CSotD: A Brake in the Action

Guy Venables speaks for the world and most of us in America as well. I wasn’t even going to address the election today, because I’m burned out on it and there’s nothing new anyhow.

At this stage, you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus. I saw somebody on Facebook — a grownup, mind you — talking about how he couldn’t bring himself to vote for either candidate, and planned to flush his franchise down the toilet with a performative principled third-party choice.

Because in a time of crisis, you just can’t have enough gallant, futile gestures.

As others have said, it’s like refusing to take the bus because it doesn’t stop right at your doorstep.

However, on the topic of gallant-and-not-futile gestures, I got a kick out of this Batch Rejection (AMS), because I miss the old mechanical voting booths for just that reason. There was a small catharsis each time you flipped the little lever by each choice and then a gigantic one when you pulled the big lever that locked in your choices and opened the curtain.

There’s no actual difference, of course. But filling in bubbles on the sheet just doesn’t have the heft of the old booths.

BTW, I worked the 2020 election, and it gave me a good sense of how valid the system is. We were a bunch of local citizens working together to get this thing accomplished, with a corps group of actual experts guiding us.

I was one of the people checking voters in, and when there was a slack moment, the clerk would come over with a sheaf of absentee ballots and read off the names and addresses so I could cross them off as having voted. She didn’t say how they had voted, only that they had. Throughout the day, there was no point at which someone who had voted absentee showed up to vote again in person, but we were covered if it happened.

And we sure didn’t have enough leisure time to fake anything. It was steady, all day long, and there were a few party faithful who wandered by to observe, but we were mostly under the constant eyes of our friends and neighbors.

Everybody ought to volunteer at least once, but I guess if everyone knew what the hell they were talking about, elections wouldn’t be nearly so interesting.

Adam Zyglis put himself at the center of this “get out the vote” cartoon, though I suppose most readers don’t know what he looks like. Most get out the vote cartoons are non-partisan, but it doesn’t take much to see who he favors, and that’s all right with me.

We’ve rarely had an election where the two major candidates were so clearly defined. In 1968, for instance, a race between Nixon and RFK would have been a clear choice, but once it came down to Nixon/Humphrey, it became a question of who you thought would do whatever but it wasn’t clear what “whatever” was going to consist of.

By contrast, things are quite clear today.

This Pizzacake comic seems aimed at Gen Z, and I can relate, since moving to Canada was one of the options in ’68 as well, though it was more a matter of personal survival than vague issues of freedom.

I had a GF in the Maritimes, and we quarreled slightly over whether I would flee immediately if drafted (her preference) or would stay, resist and serve a sentence before leaving with a clean slate (my preference.)

Of course, what I really learned in the process was that until it happens to you, you have no idea what you’re going to do.

As it happened, we broke up and then I pulled a 348 in the lottery, so it all became highly theoretical. But I think everyone — not just the Gen Z’s — ought to have a plan.

Juxtaposition of the Day

Clay Jones

Pat Bagley

I think that, in formulating your plan, you have to have a solid idea of the stakes, and anybody offering you stone cold certainty should be viewed with suspicion.

The fact that we can predict with significant accuracy how each justice of the Supreme Court will vote is frightening, as is the notion of justices representing political parties. It’s nearly as frightening as the notion that one side has a direct line to God.

Together, they represent quite a chilling combination, but it’s better than a choice between lukewarm options, because you sure can’t say you didn’t know what was on the ballot.

Well, except that, as Nick Anderson (Tribune) hints, a lot of people seem quite sure the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party has no intention of actually eating their faces.

I continue to be surprised that any brown people fail to realize that, in a country planning to deport millions of immigrants, they will repeatedly — no matter if their lineage here traces back to the Conquistadors — have to prove who they are and why they have a right to live here.

You think “driving while Black” is a hassle, stay tuned for “living while brown.”

And that’s only one aspect of what’s on today’s ballot, though, as Lalo Alcaraz (AMS) suggests, it should be front-and-center in the Latino community.

But the time to argue these points has passed. As Ann Telnaes points out, we know that is on the ballot because he’s not only told us, but he provided ample hints for four years and we’ve little excuse for being surprised and shocked if we give him the chance to follow through on them now.

Kal Kallaugher echoes her point: We know our choices. We’ll make our decision and then we’ll live with the outcome. But shame on anyone who chooses the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party and then has the nerve to complain about having their faces eaten.

The only “plan” I have left at this point is to vote in mid-morning so I don’t inconvenience people who need to get to their workplaces.

And, of course, to brace myself for the aftermath, because, as Pedro X. Molina and others have said, there will be an aftermath.

I’m still mad at James Buchanan for not disarming the losers before he left office, but it looks like we’re not planning to get fooled again.