Couple quick election 2024 thoughts

Last week I noticed that Harris received substantially fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 (more on that below), and that piqued my interest. With around 98% reporting in, here are some more numbers and what I think they say, without much weighing-in on the merit of either candidate.

- Voter turnout is usually around 60%, ranging from 55-65% since 1992. *TBD this year though.
- Trump got 50.4% of the vote, about 900k more votes than he received in 2020.
- Harris got 48% of the vote, about 9M fewer votes than Biden got in 2020.
- There are 12.5M more voting age people in 2024 than in 2020.
- Higher turnout in 2020 (65%) - in a pandemic, voting was easy, we were engaged politically cause we had a lot of time to argue about politics.
- 12.5M people at 60% turnout = 7.5M more voter age people probably/actually voting.
- 48% of 7.5M = 3.6M potential more Democrat votes than 2020
- 50.4% of 7.5M = 3.78M potential more Republican votes than 2020
- In WI, Tammy Baldwin got 1.672M votes (and beat a straight white male); Harris got 1.667M.

Trump's +900k vote count is important because if your voting base is not growing with the population, you have a problem. Obviously Democrats have a huge problem too - my guess is voters that typically vote Democrat, but skew more undecided, were alienated en masse by the hubris with which Biden dropping out was handled by DNC overlords. I think that was enough of a push for a lot of unenthusiastic voters to defiantly and triumphantly say that voting for the lesser of two evils is beneath them. We've been voting for the lesser of two evils for my entire voting life.

My take is that if the Democrat candidate had been stronger and had a traditional campaign, or been in the right place at the right time (like Biden in 2020), he or she would have had a good turnout and crushed Trump again. Harris was in a bit of a pickle as the incumbent VP for an outgoing single-term President that had a less than stellar term. Seems to be a party problem rather than a candidate problem as I don't think Harris is any worse than any candidate in my 24 year old voting life.

I could be wrong and what I see as a refreshing streak of dissent could just be pessimism and apathy, which is still maybe a step closer to unity, right?

it finally happened

Somebody used the word "microaggressions" in casual conversation. 

With a straight face. 

In a totally non-ironic fashion. 

I heard it. 

I was there. 

Up until this point, I'd only ever heard of "microaggressions" in shoddy journalism, never in like a real-life scenario.

Semi-thankfully I was wearing sunglasses so my reaction was half-masked. Well probably more like almost fully obscured. I tend to make exaggerated facial expressions with my eyes more than anything. So aside from a probably audible chuckle, my reaction may have gone unnoticed.

Here in Northwestern Wisconsin, trends tend to arrive a little after they hit in more metropolitan areas. And they might often be more of a caricature of the original idea. And in this situation, well I guess in any situation where one might feel micro-agressed-upon, the high probability of it being a caricature is certainly non-zero, dangerously approaching certainty.

I don't remember the full word-for-word offending conversation here, but it was relating to this chick going for a walk and tripping on the sidewalk and something about racism or the Patriarchy or Whatever.

fitting in is hard

But I'm trying man. It's been tough, but I've managed to include certified Chippewa Valley Normie language in just about every correspondence over the last week and a half and I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Referring to obvious non-sirs as "sir", was probably the first and easiest step to take in this transition. This aspect has been seamless.

After that super easy (shit, the "super"lative!) first step, I graduated to incorporating the ever popular and clearly incorrect usage of "myself" on it's own. Unironically adding it to the gratuitous, "circle back to follow up and loop myself in" phrase was a breeze.

I hate who I am becoming, but to put it simply, it's been liberating.

But shoot man, I am like one plural noun with an apostrophe away from wryly wearing Hey Dude shoe's.

Stay tuned for updates on this journey as I learn to live my current chosen truth.

guess I just never thought people really believed it

I'm just gonna come right out and say it. I'm kinda blown away, but I was recently taken aback by the revelation that people really believe stuff in the bible. 

All my life, I just kinda thought that religious people or people that think they're religious were always like "heh cool", and were just hanging out for the community aspect. Like a "wink, nod" kinda thing among friends. Disclaimer, I spent first through third grade in catholic school.

But it hit me recently, "holy shit, people really believe this". Like, I think there are people that genuinely believe an omnipresent ghost-like super-being created the Earth six thousand years ago and that dudes were fighting dinosaurs. I always just likened it to being similar to how children like cartoons. Can't knock it too hard though cause it was pretty sweet in high school when my friend and I hitched a ride with a church group to go see MxPx in scuzzy bar in Milwaukee. Punk rock, man.

It's not like those of us that don't believe that stuff don't actually see any value in religion. The community aspect is definitely there. There's some pretty reasonable but often ignored morals that humanity needs. It's convenient to explain away things that are hard to understand; I guess that's a way to live or whatever.

Even modern religions like diversity & trans fetishism and then like the whole anti-vaxxing/anti-masking doctrines are really similar. It's just a community of people that actively choose to believe things that simply aren't real. 

But yeah, again, I can see the appeal or comfort in following these kinds of myths.

is it a dogwhistle?

All this talk and blog posting about small weiners and big pickup trucks, got me thinking about yep, small weiners and big pickup trucks. But like, the backing-a-huge-pickup-truck-into-a-parking-spot thing, I'm curious if that's like the Jeep Wave, but for those with micro-peens.

It's like dogwhistling a "what's up" to a certain segment of the micro-peen population.

In what ways can other segments of the micro-peen population dogwhistle each other? Really makes ya wonder.

questions and answers

The other day I whipped out my pocket knife to cut open a box. My five year old noticed this, and asked, "Daddy, why do you always carry a knife?"

Because I am incapable of answering a question, and generally always do things wrong (have been for the last 40+ years), HeckYeahWoman jumped in and said something about how useful and handy it is to carry a knife.

As it turns out, that was not the complete answer. Yeah, my reason for carrying a knife is related to how useful it is, but for so much more than just opening a package. I like to think that it opens up opportunities too. I went on to explain my reasoning:

You see, whenever I am out and about in public, and if I have a couple extra minutes, heck sometimes I even make time, I like to pull the old "finger through the toilet paper" trick. And before she could ask what that "finger through the toilet paper" trick is, I explained. Check this out, if I have an extra couple minutes, I'll hop into a public restroom, go into a stall, get out my knife, and poke a tiny slit in each square of the already thin and cheap toilet paper. This will make it easy for the finger(s) of that toilet paper's user to burst through one or two squares, putting finger to butthole, the ultimate indecency when shitting in a public bathroom. I then meticulously roll up the slightly altered toilet paper, and place it back into the dispenser.

And what does my daughter say after this quick tutorial on being awesome? She said, "Papa, that's really clever; I want to do that when I am old enough to use a knife".

thought it might be funny

Speaking/thinking of tiny wieners a week or two ago, I had a funny thought as I completed my daily ritual of rereading my last fifteen posts.

Thought it'd be funny to buy an electric vehicle and back it into parking spots next to huge pickup trucks.

But like one of those small beta-looking hatchback ones, like a Kia or Hyundai or something.

Maybe not that funny, sorry.