I need you Clams to do me a huge favor.
See, I vote early. I get in line before the sun rises because usually I have to catch a train, and then I wait there in line till it opens. A couple of years ago I was in the hallway of the elementary school waiting for them to let us perform our civic duty and I was chatting with the lady behind me who was asking about the student-art on the walls.
“My kids go to this school,” I said. She replied she didn’t have any kids, but if she had there would be no way she’d let them come to a public school because they’re run by Nazis.”
“Ha ha,” I said. Just like that. “Ha” and then another “Ha.” I assumed she was one of those people who makes random Nazi jokes about anything she doesn’t like. But then I get a fucking full 15 minutes on how the Nazis invented evolution, which she informs me is impossible because of the second law of Thermodynamics, and then goes on about how they are just turning people away from God so they can kill everyone like in the World Trade Center and send them to Hell and I after a few minutes she was clearly getting disturbingly agitated and amped up. I just literally said, “Stop talking to me now,” and she went silent because she probably doesn’t get out much and is used to this kind of response when she makes sounds out of her mouth-hole.
Was this your standard issue seatmate on a Greyhound bus to some random Upstate NY college town, slowed to a crawl by a snowstorm? Was this loon on a park bench in a major city where I was just trying to make a phone call, interrupting my client meeting with a dire warning about chemtrails? Was this your standard issue online message board wack-job, butting in to a conversation about Firefly V. Buffy to blither on and on about 9/11?
No we were voting. We were in line to vote. She’s a voter.
I realized that day both this person and I voted. We had equal weight in the system. It was not a long line.
And there are a metric FUCK TON of crazy people out there. They are seeping in to our system. Mike Boucher, running against Ann Margaret Ferrante literally said in a debate that he doesn’t “buy in” to global climate change. That’s like taking a political position against particle/waveform duality or magnetic field interactions. Did he publish a paper? Is he an expert? I mean, he had like 11 fucking cars in the Horribles Parade so I can see why he might be sheepish about his carbon footprint, but still. Dude. You are in no position to “buy in” it’s fucking science.
The crazies are getting louder. This happens at each point of rapid and profound change, and it always passes thankfully, but right now I need you to help me counter it. Vote today. Vote hard. Vote sane. Make reasonable judgements, not with your gut but with your mind.
Get every other sane person you know out there. Call everybody. Text them. Post on social media. Here, maybe this helps:
If we don’t vote then the nutmobiles will be the only ones voting and those politicians who happen to be spineless assweasels will start catering to them. More. Will start catering to them more, just look at what’s been going on recently and you’ll realize how much power the crazy people have.
Vote.
Or the kitteh dies.