How will you cope if John McCain and Sarah Palin win? November 4, 2008 Jill Various feminist bloggers (myself included) weigh in at Jezebel. What will you do?
Get. trashed. And email in to work saying I will be late tomorrow due to having gotten trashed. “I’m calling in politically depressed. I’ll come in in four years.”
The same thing I did in 2004: I will cry myself to sleep. Seriously. But this time around, I’m making sure to drink a lot more. I’m intending for it to be a celebratory drinking, but it’s a nice backup too, don’t you think?
Convert my savings account into precious metals, stop complaining about my husband’s penchant for hoarding guns and canned food, get way more serious about gardening, start researching safe still operation, and hop-to on fencing in the rest of my property because hoo-boy, is it going to be a bumpy ride if they take office.
I think I will sit in stunned silence until my husband pokes me to make sure I’m still alive. Then I predict I will fly into a rage, screaming and flailing and throwing things, sobbing and bawling until I finally run into a wall/cabinet/door/other hard, unyielding object and knock myself into a coma from which I shall emerge in four years.
If we lose, after drinking myself into an ulcer, I’m going to ignore the fact that we’ve spent close to $2,000 to immigrate my husband from Canada, and start immigrating the other way.
although my initial response would be something like “drink myself into a four year coma” too, but i’ve felt like i’ve been in a coma for the last 8 years. if there’s ANOTHER STOLEN ELECTION, we cannot just sit idly by. 🙁 unless it’s from canada. 🙁
p.s. dear big brother, i am a big ol’ pacifist, so don’t put me on some crazy list. peace, and all that stuff.
Well since I live in a border city I think I will have to go down and volunteer my services to protect Canada from all of the rogue Americans that are going to try and defect.
I think that I will make even more of an effort to live off the grid. Until in my liminal psuedo-non-gridness I get tracked down as one of them peace-lovin’ fake-Americans. And then I will be reprogrammed and thank President Palin for taking the time to find me and show me the right way, you betcha.
1. Drink myself until I can’t feel my mouth 2. Dress in black for week, wear sunglasses indoors/at night, circa Nov. 2004 3. Go to church and cry in an empty pew 4. Ask forgiveness from the McKinney/Clemente ticket 5. Begin a new blog with a glowing black background and with the largest font available, entitle it: I BLAME JOE THE PLUMBER
Watch with glee at all the gaping mouths of shock of the obnoxious media, especially Chris Matthews and CNN. Then toast a glass of wine that if, god forbid, Palin has to take over the Presidency we will have two women in the White House, Palin and Pelosi!
The only McCain-Palin result would be a stolen election. I’ll offer my support, as a litigator or in whatever capacity is needed, to the team trying to vindicate the rights of the American people to elect the candidate of our choice. I will uphold the Republic, as defined in the Constitution of the United States of America. This is not 2000.
“Then toast a glass of wine that if, god forbid, Palin has to take over the Presidency we will have two women in the White House, Palin and Pelosi!” …doesn’t the newly-promoted president just select a new veep or leave the office vacant? It’s not like a giant game of musical chairs.
I know tonight I will be crying either way, but I’m hoping it’s because of Barack Obama’s moving acceptance speech. If, God forbid, McCain gets away with stealing this one, then I think I will lose a little of my faith in humanity. I will call everyone I know who voted for McCain and disown them. I will cry for my daughter’s future. I will be angry that, as a history teacher, I will have to talk to students about the fact that Sarah Palin – and anti-feminist, divisive, racist, homophobic asshole – was the first woman to make it to the White House. And after about a week of feeling sorry for myself, I will get to work organizing, fighting, and being a general pain in the ass to make sure this shit never happens again.
I’d cry. A lot. I’m worried about Prop 8 (in Cali) and Prop 102 (in AZ), too; regardless of who wins the presidential election, if either of those pass, I will be bawling into my whiskey. Straight-up whiskey.
Marilove, I’m much more worried about Prop 8 than the White House. It’ll be a long night for me for that reason. By then, I’m expecting Obama will be on his way to between 325 and 350 EV, and the Senate will be 57 or 58 WITHOUT LIEBERMAN. But Prop 8 could win. My kids are still little, but if they are queer, how do I tell them they are second-class citizens? (and I say that, knowing that so many people have to bring their kids up with the hard realities that they are not going to be treated equally, generation after generation, and I have no idea how they do that. And I hope my daughter will take for granted that her world is one in which women are treated will full equality, but my mother hoped that for my generation, too, and we’re not there, and we’re not nearly close enough.) If not now, when? If not California, where? Wins in the courts are great, but to move forward, we need to be able to win voters and legislators, too. If not now, when? If not California, where?
I will feel compelled to explain lots of people around me that Americans are really nice people, honest, no, they’re not as crazy as the news make them look.
Yeah, I’m thinking of Props 4 and 8 which are very close. I’ll once again be embarrassed to be a Californian if either or both pass. I’m distrustful of this being a straight-up honest election which a Black man could win. Occupational hazard. I will be amazed if he does win and there’s no shenanigans by the Republicans. Still, with many of the issues I work on, it doesn’t matter nearly as much who wins as it might with other issues. So if McCain wins, there will be a mourning period but then it’s back to work, beginning the next day. There’s enough bullshit locally that sometimes it’s hard to even look beyond that at nationally.
Get sterilized. Finish college. Leave the country when I finish college (it’ll be a while, but I will need to by then). Before that: Try to get a job where I get paid under the table, and take my money out of the bank. Protest everything McCain and Palin do, even if they just eat a bagel in the morning.
