Legacy votetardation and groupthink chimpening

Considering my consistent anti-Trump messaging the last few years, you might expect me to be incredibly happy about recent Midterm stuff in America, and I admit to being reasonably ebullient about the bluenami; but I still feel less excited overall than I could. I never knew or cared what ‘midterms’ even were until a few years back, for obvious reasons.

Just like I don’t care about the political systems of Finland or Japan – because I don’t hear anything about them; they seem to work and corruption isn’t a global knock-on kinda problem. Cool beans, carry on etc.

Similarly, I didn’t care about Referendums until we had stupid wanky Brexit and all the angriest people were convinced by zero data and 100% grievance politics, and suddenly I have an opinion on Referendums. It’s less funny when you look back to 2015/16 through the lens of Russian influence and Cambridge Analytica and see how simple it was to divide nations using emotional leverage and a minor cash injection 🫠😭

It’s difficult, isn’t it? Watching people get persuaded into hatred by groupthink and chimpastic shrieking, and calmly watching as they try to fight you on irrelevant matters when really, all you want is to see civilisation become a little more civilised for everyone. Shut up, Putin; let us just make the place better for once? Please?

But yes the Midterms, I mean it’s great and everything and I’m an enormous fan of actual diversity in leadership (there’s a reason we’re all so different; human groups fail when they’re homogeneous ~ through 130,000 years, diversity has always meant true strength), and I hold hope that we’ll see real change in American politics just as we have in the UK, but then however you measure it, a decent percentage of [mostly white] people still decided to continue with their Republican voting tradition.

Despite the ICE stuff. Despite the utterly incompetent and inappropriate invasion of Iran. Despite the well-documented corruption. Despite the incredible own-goal and long-term damage done by Doge’s mismanagement. Despite the self-harming tariff fiascos. Despite the relentless oligarchy stuff. Despite everything from attempted gerrymandering to absurd heritage mismanagement. Despite the very person proclaiming ‘DraIn ThE Sw4mP’ being the very obvious embodiment of all things repugnant and swamp-like in the first place, from long before his political career began. [And yes I know the Midterms were a local mandate, but you’re still supporting a party that has had a few years pushing as hard as it can towards mass surveillance, datacentres, military male chauvinism and the erosion of the Press … um … errr … mate? Are you alright?]

Perhaps my problem is that a gutting proportion of people seem to only have changed their vote in the Midterms thanks to it affecting them personally – in the wallet 🫠

Is that really what it takes? People are very happy to support white supremacist rapists, but WOE BETIDE the politician that costs them minor amounts of direct personal wealth? Oh, America. It’s good-bad, isn’t it? Good you noticed there might be a problem, bad you’re so desperately slow on the uptake in the first place. Bad that democracy has taken such a beating recently … I mean Hilary did win the popular vote …

And it’s not just America, is it? The UK came scarily close to supporting Farage as well – thank God he’s such a reeking cretin and can’t keep up with the rate of ablation that Reform is self-imposing. It seems soulless mannequins have limits, after all. No matter how much Russian and crypto money props them up.

Irrespective of the nation in question, I do so admire those of any relatively unrepresented race, who have the determination to do what they believe is right, and continue to show up, even in the face of such obvious low-brow racism – including childish rhetoric based on people’s NAMES! Personal attacks based on their place of birth and nothing else? As if the electorate are the braying, shrieking panic-stricken chimpanzees of yore, convinced by such cretinous ideas as nationalism, tax avoidance and group identity. People who have their own medical care plan in place and can’t conceive of what life must be like for those in poverty. We come back to that famous quote about people who “see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

Ahh, capitalism. Like most things, a little is good, but when it’s left to run riot, it does tend to shit everyone up.

… But let us all take a minute and step back from the battering of opposing forces, the pigeonholing we accept from the polarised world of Chess, as if life is about competition, about willy-waving and might-is-right statements of fecal chimpanesque wankerdom.

Let’s just take a little step back …

… there is something beyond all this. Something good and true, something deeply wonderful about people. And yes, some of them will always hoard wealth and hug it to their empty chests as if it’s a viable replacement for the love they so yearn ~ some will always spend money ONLY when it serves their plan of accruing more of it ~ some will stop at nothing to belittle and coerce entire swathes of civilisation to their own ends.

That is their crime, but then it seems it is also their punishment. And as the comic suggests; we either forgive Karen, or we become Karen. So our challenge is remarkably straightforward, after all. I can stop banging on about a random country in which I will never live, and focus on the good things. The nice things.

So let’s congratulate the US for voting decisively towards serious change, towards a statement that supports diversity, towards the defense of democracy in the face of very serious, and frequently childish erosion of basic rights. Freaking well done for turning up, and even in those ‘Build A Wall’ districts with such long histories of fear and resentment. Heck yeah Mississippi, ooh-rah Texas.

It’s time for boobies … hrrrrnggggg …

I’ll do a proper comic update on Friday – no politics I promise. Check back 🙂

^ test cover. Nah. Too subtle.