THIS MODERN WORLD

More like nonexistent — it’s a heavy deadline day, due to a screwy post-election schedule. I just didn’t want to leave that last entry at the top. We’ve got to lick our wounds and dive back in. When they repeat, ad infinitum, that “nobody” voted for Kerry, keep in mind that 55,554,114 Americans actually did. That’s a lot of nobodies. This is a setback, no doubt, but this ongoing debate over the future of our country isn’t over by a long shot. As the man said, don’t mourn, organize.

More later.

(…the man being Joe Hill, of course, though several readers have pointed out that Mother Jones is credited with this phrase as well.)

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Sorry — that’s all I’ve really got for you right now.

Or maybe that should be ‘mourning thoughts.’ Not that I’m tossing in the towel just yet, but I’m also not oblivious to reality. The hell of it is, John Kerry actually ran a decent campaign. There are some things you can quibble with, but overall, I can’t really Monday morning quarterback him. The Democrats actually seemed to have their act together. They were organized, outspoken, worked hard at GOTV efforts.

And yet. Here we are.

I don’t really have the energy for a full post-mortem quite yet. Too little sleep for two nights running, and besides, I am of course not tossing in the towel just yet. But I do have one thought: those of you who “don’t agree with Bush on social issues,” but voted for him because you thought Kerry would somehow not be serious about the war, or maybe because you’ll do a little bit better on your taxes under Bush — I’m afraid you may get the country you deserve, a country in which conservative fundamentalist Christians are calling the shots on abortion and civil liberties and gay rights and a lot of other things you probably care about, or at least should. But hey, you made your bargain. It’s just too bad the rest of us — the 48% as of this writing, who voted for another, very different America — have to get dragged down with you.

Not that I am tossing in the towel just yet.

…TBogg is not sounding like an optimist this morning:

Four more years of American soldiers being used as cannon fodder.

Four more years of scientific decisions being made by people who believe in a ghost in the clouds.

Four more years of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off.

Four more years of racists and lunatics for judicial appointments

Four more years of looting the treasury and squandering it on corporate cronies.

Four more years of making enemies faster than we can kill them.

Four more years of fear and darkness and racism and hatred and stupidity and guns and bad country music.

I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I’ve been locked in a room with the slow learners. We have become the country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut.

…projects Ohio “too close to call.”

Fox and NBC have already called it for Bush.

…387,000 votes in Ohio yet to be counted, according to CNN.

120,000 provisional.

Margin is only 100,000.

It’s too soon to call this election.

…for Iowa, no final tally until tomorrow, due to broken machines and “fatigue”.

I’m going to bed. Have to get a cartoon out tomorrow, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for blogging.

…there is no denying that this looks bad.

But if the media declare a Bush victory and if Kerry concedes “for the good of the country” and if we’re staring down the long bleak prospect of another four years of Bush & Co., without even the prospect of re-election to hold them back…

Well, never forget the numbers. Never forget that if we who voted for sanity are in the minority, it is only by the barest margin. Do not let them turn a squeaker of a win into the myth of a landslide.