Post-Election Thoughts

from an evil white woman, at fault for all of it!

my Memoji (an Apple thing to let users design a cartoon version of themselves)

On the Morning After: What Happened

As of 7am Eastern on Wednesday, November 9, there are several races still undecided. This graphic, from CNN, shows where the control of Congress stands.

Here are the four as-yet decided Senate races. Georgia will go to a December runoff, most likely.

I’m not making any predictions because I haven’t examined anyone’s polling methodologies myself. Taking the way things look now solely at face value (which may in fact be an enormous error, as, again, I haven’t examined their polling methodologies) it looks like the Georgia runoff will decide control of the Senate.

The House is more interesting. The Republicans only needed to pick up five seats to gain control, and it looks like they’ll pick up about eight, maybe nine (basing this on looking at several different news sites’ projections and going with the consensus; this is an “at face value” thing because again, I have not examined anyone’s methodologies).

This is a dramatic underperformance. In the era of modern statistics (which I’m roughly citing as World War 2), when the President’s approval rating is under 50%, the out-of-power party picks up 43 House seats on average. (If the President is more popular, the pickup is about 28 seats.)

This is right and good. The founders designed the House to be an immediate popular response to government. This is why they’re all, always, up for re-election. And it’s fantastic that we always have a way, as citizens, to tell the President to watch his P’s and Q’s.

With the economy in the toilet and inflation at record highs, after years of COVID bullshit that murdered many small businesses, the Republicans should have slaughtered the Democrats. The Democrats ran someone with literal brain damage in Pennsylvania and picked up a Senate seat.

This is an absolutely abysmal performance by both historical standards and a contextual analysis of how things are going right now, today.

Why Did the Republicans Underperform So Badly?

I don’t know all the factors, and I don’t pretend to be doing some deeply insightful, multi-factorial analysis here. There were likely many and varied factors at play, most of which are outside of my experience and above my pay grade, so to speak.

I’m only going to talk about abortion.

Lindsey Graham proposed, in September, a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks. The absolutely jaw-dropping irony of this? I, and almost all the pro-choice people I know, would’ve accepted that, happily, if we could’ve trusted that it would actually be that. 15 weeks with exceptions for maternal or fetal health catastrophes, rape, and minors? Sign me up. Let’s end this bullshit once and for all.

But how could we trust that? How could anyone? This was about ten weeks after Dobbs, when every right-winger in the country went on and on and on and on and on and on and on about states’ rights. Abortion should be a states’ rights issue, they said. You will be able to move to a different state if it matters that much to you, or in a real emergency, just travel to another state! This isn’t anything to panic over. This is what the founders wanted; state-based decisions! Local control!

Ten weeks later, a federal 15-week ban was being proposed, and we were supposed to believe that they wouldn’t change their minds and make it a total ban? The very proposal itself was proof of their being lying weasels on this issue.

Red State Consequences

A friend of a friend, in Alabama, was tortured by the government there. Under its new law, where abortion is allowed only if the woman is in imminent danger of death, she was sent home with her (second trimester) dead son inside her, to wait to start to become septic and thus in imminent danger of death. I found out about this because the woman was deteriorating rapidly and her family feared suicide. I have experience with the mental health system in that area, so I was asked for my suggestions about how to get some help keeping her safe.

Before I continue, let me address something. For some reason, pro-lifers who rightly see how badly the government fails at almost everything seem to think that government writes flawless abortion legislation, laws that cover all possible contingencies and can never have any negative consequences that would result in a woman’s death. They hear a story like this and conclude that the doctors and hospital involved know full well that they are in fact allowed to do the procedure, but are choosing not to in order to make a point. They honestly believe that it’s more likely that several doctors are putting their high-six-figures-a-year incomes and careers on the line, risking malpractice and/or wrongful death lawsuits (if the woman dies of sepsis or suicide), all to make a point that they are not legally allowed to publicly make, due to patient privacy laws. This is not compelling to me.

