Trump Won: My Takeaways

What half of America proudly said yesterday.

I’m not going to sugarcoat things. It’s bad. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few hours, you’ll know Donald Trump has just been elected President once more, retaking control of the White House. He might not be able to buy a gun in some states, but he now has the nuclear codes. American democracy is in mortal peril, ironically because lots of people voted for this. Now, we won’t know everything about why people voted the way they did until the results are officially certified, but I’m going to offer some of my preliminary takeaways. Again, I’m just a single terminally online man who pretends to be a lion.

Kamala Harris supporters at her watch “party” in Washington DC last night - taken from r/Pics.

INCUMBENCY HAS BECOME A DISADVANTAGE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

The biggest albatross hanging around Harris’ neck was always her boss, Sleepy Joe Biden. In hindsight, she was always going to have trouble winning when the incumbent President was at a 40% approval rating. Given how polarized the United States has become, I don’t think it’s likely that any President will have particularly high approval ratings in the future. During Trump’s first term, he was always underwater, often significantly. Biden, meanwhile, had a honeymoon period at first, and then his approval tanked with the Afghanistan withdrawal and never fully recovered from that. It’s a damning indictment of our media that this is what sent Biden’s approval ratings into the toilet, considering that’s what most Americans wanted him to do at the time. Ironically, Trump is right about the media - they are the enemy of the people. They’re perhaps the biggest reason he will return to power.

“Comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe calls Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. No persuadable voter cares.

CAMPAIGNS DON’T MATTER

Kamala Harris did the best she could with the hand she was dealt. Her campaign knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Trump outsourced all of his campaign’s ground game to Elon Musk’s PAC. Harris had lots of enthusiasm behind her, particularly in the immediate aftermath of her boss’ withdrawal from the race. Trump canceled events because he was too tired to hold them. Harris attacked Trump viciously on issues like abortion, whereas Trump’s surrogate called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage a week before the election. None of it ended up mattering, at least not enough to save Harris. I think it’s safe to say that if 2028 is anything remotely resembling a free and fair election, campaign strategies will look very different on both sides.

Conglaturation. You just ensured there would be no justice or peace for the foreseeable future.

PROTEST VOTES TANKED HARRIS

I don’t think there is any way around it. I’ve encountered a lot of people on social media saying they weren’t going to vote for Harris because of her support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Even so, I held out some hope that the Internet is not real life, that perhaps platforms like BlueSky make these people seem more numerous than they truly are. In the end it seems like I was kidding myself, as were others who thought the Uncommitted movement wouldn’t matter. These people were literally willing to burn the world down in order to virtue-signal, and I hope they’re happy when Trump gives Netanyahu carte blanche…well, more so.

America soon. Hopefully.

OUR ONLY HOPE

Like I said at the start of this article, I’m not going to lie to you and say that the future looks anything other than bleak for the country and the world. However, the fact remains that Democrats control election infrastructure in most of the swing states. To some extent, there is hope that the 2026 election will still happen. And if it does, I want those people who voted for Trump (particularly his new voters that he seems to have picked up from 2020) to suffer. I want them to realize that voting to put an orange fascist back in power is not funny, and I want them to experience buyer’s remorse as quickly as possible. This country only ever elects Democrats to punish Republicans, and that’s what we proved last night.

 No matter what does or does not happen in Trump’s second term, I still harbor some hope that American swing voters will realize just how big a mistake they’ve made and will vote for Democrats in 2026. Even if the next few elections happen, it’s at least conceivable that Democrats screw it up; this is the same party that lost to Donald Trump not once but twice, after all. But any sympathy I have for Trump’s voters in an America with a national abortion ban, or a repealed Affordable Care Act, or no Department of Education, or any other horrific policy, is predicated on them realizing their grave mistake and learning from it in the midterms.

Assuming they still happen, that is.

The Most Insane Month Of My Life

For those of you living in the United States who have not yet voted, please do so. And vote for Kamala Harris, because, for all the times you’ve probably been told that this is the most important election in United States history, that is in fact the case now. I’m not going to hammer home why Gaza is a dumb reason to sit this out, simply because I already did that a few days ago. But here we are. Vote. Please.

