A confession. This whole election has felt a bit...weird...for me. [View all]

[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.