2025 Election Reflection

The 2024 election made me suicidal for a few days because I didn't want to live in a country so fundamentally rotten that it would choose someone like the orange taint as its leader, let alone twice. (My mother's response to this was, and I quote, "You could move to Costa Rica.") I still don't, and the destruction that the orange taint has wrought on crucial government institutions, human rights, human quality of life, and the economy has more than validated my futile warnings to the dipshits who voted for him. (I predict that in a few years, most of them will mysteriously forget that they ever supported him, but fortunately their Facebook and Twitter posts will set the record straight.) Even though his human rights abuses haven't affected me yet, and I can cope with him making everything more expensive because I've spent my entire adult life in poverty and have a semi-ascetic lifestyle, the last year has been hard because I suffer from a disorder called "empathy." I don't know why. It's not hereditary, that's for damn sure.

But at the same time, I've really enjoyed protesting and connecting with people who share my values and don't support Nazis, and my cautious optimism has grown as it's become clear that the orange taint and the ass-kissers he surrounds himself with are far too stupid to win in the long term. I've wanted to be optimistic all along, but I didn't want to delude myself. I don't subscribe to the delusion that the United States can't become a dictatorship because it's inherently superior to other countries. Naturally, I had a much more positive response to the 2025 elections, in which the orange taint's preferred candidates got hammered like Pete Hegseth at a 10 AM meeting. I believe this proves that Americans are finally done with his shit, and I believe it foreshadows a blue tsunami in 2026. Democrats obviously suck in their own ways, but because they meet the very low bar of not supporting Nazis, I'm rooting for them to curb-stomp Republicunts back into the 1950s, which is where they want to be anyway. Republicunts will, of course, try every voter suppression and gerrymandering tactic they can think of, and it will take hard work to overcome that, but they don't have the power to rig or cancel elections altogether. We now have proof.

I also believe Zohram Mamdani, the new democratic socialist mayor of New York City, foreshadows the Democrat Party being dragged kicking and screaming to the left and forced to actually fight for normal people and address the rot that runs through this country. Voters chose Mamdani over a mainstream Democrat, Andew Cuomo, first in the primaries and then in the general election when the latter ran as an independent and got endorsed by Trump and Musk because they knew the Republicunt didn't have a chance in hell. Cuomo previously served thrice as governor of New York even though I've never heard of anyone who likes him, he forced nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients and then intenionally undercounted the resulting deaths, and he resigned in 2021 over sexual misconduct allegations, which probably helped Trump and Musk accept him. ​On the other hand, Mamdani is a socialist with scary socialist ideas like checks notes free public transportation. You know, I experienced free public transportation for over a decade in the socialist hellhole of Logan, Utah. I don't know how I ever survived. The buses were always exploding, and people who owned cars were always complaining about having to pay taxes so that lazy freeloaders could get to work. Just kidding, Logan is very proud of its free public transportation, and when the city council considered charging fares, they dropped the idea after an overwhelmingly negative response.

Anyway, yeah, I know nothing is "free." I'm not stupid. I have to pay taxes regardless, so I'd much rather pay for socialist programs like free public transportation than for bombs that are used to murder Palestinian children. Most conservatives, excepting the most extreme nutcases who want to defund everything, have a double standard between existing programs and proposed programs. I don't hear them complaining about paying taxes so that other people can borrow library books for free, but if someone suggested that idea today, they'd lose their shit. But the narrative has shifted a lot within my short lifetime. When Obama (who's center-right by the standards of normal countries) was accused of being a socialist, it was an attack that he had to defend against. Now people come out and identify as socialists, and young people who are tired of being raped by our current system love them. I don't identify as a socialist, but I'm tired of being raped by our current system too. I'll take a socialist over a fascist every time.

The only position I got to cast a vote for was the mayor of Midvale. To my delight, Salt Lake County has ranked-choice voting, which should be the standard everywhere. Brandee Boyer was my first choice because of her focus on the needs of renters. Incumbent Dustin Gettel, a gay man who defied a bullshit state law and refused to remove a Pride flag from his office, was my second choice, and I wasn't upset when he won (though I was a little irked that all the incumbents won, which suggests to me that people didn't take this election seriously). David Fair was not a choice. With the option to vote for multiple candidates, I took pleasure in not filling in a bubble for him at all. At the very beginning of the candidates' town hall, it was a red flag that he wanted to expand the police force, and later, he was the only candidate for any position who said that he would have the police cooperate with ICE. Fuck ICE. The other six people basically said "Fuck ICE" in polite, professional ways. Anyway, I'm sure 2026 will continue to suck, and democracy will not have an uninterrupted string of victories, but there is hope. I believe I came to this Earth at this time to help at this critical juncture. I'm doing my best, dang it.