I want to believe all dogs go to heaven, especially given how good of a dog you were. Rest in peace, Padfoot!

I remember the date - June 27, 2024. My mother and I sat with our ailing dog, a Bouvier des Flanders named Padfoot. His name was a relic of the days when Harry Potter references were not frowned upon, though that’s beside the point. In any case, we sat in what’s referred to as the “cigar room” and tuned in to the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. As soon as I saw Joe Biden limp on stage with a shuffling gait, I knew it was going to be a long night, and I almost regretted the fact that I don’t drink for medical reasons. And, well…

A “We Finally Beat Medicare” T-shirt, a humorous reference to one of the most painful moments of the 2024 campaign.

Trump told horrendous lie after horrendous lie during the debate, which is to be expected, even if not accepted. But the worst part was that Biden let him. The guy didn’t seem up to it, and it was just painful to watch. Within minutes Biden’s staff claimed he had a cold, but let’s be honest with ourselves: Nobody actually believed that. An existential dread filled me as I realized that Trump was going to win the election unless something drastic happened. I remember having a hard time sleeping that night, and when I phone-banked the next day for Biden, several would-be Democratic voters were undecided due to the 46th President’s horrendous performance. I held out hope that maybe the debate wouldn’t matter that much - in fact, the campaign’s best fundraising hour was actually between 11 PM and 12 AM on the night of that debate. Maybe things were backwards.

But this was not like the Hur Report in February. The Hur Report was easy enough to dismiss, because it read like a partisan hit job, and Robert Hur is in fact a Republican. But none of us could deny what we’d seen with our own eyes. Within a few days, the first calls came for Biden to step down as nominee, and the President seemed to be digging his heels in. With every day that Biden insisted he wasn’t going to drop out, my dread grew further. The next day I remember well is July 13.

One of the most famous photographs of 2024. You all know where it’s from.

My older brother and I were getting ready to go to dinner at a seafood/Mexican fusion restaurant, and I was looking at my phone when I saw the news alert. When my brother came down the stairs in his dinner clothes, I was like, “Trump got shot”. Both of us were stunned at living through such a historic event, the most serious assassination attempt on a U.S. president since 1981. We went to dinner, and the restaurant very wisely had sports on the TV instead of a news channel, while my brother kept telling me not to look at my phone too much. And I was fairly successful at that, but it was HARD!

The general sentiment in my Discord communities was that the assassination attempt had just sealed the election for Trump. It didn’t matter that the deceased gunman was a registered Republican who had a Trump sign on his lawn - those infamous raised-fist photographs were all over social media. Perhaps the most striking fact about that event is not that a former and potentially future President (again, please vote for Harris) was just a handful of centimeters from death. Rather, it’s that the political world is hardly talking about it anymore. If the gunman’s hand had twitched, the assassination attempt would have been successful, and yet it’s been memory-holed by all but his most ardent cultists who went to a future rally at the same spot like he’s Jesus. But unlike Jesus, he’ll doom us rather than save us if he’s elected, so again: Vote for Harris if you haven’t already.

President Joe Biden boarding Air Force One, taken from a July 2024 Reuters article.

Then, during the RNC, Biden tested positive for COVID. At first, I thought this wasn’t going to affect things too much. He might be 81 years old, but “the President has COVID” just isn’t as big a news story in 2024 as it was in 2020. I had my own bout with COVID starting a few days later, enduring numerous coughing fits; my mother claimed that was the sickest she’d seen me since I had meningitis as a newborn. While isolating myself from the rest of my family in my pajamas on the porch (being sick during the summer isn’t fun), I was texting on Discord when I got the ping stating that Biden had withdrawn from the race. I predicted a quick consolidation around his Vice President, and I was proven right when Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to run in his place. 

And thus, the most chaotic month in U.S. politics that I can remember came to a close. In my greatest fantasies, history students in the year 2124 will read my blog as a firsthand account of those 23 wild days. It’s a remote fantasy, to be sure, but can’t a man dream? No matter what, the tell-all books in the next few years are going to be quite something.

