Mole

Welcome to Costco, I love you!

I still have no idea what French Laundry is. I’m assuming it’s some kind of high end escort service. Also, while it breaks the newly reconfirmed intersectional rules for voting, celebrity is king in our idiocracy: Oprah is your answer. She needs to start questioning Trump’s citizenship tomorrow.

An observation: our culture dehumanizes everyone in special ways. We’ve made a lot of progress with marginalized groups. We’ve basically said to men, “it’s your fault,” or “pull yourself by your bootstraps,” or “it’s not happening.” See the general tone of much of this thread for examples. Just speaking from my life, I’m mostly treated as having value or dignity for what I can do for someone or my willingness to suffer for someone else’s gain, often at a great physical and mental cost. I live a pretty happy, privileged life, but most of the respect and dignity that I’m shown is based on taking from me, including in my own home. This is our culture. My basic humanity, dignity, and things that I truly value aren’t worth considering unless I can provide. I think this is a pretty common experience for men and it isn’t about the amount of sex. It’s a day-to-day constant drain on our self-worth. Sure, life sucks and life is cheap to our culture and historically, but we have made progress in recognizing the inherent value and dignity of marginalized groups — a great achievement and always last due — but putting on an imaginary MAGA hat, men are told that they are privileged when life just beats us down too and we’re told that our lived experience isn’t real or is simply entitlement. My imaginary MAGA self sure doesn’t feel entitled. He feels marginalized because he is marginalized. Failure to recognize that is at least part of the problem. He may not win the grievance Olympics, but we’re still beating him down and simultaneously tell him it isn’t happening or he just needs to go to the bar or gym or some other bit of nonsense. So discussions of the unique ways that men are dehumanized get pushed to the sleazy corners of the internet where valid complaints are finally heard and ultimately turned into misplaced anger. If “good” men and women won’t hear them, they will go somewhere else. I don’t identify with the anger, but it seems logical once you consider their lived experience. That the prototype “alpha” MAGA male is so weak, pathetic, and sad is just a reflection of the corner these young men found themselves. He’s the absolute personification of our rotten culture.

It seems like reporting percentages as the main number, rather than total votes, so early in the count presents an inaccurate and unhealthy perspective of what’s going on. This is amplified with these little rural counties.

Huddle House

Bizzaro world update for a mid-40s white in GA: Bizzaro point 1. I mentioned about a week ago that a Black college student of mine was asking trusted adults about whom to vote for. He’s committed to the biblical framework for voting, so despite his general inclination to vote Kamala, he was leaning Trump because trusted adults in his Baptist circle can’t see the open wickedness past the abortion issue. We share a similar faith background, so I presented bible-based reasons for voting for Kamala and left it at that. No pressure, just pointing him to a few bible verses and trusting him to make a thoughtful decision. He asked me to take him to the polling location on Friday. I didn’t pry; we only discussed the ease of the GA voting process. Today he told me that he voted Kamala. Bizzaro point 2. My wife and I voted the first few days of early voting, but tonight, she started expressing buyers remorse and talking about how maybe Trump would be the better choice. I’m note sure what social media propaganda got a hold of her, but I had to remind her that what she’s saying is insane. She’s smart, but the algorithm knows what buttons to push. So here I am, a guy who, based on where I live and go to church, what I look like, my age, background, regularly voting in Republican primaries, etc., is assumed to be a Trump voter, trying to help members of two historically marginalized groups rationalize and justify their votes against further repression. People are strange, propaganda is strong, and Charlie Strong was right about social media.

My prediction: sometime around 1am Wednesday morning, that guy will give a speech/press conference where he lies about the results of the election and puts the lives of local public servants at risk. While you may say this is just a typical Wednesday for him, this will be specific to the ongoing count and will be particularly harmful and egregious, even by our current bar, which is on the floor of the bottom rung of hell. Also, Kamala wins 320ish electoral votes.

