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I Live Here, Too

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I’ve gotten over being depressed. Now I’m just pissed. I’m not moving to Canada; this is my country, too, and nobody gets to tell me to leave. Forty-nine percent of the country voted against W — and probably even more, but thanks to likely voter fraud, we can’t know for sure. And don’t hate the red states — there are plenty of blue-staters in that part of the country. (Except not so much in Nebraska, Kansas or Oklahoma.)

A 51-percent, 3.5-million popular-vote win seems shocking only because Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. In reality, W won the popular vote by the narrowest margins of any candidate since 1976. That’s not a mandate. That’s not some overwhelming voice of the people.

Two out of three Americans are not evangelical Christians. There are more of us than there are of them.

The gay marriage amendments? Read Evan Wolfson’s piece, to which I linked yesterday. Momentum is on our side. Young people are on our side, and they’re our country’s future. Remember — forty years ago, bans on interracial marriage were still legal.

As for the Supreme Court, Lawrence v. Texas was decided 6-3. If Rehnquist and O’Connor had retired and been replaced by archconservatives after Democratic filibusters were overcome, we still would have won Lawrence, 5-4. We must not relax, though. Justice Stevens, please hang on for a few more years. O’Connor, you too.

This is my fucking country, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some bigots take it away from me.

The Day After

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What I wrote in my head as I lay in bed at 4:00 this morning:

Half of me wants to scream, half of me wants to cry, and half of me is just numb. That doesn’t make mathematical sense, but it hardly matters in a country that no longer cares about reality.

What a disaster.

Bush won 51 percent of the popular vote, a higher percentage than Clinton ever got. No candidate had broken the 50-percent mark since 1988.

All 11 of the anti-gay-marriage amendments passed, even in Oregon.

Social conservatives Jim DeMint (North Carolina), Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), and John Thune (South Dakota) will now be in the Senate, and probably gay-baiting Mel Martinez (Florida) as well. The Senate will contain 54 Republicans.

Chief Justice Rehnquist is likely dying, so we will soon have Chief Justice Scalia. Moderate Justice O’Connor will probably retire, and liberal Justice Stevens is 84 years old.

The fabled youth vote never showed up. Young people didn’t vote in any greater numbers than last time. As Matt Haughey says, “Fucking stoned slackers. You can never depend on them for anything.”

(Update: Youth turnout actually went up.)

And Bush won the same percentage of gay voters as last time. Absolutely fucking astounding.

Sparky speaks my thoughts.

The Left Coaster writes excellently.

Andrew Sullivan writes about the impact on gays.

I feel reverse schadenfreude. Instead of taking pleasure in others’ pain, I’m taking pain in others’ pleasure. I felt this way in fifth grade, when one of my best friends won both the math and language-arts awards, leaving nothing for me. He was beaming and I was in tears.

I get the message. We’re not wanted here. Fine. I’m ready to secede. Let’s create the Greater Federation of Canada and Former Northeastern United States. It would look something like this. Who’s with me? West Coasters, you can join us too.

Part of me says: We got through the first four years, we can get through the next four.

The other part of me says: Supreme Court. Supreme Court. Supreme Court. That’s 25 years of hell right there.

Last night at around 6:30, before any polls had closed, I turned to Matt, breathed deeply, and said, “Let’s just sit here for a while and appreciate this moment, before any bad news starts coming in.” He looked at me like I was crazy.

What a disaster.

Rehnquist’s Cancer

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What Chief Justice Rehnquist’s cancer means for the election.

Dahlia Lithwick says that it’s doubtful Rehnquist would step down, but:

The possibility of Rehnquist stepping down also crystallizes how oversimplified the recent arguments about the power of Supreme Court appointments really are. Suddenly this “four-seats-to-fill-with-whatever-maniac-he-likes” rhetoric is shown to be at least somewhat lacking in nuance. Because if Rehnquist steps down, and President Bush is re-elected, the 5-4 balance on the current court would remain unchanged. In fact, Bush might arguably have a hard time confirming someone as conservative as Rehnquist in the current Senate climate—meaning that the net effect of a retirement could be a more moderate court, even with Bush in office.

This is why a Rehnquist retirement would mean so much were Kerry to be elected: With the appointment of a liberal or even a moderate replacement, the 5-4 balance on the court would tip dramatically. The possibility of a Roe reversal would virtually evaporate overnight, as would the likelihood of a sea-change in affirmative-action law. It’s a tough argument to make—smacking of that ugly word, “activism.” John Kerry can’t really mobilize voters by saying Bush would replace a staunch conservative with a staunch conservative. He could score a point by saying this is a rare and precious opportunity to replace a staunch conservative with a moderate. But my guess is he won’t. See “activist” above. And whether Kerry really wants to make a campaign issue out of an old man’s possibly terminal illness is doubtful.