A confession. This whole election has felt a bit...weird...for me.

[Tommy Carcetti]

Note off the top: I am not saying I feel in any way less motivated to want to see Democrats win, hold the majority in Congress, take Governors' races, etc. Nor have I been shy in advocating my support for Democratic candidates.

But there is something at what I can only assume is at a subconscious level that has me feeling, well, exhausted by it all.

Subliminally, I think the Trump years really did a number on me. Every single day for four years, I would wake up in this Kafkaesqe nightmare where we had an unhinged lunatic in control of the United States just betraying all norms of common decency. And I really, really just wanted it to end.

And then in November 2020, it did end. But just barely. And not enough to eliminate the continued peril to American democracy.

Which you might say under normal circumstances might act as an additional motivator for me. But I think due to the degree of the low-grade trauma of four years of Trump, I just felt like I needed a breather. And in a day and age where the next election cycle seems to begin the day the previous one ends, two years just felt like too short of a turn-around. Even knowing democracy was on the line. Even knowing Trump is out there, looming, and looking to run again.

Then there is the creeping realization that grotesque cretins like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert will likely win re-election despite being affronts to humanity. There's the fact that I just voted for Charlie Crist and Val Demings--two candidates who I liked and vocally supported for--but set against the inherent power of the incumbency, it just seems like an uphill battle at best, a lost cause at worst. There's the sense I get that people expecting elections nationwide to be won over a single narrow issue is a folly, but if we were to openly frame it as to what's really the overall theme of what's at stake--the basic democratic backbone of the country as opposed to a backslide into cult-like authoritarianism--people would simply dismiss you as being alarmist or overwrought.

I'm sorry, guys. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic. Honestly.

Really, all of this is just me talking out loud to get it off my chest.

But I think as a coping mechanism, I have somehow adopted an "expect the worst, hope for the best" mindset to ground myself. I won't be staying up late in front of the TV screens, monitoring the results, waiting and anticipating victories for my candidates as I have in basically every previous election since I have come of voting age.

I probably won't even watch the news at all. There are plenty of shows on my DVR and streaming queues that I can watch until I'm tired enough to sleep. And I'll go to bed assuming when I wake up, I'll still be stuck with Ron Fucking DeSantis as my governor and having to deal with a new party in charge in one or both houses of Congress.

And I pray to God I'll be proven wrong tomorrow. And that tomorrow I can return to this post and laugh at myself, and invite you all to laugh at me.

But this whole election, on a very personal level, has felt very different and disconnected to me in ways I can't fully understand. Even in 2010 and 2014, the last two midterms where we got shellacked, I was absolutely hyped up to win, and completely thrown for a loop when we didn't. Maybe I should have seen the warning signs then. But I didn't want to.

This, on the other hand, just feels depressing. Like a gray cloud hanging over the horizon. And it's not for the fault of President Biden or the candidates or DU or Democrats in general. You all have been fine.

I think it's just the fact that Trump isn't actually there, but he's still very much there, and six years in with no clear respite in sight it's just taken a toll on my sunny optimism about this country and humanity in general.

Again, sorry to go on like this. There's no need to like this post, or comment on it if you don't want to. Really this was all me getting my frustrations off my chest.

And tomorrow, when I'm proven very wrong, please feel free to come back and laugh at me. Because I'll be right there with you.

[Island Blue]

1. That's my mindset

& my game plan for tonight as well.

[Claustrum]

2. There is a part of me that thinks we will be ok even if we lose today.

We lived through TFG years. As bad as it was for me mentally through those years, we made it through alive. We will likely make it through alive if republicans are in charge in the next 2 years. We have to continue to fight no matter what the outcome is.

[GenXer47]

4. people "make it out alive" in the DPRK every year

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has elections too.
We're not going to be shuffled into gas chambers. What will happen is conservatives will cement their power in all 3 branches of government, permanently. They'll shove their twisted vision of God, Guns and Gore in our faces in every way possible, but we'll live.

[Elessar Zappa]

5. We'll go back to the norms of the 50s,

if Republicans get all three branches in 2024. So yeah, it’ll suck, especially for minorities. But I personally don’t think Trump can win again unless Biden really fucks up.

[Claustrum]

8. I hope you are right about TFG.

But I said the same thing in 2016 and I thought Biden would easily win with a bigger margin in 2020. As much as I hate it, TFG tapped into something that works for some American, and we have to figure out how to combat that and win those voters back.