Family values and protecting our children, supposedly conservative values: My 7-year-old loves learning about presidents. He can tell you info about most presidents — their party, when they were elected, who they beat, something interesting about their presidency, etc. He wanted to watch the debate and I had to tell him that it wasn’t appropriate for children since that guy would likely say terrible things — which he did. Anything involving the former president should be rated NC-17.

A case study that is probably not largely applicable to a broader population: My family had lunch with a young Black college student of mine the other day. His family situation isn’t great. His local Southern Baptist Church took an interest in him years ago and has been highly supportive of him. Many of the people he loves and respects the most are Southern Baptists — and they have been great to him. Their care and investment in him will change his life and the lives of his descendants. Their actions have been admirable and represent the best of humanity. Because of that environment, his mindset is to answer life questions by seeking out the biblical answer. This is his first election and he has been asking trusted older people for their opinions. Most of what he has heard is that the “biblical” answer centers around opposition to abortion. He’s not homophobic nor drawn in by the Trump fake machismo. He’s a thoughtful, intelligent kid trying his best to make good choices. He told us at lunch that he’s unsure but is leaning towards Trump because that is the “biblical” answer. His teenage and early adult life has treated the Trump madness as something normal. Like all of us, we’re products of our environment. I try to keep politics out of my teaching to the extent possible, but this was a good chance outside of the teaching environment to challenge his conception of biblical voting while speaking in his biblical terms. I pointed to the book of James and the discussion of Godly wisdom being pure, impartial, sincere, open to reason, and full of mercy and good fruit. I also pointed to clear and explicit commands about treatment of foreigners, widows, and orphans. Rather than detour down the complexities and unintended (?) consequences of anti-abortion laws, I pointed out that while it’s possible to make a reasonable implicit case for the pro-life position using biblical principles, there are very explicit biblical commands concerning how we treat one another and how we deal with marginalized groups. I think his inclination would be to vote Kamala if not for the influence of those people he looks up to. My hope is that I was able to give him space to see that even using his standards, the answer is still pretty clearly Kamala. I understand that for many on this board, even granting the premise of “biblical” voting sounds horrifying, but our personal value largely define how we vote and it’s often possible to show someone a better way using their own values. We left that conversation with him expressing the strangeness that a convicted felon could be elected. My wife brought up the rape issue. I’m not sure how he’ll vote; there’s a lot of baggage pulling him to Trump but I think he also knows it isn’t the right thing to do.

Somewhere in this thread, the question of still holding conservative values came up. Here are defining conservative values that I grew up with: The character of our elected officials is by far the most important criteria for selection. If they are not honest or trusted to put the country’s best interests first, they are not qualified. Most Trump supporters I’ve run across openly admit to his clear lack of character. Core value abandoned. Another conservative value is protecting the family. I have to hide the demented things the former president says from my son to protect my family from these deranged values. His words and actions are not healthy in the home; they harm the family, so the former president has to be censored by a concerned parent. Character and protecting the family were conservative values until conservatives abandoned their core values. I didn’t change, you fake conservatives did.

Early voting profiling check in from semi rural Georgia. I encountered 4 other voter this morning: a grizzled, beaten down white gut with a confederate flag for his front license plate, a 40-something Black women dressed for some office job, and a FBC-looking couple decked out in UGA gear. Extrapolating this data to the entire state…

Every MAGA text gets a response full of bible verses rebuking MAGA, a call to repentance, a Gospel presentation, and a reminder that Harris/Walz is the Christian choice. Those texts are probably never read, but it makes me feel good and in the event that someone reads it, I’m probably speaking their language.

Ruralish Georgia sign/ad check-in: way fewer Trump signs than 2020 and more Harris/Walz signs than Biden/Harris in 2020; my only TV watching is streaming Longhorn games, so I can’t tell what’s on TV, but almost every YouTube video has a Harris ad with some bearded, working-class-looking white dude talking about taxes and how he’s not “rich as hell.” I saw a Harris/Walz social security billboard today as well. There’s very little Trump stuff, although I did get a GOTV text today. I vote in republican primaries against maga so that may be the source of the text. I’m hopeful for GA. Early voting starts Tuesday. I’ll try to stop by before work.