s it. Pence is President, all the laws Trump’s enacted over the last two and a half years remain in place, and we’re back to business as normal unless we can get the evidence and the votes to both impeach and convict other officials.

But wait! You say. What about the second half of that clause?

Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 again (bolding mine):

Yep, Donald Trump can be prosecuted for the laws he’s broken while in office... but there’s a big asterisk there that we shouldn’t forget about.

Namely, Presidential pardons.

In the actual Constitution, it’s a bit unclear whether the President can pardon individuals of crimes tied in to impeachment.

Per Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution (bolding mine):

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Sounds like they can’t pardon impeachable offenses... or maybe just can’t pardon from the actual ousting from office that comes with impeachment and conviction... or something? It’s a little unclear.

But we’ve got precedent to help establish what that bit there means.

Enter Richard Nixon.

Nixon didn’t actually get ousted via impeachment and conviction, instead resigning when it was clear he was on his way out one way or another, but I’d imagine the same principles would apply. (Besides, Trump might well resign instead of getting ousted if it comes to that, too.)

His Vice President, Gerald Ford, takes over the Presidency... and more or less the first thing he does is pardon Nixon for, well, basically everything related to Watergate. Because he could do that now. Because he was the President.

And it’s very possible that President Pence (I know, I shuddered reading that too) would do the same if Trump leaves office due to impeachment, whether it be via resignation or conviction by the Senate.

(This is one reason some have tried to pin crimes on Trump that are state crimes rather than federal ones. Presidents can only pardon “for Offences against the United States,” so state crimes can’t be pardoned by the President, only by the governor of the state in question.)

So does all this mean impeachment is a giant waste, that we’d just be replacing one far-right jerk of a President with another and we shouldn’t even bother?

I don’t think so.

From here on out, this is just speculating based on all of the above and what we know of our current political climate.

Let’s say Trump gets impeached and either is convicted or resigns, and Pence takes over. As the new President, Pence has the power to pardon Trump for federal crimes... but would he actually do so?

With the 2020 election looming, deciding whether or not to pardon Trump would put President Pence (I know, I know) in a bit of a bind.

It’s no secret that the Republican party’s somewhat divided now, into center-rightists who don’t entirely agree with Trump and far-right Trump-lovers, and that a good chunk of moderates can see that Trump’s made some major missteps during his presidency.

If Pence pardons Trump, the moderates and center-right would object, and he’d lose voters who agree that while they’re willing to accept some right-wing policies, Trump took some things way too far.

If Pence doesn’t pardon Trump, Trump’s base would object, and he’d lose voters who agree with everything Trump’s done and would vote for him again if given the opportunity.

(Which they wouldn’t get, at least if Trump’s convicted rather than resigns beforehand. No federal office for him again if he’s impeached and convicted.)

Either way, he’s bound to lose a number of potential voters.

Either way, it makes a Democratic presidential win in 2020 that much more possible.

So impeachment is a step in the right direction, for sure, even if not for the reasons some have been bandying about.

#personal #shitpost #feel free to reblog #donald trump #trump #impeachment #trump impeachment #donald trump impeachment #long post

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rabbithole86 · 5 years

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WHAT TAYLOR SWIFT'S ALLYSHIP MEANS TO HER FANS — AND THE LGBTQ+ FANDOM

By Carson Mlnarik xxxx

I learned about the gospel of Taylor Swift through my mom, whose car stereo was permanently tuned to country radio. Her first single, “Tim McGraw,” sparked something in me, and I was immediately obsessed — to the point where my family was calling Taylor “Carson’s girlfriend” within weeks. I was 11 years old; it would be six years before I told anyone that I was gay. And it would take even longer — and for Taylor herself to proclaim, “You can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls” — for my family to learn that I didn’t want to date Taylor Swift, I wanted to be like Taylor Swift.

As I became more accepting of my sexuality, it helped that Taylor was growing into an LGBTQ+ ally. And as the years went by, her music, frankly, got gayer.

When she debuted in 2006, Taylor was my middle school confessional queen. She always knew what it was like to be an outsider at the lunch table (“The Outside”) or to dramatically pine after someone who wasn’t into you (“Teardrops on My Guitar”). And while anthems like “Fearless” and “Speak Now” encouraged listeners to live their truths, I was only beginning to realize my truths: namely, that the fixation on male friendships that took up 113 percent of my brain was most definitely a manifestation of some same-sex attraction. I took note, but stayed closeted, especially given that I was navigating my own identity in conservative Arizona.

The fact that Taylor got her start in country music is not lost on me, either; the genre’s current focus on Christian faith, heteronormative imagery, and popularity in states that often vote red (no relation to the album) have garnered it a reputation as the “Republican genre.” You’d be hard-pressed to find mainstream country music by out LGBTQ+ artists, and, until recently, little solidarity with the community by its biggest stars. Thanks to open allyship from artists like Kacey Musgraves and Luke Bryan, that’s changing, but for the most part, they’re still the exception.

Taylor was always an icon in my eyes but it wasn’t until she went pop that her allyship seemed to take form. While “icon” status is a term some people seem to apply like chapstick, “ally” involves putting in a certain kind of work. Taylor had never come out against the community but was an unlikely ally nonetheless, especially considering she came from country and scrubbed a potentially homophobic line from her discography early on. Her first solidly pop entry, however, found her empoweredenough to shout out the community and even arguably earned her gay Twitter’s respect. The Reputation era found her taking on a more active ally role: it was then, ahead of the 2018 midterms, that she finally stated her pro-gay rights stance, encouraged fans to vote, gave a Pride Month speech on tour, and made pro-LGBTQ donations.

“I’ve always seen her as someone who’s really accepting of everyone,” Gia, a fan who identifies as bisexual and lives in Scotland, told MTV News. But even she has noticed an uptick in active and affirmative allyship, from both Taylor and her fans.

In the LGBTQ+ community, having an “active ally” — a friend, co-worker, or acquaintance who not only believes in equality but does so visibly with empathy, patience, and recognition of privilege — can make a huge difference. Allies not only promote acceptance in the greater community but can also be sources of information and help. In schools with gay-straight alliances, 91 percent of LGBTQ+ students in the club felt supported enough to further advocate for other social or political issues, andworkplaces that have openly supportive senior staff or a company culture of acceptance help employees feel more comfortable in being professionally out.

“Within the last year, I’ve seen a lot more pride [within the Taylor fandom], especially when I attended the Rep Tour and saw other [people] with pride flags,” Gia added.

Gia said she truly realized the extent of LGBTQ+-identifying individuals in the fandom after seeing hashtags like #LGBTQSwifties and #GayForTay. Stan Twitter and Tumblr bios boast rainbow emojis and pride flags, which aren’t necessarily decisions that Taylor had any part in making, but still affirm that there isn’t just space in the fandom for LGBTQ+ fans — we’re welcome here, too.

