I also don't really want to talk about this, but I'm not at peace

Oh, I am really not at peace about decisions that some of my family makes. My stepmom voted for Prop 8. I've talked myself sick since and she says she'd vote differently now but she's probably voting for Romney. She'll say she loves me but she (edit:legislatively) basically hates my life and who I might want to marry.

As really untraditional as her life has been, she'll vote for "traditional" and screw my choices up until we sit and talk for hours after the fact. Then she'll say that she had no idea it was a human rights issue and she just wanted the concept of a traditional marriage.

She was pregnant unmarried at 16 and then pregnant again at 22 with a different father. Never married to either. I am not slagging her. I think she's usually an amazing person. Her vote just so fails to deal with her life or mine.

Sort of aspirational voting.

Oh, absolutely. Vote for the tax bracket you hope to be in. I am boggled that there are people who don't even consider that this is happening.

That's a campaign tactic that's sorely underused: "Vote Yes on Issue 783, or play Skyrim alone forever!"

I'd have a little more leverage for my shame and scorn platform if I actually got online and played video games. So I could scorn people.

Colbert just said that the best way to mobilize voters is shame and guilt, so you may be onto something, Hec.

Okay, I have to stop working now so I can get up at 5:30 tomorrow to vote. But if it goes like I think it's going to, I'm then going to come home and cook sausage and eggs for breakfast because I think we'll have plenty of time before actual work.

Colbert just said that the best way to mobilize voters is shame and guilt

A gluten-free donut would work for me.

Man, I gotta go to bed so I can get up early and vote and have the jitters all day and refresh 538 about a billion times and come home and drive Tim insane until it's called.

But I can't fall asleep because I have to get up early and vote and then have the jitters all day and refresh 538 about a billion times and come home and drive Tim insane until it's called.

t edit I love the "I have to go to bed so I can get up early and vote" x-post!

I think people sometimes vote for what they want their interest to be. Sort of aspirational voting.

Bingo.

Also, when times are bad, people like to have someone to blame. (The GOP is really really good at that--and Obama gives them someone to blame whom they would have blamed anyway. It's not just "Blame the Harvard elitists for screwing up the economy, and the immigrants for stealing your jobs, and the lazy minorities for being on welfare." In Obama, they can point to someone who represents to them all three of those categories! He's a trifecta of bigotry-magnetism.)

Blaming someone is so much easier than realizing that the situation is complicated and everyone is going to have to sacrifice for a while until things get better. That's like telling my mother she has to walk to get her legs stronger. She just wants a pill, man.

My dad says global warming isn't a problem because it's happened before.

Group hug?

Group hug?

No, it seems kinda sweaty.

Also, I have gallstones. So that's a problem, I guess. Fucking aging.

Also, I have gallstones. So that's a problem, I guess. Fucking aging.

Yeah, but when you do something really outrageous people can say, "You've got a lot of gall!"

And you can just nod and say, "Yes. Yes, I do."