That brings us to today. If Harris wins, what will haunt me for a long time is that if Donald Trump had not agreed to an unusually early debate, the debate would have happened in September instead, when it would have been too late for Joe Biden to be replaced on the ballot. While I still think it’s at least conceivable that enough Democrats would have come home to make the race somewhat close, I still believe Trump would have almost certainly defeated Biden in that hypothetical rematch. He might still win, which is the horrifying part, and I don’t think I need to tell you why. 

Vote for Harris if you have not done so already. Let’s stop Project 2025 and put this bizarre, horrific era behind us. 

I Am Weird And I Am Wonderful

The rainbow infinity symbol, taken from the website for Brainwave Watch.

 Today I’ll talk about something non-political for a change. You can call it a detox day like they do on the VoteDEM subreddit, or you can just call it a break. In any case, here’s a bit of positivity to spice up your day.

For those of you who may not know, I am on the autism spectrum. Although I was diagnosed at a relatively young age due to being a reserved toddler who would only speak when I needed something, it wasn’t until I was maybe 9 or 10 years old that I found out there was a word for people like me. I remember looking at the health forms for my summer day camp and seeing the word “autism” there, and I freaked out. Looking at it now, having had a classroom aide for all of elementary school up to that point, as well as occupational and speech therapy from a young age, I should have realized I was different from most of the other children.

The sensory “cuddle swing” taken from an Autism Products website. My mother can’t remember exactly what it was for, just that I loved it.

There had to be a reason why I was so hyper-focused on specific topics, why I always felt socially awkward when compared to the other students. Why I often repeated words others had said as a vocal stim (which is apparently called echolalia). At the time, and even now as an adult, I adore rocking chairs. Perhaps those things are weird. 

Now, it just so happens that I have a younger sister, who we will call M. She is possibly my best friend in the world, even if we don’t get to talk to one another as often as we once did. Over the summer I had a conversation with my sister about autism over dinner. She told me, with an abundant smile on her face, that if there’s a genetic component, she probably has some of it too. Given that she loved wolves and sled dogs endlessly as a child, and still probably does to some extent, some of my autistic genes may have rubbed off on her. For what it’s worth, my sister was never diagnosed as being on the spectrum; I am the only such person in my family. Within the confines of the “neurospicy” terminology, if my sister is a banana pepper, perhaps I am a jalapeño. 

Fan art of Balto and Jenna taken from Google Images. Balto was long one of my sister’s banana-pepper special interests.

There’s another reason I mention my sister. A few months ago, when we were both at my childhood home and my sister had invited her friend over, I got to speak to this friend. It’s a conversation I am not likely to forget anytime soon. We were talking about transportation; in my case, I’ve got airline routes as my major hyperfixation. This friend of my sister’s, who I am going to call E, mentioned that she and one of her friends in Germany had the same type of autism where they were obsessed with trains, at which point I took the opportunity to mention that I, too, was autistic. 

E swiftly responded by asserting that she’d been able to tell in a matter of minutes. Apparently my eye contact was very fleeting, which is something I have struggled with at times. Additionally, she could tell by the way I’d launched into my preferred topic almost right away, and the vocal tone she referred to as the “Asperger’s drawl”. Yes, I know that term has fallen out of favor, but I have noticed that whenever my voice is on a recording, it sounds incredibly monotone. I also talk very fast when excited, as though I am running down a hill and trying to slow down, but just can’t.

After reflecting on that conversation for a while, I have realized two things. One, it means that I am either terrible at masking or simply do not see it as a very high priority. Honestly, I have never needed to do much masking in general, though I have to admit that I am privileged in that regard as a white man, the very sort of person whom the criteria were meant to reflect. Perhaps I’ll talk more about autism’s “white privilege problem” in another blog post in the near future. But after thinking about it more, I realized that I haven’t bothered to mask, because I don’t want to. Again, I understand that there are many situations in which it is important, even necessary, to mask. I acknowledge that I am one of the lucky ones who doesn’t need to do it as much. 