Jeremy, a Twitter user who identifies as bisexual, has been a fan of Taylor’s since 2006. While he is “definitely happy that she has been more explicit with her stances,” he says her message of “self-love and [embracing] that self loudly and passionately” has always been a source of comfort for him.

“She always inspires us to be proud of who we are, and to ignore those who tell us to be different,” he told MTV News.

For me, that pride took a while to establish, and even longer to give voice to. Still, Taylor was there for me every step of the way: In my junior year of high school, she released a mixed-genre foray into pop that gave us bops like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “22,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and I didn’t just enjoy the Redalbum, I felt it. The emotional LP provided inspiration as I became student body president and big man on campus, but kept my sexuality a complete secret. It would become a source of comfort after I came out to close friends and family but lacked the confidence to do so on a larger scale. It would even become a guide to love and heartbreak after I got — and then broke up with — my first boyfriend.

He left me with bitter parting words: "I’ll never be able to listen to another Taylor Swift song without thinking of you.” I may get that inscribed on my tombstone.

As I started my freshman year of college, I was tired of feeling splintered about my identity. I started introducing myself as gay and going out on dates with guys, with the newly-released 1989 as my companion. While Taylor’s pop departure alienated some people, I found lyrics like, “I got this music in my mind / sayin’ it’s gonna be alright,” take on new weight in the midst of finding myself. If Taylor could start anew, so could I. Besides, what gay doesn’t love a good bop?

We make connections to music based on what we’re experiencing when we’re listening for the first time. Even if it’s beyond what the songwriter intended, their work can often become shorthand for certain times, places, and feelings — it’s chemical. It’s a phenomenon Taylor has even penned about, and while her lyrics, for the most part, describe heterosexual relationships, they do so in such a raw and confessional manner that it never mattered to me. Whether she was calling a boy out by name on her albums or scorning her bullies at the Grammys, there was an echoing theme of never hiding your feelings.

And through her vulnerability and openness, the singer has nurtured a fandom of people like myself who not only unite to feel seen and validated by her music but see and validate each other.

For Grace, who lives in Tennessee and has had a stan account since 2017, having a network of allies and openly LGBTQ+ people in the Taylor fandom has helped her in her own self-acceptance.

“I think a big part of it was just seeing how open other people were about their own sexuality and everyone was super supportive and loving towards them,” she said. “It’s not something that I had ever really seen much of before and it made me feel comfortable enough to accept myself and be open about it. I’m not sure I would be as secure in myself as I am now without it.”

When Taylor donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project to fight against the state’s “Slate of Hate” legislation, Grace felt directly moved. “I cried at the fact that someone I have admired for so many years of my life was fighting for me directly,” she said.

Arthur, a bisexual trans man from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said he grew up seeing a lot of “bigoted people in the fandom,” but since Taylor has become a more active ally, he has seen a huge shift. An activist since age 14, he started following Taylor around 2012 in her Red era and knew when she eventually spoke up, things would start to change.

“LGBTQ fans are gaining space, as [are] fans of color, which is so great to see,” he said. “Taylor being more politically engaged helped [make] this change happen.”

Taylor has not only made her stance clear but continues to affirm it. She kicked off Pride Month this year by creating a petition for the Senate to pass the Equality Act, a sweeping policy that would protect LGBTQ people against sexuality-based discrimination. She also shared a letter she wrote to her state senator urging them to pass the bill and encouraged fans to do the same.

“While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally,” she tweeted.

Taylor is hardly the first pop star to encourage their fans to get political. But as discussions arise around Pride becoming branded and straight people co-opt events, she’s proving to be a pretty good model of what it means to be an active ally in this political climate.

That’s not to say we’re there yet. We’ve still got a long way to go, and Taylor’s even acknowledged it. But as a former purveyor of yee-haw music and a current pop queen, she’s doing what she’s always done best for many of her gay fans: helping us feel seen and heard.

#taylor swift #gaylor swift #mtv #pride month #pride

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the-more-you-kn0w · 5 years

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Georgia, HB481 And The Mother of All Evil

Trigger Warning: This post is concerned with the issue of reproductive rights, specifically abortion and also contains mention of rape and incest.

Disclaimer: I’m not American nor do I live in America so it’s currently unlikely this law would affect me but as someone who is passionate about reproductive rights, I had to say something.

Today, my heart, broke sank and cracked a little more for the women of the world. To be clear, this happens on a regular basis and is not a phenomenon simply reserved for travesties and issues that affect the Western world. But today, it sank to the pit of my stomach because Georgia, a state of the so-called “land of the free” that promotes the American dream and is part of the self-proclaimed ‘greatest country in the world’ passed a bill that makes me so angry, there isn’t a word strong enough.

That bill will be referenced as House Bill 481 (HB481) and seeks to criminalise abortion, after the 6 week mark Abortion beyond this point would see women treated as murderers, under the law, subject to imprisonment and even capital punishment. This will also apply to women who miscarry if a court can find they could have done something to prevent it from happening.

Yes, you just read all of that right. I know. We’ve entered a dimension of hell. To understand the many layers of why this is a new evil, we need to break it down a bit...

The Biology of A Baby And A Women’s Body:

Technically, if a woman’s body is to follow the textbook definition of a menstrual cycle, she will have a period every 28 days or four weeks. Under the new law, this gives her only a two-week window to discover she is pregnant, from the time of her last period. Typically, many women will pass this marker of time without even realising they’re pregnant because guess what? Menstrual cycles are weird. Sometimes you wait 6 weeks between periods. Sometimes you wait 3.If you have a naturally irregular cycle, you’re honestly lucky if you know what the heck is going on down there at all. It is also worth noting that 6 weeks would only just indicate the first pulsing of cells that will later specialise in and become the heart. At this point in pregnancy, a foetus has not yet developed a brain or face, yet they have been granted personhood under this bill.

There are many women and girls around the world who do not have rights or agency over their bodies. They are abused and grossly sexually violated on a daily basis. If they become pregnant, they’re forced to risk their lives because they don’t have decent enough medical technology to stop them from dying in childbirth. They’re also adding yet another mouth to feed when starvation, malnutrition and sickness are wolves at the door. That’s a harsh reality and one I sadly can’t fix from here. It doesn’t mean I won’t try in the future but for now, I can campaign loudly to tear down these ‘heartbeat bills’ in the US that would see in the age of #MeToo, a women denied rights over her own body.

The Power of Choice

A woman does not have to have a baby. There is no contractual obligation that our bodies and our lives must be devoted to housing, feeding and nurturing another. If that’s the life you choose, all the power to you and equal power if it’s the life you don’t want. This is not the Handmaid’s Tale. A woman should not have to justify her reproductive choices but for the sake of creating allies and conversation, here are some reasons why a woman might decide to have an abortion.

