So that happened. . .

While I have gone back to it to some degree in the last couple of days, I realize that for a particular stretch of time last week, I was more or less incommunicado in regards to social media and such—enough so that I did have a couple of people inquire as to whether I was okay or not. Trust me, I am fine, or at least as fine as I am able to normally muster. I didn’t bother posting anything on Tuesday once things began going sideways because I didn’t think that we needed yet another doomposter in the mix. As for Wednesday, I confess that I was mostly offline because I was marking the day and the news in what seemed like the most appropriate of ways—taking a couple of edibles and watching an all-day marathon of Esther Williams movies on TCM and pondering that there was once a time when Hollywood made a slew of films in which the narratives all hinged to some degree on a woman jumping into a large body of some liquid.

Yes, the election sucked and it was indeed horrifying to witness so many people voting against their own interests in order to usher in a madman whose entire platform is dedicated to avenging grievances and making the lives of everyone save for the super-rich as miserable as can be. Even more revolting is the fact that we as a nation decided that it would be better to put a convicted felon in charge of everything instead of a more-than-competent and accomplished Black woman. I may not have agreed with everything she said or everything about her campaign—I think the lack of any substantive discussion of the Gaza issue was a mistake—but for the most part, she was a fine candidate and I believe she would have made for a fine president. Let me put it this way. This month marks the third anniversary of the passing of Venerable Mom. Since then, there had not been a single day where I didn’t wish that she was still around but I have to admit that I am glad that she wasn’t around last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Now, of course, we are about to enter the hellscape and, barring some kind of Gabriel Over the White House—style transformation, it is about to get very bad for a lot of people, many of them people who voted for the very policies that are about to destroy them. Like most everyone else, I will presumably suffer the results of a number of these proposed policies but I also recognize that I will get off easily compared to many others. Being a goofy single childless straight white guy living in a solidly blue state where pot is legal, reproductive rights are enshrined and the governor is not a maniac or incipient criminal (though considering my state’s history, that last tidbit should probably have an asterisk by it). I don’t have to worry about a wife or girlfriend bleeding out after a miscarriage to the point of death. I don’t have to worry that open season will be declared on me because I belong to the LGBTQ community. I don’t have to worry about my children suffering from a dismantling of the education system or being taken down thanks to rubella making a comeback.  So no, I am not specifically angry about the election results because of myself because dopes like me usually make it through somehow.

However, I have some friends—this may sound shocking to some but it is nevertheless true—and it is for them that I am angry. A disproportionate number of these friends are women and I am angry that rights that they have always had have been torn away from them thanks to the machinations of an adjudicated sexual predator. Many of them have daughters and I am angry that they no longer have the rights that their mothers once enjoyed and I am especially aghast that many poorly-endowed shitfucks have taken these times as an excuse to espouse blatant misogyny, most repulsively in espousing some variation of the phrase “your body, my choice” Regardless of gender, I am angry that these kids will have to suffer in regards to their health and education because of the rank stupidity of their elders. I am angry for those of the LGBTQ and immigrant communities who are now going to be persecuted as a result of people being convinced that the devaluation of their lives wasn’t nearly as important as the price of eggs supposedly being slightly higher than normal. Those are the people I am truly upset for and it is those people whose causes I will try to help in whatever meager ways I can until things turn for the better or the shitfuck in charge goes full Stillson.

There will be a couple of minor changes on my end. For starters, my presence on that there Twitter thing is going to be supremely curtailed before too long. I won’t be completely disengaging right not because there are some old posts and stuff that I would like to retain but new stuff—review links, acerbic commentary, selections from my vinyl collection—is not likely to turn up there as I would prefer it not to be associated with the piggishness and hate that is increasingly dominating that hellsite. If you want to see my reviews, you can always look them up at Rotten Tomatoes or check in at my Substack thing, Auteurist Class (and I apologize for the plug-like nature of that last thing). My links, snark, Swiftie-related commentary and the rest will also be found on Facebook and on BlueSky, where I can be found at petersob13.bsky.social . That said, it isn’t as if the quality of my contributions is going to improve much, so act accordingly.

One thing I will not be doing, however, is suddenly deciding to be palsie-walsie with those who voted for hate and fear—in some cases in ways that would directly affect friends and family members—and who are now encouraging those they have specifically hurt by doing so to make nice, usually by claiming that friendship/family is more important than politics. In one particularly obnoxious example, a childhood acquaintance thought it would be a good idea to suggest that by not being willing to understand the point of view of those who chose to doom countless people because of some fear that too many prisoners were getting trans surgery, I would have disappointed my parents. Needless to say, I blocked that person (to put this in perspective, I think I only blocked one other person on Facebook and that was because they made a specific threat against me) but the day after the election, i got another friend request from them.

To misquote Louisa May Alcott, I would just as soon stick my dick in a box fan than make nice with those people. I am a reasonably laid-back and accepting person but if I had to make a list of deal-breakers involving personal relationships, “embracing fascism” would rank right up there near the top. I have no interest in making those people feel better for their poor decisions and contemptible attitudes. Besides, the few people who are truly important and close in my life, I pretty much know where they stand and I am happy just to stick with them. I don’t plan on being openly hostile towards these people, mind you, but when the full implications of what they have voted for come back to bite them and bite them hard, there will not be a single drop of sympathy emanating from my end. I can only hope that they will hurt and suffer just as much as the people that they were hoping to make hurt and suffer by their vote. In the next year or so, once stuff starts getting bad and the people who voted for him out of misguided fear and cravenly stoked anger, I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be deleting stuff from their various social media accounts in a desperate effort to convince others that they never ever supported such things. I know that I will never be doing that—to be fair, that is as much due to laziness and general disinterest as it is a display of the courage of my convictions.

As for that thing about my parents, I would like to point out that while I presumably frustrated, confused and disappointed them in any number of ways, not being willing to respect the viewpoint of those supporters would not be among one. They did teach me to respect other perspectives, of course. However, they also taught me to stand up to bullies who are mistreating others and that is a lesson I have stood by my entire life, dating back to the time in first grade where I apparently clocked some kid who was tossing chunks of ice at people on the playground. (According to the story, when my mother and I met with the principal and I was asked if I was sorry for what I did, I replied “No”) To be fair, my mother would probably not approve of much of the language that I used but in terms of the sentiments behind them, she definitely would have signed off on those and if you think otherwise, you clearly didn’t know her.

So anyway, I hope everyone is doing what they can to recover from the crushing blow of last week. Even if things don’t become as apocalyptic as some fear, things are clearly going to suck to some degree for the next couple of years. Right not, let us just take a few moments to regroup, collect our thoughts and then go back to fighting the good fight in whatever ways we can. Fuck T————, fuck Twitter, fuck tyranny, fuck cruelty, fuck misogyny—we can be better than this.

And if I overhear anyone saying something along the lines of the aforementioned “your body, my choice” in public, I am not specifically saying that I will crack you in the head with my cane but I am not necessarily not saying it either.