[Claustrum]

7. I am not saying I prefer them to win.

But reality is, some people have different priority or our messaging is not good enough to convince them (if we indeed are going to lose. We just don't know yet).

In the unfortunate outcome that if we lose, we still have to figure out a way to convince people to vote for democrats in 2024 rather than telling them they are wrong in 2022.

[Hela]

3. I appreciate you putting this into words.

You are not along in this -- this describes me as well. I'm all in for the Dems, but I have no enthusiasm for it. The gray cloud metaphor is real. I have felt like this pretty much since I woke up on November 9, 2016. (Other than when they declared for Joe Biden and I watched people dancing in the streets and felt real joy for the first time in 4 years.)

Today I just want to crawl into bed, pull my covers over my head, and watch stuff or read on my ipad.

[CrispyQ]

6. I complained in another thread about the never-ending campaign cycle.

Couple that with the feeling that each election is more important than the last, each election is THE election we have to win, yes, it wears one down to feel the country is on the edge all the time, hanging by a thread all the time. Also, I am so very sick of Donald Trump. I've never felt such loathing for someone. I want to punch his face every time I see it. Every day I hope is the day he dies & the earlier in the day the better.

[BeyondGeography]

9. There are almost as many reasons not to be cheerful

as there are mulligans for Trump.

Trump lives without guilt or shame, beyond judgement and in the moment alone. There are no standards. He is king of the world of endless do-overs. Yesterday was so yesterday.

I’m not a churchgoer, but it strikes me as basically the same thing being sold from the pulpit. You are never wrong so much as wronged. Jan. 6? Just another witch hunt at the end of the day.

It is exhausting because they never evolve. One wonders what it will take or, for sanity’s sake, avoids the question entirely.

[Ocelot II]

10. I feel pretty much the same way.

After TFG was defeated in 2020 I thought, Finally we'll be rid of that toxic lunatic and things will get back to normal again. But then there was all that election fraud nonsense and crazy Rudy saying mad things in the parking lot of a landscape company and 60+ lawsuits and 1/6, and pretty soon it looked like TFG was going to be the political equivalent of long covid - you survived and sort of recovered but the unpleasant after-effects just won't go away and you don't know when they will, if ever.

So we hope for the best but expect the worst, and the outcome probably will be something in-between and in varying degrees of awful, depending on where you live. We'll have to carry on but we won't know for awhile what the final picture will be - probably not Nazi Germany but maybe some kind of "soft" fascism or something like The Troubles of Northern Ireland, or maybe just protracted struggles in the courts. The best case scenario is that Biden vetos everything coming out of a GOP-dominated Congress, but even that is just a stalemate. And what might happen in 2024 is anybody's guess. It's the uncertainty and the sense that something really bad could happen that makes me feel like the character in the Li'l Abner cartoon with the storm cloud over his head. I'm old but given my ancestors' tendency toward longevity I could be around for another 20 years or so, and right now I'm just hoping those last years don't suck too much.

[dameatball]

11. It's exhausting to build bridges with people who will not or cannot accept facts. It's exhausting to

try and rehabilitate (if you will) someone who never, ever hits bottom. Throw in the fact that a significant portion of the population is more or less tuned out, well, yeah, it's exhausting. Self-care when you need it is good for us all.

[NoRethugFriends]

12. A very depressing thread, but it is good to see some realism here

So much ignoring of reality and Pollyanna stuff.

[forthemiddle]

13. Biden still holds the Veto!

If the Republicans win tonight, President Biden becomes more powerful than Manchin!
That may sound trite, but for two years he has been powerless. Now it’s Manchin that will be powerless.
Even though we won’t get any more progressive policies, we won’t get the horrendous conservative policies either.
Basically we will have two years of only must pass legislation. Not the best, but not the worst either.

[Ocelot II]

14. That's true, but all he can do is prevent the GOP from doing their worst.

The Dems won't be able to get anything passed, either - it will be a stalemate.

[Tommy Carcetti]

15. The other silver lining:

The inevitable Trump-DeSantis civil war will be epic to watch from afar.

[msfiddlestix]

16. We are of the same mind, dealing with the same emotions, experiencing the trauma in the same way

I too identify, empathize completely.

I too am bracing for the worst, and praying for the best.

I too will NOT be watching the shit show as it goes down on tv Cuz there will be plenty of opportunity to learn the final results and experience the outcome after today, either in celebratory fashion or the opposite.

I just want you to know, you are not alone..