1) Her pregnancy is the result of rape or incest - At the moment Georgia’s bill and others allow this as an exception but there are anti-choice groups actively campaigning for the removal of this exception which they’re also doing for

2) Women whose health would be endangered by pregnancy - which can be the case if you have certain chronic illnesses such as lupus etc. or you’re at risk of passing on a genetic disease such as Huntington’s which has a 50% chance of hiding its genes in your DNA if your family is already susceptible.

3) They just might not be ready for or in circumstances where having a baby is advisable/feasible/what they want.And this looks different for a lot of people. It could be down to financial struggle, being too young/having kids already and adding another just being complicated or a million other things. Some people aren’t meant to be parents and that’s OK. You gotta remember, in the majority of cases, you can’t cut ties with a baby after 9 months. It’s at the bare minimum, if you’re really sure, an 18-year-long process. Babies need a home and food and clothes and eventually an education. Raising a baby costs $$$. This might come off as a horribly harsh thing to say, but trust me, from personal experience there’s nothing more scary and heartbreaking than a baby being born into a situation where they’re not wanted or where parents can’t be bothered or where they shouldn’t have even really had a baby at all.

Under The Law

So, 1973 in the case of Roe vs. Wade, the US Supreme Court makes a decision to allow women safe and legal access to abortion. You can read more about the case here. 73% of Americans don’t want to see this law overturned. Before its arrival, abortion was the cause of 1 in 6 pregnancy related deaths. Since that day, the 22nd of January, 1973, it has of course been under attack and protest from those who don’t believe in abortion. The attacks have gotten stronger over the last year or so with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court who was chosen by Donald Trump, for a number of reasons, one specifically being his strong opposition to Roe vs. Wade.

Shockingly it’s not just Georgia that has the ‘heartbeat bill’. Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa, and North Dakota also have these bills. But wait... it gets worse! There are also a number of states who have these ‘trigger laws’ that in the event of Roe vs. Wade being overturned, would immediately criminalise abortion, allowing women to face the death penalty and any found to be helping them charged with conspiracy to murder, with a sentence of up to 10 years. This also includes travel for abortion. Those states with ‘trigger laws’ are Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and South Carolina.

So What Can We Do?

There’s not much, but we can keep campaigning. We can support Planned Parenthood. We can refuse to let the Dark Ages crawl up out of the hole we pushed them into for destroying. We can continue to talk about reproductive health. They can’t take our voices away. We can join the campaign the people of Hollywood are behind right now to remove the film industry from Georgia in light of their passing the bill. When it comes to next year’s election, you can vote Donald Trump and his Republican bigots out of the White House. But if we’re going to fix the world as you know, from its many complicated problems, we have to be together and unflinching in our goal. Whatever it takes Hannah 💛

#tw: rape #tw: abortion #tw: incest #hb481 #heartbeat bill #trigger laws #pro choice #a woman's body: her choice #reproductive rights #themoreyoukn0w #hannah

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ts1989fanatic · 5 years

Text

'SHE ALWAYS INSPIRES US TO BE PROUD OF WHO WE ARE, AND TO IGNORE THOSE WHO TELL US TO BE DIFFERENT'

MTV NEWS STAFF

2h ago

By Carson Mlnarik

As I became more accepting of my sexuality, it helped that Taylor was growing into an LGBTQ+ ally. And as the years went by, her music, frankly, got gayer.

Taylor was always an icon in my eyes but it wasn’t until she went pop that her allyship seemed to take form. While “icon” status is a term some people seem to apply like chapstick, “ally” involves putting in a certain kind of work. Taylor had never come out against the community but was an unlikely ally nonetheless, especially considering she came from country and scrubbed a potentially homophobic line from her discography early on. Her first solidly pop entry, however, found her empowered enough to shout out the community and even arguably earned her gay Twitter’s respect. The Reputation era found her taking on a more active ally role: it was then, ahead of the 2018 midterms, that she finally stated her pro-gay rights stance, encouraged fans to vote, gave a Pride Month speech on tour, and made pro-LGBTQ donations.

In the LGBTQ+ community, having an “active ally” — a friend, co-worker, or acquaintance who not only believes in equality but does so visibly with empathy, patience, and recognition of privilege — can make a huge difference. Allies not only promote acceptance in the greater community but can also be sources of information and help. In schools with gay-straight alliances, 91 percent of LGBTQ+ students in the club felt supported enough to further advocate for other social or political issues, and workplaces that have openly supportive senior staff or a company culture of acceptance help employees feel more comfortable in being professionally out.

“Within the last year, I’ve seen a lot more pride [within the Taylor fandom], especially when I attended the Rep Tour and saw other [people] with pride flags,” Gia added.

“She always inspires us to be proud of who we are, and to ignore those who tell us to be different,” he told MTV News.

For me, that pride took a while to establish, and even longer to give voice to. Still, Taylor was there for me every step of the way: In my junior year of high school, she released a mixed-genre foray into pop that gave us bops like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “22,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and I didn’t just enjoy the Red album, I felt it. The emotional LP provided inspiration as I became student body president and big man on campus, but kept my sexuality a complete secret. It would become a source of comfort after I came out to close friends and family but lacked the confidence to do so on a larger scale. It would even become a guide to love and heartbreak after I got — and then broke up with — my first boyfriend.

He left me with bitter parting words: "I’ll never be able to listen to another Taylor Swift song without thinking of you.” I may get that inscribed on my tombstone.

And through her vulnerability and openness, the singer has nurtured a fandom of people like myself who not only unite to feel seen and validated by her music but see and validate each other.

For Grace, who lives in Tennessee and has had a stan account since 2017, having a network of allies and openly LGBTQ+ people in the Taylor fandom has helped her in her own self-acceptance.

“LGBTQ fans are gaining space, as [are] fans of color, which is so great to see,” he said. “Taylor being more politically engaged helped [make] this change happen.”

“While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally,” she tweeted.

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chiseler · 5 years

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Imagine Electing Pete

On September 12, 2019, during the Democratic Primary debate in Houston, Texas, something strange, even epiphanous occurred. At least for me. The current Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, one Pete Buttigieg, evidently (for this was by no means visible to the eye) fell into a trance-like state and began to channel a voice that was, oddly, not of the spirit world.

