The United States just re-elected as president a serial liar, rapist, convicted felonious fraudster, racist, fascist, climate change denier, mentally impaired, 78 year old, psychopathic buffoon; so now we're all living in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. The future holds nothing but uncertainty and cause for dread, not only for America but for humankind at large.
At this profoundly disorienting moment, the most important thing I think we can do is to allow ourselves time to grieve: to mourn for what was good in the world that was, and for the ills that are likely to afflict the world in days to come. Before we can be prepared to act, we must center ourselves. We must find our higher selves. Only then can we effectively face the impending and as yet unknown trials of our collective future. I started the day today by telling my family that, whatever the coming years may bring, I love them and that is the most important thing in my life. It felt like the right first step.
In the meantime, I am having difficulty understanding what has happened. My first reaction to any new event is to try to make sense of it. But something is not adding up, here. I don't mean this in a conspiracy theorist kind of way, but the numbers are telling me a story that I just don't understand. In 2020, Biden/Harris won 81,283,501 votes to the 74,223,975 cast for Mr. Loser Shithead and Mike "Most Unlikely Hero of Democracy" Pence. This morning, with few results remaining to be counted, the Associated Press is crediting Kamala Harris with 66,360,291 votes, against 71,289,102 for the electoral college winner. So Biden 2020 got 15,000,000 more votes than Harris 2024. Isn't that odd? After all, Harris was on the ticket in both elections. Presumably, most if not all of those missing 15,000,000 voters probably cast their ballots for Harris the first time around? Why did they sit it out in 2024? Moreover, Mr. Vance and his running mate got 3,000,000 fewer votes than the Rethuglican ticket did, four years earlier. They certainly did not expand their party's base of support in this election. What turned a losing performance in 2020 into a winning performance in 2024, despite the fact that 2024's performance was even less successful, in terms of voter support, than the party's showing in the previous contest? Clearly, despite whatever bullshit you are going to read about their brilliant historic comeback and triumphant coalition, Vance and company did not win this election: Harris/Walz lost it. But, why?
UPDATE, November 17, 2024: In writing the above, I did not take full account of the fact that not all the votes had been counted. I recognized that the count was ongoing, but thought that ongoing tabulation would not much change the picture. As it turned out, my overall take on the election, that is, that the undervote for Harris was key, holds up. But I was not correct in saying that Pussygrabber failed to match his 2020 total. In fact, he has somewhat exceeded it, with somewhat over 76,000,000 votes this year, compared to about 74,000,000 for him four years ago. I still maintain that this does not represent a significant expansion of Pussygrabber's support, which remains essentially static. By contrast, Harris, with close to 74,000,000 votes this year, fell short of her total with Biden by almost 8,000,000 votes. The significant change in the electorate, that is, consists entirely of the number of those who previously voted for a ticket with Harris on it, but were unwilling to come out for her when she headed the ticket.