Without autism, would I be passionate enough to write a novella-length fanfiction in just sixteen calendar days? Not likely. Would I be so interested in urban planning that I’m now trying to get into graduate school for it? Not likely. Would I be able to carry on long conversations with others about countries many Americans have never heard of? Not likely. I like to think I have accepted myself for who I am, and I have won a victory over those who might claim otherwise. 

My life isn’t perfect. I don’t have as many friends in real life as maybe I should. I still beat myself up for relatively minor things, and I still live in a country that’s become a global laughing stock at best, a global pariah at worst. But with a 3.65 GPA and so many special interests, I don’t think I have too much to complain about in the grand scheme of things. Just like the fictional band from that Elton John song “Bennie And The Jets”, I am weird and I am wonderful. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown - Week 1 (Final Three)

A flag map of Europe, taken from Wikimedia Commons.

3: SANITY ACROSS THE POND

The rest of the world literally can’t fathom us. Literally, they think we’re insane to let Trump be remotely competitive in this election. In Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Spain, France, and Britain, Trump wouldn’t even get 20% of the vote, and I personally think it’d be far less. That is, if they even let him run at all after January 6. The United States is a uniquely sick country, and I wish these Europeans could vote in our election. They’d give us a swift kick of sanity. For that matter, why not dissolve the United States government, create a Council of Nations dedicated to overseeing the US’ governance, and invite these European nations into said council? I’d be down. Or if we resist that, the rest of NATO should just invade us and impose sanity. At least then we’d have free health care and maybe gun control. Countdown number two!

An anti-vaccine protest in front of the Idaho State Capitol, taken from the Idaho Press.

2: IT’S-A-ME, POLIO!

I shouldn’t call them dumb, because they know exactly what they’re doing. Idaho’s Southwest District health department is no longer allowed to administer COVID vaccines, all on the basis of some batshit insane conspiracy theories. As horrible as that is, keep in mind that if Trump wins the election and is allowed to take office again, he has signaled a desire to make Robert F. Kennedy Jr. his secretary of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is then going to ban all vaccines nationwide, and we’ll all die of vaccine-preventable diseases. At a minimum, the rest of the world is going to ban Americans from traveling to their countries just like they did during COVID. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about COVID, and I’m sure you remember how ashamed you felt that the rest of the world was laughing at us. Well, the rest of the world is going to laugh at us even more, but we won’t be able to listen to them as we die of measles and polio. Countdown number one!

Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump, taken from the Irish Times.

1: THE FINAL ELECTION

This might literally be the last election the United States ever holds if Donald Trump wins. He’s called to suspend the constitution multiple times. He literally tried to perform a self-coup in 2021 to retain power after losing to Joe Biden. He’s got a plan this time - Project 2025 - to make sure he doesn’t have to accept election results again. But if enough people decide to virtue signal and cast protest votes, then Trump doesn’t even need to steal the election. Again, if you value doing anything about climate change, if you value a woman’s right to choose, if you value overall sanity, you need to vote for Kamala Harris. And if you don’t, you shouldn’t expect any sympathy from me if Trump wins. You’ve made all our beds, and you’ll have to lie in it. 

Those are the top ten stories for this week. Thank you all for reading, and remember: Vote blue no matter who!

Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown - Week 1 (6-4)

Apparently this website only allows your articles to be so long. So here’s the next three items on Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown.

A 2021 Christmas card from Representative Thomas Massie, posted to Twitter (now X) days after the Oxford High School shooting

6: 21 GUNS…PER CAPITA

The other day there was a shooting in a crowded party street in Orlando, Florida. Two people were killed and six were injured. I saw the YouTube thumbnail for this story and thought, not another one, but we have multiple massacres a day. Multiple! And most of them are barely in the news, because it’s just another Thursday in America! When other countries, even those who are supposed to be our allies, are literally slapping travel warnings against us due to gun violence, you know your culture has a serious problem. Again, Australia had one shooting, the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, and they banned guns right after that. The UK had the Dunblane Massacre also in 1996, and they banned guns. If you were going to write a story about a hypothetical event that might make Americans give up their guns, you couldn’t do much “better” than what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Nothing changed, and nothing will ever change, because we love our weapons more than our children. Countdown number five.