The voice was that of Disc Jockey Glenn Beck, and the words were from a 2009 Mission Statement that he had composed for some extraordinary thing he'd started called the 9/12 Movement; a kind of protest/support group for those citizens longing for the rare fragrance of unity and togetherness which intoxicated all of America, we were told, on September 12, 2001; just one day after that thing happened in Lower Manhattan. "We were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties, the color of your skin, or what religion you practiced. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created. We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again." Beck continued. "On September 12th, and for a short time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would focus on the things that were important -- our family, our friends, the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's beacon of freedom." Amen. I suppose. Of course, how formidable the words, and how entirely sincere (or not) the sentiment may have been -- one cannot, I suspect, locate much nostalgia for that moment beating in the hearts of this country's Muslim communities, ever since marked for harassment (and frequently far, far worse) at the hands of those basking 'neath freedom's beacon -- it seems to have been a uniquely durable one. Personally, I had completely forgotten that . . . anyone . . . had told ev'ry little star just how sweet they thought everything was on that day. What I remember most Is the kind of unusually animated daze people were walking around in. The American Imagination was in high style that day. All anybody could talk about was What Happens Next, with many of these people consumed with their own, homemade fantasies of national vengeance toward those responsible. Their hearts were full, and grim. The Mayor of South Bend, as I say, appears to remember things rather differently, and one cannot question it. Six years later -- the clear sky of American unity having, for the rest of us, clouded over once more -- Buttigieg would remain so enthralled by this singular hour in Our American Story that he would leave his two jobs (it was, yes, that kind of economy) as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., and as a Fellow at the Truman National Security Project. He would enlist, voluntarily, in the United States Navy, jumping into our ongoing war of military aggression against the country of Afghanistan with both feet for a period of fourteen months. He ran numbers and drove officers around. Not exactly Audie Murphy in 'To Hell and Back' . . . or Abbott & Costello in 'Buck Privates' for that matter (if he triple-tapped an elementary school or watched our drones wipe out a house party or two, he has not admitted to it) . . . but it provided this future Presidential candidate a chance to build character (and, naturally, his resume). So, unlike a professional grifter such as Glenn Beck, when Buttigieg waxes nostalgic for those days of unity, one doubts his sincerity at one's peril. Buttigieg, during the debate in Houston, stated "All day today, I’ve been thinking about Sept. 12, the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country. Imagine if we had been able to sustain that unity. Imagine what would be possible right now with ideas that are bold enough to meet the challenges of our time, but big enough, as well, that they could unify the American people. That’s what presidential leadership can do. That’s what the presidency is for." He concluded, of course, with, "And that is why I’m asking for your vote." To someone like Buttigieg, September 12, 2001 is a day that, I'm certain, he wishes could have gone on forever. But whatever he wants people to think, it was a day when the entire country was crouching as one, it seemed, gazing at everyone around them in fear and outright bafflement; a day that our rulers could have done (and in some senses did do) anything they wanted with us, and we probably would have gone along with all of it because we didn't know what else there was to do; a day, in other words, when our empire was never more firmly in the grasp of those who own it. Despite the loftiness of his rhetoric on the debate stage -- a mode of high school valedictorian speech he is often given to -- Pete Buttigieg is, underneath it all, a born technocrat; a classic, Eisenhower-era Republican; a creature of our institutions. He is not Franklin Roosevelt (that Bolshevik). He does not aspire to lift a frightened nation out of its slough of despond and keep its people safe from Capitalism's consequences and depredations; or anything, by all evidence, more inspiring the citizenry than the 'Shut Up and Shop' society finally urged upon us in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He is only here to apply for a job to manage this empire of ours, nothing more. But I can't help feeling there's something quietly monstrous about his true, evident nostalgia for that time when unity was accessible to some Americans and not to others. I had my first inkling of this a couple months back when he had to get off the campaign trail for a day or two because the cops in South Bend had been for too long conducting themselves like Cossacks under Nicholas II, rampaging with too much impunity through that city's Black neighborhoods (safely separated from the more upper class College Town South Bend is known for being), finally dropping too many bodies with too little pretext. After pleading to the national press that he had essentially no control, no control at all, over the police in his city, and every poll showing that Black voters utterly despise him, he headed over to the part of town in question to inform the residents to please stay on the line, as it were; their questions and concerns were important to him. In full Damage Control mode, Pete Buttigieg read his statement through a bullhorn to a group of women, members of a grossly victimized community, all of whom had had enough and were giving their Mayor the earful his White ass deserved. And he stood before them, this diminutive block of American cheese in shirtsleeves, collar and tie; the guy who blankly tells you he's sorry, but you're being let go and there's nothing he can do about it; standing with a bullhorn in his hand and not a hint of emotion in his voice as he droned into the instrument to his city's Black community: "I'm not asking for your vote." Some people in this country, you see, are asked for their vote; others are not. Matters of race aside -- and not much good can be said on Buttigieg and that subject; which is not to suggest, I hasten to add, that the man is racist. With his background he's probably never had to think very much about race -- one thing was clear to me: He's a real calm customer, this guy; doesn't break a sweat. Everyone says so. Smart as a whip, too. You hear that one constantly from his supporters: swooning over his credentials, his evident intellect, his grasp of languages ("Norwegian! Can you believe it?!"). It all feeds into the overarching perception of his ability to handle crises with the right character of detachment. Our media adores him, largely for this reason; and why shouldn't they? He's perhaps the closest thing to a polar opposite in this race to the dread Donald Trump without his skin being at all darker. With Pete Buttigieg as President, I have been told, we won't have to think and worry so much about what's going on in the world, the way we do now. We won't be on pins and needles, waiting to see what the President of the United States does next. We can, at long last, relax again; get some sleep. He's got this. I can understand the enthusiasm for Buttigieg on the part of those who wish to see him elected President (there aren't too many of them, if polling has anything to say about it, but they do make themselves known). I even can find it in me to share it. To some extent, anyway. There is, after all, true intrinsic value in the election, should it happen, of the first (openly) gay President of the United States; just as Barack Obama's election possessed similar intrinsic value; just as the election of our first Woman President will when it happens. It's the only, unambiguously good thing about a prospective Pete Buttigieg Presidency. But beyond that, and the fact that most of what is claimed for him is probably true, I actually dread his ever being President (that he is not the only candidate currently in the race who I can say this about does little to ease my anxiety). Last night's single file march down 9/12 Memory Lane tore it for me. I know what he is now, and no mistake. He is a living, breathing, competent, talented, educated, cultured (no Alfred E. Neuman for this guy), credentialed throwback to the brain trusts and planners of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Rostow, McNamara, Bundy; every Ivy League war criminal Halberstam wrote about in 'The Best and the Brightest', who cooly, carefully ran the numbers, made their calculations, and executed a wholesale genocide in Southeast Asia. Buttigieg has the potential to be precisely the kind of cool, detached, analytical monster that will tell us, sorry, but entitlements have to be cut (numbers don't lie) or, worse, successfully oversee the ongoing, unending US war on Islam while our once again fat, dumb, happy country sleeps an untroubled sleep. In that sense (if no other), Pete Buttigieg is the most dangerous of all the candidates currently in the race. He's what Noam Chomsky warned us about fifty years ago.

by R.J. Lambert

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arlingtonpark · 6 years

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SNK 103 Review

CONTENT WARNING: includes discussion of american politics and Donald Trump.

