I voted by mail at least a week ago. I like voting by mail. I used to vote by mail in order to volunteer for 866-Our-Vote, but I have not done that since 2016. Many reasons, not relevant here.

Today, I am off the internet, except for the part where all my work is done remotely. Tonight I'm hanging at my favorite bar which is running karaoke tonight, so no teevees. I suppose I'll see some returns without trying, but I'll try anyway.

I always vote. I have often canvassed. I've volunteered. But I have never enjoyed the U.S. tradition of sport in elections, and, for more than 20 years, that tradition has made me sadder, angrier, and increasingly disengaged each election. I do my research; I make my choices; I cast my ballot but I can't care. And I simply will not watch. I will not engage with the game.

It's the tribalism. It's the reactionary "they're all the same".  It's the bluster and shouting, dressing up disengagement with critical thinking as passion. It's the denigration of expertise, service and the refusal to accept that complex problems, large systems—as well as the balancing of differing interests—do not have simple or universally appealing solutions.

So I try to find things which tell me which choices acknowledge that none of this should be a game, none of it should be us vs. them. It's not bon mots, soundbites, zingers or points. It's people's lives and health and well-being. I make my choices; I cast my ballot and I disengage.

I don't know if that's right but it's sustainable in all this despair, rage, helplessness and terror.

I wish I could respons to anything without extreme annoyance.  That has not been possible this week. We'll see how next week goes.

There's a meme going around, listing a state, how many votes the dickhead won by, and the number of African-Americans in the state who did not vote (usually the much larger of the two numbers). It's factually accurate and semantically misleading. "Did not vote" where "did not" should read "were intentionally disenfranchised.

I've done elections work for years at a good government nonprofit--primarily voter education research. I also did voter protection for several elections (general and primary) until 2016. There is so much interference with the polling places and the people in predominantly Black precincts. Very professional-looking circulars, telling people their polling places have moved. Very official-looking people, lying about lines and which doors to use. 

And that's the obviously intentional interference. That's not the criminalization fo being poor. The refusing to let people who were in prison once ever vote again. That's not the lack of simple clear instructions about how and where to register. That's not the laws making it impossible to register if your housing is unstable.

No, very often it's not that people do not vote but that other people have done everything possible to keep them from voting.