A Biden\/Harris Victory<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, when Biden’s win seemed like a sure thing, I heartily enjoyed all the Philadelphia and Gritty<\/a> memes making the rounds. It’s maybe a little unfair that the last states counting votes get all the credit for winning the election, but I can’t be mad at Philly when they’re out there in the streets grooving in support of democracy<\/a>. You love to see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found out that Biden and Harris won around 8:30 Saturday morning. My friend Mike was the first to message me about it and I had to check the AP to confirm because I was in shock that the election finally ended. I spent most of Saturday slack with relief. I kept sighing and, as the day progressed, I felt less and less tense. I was getting rid of strain I didn’t even know I had and I think I’m still not done working through these emotional callouses. I almost cried last night watching Biden’s “we did it” speech. Biden is a perfectly average, competent politician, but I was so moved with relief that we’re going to have a president who isn’t a sociopathic asshole and a leader who I can stand to look at and listen to. The bar is super low right now. I feel like we’re getting out of an abusive relationship. America needs someone nice and stable for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know that Biden as president isn’t going to solve all of our problems, but it’s going to make our fight a lot fucking easier. The Biden campaign has announced that they’re going to start passing executive orders<\/a> to right some of Trump’s wrongs as soon as he takes office. Thank god.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plenty of other people have already covered the hilarity that is the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference<\/a>, but I am compelled to comment on it for posterity. It’s the hardest I laughed in four years. If you missed it, the Trump campaign apparently set out to hold a press conference at the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia but, through some sort of mix-up, ended up holding the press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s the perfect, bizarre ending to what has been an insane presidency. The catharsis of laughing at this has been wonderful. How perfect that this would-be authoritarian is closing out his tenure in front of a garage plastered with campaign signs. I will laugh about this for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took about five minutes after Biden was declared the winner of the election before conservatives started telling Democrats that they need to be nice<\/a>. I seem to recall in 2016 that conservatives were telling us to “get over it” when we were distraught about what four years of Trump might bring. On Tuesday, when it looked like Trump would win, conservatives were already tweeting shit like “cry more, libs.” That’s not how this works. You don’t get to tell people to empathize with their abuser\u2014and what has Trump been as a president if not an abuser. Furthermore, what have conservatives lost other than the right to gloat? I know this will sound condescending to conservatives, but I mean it sincerely: I want policies that will improve everyone’s lives. That’s where the Democratic party should be heading. In contrast, Trump’s and the Republican Party’s policies since 2016 have worked to tear people apart and make lives worse. We’ve seen a ban on people coming from majority Muslim countries, families separated at our southern border, an an absolute unwillingness to slow the spread of coronavirus. Our lives are worse after four years of Trump, but conservative pundits have the audacity to lecture us about compassion? Can you imagine the reverse? Of course not<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of encouraging Democrats and progressives to pretend everything is fine now, we need to have consequences for the people in charge who spent the last four years tearing down the country and the people who let them do it. As Sarah Kendzior has said<\/a>, Biden “needs to spend four years identifying every official who was complicit in the Trump admin corruption. They have to be named, outed, and permanently banned from power. they can’t let it go.” If not, we’re going to be sucked into another round of Trumpism (with whoever ends up being his ideological successor). Americans need to see their lives improve. That’s not going to happen if we don’t root out the people who have caused this suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote two weeks ago that the right would be unwilling to accept the election results. That seems to be true. They’re out there protesting where votes are being counted, shouting that we need to stop counting or continue counting, depending on how things are going for Trump. In Sacramento, trumpistas are out protesting<\/a> in front of the capitol. This seems like an extra-strange choice given that Biden beat trump by a gigantic margin here, but I don’t think most of these people are living in the same reality as we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot could happen between now and the inauguration in January. As I mentioned earlier, this is like an abusive relationship. Right now, we’re in the most dangerous part: the abuser knows we want to leave. We don’t know what he’ll do to try to stop us or hurt us on the way out. As much as I would like to put my mind at ease now that Biden and Harris have won, I can’t completely do it. We still have a lot of people who were fed a media diet of Trump’s inevitable victory. Let’s be extra careful and look out for each other for the next few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One positive outcome of the Trump presidency is we have learned to be active citizens. We know now that you have to participate in democracy and fight for the future you want. So here are some things on my radar that I’m going to push for. I encourage you to join me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am running low on energy after this week of election madness, so here are some quick thoughts on the books I read this week (somehow I found the will to read despite it all):<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This has been the longest (and most meme-filled) week of my life. I have many thoughts about the election and what comes next, so my post today will focus mostly on that, but I’ll include some of the usual stuff at the end\u2014I know you’re only here for the cat photos. Election Thoughts I’ve spent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[248],"tags":[345,245,247,17,337,109,349],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-update","tag-345","tag-books","tag-cats","tag-election","tag-november","tag-spanish","tag-star-trek"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3ni6N-rQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/literte-egalite-gritte.jpg\")
The “Four Seasons” Press Conference<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"headline](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/four-seasons-headline-700x274.jpg\")
![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/four-seasons-press-conference-700x525.jpg\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/four-seasons-total-landscaping-when-the-campaign-ended-700x526.jpg\")
Republican Hypocrisy Strikes Again<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Picture](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/motherfucking-consequences-700x700.jpg\")
Worries for the Immediate Future<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Stills](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/count-the-ballots.jpg\")
![\"twitter](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/days-until-inauguration.png\")
What Next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Books and Other Words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"book](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/20201102_170612-700x1244.jpg\")
![\"book](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/20201105_104814-scaled-e1604860708355-700x880.jpg\")
![\"book](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/20201105_140603-scaled-e1604860624528-700x1174.jpg\")
Cat Therapy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"the](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/20201107_175019-700x394.jpg\")
![\"Huey](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/20201106_100104-scaled-e1604860754195-700x352.jpg\")