“There’s no need for us to worry. The battlefield is under our control now. We’re closing in on all our enemies. They decided to make their entrance using their ‘vertical maneuvering’. So they don’t have much in terms of weapons or fuel. In other words, they’re in the middle of enemy territory with no supply lines. They’re cornered rats. The Marleyan army should be surrounding this internment zone, so there’s no escape route. The Paradis forces never had the numbers to take on Marley in a proper war.”

Pieck is supposed to be the genius here, right? So if they’re saying the same things I was saying, does that mean I’m a genius, too?

As Pieck said, this is largely correct, however, that does not mean that victory is assured for Marley, as we saw in this chapter.

The Marleyans made a number of critical errors. Both Porco and Pieck let their feelings get the better of them, and they both charged rashly at the enemy without thinking, which for Pieck opened her up to a surprise attack. Porco may yet escape unscathed, but ultimately, it would’ve been better if he had strategized first before charging in. What’s more is Pieck’s inexcusable incompetence, which led to Zeke’s apparent death. She was supposed to cover his rear. That means her position is behind him, yet she foolishly repositioned herself to be in front of him, leaving Zeke wide open so Levi could kill him.

Zeke and Pieck are now both down, Armin is not far away, Eren is free again, and the Marleyans won’t be getting as much reinforcements as they thought they would. All in all, this is a definite improvement from Paradis’ perspective.

Whether or not this is the start of a more long term improvement in the situation for them depends on a couple of unknowns. Whatever the Survey Corps’ plan is, it involves the placing of lights at various places, and it involves taking out the Warhammer titan and disabling Pieck either within a certain amount of time, or by a certain time. Whatever ace they have up their sleeve could potentially win them the fight, or at least get them out of this predicament. Eren also apparently has an ace up his sleeve since he’s “not done yet.” I can’t fathom what they could be planning, but that just makes things more exciting.

Just a thought, but earlier Willy said that it was possible that Paradis was working with one of Marley’s enemies. Koyomi is apparently an ambassador of her country since she was seen at the gala rubbing elbows with other ambassadors, and she’s shown to care for the Eldians, which could be seen as a hint at her country’s general attitude towards Eldians. Perhaps the Survey Corps has reinforcements of their own coming to the fight.

That would explain why it so important to eliminate Marley’s titans as quickly as possible. Marley is the dominant world power because of their titans. That implies that no other military can match the group of titan shifters that make up the backbone of Marley’s military. But the Survey Corps specializes in killing titans, which is why they are tasked with eliminating the titan shifters in time for Hizul to arrive and mop up the remaining non-titan aspects of Marley’s military.

I had previously said that Zeke’s apparent duplicity could just be a feint on Isayama’s part, but now I’m really starting to think that it might be re-nope, just kidding, I’m still not convinced. My official stance on this is that there are too many unknowns to say beyond reasonable doubt that Zeke and Eren are in league. For example, we don’t know the exact circumstances of why Eren came to Marley in the first place, which is pretty damn important for determining if he would even want to ally with Zeke at all. However, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and argue the opposite of what most people seem to believe because being contrarian is fun.

In the past, Zeke had said he hoped to never face an Ackermann again. Now he’s literally calling one of them out. I will acknowledge that I cannot account for this inconsistency, but I doubt that Zeke’s death is part of some grand plan on the part of the Eren or the Survey Corps. I can, however, think of some good excuses for some eyebrow raising things we see in this chapter.

Yes, Zeke flat out says that Eren isn’t his enemy, but that isn’t a hint at their being allies. It has been a consistent theme of this series that people are forced to do unsavory things due to unfortunate circumstances. Zeke cares about Eren, but him having to oppose him anyway due to the circumstances would be in line with this series’ themes. Eren is not the enemy, but he is the opposition.

And the panel where we see that Levi is keeping the time for some reason? I sure some people would interpret that as Levi timing out when to attack Zeke on the assumption that Zeke being “killed” was preplanned somehow. My explanation for that? Well, Jean has repeatedly made clear they have a schedule to keep. Clearly, time is an important component of this operation, and in that case, it makes sense that some high ranking, or perhaps even all, soldiers would have a watch on their person to track the time. And the choice to show Levi doing this when Zeke is calling him out is just part of Isayama’s ruse.

The baseball glove Eren had earlier when, in the same chapter, Zeke was also shown with one? Simple: it’s just a metaphor and nothing else. The glove is used to highlight the differences between Zeke and Eren in what was at the time the present situation. Eren had previously said he was on bad terms with his family and he was at the moment on his own in enemy territory. Thus, Eren having the glove and ball but no partner to play catch with is a metaphor for his isolation. Zeke, meanwhile, does have a partner, and that emphasizes that Zeke is not alone, that he is in familiar territory with people who care about him, or at least respect him.

I could go on all day, really, just pulling these explanations out of thin air. I am, after all, a Pieck level genius.

The final thing to talk about is, ironically, since they’re the first two people we see, Reiner and Falco.

That was some quick thinking on Reiner’s part, he deserves great credit for that. I think he’ll live. He may have said he wished to die, but the thing is that statements like that are usually spur of the moment type things. If someone says they wish they were dead, they’ll usually walk that statement back if you give them time (sometimes as little as a few seconds) to think about it some more. Beyond that, Reiner cares about Falco and confirming that he did indeed survive requires that Reiner not be dead, so that by itself should be reason enough to motivate him to heal.

This also confirms that Reiner’s suicide attempt from earlier would indeed have killed him, regardless of whatever that nervous system mumbo jumbo Isayama used to save him back in Shighanshina is.

So, can the cycle of violence be broken?

The answer is yes, in theory anyway.

Many people believe that humans are predisposed to conflict. That is a very rudimentary way of thinking. In reality, there will eventually be peace for the same reason that organized society exists at all: ultimately, cooperation is preferable to conflict. In the long run, everyone benefits more when people are working together than when everyone is trying to kill each other. Really, it’s just obvious.

Human beings are rational. This means we assess the situation and perform the action we believe will carry the most benefit. For ourselves, our loved ones, our ideals, our nation. This does not mean that the right choice is always made, but it does mean that violence is not the natural state of humanity.

The one confounding factor here that is preventing this peace from coming about is human tribalism.

Human behavior is tribal in nature, meaning that we view others that we identify with in some way as being “one of us,” and people we don’t identify with as being “one of them.” It’s a natural, human inclination.

White people identify with other white people.

Gay people with other gay people.

Floridians with Floridians.

Yankees fans.

Whovians.

Fandom itself exists because of this. Fandoms are tribes, though of course tribal instincts are weaker for fandom compared to other social group identifiers such as race.

