Author: Graeme McMillan

One of the stranger and, I think, less remarked upon elements of the last four years is the way in which it feels as if everyone has been radicalized to some degree or another. I don’t mean in the sense of political partisanship being on an unmistakable upswing — although, to be blunt, I wonder how much we can really call it “partisanship” when it’s closer to being “the people okay with fascism and the people who aren’t,” but let’s go with the partisan thing for now — but, instead, in the sense that I feel like so many more people are now happily, eagerly, accepting conspiracy theories that support their world view.

Any mention of conspiracy theories immediately points to the rightwing, who’ve been in this space for years: remember Obama not being an American citizen, or the idea that Benghazi was a false flag operation? That kind of paranoia and belief that of course they’re lying to us has, surreally, only grown with the right in power — just look at Pizzagate, QAnon, or the recent furore over Hunter Biden’s business dealings and what they really mean, for proof of that.

It’s not just the right, though; late last week, social media was struck by another wave of a theory that is, on its face, absolutely ludicrous, but nevertheless popular amongst far too many people — that Melania Trump is replaced by a Fake Melania in public appearances, for any number of stupid reasons. I saw countless posts arguing that of course it’s not the real Melania, and look what she’s mouthing to Trump, and so on, and so on, each one convinced that, yes, this was definitely a real thing that was happening and why won’t everyone wake up and smell the fake First Lady coffee.

I’m not immune to this, I admit. Part of me is utterly, entirely, convinced that there’s no way that the election this year will be fair. I can’t believe that the Trump administration won’t try everything it can to cheat and skew the result, and I also can’t find it inside me to believe that, in the face of a loss, Trump won’t do everything he can to stop himself leaving office.

There’s evidence for this, I could (and would) argue; it’s far from a baseless theory. What I keep returning to, though, is the strength of my belief in it not as theory, but as fact; I wholeheartedly believe it as if it’s already happened, even though I know that an alternative is theoretically possible. I know better, yet I still believe.

That’s the problem, maybe.

“Situations get fucked up, but turned around, sooner or later.”

While my love for Elliott Smith has faded somewhat since the early 2000s, that one line from “Say Yes” is something that returns to my head on a regular basis, it seems. When I first heard it, it was something that instinctively seemed true in large part because I was particularly optimistic and given to magical thinking at the time, so of course the universe would solve things and reward good people, right…?

This past year, though, it’s been particularly difficult to think along similar lines. 2020 has been almost supernaturally cruel, as if everyone were living in a horror movie where the slasher was the entire calendar year itself, out to demolish our self-esteem if not just kill us outright. There’s been disease and disaster, protests and police riots, layoffs and financial collapses, with the world playing out as if we all stepped into a Previously on… recap at the opening of Years and Years season 2 by mistake. We got the “situations get fucked up” part, but where’s the “turn around”?

(Sometimes I wonder just how much more frantic I’d feel were I in the U.K., where Brexit is still happening at the end of this year, but then my brain forces me to think of something better before it just shuts down involuntarily. I can’t really blame it, considering.)

As things tend to, though, there are signs that things might be changing in small and big ways towards the end of the year, and… perhaps… improving…? I’m almost actively fighting against optimism at this point, however. It’s too close to an election where I’m grimly convinced shenanigans will prevail, and I’ve gone through more than enough “hopes get dashed at the last minute” experiences in the last few months to be too nervous to expect anything else, thankyouverymuch.

The end result is, the Elliott Smith lyric now feels curiously, frustratingly naive, the product of more innocent times that probably never existed in the first place. I hate that; I hate to find myself that cynical, and I find myself wishing that, if and when things do improve in the short term, then one of the first things to recover is my sense of hope, however un-earned and childlike it may be.

I keep feeling as if I should write something about the election, especially considering that it’s easily the thing that’s dominating my thoughts for most of the day these days — it’s become a horrifying avatar of 2020 in that way, and one that I get more than a little concerned about when I consider things not necessarily working out the way I’d want them to — but, the sad truth is, I’m not sure what I’d say if I had the opportunity.

I’m exhausted by the 2020 election. I’m far from alone, I suspect; how could anyone be anything else, considering the year we’ve all been having? Even ignoring the fact that this particular election season has been quite as depressing as it has been — these particular candidates! This particular “discourse,” as the kids would have it, if those kids were cynical pundits who felt required by their career choices to pretend that everything isn’t quite the trash fire that it actually is! — this was hardly going to be a year for everyone to get excited about the prospect of engaging in the democratic process. We were too busy trying not to get sick, trying not to lose our jobs, our homes, our friends. This wasn’t the year, to put it mildly.

The electoral process waits for no man, however. (Imagine if it did! Imagine the many ways the United States could do elections better, like getting rid of the Electoral College, or either allowing everyone to vote by mail without it being portrayed as the end of the fucking world, or giving people off on election day or or or!) So, we’ve spent the last year or so with the entire apparatus at work, going through the motions of the primaries, the conventions, the debates, the entire time an entire nation just thinking that, really, we all have more important things to do and can we just have a different President already and move on.

And now we’re, what, a week away…? The anticipation, the pressure, of it all feels physically palpable at this point, ever-present. And, perpetually, exhausting.