Day 321

 I knew there would be a neo-Nuremburg rally at some point.  I just really didn't want it to be even the most tangentially connected to my actual life.

Day 100

Maybe all I can do right now is make a beautiful garden in my little yard - cultivate what I can control in a real and tangible way.

Oh and completely ghost all any and all MAGA-sympathy-holders, no matter how small those sympathies may be.  I don't want to mess around with knowingly complicit people.

Day 65

 Ugh I hate that this is familiar but also worse than before.

Where I'm at now is to consider MAGA people with pity.  "Wow.  You must be so embarassed.  How embarassing for you."

Day 21

 The thing that made me feel a glimmer of comfort yesterday was that my internet friend, Jacob Rugh, posted his Presidential Election Margins and Trends data for my county here in "deep red" Utah.  

I find a lot of comfort in his analyses - watching my city and cities around us trending left with each election, independent of which party won.

Comforting to see the steady leftward lean continuing here - a democratic switch of 48 points since 2012 is nothing to ignore.

I went to a small neighborhood meeting a couple of years ago with some kind but politically androgynous folks in the room (I wasn't sure what was or wasn't safe to say.).  As the conversation warmed up and remained respectful, I asked, "How long do you think it will be until Utah becomes a purple state?"

This was met with literal howls of laughter.  I still don't really understand it though.  If things weren't so gerrymandered, I think we'd already be there.  The numbers are there.  And if this decade plus continues - or has a chance to hopefully continue in a democratic system... - I don't think it would take that long.  I think their reactions were....uneducated.

Also this map was a small comfort to me yesterday as well.

Not sure how to live with the right-swing of so much of the country...but, miraculously and interestingly, at least I live in one of the few places that most firmly resisted that trend.

Day 15

 Welcome to Despair Blog!

You can assume that if I'm not writing it's because:

1) I'm paralyzed by sadness, or,

2) I'm paralyzed by having too many big, complicated things to say and I don't have the time or energy to say them.

Or, I guess, 3) I'm manically distracting myself with other things.  

November 2024 has seen me spreading the good word of this little book:

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Timonty Snyder

It's actually been a very useful way to figure out where I can stand with people going forward.  If they react with interest or curiosity or any question at all - which is the normal way a person should act when a book is recommended to them - then they are on a safe list.  If they react with complete and utter silence then INSTANT UNSAFE.

I saw someone say somewhere (welcome to the internet age) that "this time" they weren't going to try and "have conversations" or defend their ideas or ask questions to "try to understand why someone would vote for that man" - no.  This time, they were just going to simply disappear from that person's life.  That "that person will simply never hear from me again."

This is the place I'm at now.  I'm not going to try and explain things anymore or be a "listening ear."  Nah.   We're at Peeps Chili Levels of caring about that path - I'll never understand those people, that's true, but I've come to understand that they defy understanding on purpose.  So, I just simply...leave the conversation.  I don't have time or energy for INSTANT UNSAFES anymore.  Also they are, as you may have noticed in my CAPS LOCK WORDS....unsafe.

Anyyyyywayyyyyyyyyyyy, this book is very good.  And very short.  You won't have to wade through a detailed history tome.  It's practical and clear.  That's what I've needed this month.  Straight, logical, obvious.  With history examples to illustrate it all.  Buy it for your friends.  Great stocking stuffer.  Throw it on your MAGA Neighbors' porches like an ol' timey newspaper boy (those were the days).  It's like $10 or something in paperback.  I read it in one night and then again the next day.  I don't know what else to say to sell this book to you whoever you are.