Donald Trump is now our President because of tribalism.

The white race has always dominated American society. However, in recent years, it has become fashionable to conclude that white people will lose their dominance in the coming decades. White people are projected to no longer be the majority racial group by 2050, though they will still be a plurality of the population.

Before 2016 put a damper on things, there was much talk of “the Obama coalition,” or the “coalition of the ascendant.” The idea was that the voters who made Obama president, black people, Hispanics, women, etc. (in other words, people who aren’t white men) would form an enduring and dominant bloc of voters that would steer national politics in their favor.

At the expense, it was and is felt by many, of white people.

The thought of one’s social group, one’s tribe, losing its social standing and dominance inspired great fear in many white people, and so they voted for Trump, who promised to “Make America Great Again.”

It would be remiss of me to not say, though, that not all Trump voters are racist. The above paragraph only applies to Trump’s core base of supporters. So in other words, about 25% of the adult population. The rest voted for Trump not because of the racism, but in spite of it, and that in itself is another example of tribalism at work.

Donald Trump is many things: a predator, a misogynist, a racist, a blowhard, a bullshit artist, a moron, a narcissist.

A Republican.

In the words of Brendan Nyhan: “Partisanship is one hell of a drug.” Many people voted for Trump simply because he was a Republican and not a Democrat.

To be sure, there was a great deal of wishful thinking involved.

“He’s not as bad as people make him out to be.”

“He’ll appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court.”

“He won’t really be calling the shots. Paul Ryan will be the power behind the throne.”

All these and more were excuses people told themselves to justify voting for Trump in spite of knowing about his more … unsavory characteristics. People will overlook (or even rationalize!) despicable behavior by their own side simply because it’s their side that’s doing it. They may even simply refuse to believe their side could do such things.

Relatedly, there is the concept of negative partisanship. This refers to the phenomenon of people rooting for one team because they hate the other. They don’t like their team either, but they hate the other, so they (half-heartedly) support it regardless. It’s the lesser of two evils taken to its logical extreme.

The point behind this looong, seemingly unrelated digression is to highlight how powerful of a force tribalism can be. It is “a hell of a drug.”

You see it most obviously in Willy’s plan. Marley is an imperialist aggressor, yet Willy was clearly banking on the world’s fear/hatred of Paradis trumping whatever reservations they have with working with Marley. It’s textbook negative partisanship.

In this war of Paradis vs the world, tribalism runs rampant.

The world hates Paradis, and if Floch’s views are indicative of anything, a sizable number of walldians probably hate the world in return.

Eren was willing to kill innocent bystanders, including children, because it was in the name of fighting for his tribe.

Floch just flat out wants to kill as many people as he can because they’re not a part of his tribe. They may not be involved in the fighting (they were, after all, civilians) but they’re still with the Marleyan tribe. The enemy.

Can we overcome this? Can we break the cycle of hatred and tribalism?

This will surprise many people, but for all the anti-immigrant talk among Trump supporters, most do not actually live near large immigrant populations. In other words, their fear of “the other,” of those who are not a part of their tribe, is most likely based on a lack of interaction with those “others”.

This is the key, and it’s a total cliché. Actually interacting with “the other” is the solution to the puzzle of tribalistic hatred.

RBA thought the walldians were vaguely defined evil entities, devils. But then they actually interacted with them, and saw them for the people they were.

The same will almost certainly be true for Floch. It was true for Eren, even if he still thought killing children was a necessary sacrifice to make on the altar of defending his tribe.

In other words, fear of “the other” can be overcome through familiarity. The tricky part is actually getting everyone to calm down and see everyone else as people. The walldians who see the outside world as just a vaguely defined threat need to rethink their worldview, and the members of the outside world (those who aren’t complete garbage like Sergeant Gross or whatever his name was) also need to look past their hatred.

I just hope that people will not read SNK and be influenced to take a cynical view of the world. It is not human nature to be violent. Those who look at others with fear can come to love and accept them. The scenario Isayama has crafted here is simply not generalizable, and it would be a mistake to apply the apparent take aways of this story to our world. Which, of course, can only be seen as a flaw in Isayama’s storytelling.

Just look at California to see what I mean.

38% of Californians are white. 39% of Californians are Hispanic. That’s right, white people are a close second behind Hispanics as the largest racial group in California, and it’s starting to show. The lower chamber in the state legislature is majority non-white. One of the state’s two Senators, Barbara Boxer, who is white, retired in 2016 and was replaced by Kamala Harris, who has a mixed Indian/Jamaican heritage.

White people still retain significant power though. The upper chamber in the legislature is overwhelmingly white, the state’s other Senator, Dianne Feinstein, is white, and the top contender to serve as Governor for the next eight years, Gavin Newsom, is also white. However, this continued dominance of positions of power is entirely vestigial and it will decline as time goes on.

The same holds true for New Mexico and Hawaii. White people are either not dominant or clearly losing dominance in these states.

And yet, I see no news reports of white Californians, New Mexicans, or Hawaiians throwing hissy-fits over their clearly diminishing dominance over society. White people are a minority in those places, and unless I’m missing something, they seem pretty chill about it.

Because tribes can coexist. It’s just a matter of opening oneself up to others.

An important thing to mention, though, is the status of black people. Black people have always been seen as “the other” and even in California, where 7% of the population is black compared to 12% of the general US population, anti-black sentiment abounds, though in subtle ways, most notably in the form of NIMBYism.

However, real progress is being made on that front in California, and in the US as a whole, there seems to be a real commitment to racial inclusiveness among the younger generation. Real progress is being made, though unfortunately a world where black people are seen as equal to white people is a long time coming.

The only thing left to do is speculate about where the series is heading. This chapter is the start of volume 26, which I assume will be the fourth of five volumes in this story arc. My guess is that the battle will continue for the remainder of volume 26 with volume 27 wrapping up this current arc before dovetailing into the next, and most likely final, arc of the series.

#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #spoilers #snk 103

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patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

Can Republicans Vote In Nh Primary

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/can-republicans-vote-in-nh-primary/

Can Republicans Vote In Nh Primary

The Race In New Hampshire

Trump suggests Republicans vote for “weakest” Democrat in NH primary | AFP

Mitt Romney swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary, turning back a ferocious assault from rivals who sought to disqualify him in the eyes of conservatives. Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, won by a double-digit margin, a validation of his strategy to use his neighboring state to cement his standing as the front-runner. The candidates who had hoped to use the primary to emerge as his leading rival fared poorly, leaving a fractured Republican opposition. Read More »

How Many Delegates Are Up For Grabs

New Hampshire has 24 national delegates. There are 16 district-level delegates divided between the states two congressional districts, five at-large delegates and three pledged party leader and elected official delegates. Candidates need to get at least 15% of the vote in a district or statewide to reach the delegate threshold. If no candidate reaches 15% which is unlikelybased on current polling the threshold is half of whatever the front-runners vote percentage is in the district.