Nintendo eShop thumbnail for Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

5: ARCADE DESIRE

Now we’ll have a non-political story for you all. Next week, Mario & Luigi: Brothership will be released, and I might just pick it up. I don’t play video games as much as I used to, but it’ll be something to do at any rate. My favorite game in the series so far is honestly Partners in Time, but Brothership looks fun too. Really, it’s a miracle that the series is even able to continue after AlphaDream went bankrupt in 2019, but it is, and I’m pretty happy about that. I honestly might need something to unwind with in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s election. Countdown number four!

Pro-Palestine protests outside the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

4: AMERICAN IDIOTS

I am no fan of Benjamin Netanyahu. He is a war criminal, a genocidal maniac even, and he should be locked up for life, no questions asked! However, I keep getting people on BlueSky telling me that it’s wrong to vote for Harris because she supports genocide. I despise Kamala Harris, even if I voted for her anyway because she’s not Donald Trump. But Trump is no better on the Gaza issue than Harris (in fact he’s far worse), so it makes little sense to me that these people are protesting the Democrats, but not the Republicans. I phone-banked in Pennsylvania last week and got several people who were refusing to vote for Harris because of her support for Israel. These people are determined to burn the whole world down all to virtue-signal, and it’s disgusting. They’re even more frustrating to me than the Trump supporters, because at least you know you don’t have to persuade the red hats to vote for Democrats. Countdown number three!

Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown - Week 1 (10-7)

Today I’ve decided to do something different, which I intend to do every Sunday from here on out. I’m going to call this Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown, because I will count down the ten most important stories that everyone reading this blog needs to know each week. You can consider this BlueSky’s Top Ten Countdown with Saclux Gemini, because let’s be honest, most of you probably found this article from my BlueSky. Here we go! Let’s get to the countdown!

A weather map showing the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States with unseasonably hot temperatures.

10: THE 80-DEGREE HALLOWEEN

I’m old enough to remember when children needed to wear jackets over their Halloween costumes because it was chilly at night. What the hell is wrong with this planet? Actually, I’ll tell you what’s wrong, and it’s climate change. Much like our failure to do anything about the epidemic of gun violence in this country, we have failed to do anything about climate change. The only difference is that by doing nothing about gun violence, we’re only hurting ourselves, whereas our inaction on climate change is costly for the entire world. If you don’t want to have more 80-degree Halloweens, you need to make sure Trump does not become President. Countdown number nine!

A screenshot of r/Pics taken at about 5:20 AM Eastern Time on November 3, 2024

9: REDDIT’S OBSESSION WITH US POLITICS

Take a look at this screenshot. Literally every post on Reddit is now about the U.S. election. Now, I’m well aware that this election is extremely important - you don’t need to constantly remind me. Maybe some people need to be reminded like those selfish leftists (see below), but not me. Other countries have elections too, but nobody talks about those! Every single day, someone posts a picture of the January 6 insurrection on the Pics subreddit, and again, people need to be reminded of that before they vote. However, I bet our neighbors to the north (and across the pond) are really sick of us. I’m honestly sick of being a laughingstock too. Countdown number eight!

A county map of Nevada, courtesy of SunCatcher Studio. 

8: NEVADA’S EARLY VOTE NUMBERS LOOK ABYSMAL

Vegas, what are you DOING? Early voting in Nevada has ended, and the Republicans are sitting on a lead of 50,000 registered voters. I’m well aware that comparing 2024 to 2020 is apples to oranges given that everyone’s forgotten about COVID. I’m also aware that Democrats can still vote on election day, but there had better be a lot of Democrats voting on election day! Polling has mostly had Senator Jacky Rosen ( D ) with a comfortable lead over challenger Sam Brown ( R ), but that lead is going to evaporate if her voters don’t show up on Election Day. We shouldn’t forget that the last Nevada US Senate race was decided by less than 1 percentage point. Please bail us out again, Vegas! Countdown number eight!