There is this little part of me that really wants to burn shit to the ground if they win. Like say the local Republithug headquarters, for one. Burn! But I won’t be giving in to my Id, I will be crying, drinking, plotting out my plan for resistance, and looking into study abroad options so I can become an expat.
last time (2004) i lived in Ohio. we (partner and I) went to Michigan (blue state) and bought a sofa (blue) the following Saturday. Didn’t even realize we were doing it. Now, I have an aqua sofa. This time I’ll drink a lot and dress in all black (as someone else stated above) for a few days and then get back to work. Unless the marches happen, in which case I’ll take to the streets. Maybe should do that anyway…
If we lose because they steal the election, I will join in whatever riots occur. If they win it legitimately, I will sob my heart out for this country and good people who still believe in right and wrong. I will do this while drinking. Then, after getting it out of my system, begin pursuing options to leave this country because tt will be clear that in the “undeclared Civil War” that is going on here in the US, the side of righteousness and goodness and caring is taking a licking and it’s time to pull out………
I thought McCain was going to win after the Republican primary. USA Today’s electorial map has called Georgia and Virginia for Barack Obama. This is going to be a landslide. How will you cope if John McCain and Sarah Palin win? Very badly. To my disbelieve, I told people McCain makes Bush look smart. The way McCain ran his campaign doesn’t give me hope about his governing skills. This is a man that said there will be less jobs and more wars in the next four years. It’s not just McCain’s policies that disturb me. I’m scared he would bring the end of days. And I’m not religious!
I would cope with a McCain/Palin win by riding my Pegacorn to have tea with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Bradley Effect. Also, a craggy blue Superman may be there.
Cry all night. In the morning, I’ll start to work on my gardening for family eating skills. Accelerate learning the various therapy skills my younger son needs. Bite my tongue straight through the holidays as my conservative parents gloat. In six months, explain to them that my husband’s company “just happened” to transfer him to the Montreal facility, or perhaps the Netherlands facility, either would do.
I will get myself an IUD posthaste, the copper kind, so it lasts 10+ years, to be prepared for the overturning of Roe V. Wade. And then start learning German and French to be able to change into international public health and work for the WHO in Geneva. Boyfriend has already been informed.
I’ll continue to fight like hell to get my country back on track. I’ll continue to fight for the things I believe in. Just like the past 8 years. But first there will be tears and beers with all the queers I hang out with.
I won’t stop being an American. I won’t stop being obligated to make things work for the poor, the marginalized, the environment. I will feel very sad and discouraged. I will turn to more local concerns, participating in some organizing to protect same-sex couples’ housing access locally, to make sure the homeless have access to some sort of shelter during winter. I’ll try and keep an eye on issues like local taxes and local zoning issues that might make a difference. I am as desparate for an Obama win as almost everyone on this board, but people, giving up now? Puh-leeze. We’ve only had 8 years of this shit. Think of how long those who battled for civil rights in the south had it. Think of how long those suffering from apartheid in South Africa had it. Think of how long and hard and long and even harder WOMEN HAD IT. And have it. Where’s your stamina? 12 years ain’t nothing. No giving up. Not for anything. Get drunk tonight, no matter what, and wake up ready tomorrow. No matter what.
I’ll be doing the exact same thing I did four years ago…getting a phone call from the ER asking if I can come in and help them out because a few people decided to have one too many drinks. Geez… Ya know, we nurses would like to have at least on quiet election night for a change.
I will eat myself into oblivion (something I started to do in 2004) and hope I die before I have to watch those of us who aren’t “real” Americans get herded into our minority specific shtetls
I will learn, along with people I organize (or join, if they are out there), how to perform safe abortions and prepare to go underground if need be.
“No giving up. Not for anything.” Well said. I am reminded of Churchill, at his alma mater Harrow School, in October 1941: You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period – I am addressing myself to the School – surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated. Very different is the mood today. Susan B. Anthony founded the NWSA in 1869, and died before the 19th amendment was ratified. Thurgood Marshall argued the “Thurgood’s Revenge” case in 1935, but didn’t see victory in all aspects of legal segregation for more than thirty years. The conservative movement didn’t start in 1964; it started in 1948 and only captured a major party nomination in 1964, and the White House in 1980, and the Congress in 1994. (Their permanent majority lasted just 12 years. Feel free to draw the parallel.) We may be at the point where the bankrupt conservative movement has exhausted itself and will shatter into shards. But if not, we’ve got more fight in us. We have the imagination to see a better world, and as long as we can see it, we can keep moving towards it.
First the drinking, of course. Then the days, weeks, possibly months of sobbing into my drinks. Followed by learning to perform safe abortions, forgiving the Boyfriend his habit of gun-hoarding, and organizing a liberal militia to stand up when the government comes in and starts rounding up the dissenters. But like some of you, I’m more worried about Prop 8 at the moment. I’m living in TN for a year, but I’m a Californian always, and I remember the soaring pride of being one of the first states to get gay marriage. I will crumble into tiny, suicidal pieces if Prop 8 passes tonight.
I’m probably going to startle and irritate everyone I know by running around screaming “My God! The old man won!”, piss them off by going into a rant, hit my head against the wall for five minutes, and then hope and pray there’s a recount/he has a sudden change of heart and gives up his seat. What does happen if he suddenly decides not to be President(-elect), anyway? Legally, I mean. Does Palin take over at once or does the whole ticket slide? *sigh*
However I manage, it’s gonna involve Jameson!! (Of course, this comment is a little late! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!)