Trump In New Hampshire

HIGHLIGHTS

New Hampshire held its Democratic primary on .

New Hampshire had an estimated 33 delegates comprised of 24 pledged delegates and nine superdelegates. Delegate allocation was proportional.

The Democratic primary was semi-closed, meaning only registered party members and unaffiliated voters could vote in the party’s primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. In 2020, a Democratic presidential candidate needed support from 1,991 delegates to secure the nomination.

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Where Can I Look Up My Voter Registration Status

Voters that have provided their date of birth on a voter registration form may go to the Secretary of States Registered Voter web link . The person must enter their first name, last name, town or city, date of birth, and complete the security entry. If the name, town or city, and date of birth are the same as what was provided in their voter registration form, their name, voter ID, and party affiliation, if any, will be displayed.

Republican Party Primaries In New Hampshire 2020

Poll times: Varies by locality

Date of New Hampshire presidential primary:

State political party revenue

This page focuses on the Republican primaries that took place in New Hampshire on September 8, 2020. for more information about the Democratic primaries.

Note that the dates and terms of participation for presidential preference primaries and caucuses sometimes differ from those that apply to primaries for state-level and other federal offices, which are the subject of this article. For more information on this state’s presidential nomination process, .

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Iowa Keeps Getting Messier: 5 Takeaways From The Caucuses’ Near

How does voting work?

It’s a primary, so voters head to the polls like they would in a general election. It’s “semi-open,” meaning independents can participate. About 40% of the state are independents, and given that there is no competitive GOP primary happening, one might expect to see a higher percentage of independents turn out on the Democratic side than in 2016.

In 2016, independents made up 40% of the electorate, according to the exit polls, but there were competitive primaries on both sides. In 2008, it was 44%, but in 2004 the last time there was a competitive Democratic primary with an incumbent Republican president up for reelection 48% of the electorate was independents.

Don’t confuse independents with moderates, though. Sanders, who won the 2016 primary by more than 20 points, won three-quarters of independents. He won a slightly lower percentage of self-described moderates, 59%.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, takes photos with supporters during a campaign event at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manchester, N.H., on Monday. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APhide caption

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Former Vice President Joe Biden, takes photos with supporters during a campaign event at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manchester, N.H., on Monday.

Aside from independents, which other voters are important to watch?

Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg arrives onstage at Hampshire Hills Athletic Club on Monday in Milford, N.H.hide caption

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Donald Trump Says Republicans Will Vote For Weakest Candidate In Democrat New Hampshire Primary

The president called his Democrat opponents “weak” and “extreme” ahead of their nomination;contest there on Tuesday

Donald Trump sought to sabotage; Tuesday night’s Democrat presidential nomination contest in New Hampshire by telling his own supporters to vote in it and pick the “weakest” candidate.

In New Hampshire, the second US state to vote, 40 per cent of voters are not officially registered as Republicans or Democrats, and can choose which party’s primary process they take part in.

At a massive rally in the city of Manchester on election eve the US president said his followers who were not registered should go to Democrat polling stations.

He said: “You have crossover in primaries don’t you? I hear a lot of Republicans here tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible of the Democrats. Does that make sense? You people wouldnt do that…

“My only problem is figuring out who the weakest is. They’re all weak. You can vote for the weakest candidate if you want, don’t worry about it.”

Mr Trump did not name a candidate but his campaign has made clear they believe Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist, would be easiest to beat.

The president said he held “the biggest political rally in New Hampshire history” to “shake up the Dems a little bit,” adding that “they have a really boring deal going on.”

Meanwhile, Democrat candidates criss-crossed the snowy state making desperate last pitches for votes.

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Winners Of The New Hampshire Primary Since 2000

Highlighted names became the partys presidential nominee.

Democrats

Our reporters provided real-time updates from New Hampshire and New York.

Katie Glueck, reporting from Manchester, N.H. Feb. 12, 2020

The establishment is divided, and Bernie Sanders is the winner of the New Hampshire primary. Heres our analysis of the results »

Jonathan Martin, reporting from Manchester, N.H. Feb. 12, 2020

Sanders cements his front-runner status, but his narrow margins in IA and NH and the fractured field show how volatile this race is. Heres our story »

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Jonathan Martin, reporting from Manchester, N.H. Feb. 12, 2020

As significant as Sanderss win: the sudden rise of Klobuchar, Buttigiegs continued success and the collapse of Biden and Warren.

Jennifer Medina, in Los Angeles Feb. 11, 2020

And dont forget the Super Tuesday states, where Bloomberg is spending hundreds of millions to take on whoever survives Nevada and South Carolina.

Jennifer Medina, in Los Angeles Feb. 11, 2020

Latinos make up roughly 20% of voting-age residents in Nevada; black voters, 10%. Immigration and health care are likely to be central issues.

The Tasks That Lie Ahead For Eric Adams After Winning Democratic Mayoral Primary

How Conservative, Undeclared NH Voters Could Swing The Primary | NBC News NOW

MANCHESTER, N.H. Embittered Never Trump Republicans tied to former Ohio Gov. John Kasich have secretly schemed to assist Joe Bidens campaign because they think hes the only Democrat who can beat the president and help them get revenge, The Post has learned.

Emails obtained by The Post show that two top staffers from Kasichs failed, 2016 primary campaign and Ohios former GOP chairman, a Kasich ally, were among those involved in efforts to boost support for the former vice president in last weeks botched Iowa caucus and Tuesdays New Hampshire primary.

Funding for the plan came largely from two deep-pocketed Democratic donors former Microsoft president Jon Shirley and his wife, Kimberly whove made maximum contributions to Biden and hosted a fund-raiser for him last year, records also show.

They think Biden is the only candidate who can beat Trump at the general election, said a GOP source familiar with the strategy.

Documents attached to one email show the group planned to identify and target at least 5,000 Democrats from the conservative voter base in each of Iowas four congressional districts, then use that information in suppression, persuasion and GOTV efforts.

That project failed miserably, with Biden coming in a distant fourth place last week.

In the Granite State, only Democrats and undeclared voters can vote in the partys primary.

A senior GOP source called the groups half-baked ideas dumbfounding.

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Campaigning Takes A Negative Turn In Closing Days Of New Hampshire Race

When is the New Hampshire primary?

Polls open at 8 a.m. ET and close, in most places, at 7 p.m. ET. But there are 221 towns in New Hampshire, and they all set their own times. Some scarcely populated towns famously begin voting at midnight to gain attention.

But all polls will be closed by 8 p.m. ET.

When will we see results?

