My Last Minute Rambling About the 2024 US Presidential Election

The U.S. presidential election is in two days. It's been stressing me out for several weeks. I've considered suicide if the fascist jackass wins. When I visited family recently, I felt impatient and resentful toward my little cousins, and then I felt like a monster for having negative feelings toward little kids who adore me. I haven't been getting high to escape from stress, but this week I'll make an exception. I look forward to it. Truthfully, though, I think Harris will win in a landslide. And then, in this best-case scenario, Trump will go ballistic again, his supporters will become violent again, and people will die again. I don't look forward to that. But then the Republican cancer will either distance itself the MAGA cancer and become more moderate, or it will die, as it's deserved to from the moment it decided Trump was an acceptable candidate. That's a win-win. Oh, and the morons on the Supreme Court might step in and say Trump won for no reason, but they can't actually do anything if the executive branch just tells them to fuck off, right?

I believe most of my immediate family members are voting for Trump again because, despite claiming not to be Republicans, and despite hundreds of actual Republicans putting country over party and endorsing Harris, they can't get out of the mindset that Republican candidates are the lesser of two evils in every circumstance. I've mostly avoided the topic, except when I called out my mom for saying, "I could vote for Harris if she wasn't an idiot," as if Harris isn't Albert freaking Einstein compared to the demented toddler that she's running against. Intelligence aside, I cannot comprehend why self-proclaimed conservatives who spent my adolescence freaking out over Obama's government overreach would even consider voting for a guy who led an insurrection and refused to leave office, said that the Constitution should be terminated so he could stay in office, said that he'll be a dictator, said that he'll fix it so they don't have to vote again, said that he'll give cops unlimited immunity, said that he'll use the military against Americans who disagree with him (like me), and plans to replace tens of thousands of non-partisan government employees with people whose only qualification is loyalty to him. Seriously, what the fuck? I used to think my family members were smarter than that. The prospect that they aren't is very depressing and alienating.

I often struggle to reconcile people's political behavior with what I knew or thought I knew about them. This one woman I used to go to church with seemed perfectly normal and reasonably intelligent. She shared a ten-second clip of Harris that had very obviously been taken out of context and had scary music added. This brazen attempt at manipulating emotions would have insulted the intelligence of a third-grader, but she bought into it without question. This clip, in her mind, confirmed that Harris would be a dictator, so she needed to vote instead for the guy who said he would be a dictator. When people in the comments brought up Trump's behavior, she said she didn't believe the media's lies about him. In all seriousness, I can't wrap my brain around how adults are walking around out there and leading productive lives with the critical thinking skills of sea cucumbers.

My uncle, who doesn't like Trump as a person but leans right, goes on long political rants when we're alone together for a long time. It's fine. I get on political rants sometimes too for the simple reason that politics affect every aspect of our lives. I just listen and don't argue. He's not trying to change my mind; he just gets worked up. Last time, he said that Harris can't speak in front of a camera, which I know isn't true because I've watched several of her speeches and interviews. He said he hates it when people are called sexist or racist for not voting for her. I agree that not voting for her doesn't make you sexist or racist, but voting for Trump means you're either sexist or racist or have decided that sexism and racism aren't dealbreakers. Also, many of the attacks on her from Republicans, up to and including Trump and Vance themselves, are sexist and racist. But I think her sex and race are advantages overall. She's energized young people who weren't interested in voting for yet another old white man, and anyone who wouldn't vote for her because they're sexist or racist was already going to vote for Trump regardless. Her being a woman is not, in itself, a sufficient reason to vote for her, but given a choice between two candidates who were identical except their sex, I would pick the woman because shattering glass ceilings matters. I want my nieces to grow up thinking it's normal for a woman to be president.

My uncle said that Trump isn't worse than other politicians, he just doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. He said one reason people support him is that they're fed up with the double standard. Democrats defended Bill Clinton when he had his sex scandal. I wouldn't know about that, since I was four years old when it broke, but I will say that at least he only cheated on one wife, and the double standard I see now is against Harris for being a woman. Because she's had sex ever in her life, she "slept her way to the top." Granted, if she were a Republican woman it wouldn't matter. My uncle thinks Trump will end the war in Ukraine and establish peace because he'll threaten to use nukes, and the world's dictators will know he's crazy enough to do it. Spinning his dangerous mental instability as a positive thing is certainly a take. I'm pretty sure Trump would end the war in Ukraine by giving Ukraine to Russia, just like Republicans have wanted to do for the last three years because somehow Russia has lobotomized them. Putin is not scared of Trump. Putin has his arm all the way up Trump's ass. Putin will manipulate Trump as easily as Harris does. Putin wants Trump to be elected. Every Instagram account with no face, no posts, and no followers is making anti-Harris comments.

A lot of Puerto Ricans have recently gotten pissed off and turned against Trump because a bully, I mean "comedian" at his Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden a week ago made a "joke" about Puerto Rico being a "floating island of garbage." Whatever works, I guess, but if his campaign's bigotry isn't a dealbreaker for you until it targets you personally, you're kind of a shitty person. I bet my family members wouldn't vote for him if he said something rude about Mormons. It cannot be overstated how unacceptable and disqualifying this bigotry should be. Economic policies aside, I could never in good conscience affiliate with such a profoundly discriminatory movement, and it baffles me that so many ostensibly good people can. It was bad enough when it happened in 1930s Germany, but nobody in today's world who made it past seventh grade has any excuse for not knowing better.