Of Canvassing & Dysfunctional Families
My last day of canvassing for the 2024 elections was pleasant.
We went back to Walker Valley & the rural outback of Pine Bush (famed among extraterrestrial afficionados for its multiple UFO sightings back in the day.)
Lots of interesting folk art buildings.
A beautiful example of the 18th century stone architecture unique to the Hudson Valley’s early Dutch settlers:
An odd Trump sign. (There was no indication that anything agricultural had ever taken place in that field.)
I will miss having an excuse to go driving around the back roads of Ulster County staring at things.
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We gave out early voting info to at least two people who told us they wouldn’t be able to vote on Tuesday.
We talked for 20 minutes to a man born in the Dominican Republic who claimed to know Trump personally: “Very dangerous man.” In addition to being articulate & intelligent, the man born in the Dominican Republic was almost supernaturally handsome, so that was 20 minutes well spent.
maite_inciarte posted the above photo to FB this morning. It remains the most cogent explanation I’ve seen yet for why anyone would vote for Trump.
Trumpies are energized by hatred.
When you deconstruct their fiscal arguments-which are all bullshit 1-it really comes down to the fact that right-wing reactionaries & fundamentalists don’t want a pluralistic democracy.
Pluralistic democracies can only function through the use of compromise.
I get the hatred for the Democratic Party. I’m not a fan of the Democratic Party either; in fact, my dislike of strong central governments might incline me more toward traditional Republican values were it not for the fact that I haven’t seen anything that distinguishes America’s two political parties since the Clinton administration.
Consider this: As President, Clinton effectively dismantled the modern welfare system. He signed a number of criminal justice bills that escalated the “war” on drugs, contributing significantly to mass incarceration-and inspiring an explosion of monkey-see-monkey-do bills at the state level that spiked those incarceration numbers even higher. He pushed NAFTA-which decimated the American manufacturing sector and pushed the decline of labor unions as a safety net for workers without college degrees. He knocked down the fiscal the regulatory systems that would have prevented the 2008 financial crisis-
I could go on & on, but my point is that Clinton was effectively a conservative in-house brand sold under a “Democratic” label.
The smattering of platform points may shake up from year to year, but essentially there’s no functional difference between America’s two political parties.
The only reason I campaigned (and am voting) for Harris is because I read Stephen King’s The Stand, and so, I recognize Randall Flagg when I see him.
###
In the evening got a strange phone call from Ichabod.
He’d just been to visit Stew, Annie’s long-time consort.
And for whatever reason, felt compelled to share with Stew a text he’d received from my awful cousin Alicia, Annie’s daughter.
Ichabod wouldn’t divulge the contents of the text to me. Just told me that in this text, Alicia called Stew “abusive.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Is Alicia accusing Stew of having been physically violent toward Annie?”
“I don’t think so,” said Ichabod. “Who knows what Alicia means? Those two have hated each other for 30 years. But the reason I’m telling you this is because Stew flew into a rage-”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Abusive is a charged word-”
“-and said he doesn’t want to communicate with anyone in Annie’s family ever again. And he specifically named you-”
“Me?” I said. “When have I ever been anything but kind, affectionate, & supportive of Stew?”
“I dunno, Mom. But I thought I’d let you know before I forgot.”
“So, he’s not gonna talk to you anymore either?”
“No, he said I was okay-”
This hurt my feelings. Because I really have gone out of my way to be supportive of Stew. When he was having the equivalent of a psychological breakdown over what was happening with Annie a year or so back, I called him every day for ten days straight just to check in on him, make sure he was okay, let him know people cared.
No good deed etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
My family is so fucking creepy & dysfunctional. Except for my two kids.
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1. Inflation is what economists call a lagging indicator-meaning it's reported after it's already taken place. The number one contributor to inflation is deficit spending. Deficit spending rose by $8.4 trillion during Trump’s time in office-the third-biggest deficit increase of any president. Deficit spending rose by $4.3 trillion in Biden's first three years & five months in office. Both numbers are awful, but Biden’s number is significantly less awful. ↩