Mid-term Election Day felt a little bit different this year. It felt different not just because of the ground swell of support for the Democrats, but it was the first mid-terms I voted for in all of my near twenty years of being an eligible voter.
I have talked about this in the past. I was not always a voter, nor was I always a Democratic voter. My father was and is one of the many boomers who listened to Rush Limbaugh and watched Fox News. He was never one to push his ideas on me or force me to be anything in the arena of politics. He just answered my questions as best as he could. Which did involve the hemming and hawing that came from conservatives in the oughts. “We have to go to Iraq to prove a point.” “Global Warming is a religion for atheists”.
My peak interest was always comedy. So of course many of my influences were left leaning, nihilist, or “I don’t know what the big deal with this is.” I loved the daily show, with my limited grasp on politics I would watch the opening seven minutes eating up all the punches thrown at the government.
As I reached college, I didn’t care for politics, I was more concerned about getting laid than anything else (I have and still do it very poorly) and cracking jokes with friends.
After college I fell in love with drinking. All of these I can talk to at length in another post so I won’t bore you with any of that Maudlin bull shit.
Flash foreward to the pandemic, and watching people bully the people who actually cared. It made me angry. Calling people who wanted to follow protocols sheep while making the problem worse. Calling healthcare workers liars. It was too much for me. It changed my outlook on my fellow humans.
I always thought roadkill was something that couldn’t be avoided by the driver. It was mostly an accident. Since the Pandemic, I am sure that number is less. Seeing the way people treated others, I know that most of that roadkill is caused by the driver speeding up.
And now my mother is dead, and now I’m facing an idealogical war in my head. Against covid deniers and against vaccine skeptics. I do blame them for my mother’s death. They made it possible for covid to be worse than it is.
As I listened to Freddie Gibbs Still Livin’ I went and voted democrat in Iowa. And I know it’s like throwing a stone at a tank, it’s a start for me.