Abortion legality map by state (taken from New York Times website)

7: ROE, ROE, ROE YOUR VOTE

This past week we’ve learned about two young women who lost their lives in Texas when doctors did not perform life-saving procedures for fear of legal retribution. I’ve been saying it for weeks, but Amber Nicole Thurman was the tip of the iceberg. For each of these women, there are possibly a couple thousand others whose families didn’t feel comfortable sharing their loved ones’ stories. For frame of reference, in Ireland it took one highly-publicized death due to lack of abortion access to immediately legalize abortion with basically no restrictions. Here we have at least four cases of women dying due to inability to access necessary abortion care, and we’re instead debating if the man responsible for these tragedies is going to return to the White House. It’s infuriating and disheartening, but perhaps not very surprising given countdown number six.

Only Three Senate Races Matter This Year

It’s no secret to anyone who’s been paying attention that the 2024 Senate map is extremely difficult for Democrats. In order to come away with “only” fifty seats, which is what they will need to control the Senate if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, Democrats need almost everything to break their way. 

They are defending five seats in swing states that all appear close at the presidential level, which appear to be tightening at the last moment. Perhaps this was always going to happen as partisanship kicked in, but partisanship is the Democrats’ biggest hurdle to retaining the Senate. As close as these five races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are, they are necessary, yet not sufficient. When it comes to who will control the Senate in 2025, there are realistically only three states that truly matter.

Sherrod Brown (D-inc) and Bernie Moreno (R), the candidates in OH-SEN 2024

OHIO

This Senate race, whose polls will close at 7:30 PM Eastern Time, features Sherrod Brown (the three-term Democratic incumbent) against Republican challenger Bernie Moreno. In his most recent Senate race, Brown won by a 6.8% margin, which will be impossible for him to reach this time. Consider Mahoning County, which contains the Rust Belt city of Youngstown. In 2018 Brown won this county with 60.5% of the vote. However, this time he will be lucky to win the county at all, which illustrates that he lacks much of the crossover support he once possessed in rural Ohio.

Crossover support is something Brown sorely needs, particularly if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump improves on his 8-point margins from 2016 and 2020 in the state. In terms of benchmarks, 2022 Senate nominee Tim Ryan lost suburban Delaware County by 5 points en route to a 6-point loss statewide. In other words, this county has trended leftward relative to the statewide average, and is likely to continue doing so. Therefore, I would say that if Brown fails to reach 50% of the vote in Delaware County, he will most likely lose reelection. But even if he’s up big in the initial ballot drops, do not celebrate yet, for Ohio has a well-documented counting bias toward Democrats.

Ted Cruz (R-inc) and Colin Allred (D), the candidates in TX-SEN 2024.

TEXAS

This is basically the Democrats’ only shot at picking up a Senate seat this year. Florida has become a dumping ground for QAnon conspiracy theorists, and Nebraska just isn’t happening. Deal with it. In any case, Cancun Cruz is up against Colin Allred, having won by a 2.6% margin in his most recent Senate election. Ever since that unexpectedly close race, however, the Rio Grande Valley has shifted hard right. Polls suggest that Cruz is likely to underperform Trump, but he is still generally up by anywhere from 2 to 5 points in the polling average.

 Making Allred’s task more difficult is the conservative migration into Texas, as the 2018 exit poll suggested that if only lifelong Texans had been allowed to vote in that Senate race, Beto would have won by 3 points. Additionally, Democratic voters with the means are fleeing Texas in droves due to the state’s abortion ban. Now, I don’t blame any progressive Texan for leaving the state if that’s what’s best for them individually. However, this mass exodus will make it more likely that Republicans control the Senate and are able to pass a national abortion ban.

If Colin Allred has any chance at an upset, look at Harris County, which contains Houston. Given that Beto O’Rourke won the county with 58% of the vote in 2018 and fell an aforementioned 2.6 points shy, Allred will likely need at least 60% of the vote in Harris to have any prayer of victory. Ideally, he would reach 62% of the vote in Harris, given trends in other parts of the state. If Allred can flip Denton County (which gave Cruz an 8-point margin in 2018) as well, he will be in a good position, but this will be difficult. It is a long-shot race for Democrats, but it will also be an “only-shot” race for them if the third race I’m talking about falls through.

