The Cracks in The Ceiling and The Mirror Covered Up with Dust
As I’m writing this, it’s early morning the night after Election Day; I slept poorly, and finally gave in to the desire to check news around 4:45, as if there’d be an answer to what had happened, who had won. There wasn’t, of course.
It’s both melodramatic and honest to claim that my heart broke watching the results come in on Tuesday night, upon realizing that so many fucking people had voted for Donald Trump. It was far more upsetting than 2016, when he’d proven himself to be a terrible human being but it felt understandable that some could have fallen for his lies, not knowing any better; maybe that says something about my own prejudices, that I’m far more comfortable thinking half of the country is ignorant and easily led than simply selfish and cruel, but… but.
I genuinely can’t get over the desire to yell, you’ve seen how bad he is at every Trump supporter. Not just how bad he is meaning bigoted, vile, greedy, ignorant, and any of a number of accurate condemnations, each of them ready to fit: bad in the sense of inept, and unable to do what’s asked of him competently. And yet, and still, millions upon millions of Americans looked at him and thought, “Yeah, that’s our guy.” What the ever-living fuck.
(I’d say something here about it being a good thing that Trump and his administration was so inept, how it likely prevented things over the last four years from being even worse, but the fact of the matter is, so many are dead of the coronavirus because of the administration’s inability to do things right that it feels in poor taste.)
The cynical part of me expected Trump to win through, bluntly, obviously, theft. There’s still the possibility that will happen, sadly — never lose hope! — but the limbo we’re in, where it’s more clear than ever that almost half a country just wants him to win, is… endlessly, exhaustingly sad to me. And not because I slept so poorly.
November 4, 2020
November 3, 2020
Unshakable
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.
November 2, 2020
October 30, 2020
Hear My Call I’ve Done Nothing
Whatever the reason, I’m particularly proud of a couple of the graphics in this collection of THR newsletter pieces — it’s the colors and the way everything just seemed to come together for a couple of them in particular. Sometimes, I can surprise even myself, even if — in the moment — I find myself dissatisfied and frustrated at the way everything looks. (There’s value to revisiting these a few weeks after their creation, it turns out.)
October 29, 2020
An Exception To The Rule
“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.