I really didn’t plan to write this diary, but The Straw was the latest infuriating example delivered to my reclist just in time for Thanksgiving dinner last night.
So… no one here has been under a rock in November 2020, or off the planet hangin’ somewhere else. Ok? We’ve all lived through these nailbiting weeks of Whew-Trump’s-out-but-it-was-waaaaaaay-too-close-for-comfort-or-comprehension-what-the-HELL-so-many-voted-for-him-and-for-his-Congress-lackeys-to-boot-????-!!!!!-????
We’ve all been right here, ok? And we’re all in this boat and this shit together, ok? And… the data and the context are not really fully in yet, ok??? Not by a long shot. So no one really knows why yet, ok?
No matter! Cue in the X-Plainers:
- First out the gate, before Biden’s victory was even called, we had the Centrist-Plainers led by Rep. Abby Whatsherface so worried about white snowflakes getting scared (aside: ...worried, yet oblivious to how fucking insensitive it is to tout her CIA credentials and “values” in the face of two caucus colleagues from Muslim communities routinely victimized and traumatized by CIA et al.). Anyway according to the Centrist-Plainers, there were millions of “soft” R-leaning voters already getting cozy in our lap, when those BLM protests and riots just scared themaway. Envision, say: a perfectly reasonable White Michigander, scared shitless back into the tRump camp because of these riots. But obviously unscared and unfazed by hundreds of armed militia storming into the State Capitol, and eventually morphing into an actual bona fide plot to take said Capitol over and execute officials — or plan B, only kidnap the Governor. All with the *resident himself cheering them on. This, Not Scarey At All. Perfectly Reasonable X-Planation.
- Then came the Fingerwaggin-Plainers. As diarists started venting (strangely enough!) massive frustration at the shameful abominable spectacle of >74 MILLION of our fellow citizens voting to re-elect a demonstrably incompetent racist monster, for many others that was “stooping too low”, “calling people names”, “not constructive”, or what have you. We just shouldn’t do it. Not without getting scolded by fellow progressives, anyway.
- Last but certainly not least, we’re now treated to the… how to call them? Perhaps Anxiety 2, Economic Bugaloo — Plainers? Or Here’s a Weird Little Secret the Doctors Won’t Tell You about, for Winning a tRumper’s Heart — Plainers? Surprisingly (or not) this one comes often from our leftmost flank, corner of Greens. Usually starting with the simple Fingerwaggin schpiel, but rising from there to claim they actually know how to win those 74 million over. Just click on this here link and hear me X-Plain it to you over approximately 315 blissful minutes. Meanwhile, if only we stop ruining everything by calling those poor tRump-voting snowflakes names. They’re Human People after all.
You know what’s wrong with all this Plaining?
EVERYTHING. THAT’S WHAT. JUST STOP.
I thought about adding my own detailed Planations for what’s so wrong with all this Plaining below the fold, but know what? That would be a bit ironic. Let’s just settle for the old saying “Fool me Once,...”.
I’m willing to be lenient towards those first-time fools: very young voters and PoC targeted by disinformation going right under our nose (subject for a different rant); but they were just the icing on the shitcake. Heck, more than half of these >74M voted for George W. Bush in BOTH 2000 AND 2004, before also voting twice for tRump.
So hopefully this little PSA was clear enough to prevent you from reccing up X-Planation diaries of any sort, or giving them any of your time of day.
If you still need some Planations of mine, do let me know in good faith and I’ll expand in the comments and possibly repost as diary updates.
Thank you.
ps for a would-be X-plainer: Do you really really want to publish a diary discussing who/what/why all those >74 Million etc.? Sure. Just throw in a Huge Dose of Humility and Uncertainty up front. And make sure to acknowledge the gross Abnormality and Unacceptability of this massive vote in support of a known destructive evil in a civilized society.
If you don’t then sorry, you’re only here to sprinkle salt on the wounds at best. And you’re surely not helping.
Also, if your X-Planation focuses mostly on White people (whether how terrible they are, or how sensitive they are, no matter) — then do reconsider. Arguably one key problem of our White Supremacist culture and the inability of Dems to build a solid enough coalition to expunge this supremacy — is precisely our perennial obsessive centering on White people, keeping us woefully ignorant about everyone else. Half of Biden voters are People of Color, and yet we seem to have lost our share among many PoC groups. Let’s make sure we win more of them next time.
-------------— 11 am pst update:
Heh. Should have seen this coming. I guess I need to work on my writing comprehension skills, b/c half people just seem to read their own thoughts into the diary and take it from there; lots of Type 1, 2, and 3 X-Plaining going on in the comments.
So for the sake of the diary’s 3 new readers, here’s some stuff I lifted from my responses to these comments:
Generally speaking, tRump voters don’t read Daily Kos.
This diary was for Kossacks to feel a bit better in case you need to call the other guys names after — well, you know — after they voted a second time to kill us all, whatever the reason for that may be.
For us to not feel guilty about this anger. Because it is the perfectly normal, justifiable, natural, rational response to this shit.
This was not a 2022 or 2024 election strategy diary.
And:
With all respect I don’t think you’ve read the diary properly.
The diary does not suggest a [comprehensive] vision for how to deal with our rotten situation.
It [the diary] demands that we don’t sugar-coat, and that we don’t self-scold for feeling moral and 100% justified outrage at the sight of >74M fellow voters doing what they just did.
That we give ourselves some space to, you know, be ourselves without feeling guilty about it.
Helpful?