Jon Tester (D-inc) and Tim Sheehy (R), the candidates in MT-SEN 2024.

MONTANA

Jon Tester has won three terms as US Senator from Montana. Objectively speaking, he had strong opponents in his first three races - a then-incumbent Senator (the late Conrad Burns), a then-sitting at-large Congressman (Denny Rehberg), and a then-state auditor (Matt Rosendale). In all three of his previous elections, Tester faced someone holding elected statewide office. This time he’s against a random businessman named Tim Sheehy, and yet he’s trailing in the polls! How can that be possible?

Well, consider that in 2020, Steve Bullock, then the incumbent Governor of Montana, fell ten points short in his effort to defeat Montana’s other Senator Steve Daines. In Tester’s most recent reelection bid, when he won by 3.5 percentage points, he was aided by extremely favorable turnout dynamics in which the electorate had only voted for Trump in 2016 by a mere 3 points. Based on party ID, if Tester had faced the 2020 electorate in 2018, he would have lost by nine points. In other words, he’s not that much stronger of a candidate than Bullock, who got his head handed to him on a silver platter.

At this point, it would be a sizable upset if Tester were to win reelection. If he has any chance at all, however, Gallatin County (Bozeman) is key. In both 2018 and 2020 it cast between 11 and 12 percent of the statewide vote, and in 2018 Tester won 59.5% in the county. Given that Bullock won 55.4% in that county two years later as he lost by 10 points, I would say that at minimum, Tester needs 60 percent of Gallatin County’s vote to stay in the hunt. If he has less than that, you might as well stick a fork in him, as he will be done for. Here’s another fun fact about this race: Given how much outside money has been spent on both sides, it is expected to be the most expensive Senate race in US history relative to the number of votes cast.

Famous quote from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, likely to become Senate Minority Leader once again come January 3.

Of the three very difficult races I mentioned above, Democrats need to win two in order to control the Senate, and that’s if Kamala Harris is able to win the presidential race. I hope Sonia Sotomayor feels happy about her decision not to retire earlier this year, because we could be looking at a 7-2 Supreme Court pretty soon if things go badly on Tuesday.

Refusing to Vote for Kamala Harris over Gaza is Idiotic and Selfish

Memes make everything better, don’t they?

Before I get to the meat of this post, I want to get something out of the way. I do not support the actions of the Israeli government, even if my own government does. I think Benjamin Netanyahu belongs in a war crimes prison, and I support the freedom of the Palestinian people. The US needs to stop selling weapons to Israel so that they can no longer be complicit in this genocide. This is one reason why I have already voted for Kamala Harris.

It is no secret that Donald Trump is incredibly pro-Israel. There’s literally a place in the West Bank called Trump Heights, and there’s a reason for that. The fact that he pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018 was a major contributor to Iran’s proxy Hamas carrying out its October 7 attack against Israeli civilians and creating the casus belli for Israel to invade Gaza and later Lebanon. Trump has literally called for Gaza to be turned into beachfront property. As little as Kamala Harris may care about the Palestinian people, Trump cares even less. Harris could in theory be persuaded to end US support for this genocide; Trump could not be. I’ll admit that if she were smarter, Harris would have disavowed Israel at the very beginning of her campaign. Even on this issue, however, there is a clear difference between the two candidates. If you support Palestine, you should vote for Kamala Harris.

However, the Israel-Palestine issue is not the only one in this election. Even if both major candidates were the same on this issue (which again, they aren’t), other issues matter as well. Consider the fact that if Donald Trump were to win this election, he would pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once more. Admittedly, these accords are largely symbolic, but what isn’t symbolic is the fact that Trump’s Project 2025 will dismantle the EPA and officially pit the United States against the environment. To some extent, this already happened in his first term, but we’re still seeing the damaging effects of that. Additionally, when he doesn’t have to worry about running for reelection, he’ll have a much wider latitude to do whatever the hell he wants - which, again, is kind of the point of Project 2025. Other countries might step up their climate targets to plan around that, but I doubt it would be enough.

