TomFlannery.com

Today’s the day Bubba.

The stupidity of a nation is put to the test….with a few things at stake. Minor stuff. The potential death of hundreds of thousands of people of course, along with the destruction of whatever democracy is supposed to be (I lost the plot years ago, I must admit). Through the vagaries of the electoral college it has been decreed that Pennsylvania is now the key to it all. This doesn’t exactly give me the feels, as this place is filled with enough mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers to start a new sports league and fill its stadiums with fans. But there are plenty of calm, rational, decent folk too, the kind that don’t wave flags from the back of pick-up trucks or have bald eagle profile pics on Facebook.

So there’s still a chance that we won’t send the nation careening over the cliff and into the valley of banana-republics. Fingers crossed and all that. Stock up on booze for tonight, ’cause you’re gonna need it.

If your side are the ones trying to stop people from voting, and then trying to stop valid ballots from being counted, you might be a fucking fascist.

I feel the need to jot these thoughts down as the day progresses, so I have something to refer to in the future (if indeed we have one) when I’m asked “what was it like when, as Jim Morrison predicted, the whole shithouse went up in flames….?”

I woke up to text messages from Trump loving friends complaining of polling places having issues, but only in “heavily Repbublican areas”, so the narrative is starting early. Dastardly ANTIFA is gonna steal it from the Godly people so we can kill more babies, take their guns, and spend their 401ks on Ipods for illegal immigrants. It’s gonna be a long day.

Just went for a virtual 2 mile walk with my daughter, who is in Harrisburg. Both of us are having a wee bit of an existential crisis over our state being the last beacon of a flickering democracy. We traded war stories of the goober-trolls on our respective Facebook feeds, and every time I looked up from the FaceTime screen a Trump flag was waving from somebody’s porch. I’m happy to say that Harrisburg is much less racist than NEPA (not a single Trump sign in her entire large apartment complex), but I can’t say that once cancels out the other. What NEPA lacks in numbers we more than make up for with staggering ignorance.

Per usual my walk makes me feel better, but gives me way too much time to contemplate dread. There’s always a trade-off brother. Ain’t nothing easy.

I was about to turn on Fox News to see how the Politburo was managing expectations thus far, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear them call it for Trump before lunchtime. So inquiring minds will have to wait.

I just saw a Facebook post from a former prominent NEPA Republican politician just released from prison after serving 11 years for extortion, bribery, and racketeering. It was a long harangue more than suggesting that only American-hating liberals would chose to not vote for, you guessed it….and it just made me incredibly sad that Trump’s cult of personality extends even to prison cells. All the usual talking points, evil godless commies and socialists being driven out of the temple by Dear Leader, a “pro-life” God-chosen super-hero who wraps himself in the flag every night after saying his prayers and drinking his milk. All the words were spelled correctly, which was a refreshing change, but this type of hero worship, coming from somebody who already paid his debt for committing the types of crimes Trump and his fellow mobsters revel in daily, before even biting into their breakfast burritos, is enough to send folks running for the benzos. I just don’t understand it. Sociologists will be busy for a century trying to explain away this level of cultist devotion.

But then again, it’s kinda the most NEPA thing ever.

I’m going to sign off now because my depression is deepening by the hour. Tonight I will sit like a zombie in front of my TV, throwing beer cans at the screen and listening to breathless reports of skulduggery and deep-state shenanigans, and await the moment we all know is coming, when the President of the US stands up and refuses to accept the results of a free election. He’ll sow as much chaos as possible, the goal being the Bush v Gore scenario. If this thing gets tossed into the lap of the lapdogs of the Supreme Court, does anybody really doubt the outcome? This is precisely what the Handmaiden was rammed through for. If you thought it was Roe v Wade, well you’re about as dumb as….well…..about as dumb as I already suspected.

Nothing to see here, eh?

In a bit..

–tf