We're all sick of this bullshit, aren't we?

This fucking blows. What do I mean? You know what I mean. Imagine me waving my arms to gesture at everything around us. (Also imagine that my arms have some nice definition, because Julia let me get a BowFlex and I've been using it four days a week every week for a year.) I mean that I am so tired of always feeling that the country and all of human civilization are on the brink of falling apart.

I know I'm not alone—I got a text today from a friend who said, "I'm dreading this election more and more as time goes on"—but is everyone feeling this way? Most people? Many people? Are you fending off a low-level but constant sense of anxiety and fear? I'm not asking rhetorically. I spend a lot of my time reading things by other idiots like me who love posting on the internet, and we are all melodramatic fools, so I can't quite tell if people who are not so online feel something slightly nauseating looming in the backs of their minds all the time too.

The hardest part for me to accept is that even if Harris wins, it doesn't end. It could easily ramp up for a while, because Trump isn't going to concede. If she wins by a hair, he will contest every vote he possibly can in an attempt to make up the difference. If she wins in a blowout, he'll claim it's fraud because the polls said the race was close. However she wins, if she wins, he has nothing to look forward to but courtrooms and dreaming up ways to have Don Jr. killed. So this bullshit is going to go on. And the stupidest part is that it's very transparently bullshit. For example, there's no evidence of even a single instance of widespread voter fraud in modern U.S. elections. Our system is designed with safeguards and protocols to prevent it, and it works. And yet we are hearing now and will continue to hear about how illegal immigrants are voting for Democrats. They're not. It's not even a question. Nobody who's saying it can show any proof, nor will they ever be able to, because it doesn't happen. (A huge part of being an undocumented immigrant is not drawing attention to yourself and avoiding contact with government systems.) Nonetheless, we have to spend our wild and precious lives feeling scared that the pushers of such obvious lies will be running things. It sucks ass! It's exhausting. No normal person has time for it, and I hate them for having the audacity to put us through it.

—

I owe some of you emails, and I have not forgotten that; I'm just slow. I really do appreciate all the kind and supportive messages, and most of the nudes. (And I really do also want to know if you are fending off a low-level but constant sense of anxiety and fear. Even if you're voting for Trump, aren't you over living like this?)

Good to Know

Like, look at this bullshit: After spending years railing against voting by mail and early voting, now Trump wants voting to be easier in North Carolina, because he believes that would help him. Did you know that only one party goes back and forth on whether to make voting easier? The Democrats don't change their minds about it every time it would be advantageous for them to do so.

And a quick list of things that are fake:

• McDonald's never said Kamala Harris lied about working there. McDonald's said it did not have employee records from 1983, which would make sense.
• Tim Walz absolutely did not behave inappropriately with a student in 1997.
• No, there is not a huge risk of voter fraud in Michigan.
• And no, Harris is not associated with a mysterious plan called "Progress 2028." Progress 2028 was invented by a right-wing group to trick voters into believing lies about Harris's platform.

The Fun Part

Cecilia has gotten a lot of laughs with this one, so I'm passing it on:

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