Election Ramblings

    Well, it's election day. For what it's worth, if you're going to vote, vote for Kamala Harris. I've already cast my ballot, and it bears a not insubstantial resemblance to my standardized test papers back when I was in school. There's probably a whole essay on how most students have felt more stress around test days than adults do on national elections, but I'm pretty sure most of us know what it would consist of. Looking back, I'm a little stunned at how black and white our school system is. We're at a point where there is no right answer, only a "best" answer that is very much open to interpretation. Did no one stop and think that maybe a system built on filling in the right bubbles was very much not the way to teach people to appreciate just how hard it is to make choices in the real world? I don't think there was a way to prepare us for this, because if there had been a way to stop this, we'd have done it by now. But like every single person in the United States at this moment, I think that we could have done better. 

      I could stop there, but I feel like I have more to stay. First off, on a gut level I don't feel like this choice matters nearly as much as people say it does. One person will upend the status quo, one will maintain it. That's the fact we're focusing on. What most people have been ignoring is that the status quo sucks ass, and the only platform the Dems have to run on is the belief that not having the status quo will be worse. That was true in 2020, it's a lot less true now, and I think it's reasonable to say that even if Harris wins today, it'll stop being true before 2028. Who are we going to vote for when that happens? I can't read everyone's mind, but I think I speak for most of us when I say that when we go to the polls, we vote not for politicians but for some nebulously defined sense of morality that was instilled in us during our child and teen years. That morality has increasingly come into tension with the reality we live in. First it stopped being okay to vote for Republicans, then for the center, now it's almost wrong to vote at all. There's the barest sliver of justification to believe in our system, and I think it's a lot smaller than people make it out to be. What with our need to avoid seeing the nature of reality. 

      Beneath all of this talk about who you should vote for and why, there's this weird conflict I keep seeing but can't fully articulate, even to myself. If I had to describe it, I'd say it's a conflict over what, if anything, the fascists are right about. There's this agreement that overall, they're evil and bad, but I feel like a lot of people, especially white people, have something they agree with the fascists on. In my case, I can't help but feel like the government should be the one fixing things, not us. I know that most fascists argue in favor of states rights, but if they actually believed that than they wouldn't have voted for Trump. No matter how many times I'm proven wrong, I keep thinking that those in power should be able to do the things we need them to do without us either forcing them to do it or just doing it ourselves. But not only will they not do the things we need them to do, they punish us for trying to do more in their stead. I know that Infinitelism isn't mainstream, but I think that everyone has to know that if people see that their government is failing them, they won't believe in it anymore, and even George Lucas was smart enough to know that Democracy only works if people believe that it will work. People keep proposing solutions to our problems, but I don't think there's any solution for stupidity at the top level, especially when there's no one on the ballot exempt from this. I know that real solutions are difficult, but I don't think it should be this hard to convince our leaders that we need them more than they need to win the election. Except that if they don't win, then worse people will win. In short, we're doomed, and nothing will meaningfully change so we may as well just give up. 

     I'm going to speak as an Infinitelist and say that now is the time for us to get pissed. Not only are we never going to convince our leaders that things are dire, we aren't allowed to convince ourselves of this anymore, because looking at how bad things have gotten would mean admitting there's no reason to believe we can fix them anymore. I have no idea who, ultimately, is at fault for this, but no matter who it was that got us here, it's now up to us to get the hell out. It's now up to us to admit that we need a new reality, one where we can depend on things staying real and where keeping the laws of physics from collapsing doesn't require openly manifesting. Things are going to get bad, because the only path forward is for all of us to pick the thing that we believe in the most and then chase that thing without looking at anyone or anything else. Match the fascists with our own brand of insanity, one devoted to proving the worth of people who don't fit into the mainstream. Our work won't end until even those who live comfortably are fighting with all they have for the things that they believe in. Until the day everyone knows about Infinitelism and the direction upon which our future lies, I will not rest. I expect all of you to advocate for your own beliefs with equal fervor.