Gravestone of Amber Nicole Thurman, victim of Georgia’s abortion ban, taken from The Guardian. Say her name.

Consider social issues as well. Trump’s Supreme Court has already stripped women of an essential right - the right of bodily autonomy. It cost Amber Nicole Thurman her life, and no doubt thousands of other women whose families aren’t comfortable sharing their stories to the nation. Donald Trump did that, and you don’t even have to take my word for it - Trump himself brags openly about killing Roe v. Wade. If Trump becomes President again, he is likely to pass a national abortion ban, which would remove “going to another state” as an option for women who want or need to terminate a pregnancy. Pregnancy-related deaths would skyrocket in that scenario, which is a result I consider unacceptable.

Moreover, consider the rights of LGBTQ+ people, particularly the T. Republican politicians like Donald Trump have flat-out called for genocide against trans people - Trump himself has promised to “end this madness”, a very ominous line in this context. I’ve noticed that many people who say they’re not voting for Harris over Gaza have “trans rights are human rights” in their bio on BlueSky. But if you really believe that, I find it hard to fathom how you can possibly take any action that makes Donald Trump more likely to return to power. If you do not vote for Harris to prevent Trump from winning, and Trump does in fact win, I don’t want to see you showing up at any pro-LGBTQ+ protests. Quite frankly, the day to save these rights was November 5, 2024, and you didn’t show up when we actually needed you. 

There are many other issues in this election in which Kamala Harris is unquestionably better than Donald Trump. If you choose not to vote for Harris, you make it more likely Trump wins, particularly if you live in a swing state such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. Voting for Jill Stein, or not voting at all, makes you complicit in allowing Trump to return to power. If you’re truly okay with making Trump’s reelection more likely, there’s only so much I can do to stop you. But if you aren’t, I believe you have a moral obligation to vote for Kamala Harris. She might have dogshit political instincts, but she’s still the only choice if you care about the environment, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or the rule of law.

Halloween May Be Over. The World’s Nightmare Isn’t.

It’s late in the evening on October 31, and I’m currently lamenting the fact that I didn’t acknowledge the holiday. I didn’t dress up, take anyone trick-or-treating, or attend any Halloween parties. Quite frankly, part of that is because I’m an adult now and can no longer go from door to door begging for candy without getting a lot of strange looks. However, I would like to provide a different reason why I refused to acknowledge Halloween this year.

 Forget all those jump-scares like what you’d see in Five Nights At Freddy’s. Quite frankly, the only thing we have to fear is the U.S. election. The fact that we might return to the White House a convicted felon who already tried to overthrow the government to remain in power is horrifying enough. However, that is perhaps not the most alarming result of electing Donald Trump as President of the United States on Tuesday.

 As I write this right now, Spain has experienced devastating flash floods that have killed at least 158 people. If you’ve spent any time following such stories, you’ll know that this death toll is going to keep rising as the missing are found to be dead. As all credible scientists (and every mainstream faction comprising 194 of 195 national governments) agree, the climate crisis is upon us, and humanity has brought it upon ourselves. You may have noticed that one government is missing, and that’s the United States of America, the country I happen to live in. The Republican Party that has so embraced Donald Trump is the only significant political movement in the world that denies the existence of manmade climate change. And yet, he stands an excellent chance of returning to office as a result of Tuesday’s election.

 This is what disqualifies the man most of all. If the United States elects Trump in spite of his actions on January 6, in spite of his COVID genocide in 2020, then we did it to ourselves. However, there’s an old saying that your freedom to swing your arms ends at my face. As horrific as January 6 was, it only affected American domestic politics. The U.S. has no right to elect Donald Trump and inflict the consequences of our climate denial on the rest of the world. History will not judge us kindly if we elect him again. Or maybe they will, because history is written by the winners.

 All of the above is to say that the potential reelection of Donald Trump is a greater nightmare than any Halloween story could possibly dream of. Voters of the United States have no right to return him to power, and if they do, Americans deserve to be sanctioned to hell and back for plunging the world into hell.