Random thoughts about the course of this election

Just what I think, nothing more.

  • It’s alright to detest any of the candidates — Bloomberg was a rich goblin, go ahead and say so. I like Warren, but if you don’t, I’m not going to try and change your opinion. Fire away with your dissent.
  • All of the candidates, current and past, are deeply flawed. If you’re trying to argue that your favored candidate is a saint who will make every segment of the electorate happy and win in a landslide, you are delusional. Own their shortcomings, work to reduce them, preferably by getting the candidate himself to admit to them.
  • We’re not going to get a revolution in January, even if your preferred candidate gets into office. Face the facts: this is going to take a long struggle over decades. Longer with Biden than Sanders, I think, but Biden is the cautious choice that a surprising (to me) lot of people favor.
  • One of the reasons it’s going to take a long time is that changing figureheads doesn’t change the direction of the ship. We’ve got to work on informing the electorate. You’re going to have to win over 330 million people, not just the one at the top. The US has systemic issues that aren’t going to disappear in a single election.
  • To accomplish change, you’ll need to get along with the supporters of the other Democratic candidate, win or lose. There’s a lot of bridge-burning going on. Stop it.
  • That doesn’t mean you stop criticizing the other guy, or your guy. He’s your representative, not your boss. Let them know what needs to change in their approach.
  • Disappointingly, as the field has narrowed, it’s obvious that we’re not going to get a woman or person of color in the oval office. Don’t forget all the other elected positions that we need to fill! Fight to build a coalition that supports your goals, and that reflects the diversity we need.
  • The enemy is Donald Trump and the whole damned Republican party. Fight them with the army you’ve got, not the one you wish you had.

Now it’s getting personal

I just learned that a woman acquaintance I knew well in high school has lost her husband to COVID-19. It’s odd how the personal connection snaps it all into focus so clearly. I’ve got a lot of connections to people in the Pacific Northwest, where there seems to be a lot of activity by this virus, so I expect to get more sad news in the future.

No! I don’t want to say bye-bye to Elizabeth Warren!

But I have to — Warren is dropping out of the race. It’s a rational response given her weak showing in the primaries to date, and also because it is clear the media was never going to take her seriously. I hope that whoever ends up getting the nomination does, though, and gives Warren and some of the other candidates significant positions in their administration.

Now it’s a two-person competition for the Democratic nomination, between two very old white men. This is not a good position to be in. What is this, a racist, sexist gerontocracy? (Rhetorical question: yes, yes it is.)

Harvard employs fools and bigots, too

I’ve lost a lot of respect for Harvard over the years, and for professors in general. They’re just people, and there are ignorant people in every discipline and locale, like this guy, Adrian C. Vermeule.

…when [Harvard Law professor] Vermeule took dead aim at atheists, the critics were silent. In defense of state laws that forbid atheists from holding public office or serving on juries, he tweeted that they are “sensible” because atheists “can’t be trusted to keep an oath.” This wasn’t an inadvertent insult, like his tweet about “camps” may have been; Vermeule demeaned atheists intentionally. The critics were silent because bigots enjoy far greater freedom to slander atheists than any other minority group.

I’d argue that trans and gay folk are more freely slandered than atheists, for example, but the point is that this guy Vermeule said something appallingly stupid, and apparently really believes that Christians are intrinsically more moral and trustworthy than atheists.

All I can say is that we can look at professed Christian Donald Trump and professional rat-fucker with a Nixon tattoo on his back, Roger Stone, has “found Jesus”.

“I feel pretty good because I’ve taken Jesus Christ as my personal savior,” Stone said in his first on-camera interview since his sentencing. “And it’s given me enormous strength and solace, because he knows what’s in my heart.”

Do you trust Roger Stone to keep an oath?

I blew it

I missed my chance. Yesterday was the deadline to apply for the Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design in Seattle.

The Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design are coming to Seattle for 9 days, July 10 to 18, 2020. It’s an entirely free opportunity for undergrad and graduate students to study ID with the stars of the field: Meyer, Axe, Nelson, Wells, Gauger, Sternberg, West, and more.

An excuse to spend a week or two in Seattle would have been welcome — it’s like home, I love that city — but the fact I’d have to spend it with that list of pompous chuckleheads left me more interested in finding a different excuse.

Did you know there’s a Spider Lake in the Olympic National Forest? I should check out whether there are actually significant numbers of spiders there. That would be a far more productive summer break.

Bye-bye, Michael Bloomberg

Even a delusional billionaire can see the writing on the wall. Bloomberg is out.

One interesting promise:

Bloomberg has pledged to pay his massive staff to continue to work through November to support whoever becomes the eventual Democratic nominee.

If he does that, I’ll forgive him his narcissistic attempt to buy the presidency.

Of course, he endorses Joe Biden on his way out. Cancel that forgiveness thing.

I know some people defend caucuses, but…

I’ve defended them myself. We want more participation, not less, and caucuses discourage too many voters. Minnesota switched to a presidential primary election since the last time we did this.

With 85 percent of precincts reporting at press time, nearly 815,000 Minnesotans cast ballots in Tuesday’s presidential primary. In 2016, just 318,000 people participated in caucuses statewide.

Caucuses had long been criticized as being more appealing to party insiders rather than the typical voter. Long lines and slow results also frustrated participants in 2016.

I don’t know that Minnesota was as prepared as they should be. I talked to a few people who live in more rural counties (even more rural than Stevens county, where I live), and they simply had no designated polling places at all — all votes had to be done with a mail-in ballot. They were rather jealous of the fact that I was wearing an “I VOTED” sticker, and isn’t getting that sticker the whole point of going to vote?

But yes, we felt like the turnout was huge in 2016, with chaotic milling mobs at the bar where we caucused, but apparently that was less than half the number who participated this year.

Taking the wrong path

I would not change my commute to avoid Main Street, I’d explicitly go down Main Street every day, and bring large animals with me. A diet of cars would be very bad for any spider, there’s not much nutrition there. What does it do? Bite through the outer shell, flood the interior with enzymes, and drink back the liquified upholstery? Yuck.

Tired of living in my worst dreams

Oh, man, what a nightmare. I dreamt that it was November, and I had just unenthusiastically voted in the presidential election. Joe Biden had swept all the primaries, had picked some unmemorable, faceless white man as his VP, and bumbled his way through a few ugly debates. The Democratic party had successfully doused the flickering flames of progressive activism in this country, inserting their establishment apparatchik into the running for the highest office, and he was prepared to appoint a phalanx of bankers and insurance executives into his cabinet. On election day I voted for that stooge, dreading the next four years of either his toothy smug grin or a repeat of the orange fascist, and, while I was unhappy with either choice, my decision was forced. And now I was just waiting for the election results. I felt exactly as I did on election day in 2016, grim and doomed.

Then I woke up.

My doctor had warned me that my toradol injection would wear off after about 6 hours and I’d have to fall back on ibuprofen for my achey bones, and she was right. Ouch. So I just took some painkillers and am waiting for them to kick in, and thought I’d write up my horrible dream.

It was just a nightmare, right? I’m not going to look at the election news. I need to get back to sleep.