Everyone acts from self-interest first, and these doctors and hospitals, in consultation with the lawyers who now get consulted about all of these situations, attempting to avoid legal trouble from their state government—which is eager to virtue-signal its commitment to Christian values, and willingness to enforce the new pro-life law—is far and away the most parsimonious explanation.

Another friend, in North Dakota, is fully on board with anti-Wokeness, has used reaction to the “What Is A Woman?” documentary to curate the women he meets on dating sites, and is disgusted by most of what’s going on in the Democratic party.

He also has an 18 year old daughter, away at college, experimenting with alcohol and dating seriously for the first time. The thought of his daughter coming to him pregnant and having to figure out how to get her to another state, since North Dakota has outlawed abortion with almost no exceptions, was enough to make him vote for the Democrats. When he sat down to think through who he would vote for and realized he was making the same kind of contingency plan his grandmother might’ve made about how to safely terminate a pregnancy, voting to give still more power to the party responsible for that scenario was not a choice he could make.

As I have said over and over again, myself, my primary concern is for victims of rape, particularly minors, who will be required by their state governments to give birth to the children of their rapists unless someone cares enough, and can find, a doctor to assert that they are in imminent danger of death. (Minors rarely have the logistical and financial means to get themselves to another state.)

But Rape is Raaaaaaaare! But Trans! And Puberty Blockers!!

This link has the only number I’ve been able to find. It says that just under 5,000 kids are on puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. (There is a legitimate usage of puberty blockers; sometimes kids have very early puberty, and it’s dangerous in every way to have a menstruating 6-year-old growing breasts, so using puberty blockers until age 9 or 10 is warranted.)

I don’t know how accurate that number is; I just know it’s the only number I can find that has a source.

If rape is truly only 1% of abortions — which I doubt, as rape is notoriously underreported; I am personally aware of eight rapes in my friend group, of which only one was reported to law enforcement — there are still between 9,000 and 10,000 rape victims seeking abortion each and every year.

We anti-wokes never shut up about puberty blockers. Nor should we; it is a crime against humanity.

So is forcing women to comply when a rapist decides they should be require to incubate and birth his child.

If one rare situation of a crime against humanity is worthy of endless work and effort, including passing laws to try to protect the vulnerable group, then so is the other one.

A Response to Some Email Questions

I’ve gotten some good-faith questions in my email about why abortion matters so much. Most of them indicate a belief that abortion is a consequence of irresponsible behavior. Why not just be careful? Why not just use birth control? Is it really that hard to not get pregnant?

Here are a few scenarios where pregnancy can happen outside the slut slutting around paradigm that is the only one these folks seem aware of:

1. A pharmacist is busy or distracted and forgets to warn a woman (or her friend or husband who picks up her prescription) that the medication she’s been prescribed will render the pill ineffective. (Antibiotics, seizure, and migraine medications, among others, can render the pill ineffective.)

2. The pharmacist does issue that warning to the friend or husband who picks up the prescription, but she or he is busy or distracted and forgets to pass that message along.

3. Attempting to cope with depression, a woman starts taking certain supplements and doesn’t realize that they interfere with the efficacy of the pill.

4. A time change like the one of last weekend results in the pill being taken late. (Yes, that can be enough to disrupt efficacy of some birth control pills.) Rather than an extended period of abstinence, which not every man or marriage will tolerate, she convinces herself that it was just a little late, it’ll be fine.

5. A woman can’t take the pill at all, thanks to the intense side effects, and thus every act of intercourse depends on her husband to use the condom correctly and for the condom not to break; her husband is imperfect just once.

6. IBS and other digestive disorders (which often go undiagnosed, as shit-related difficulties generally have to be really, really bad before people are willing to go through the testing and humiliating conversations with doctors) can interfere with the pill being absorbed properly.

7. Rape.

Trump: A Prediction to End This Issue With

Ron DeSantis did an amazing job in Florida, winning almost every county, including some that Biden won by significant margins in 2020. This sets him up nicely for a Presidential run.

I predict that Trump will run again. If he does not win the Republican primary, he will run as an independent, split the non-Woke vote, and give us President Kamala Harris.