Living on the maybe
I’ve been trying to call to mind Election Days past, and mainly what I come up with are vivid memories of lines — sometimes short, sometimes long, rain or shine, in schools, gyms, basements, etc. — and then less vivid memories of doing something else with the rest of the day, usually paying work because in this stupid country we don’t get Election Day off, maybe because the only shopping associated with it is for candidates and most of us can’t afford those.
The lines have definitely gotten longer in my lifetime. During the Reagan years it was like nobody gave a shit. Of course I always lived in wicked blue cities and fighting Reagan and his mob was like fighting gravity. (An old friend told me about working like a dog for Mondale all day and coming home exhausted a few minutes after the polls closed to find Reagan had already been declared the winner.) It was beyond despair. I turned off electoral politics for the remainder of the decade and rechanneled my impulses into antisocial behavior.
For Clinton, though, we got long lines, at least the first time. Obama too. And, I noticed, ever after, the polls have been clogged. On- or off-year, there was always something for people like me to vote against, to fight back against, to show that we just weren’t having it, whether or not the creeps and scum and fascist scum creeps had a chance and they sure did have a chance, in fact as often as not they won, and when we won (for some value of “we” and “won”) it gave less a feeling of triumph than one of relief.
And it’s still like that. Today the prospects are good. They may disappoint somewhat, they may exceed expectations. But at least (probably! Keep hopelessness alive!) it won’t be a disaster.
Still most of us (excluding some comrades who’ve invested heart’s-blood in a specific candidate, and God bless and good luck to them) know that as good as it gets, it won’t be enough, because we’ve already seen how bad it can get.
It’s great that a significant part of the country seems to have caught on. And sure, it’s good they have. But how the hell were they missing it all this time? We see them through the funhouse mirror of the media; we see them in our own families. What the fuck? Why did it take the Republicans getting so amazingly bad for them to catch on? Ken Paxton? Ramaswamy? Mike Rogers? It’s a bit daunting to look at these diseased, demented freaks and know that all across this blessed land millions of people also look upon them, and think no — no, not diseased nor demented nor freakish enough for me to vote Dumocrat.
It makes you wonder and it makes you worry. Maybe the Democrats will sweep sufficiently to have real power. Maybe the Democrats’ own feebs and wasters have been humiliated enough that we don’t have to worry about them fucking up even our victories. (The mass rejection of Haley Stevens is a good sign in that regard.)
Or maybe the damage has been so severe, and so large a part our electorate so depraved, that our new electeds won’t be able to unfuck it fast enough for them, and the next even more degenerate generation of Republicans, recruited probably from actual mental hospitals and klaverns, will take over and really Fall-of-Rome things up...
Well, maybe. We live on the maybe. Way back when, FDR rode in on a wheelchair when the place was truly fucked and let people know it could be different and it was. It wasn’t enough but it was better. And, as no one expected that to be as good as it was, maybe this time we’ll be surprised, too; even more so, maybe.
So screw your courage to a sticking place. Study up on what to do if there’s trouble at the polls, because you know Tubby and his mob will try to steal it. Get in your ballot, provisional or otherwise, take your sticker and get out in the world and feel good that you have even this much of a part in making not only a difference but maybe, just maybe, a better world.
© 2026 Roy Edroso
1419 Madison Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21217