We will start seeing results after 7 p.m. ET for most places, but there will be no calls from the news networks or The Associated Press until at least 8 p.m. ET. At that point, expect the Republican primary to be called for President Trump.

How Do The Delegates Break Down

There are 24 pledged delegates up for grabs in New Hampshire, with nine more unpledged deletes .

The 24 pledged delegates are allocated proportionally by the primary results, but a candidate must meet a 15 percent threshold to receive delegates.

Here’s a further breakdown within those 24 delegates:

There are 16 district level-delegates . They are allocated in proportion to the percentage of the primary vote won in that district by each preference, except candidates falling below a 15 percent threshold do not get any delegates.

Within a district, if no candidate gets to 15 percent, the new threshold is half the percentage of the vote received in that district by the front-runner.

Eight other delegates are allocated proportionally according to the statewide primary vote. The 15 percent threshold applies for those allocations, as well. If no presidential preference reaches 15 percent, the threshold will be half the percentage of the statewide vote received by the front-runner.

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New Hampshire Presidential Primary

The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosing the delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions which choose the party nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November. Although only a few delegates are chosen in the New Hampshire primary, its real importance comes from the massive media coverage it receives . Spurred by the events of the 1968 election, reforms that began with the 1972 election elevated the two states’ importance to the overall election, and began to receive as much media attention as all of the other state contests combined. Examples of this extraordinary coverage have been seen on the campuses of Dartmouth College and Saint Anselm College, as the colleges have held multiple national debates and have attracted media outlets like NPR, Fox News, CNN, NBC, and ABC. The publicity and momentum can be enormous from a decisive win by a frontrunner, or better-than-expected result in the New Hampshire primary. The upset or weak showing by a front-runner changes the calculus of national politics in a matter of hours, as happened in 1952 , 1968 , 1980 , and 2008 .

State Political Party Revenue

See also: State political party revenue and State political party revenue per capita

State political parties typically deposit revenue in separate state and federal accounts in order to comply with state and federal campaign finance laws.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party maintain state affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and select U.S. territories. The following map displays total state political party revenue per capita for the Republican state party affiliates.

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Can Democrats Sway Wyoming’s Republican Primary Election

In a highly contested Republican primary race for governor of Wyoming, Democratic voters could make a difference.

Heading into Tuesday’s election, state treasurer Mark Gordon and multimillionaire GOP donor Foster Friess are, according to the polls, in a dead heat for the gubernatorial nomination.

The race is so close that some in Wyoming have urged Democrats to take a one-day elephant ride and cast their ballots for Gordon. A group called Switch for Wyoming has has taken on the battle, urging Democrats to switch their party affiliation to help get Gordon on the November ballot.

“Wyoming’s legislature has been on a long march to the extreme right, but we have history electing moderate governors, thoughtful people who, even though we disagree with them often, act as a check on extreme legislation and bad decisions,” the group’s website reads.

The group also urged voters to not “allow a small number of extremists to pick our next governor” and called Gordon the only “moderate” politician on the ballot.

Gordon is the state’s treasurer and became well known for increasing Wyoming’s financial portfolio by $5 billion in five years. But Friess, a political newcomer with no experience as an elected official, has the backing of Donald Trump Jr. and millions of dollars in his campaign war chest.

Turnout In Pivot Counties

The following table shows the number of voters who participated in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic and Republican presidential primaries in Pivot Counties in New Hampshire and the percentage change in raw voter turnout.

Across the three Pivot Counties in New Hampshire, Democratic turnout was up 18.6%. This was slightly more than the Democratic statewide turnout, which went up 18.8%.

Across the three Pivot Counties in New Hampshire, Republican turnout was down 46.4%. This nearly matched the percentage change in the Republican statewide turnout, which was down 46.3%.

Two Pivot Counties had increased Democratic turnout: Hillsborough and Sullivan counties. Sanders was the winner in both counties in both election years.

With an incumbent in the race, all Pivot Counties in New Hampshire saw reduced Republican turnout.

Turnout in New Hampshire Pivot Counties, 2016-2020 Pivot County

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Arent Republicans Voting Today Too

Absolutely. Eleven candidates are running in the New Hampshire Republican primary. But its not much of a contest.

President Trumps most prominent challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, won 1.3% in the Iowa caucuses to Trumps 97.1%.

Former Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois is also on the ballot, but he dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses. Hes since vowed to help elect the eventual Democratic nominee he told CNN hed rather have a socialist in the White House than the current occupant.

John is a special correspondent.

One Of Several Bills Retained By House Election Law Committee For More Work Would Implement Provisional Ballots For Those Without Proof Of Domicile

New Hampshire Democratic primary voting closes

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One of several bills retained by House Election Law Committee for more work would implement provisional ballots for those without proof of domicile

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VOTING BILLS RETAINED. A group of bills whose Republican supporters say are aimed at ensuring that only Granite State residents are eligible to vote in the state were pulled back and retained Wednesday by the GOP majority on the influential House Election Law Committee.

The committee will ostensibly work on the bills in the coming months, make changes and consider them again either later this year or early in 2022. At that point they would then go to the full House for votes.

The Democratic committee minority voted against retaining the bills, preferring to kill them outright, calling the GOP push an effort to disenfranchise and depress college students turnout at elections. But the GOP majority prevailed in a series of 11-9 party line votes, keeping the bills alive.

Among the retained bills was a measure proposed by state Rep. Robert Lynn, a retired state Supreme Court chief justice, to implement provisional ballots in New Hampshire.

Under current law, voters who are unable to show required identification when registering or voting must fill out an affidavit swearing that they are qualified and have 30 days to provide proof that they are domiciled where they say they are.

Also Check: Republican Primary Popular Vote Totals

Why New Hampshires Independents Are So Tough To Pin Down

Every four years, the anticipation grows around how New Hampshires independent voters might vote come primary day. New Hampshire votes the week after the Iowa caucuses, making its primary a critical test for candidates.

Out of the more than 977,000 registered voters in the Granite State, about 413,500 are undeclared to either party, compared to the states 275,252 registered Democrats and 288,524 registered Republicans. Undeclared voters can choose either ballot in a primary and switch their party back to undeclared with their local election officials after theyve voted.

There hasnt been a sudden surge in Republican or Democratic registered voters switching over to undeclared, New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan told me. But because New Hampshire also allows same-day registration, Scanlan said hes expecting to see thousands of new voters at the polls on Election Day.

Most registrations take place on Election Day, he said. It will be in the tens of thousands. We wont know until Election Day.

The data we have on this group shows undeclared voters are certainly not a monolith, and they dont vote as a bloc. Polling data collected from 1999 to 2014 by Smith and former UNH political science professor and pollster David Moore showed that about 40 percent of undeclared voters consistently voted Republican and 45 percent Democratic. That left just 15 percent who could truly be considered independents, voting for candidates of both parties.

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