the day after the election

[zwol]

All day I've been seeing expressions of joy go by on my friends list and elsewhere, and I would like to join in, but I'm ... just not feeling it. I feel numb and wrung out, instead. I think it's mostly that, despite polls, despite statistics, despite everything, I couldn't make myself believe that this time around would be different from 2000 or 2004. And then it was, and it was anticlimactic. They called Pennsylvania and Ohio for Obama before the polls closed out here, and there was no way McCain could win at that point. He conceded the same evening. No drawn out recounts and legal drama. I guess we're still waiting to find out about some of the Senate races, but I'm not enough of a maven to follow them.

Also, I remember all the shit the Congressional Republicans threw at Clinton, and I remember year after year of Congressional Democrats letting Bush fils do just as he pleased. I will be very surprised if either of those changes now. Because of that, and because of some of the things Obama did during the campaign (e.g. voting for telecom immunity) I worry that we have, yet again, built up a Presidential candidate into an icon that the man cannot possibly live up to. I've said here before that I'd like to see the office abolished, and this is why.

I'm disappointed in the bans of gay marriage passed in several states including California, and I really hope it doesn't turn into another unelected judges versus the will of the majority stalking horse for the right. We don't need any more of those. Also, I agree with voidmonster: it should require more than a simple majority to amend a state constitution, and we ought to take a chain saw to the one we've got.

Comments

[madmanatw.livejournal.com]

CA- where you need 2/3 to pass a budget, but only a simple majority to amend the fucking constitution.

On the other hand, let's not throw out the simple majority to amend until we've amended it by removing the Prop 8 amendment.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

As they says in Minnesota: YAH.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

yup.