I haven’t done much here at the blog about the upcoming election, in part because, how do you not already know? How, in this era, could there be undecided voters, and further, how the hell could I even affect their decision? I would hazard a guess that most of the readers at this blog and of my books already know the score as to where I stand politically, and are themselves probably standing pretty near me — or even further to the left of me — on the political spectrum. And again, how, how, HOOOOW could you be undecided in this race? How do you not already have your vote figured out? It’s almost cartoonish how both malevolent and buffoonish Trump is. And it’s not like he didn’t already get a four-year chance at the office, and it’s not like he didn’t fuck it all up. He did! It sucked! Those four years were a daily news carousel of just evil dipshit vibes, every day a new day of, “What did that asshole do now?” So, it’s hard to imagine who or what an undecided voter even is or looks like at this point. And then I met one just outside of Chicago.
I went to the Midwest with my favorite author-slash-besties, Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, and we had a good time meeting readers and bookstores and visiting capybaras. (Sorry, gonna have to look at my Instagram for that.) But, in the lead-up to that, I had a day where I was doing school visits, and in doing school visits, I had to take a Lyft between the hotel and the school visits, and after the first school visit, I had a Lyft come and get me, and the driver was a very friendly Black woman — I’d say she was in her mid-30s, though I didn’t ask. Younger than me, for sure. An immigrant, not born here, but here for most of her life. She said oh, she used to live near to the school, this is a nice neighborhood. She said she lives in a different town now and we got to talking about Chicago and the suburbs and she, understandably, talked about how expensive it had become. Particularly with her rent — she said just a few years ago, she was paying (if I recall) $900 a month for a small apartment, and now it’s up close to $1500, because the landlord just raises rent every year. And she said groceries are more expensive, gas, everything. Worse, it’s not like her job paid her more at the same rate, so that means she has to work two jobs — driving Lyft being the supplementary one.
This is, obviously, not new for most Americans. Everybody sees this happening, and a lot of people are experiencing it. Classic shit, right? Rich get richer by picking the pockets of everyone beneath them. The working class has to shoulder a greater burden until they break.
Except, then she said, “I’m just looking for someone to fix this. And if that means voting for The Businessman, I guess it means voting for The Businessman.” That’s what she called Trump. The Businessman.
At first I didn’t really know how to respond to that — I don’t want to give her shit, right? She’s going through real stuff, worse stuff than I certainly am, so what kind of an asshole would I be to lecture her, or worse, demonize her? But I also can’t just be like, “Oh, cool, totally,” because, holy shit. So all I said was, “Well, I think for me what I try to remember is that any economical difficulties are largely because that guy spent four years breaking our economy and we’re all just feeling it now, and worse, he’s gonna keep helping the billionaires and landlords and not the regular people. The economy always fares better under a Democrat.” Trying to walk that line between, hey I get it and also but also he sucks what the fuck. And I didn’t know what the response was going to be, if I was going to be in a fight or what.
And she said, I think honestly, “That’s a good point, I didn’t think of it that way,” and then we talked about some other stuff before we got back to my hotel prior to the second school visit.
(By the way, I’m sure someone will out there will accuse me of just making this story up, but I promise you, I’m not. It happened as described.)
Now, I think there are a few takeaways here —
First, she’s not a data point, she’s an anecdote — aka, an artifact of artisanal data. It’s tempting to make her an emblem of something statistically, but I don’t think you can really do that any more you can than the one driver I had who wanted to tell me about time travelers and parallel universes.
Second, while not being a data point, I do think she portrays a picture of an undecided voter that I was naive to? A young woman of color is telling me she’s willing to vote for The Businessman — meaning, she’s essentially bought that myth about him, that Businessman (unspoken: a successful one) is who he is, and that it isn’t all just a huge fucking lie. She’s feeling a pinch, feels like shit isn’t working in her favor, and wants someone to change that.
Third, it’s actually therefore surprising to me Trump hasn’t gone all in on the economy, because I’d argue that’s always a good soft spot to stick the knife — yes, the economic indicators are still really good, unemployment is low, and so forth, but I also don’t think numbers and statistics capture a total picture. And things like rent and house prices remain high, and greedflation is still a thing, and you can’t just discount them as saying BUT WALL STREET IS HAPPY. Economic indicators can be false, like credit scores — it’s measuring a certain kind of economic health, not necessarily how good the working class is doing, right? But instead that ambulatory orange shitstain cannot contain his racism and is instead fighting to demonize migrants. Which arguably gives Harris the edge on the economy.
Fourth, I really really really want to be wary of casting myself as some kind of WHITE HERO SPEAKING TRUTH TO THE WORKING CLASS OF COLOR; I’m not! I’m a jackass. Definitely do not listen to me! That said, despite my jackassery, I do think there’s some value in trying to counter narratives you hear from people about Trump. I think it’s easy to assume that anyone who might vote for him is some kind of froth-mouthed true believer, but that’s clearly not the case — and I think you can reach some of those people, even with some gentle pushback against Trumpian bullshit. Pop the balloon and let the air out. Now, I note it’s very possible this woman was like, “I don’t want to hear more white nonsense from this guy, and so I’m just going to say, OH YEAH GOOD POINT,” but to be fair, I didn’t get that vibe from her. And there’s also a non-zero chance she thought I was a Trumpy type (being a white man in America) and she was like, “I’m just gonna tell him what I think he wants to hear.” So, I don’t think we can assume any kind of bedrock fact here, which is why she’s not a data point and is just an anecdote.
Fifth, I 100% think Trump can win. Not will. Can. I hear that “I might just vote for The Businessman” from someone I don’t expect, and I think, yeah, yup, this is how he wins. The mass media carries the myth of the man while failing to engage with the fact he’s a brutal fool with a love of Nazi ideology and techniques, and as such, people are not universally exposed to the same kinds of things us Terminally Online people are exposed to. They just don’t always know. It’s not just Fox News feeding out propaganda — a number of the major news sites routinely fail to address the reality of our situation. Trump shouts about hunting and killing migrants and the news media is all, “Trump presents a harder line on immigration” while simultaneously interrogating every aspect of Harris and her record. And hey, it’s also all too easy to memory hole stuff and be like, “Well, maybe he WAS good, I dunno, I got a lot going on,” and then just vote the one way and not the other. So, I think it’s 100% possible that he can win.
And yet…
It’s hard to find the logic in his winning. (Which is a loser’s game, probably, seeking logic in American politics.)
It’s hard to imagine he’s building on his base from 2020 or 2016.
It’s hard to imagine he’s grabbing Democrats and independents.
I know of some local GOP folks — including some politicians — who are so off the Trump train they’re supporting Harris. Which is shocking to me.
The last several elections have gone so much better than expected, nearly always better than polling suggested.
Trump’s rhetoric has gotten worse, more cruel. His speeches have become more erratic and, though I cannot diagnose him with something, difficult to follow. (Once upon a time you could find some way to follow what he was saying — sure, it’s like holding a rope in a hurricane, but you could kinda get it. There really was a “weave” you could follow, if you were diligent. Now, I hear him speak and sometimes it’s like, boy, I got nothing. I can’t even guess. He’s just out at sea, yammering with abject confidence about nothing, nothing at all.)
I don’t know that you can intuit much from political yard signs, but I do know I’m seeing more Harris/Walz than I did Biden or Clinton (and Biden and Clinton both won my county). I also know there’ve been a lot of Harris/Walz signs stolen, including ours. (Our fucking neighbors did it. I watched them do it! I watched them do it. Fucking dipshits. I of course put up more signs in response.) And I don’t think the winning side tends to be the one stealing signs, you know? Plus, I’ve been in some more rural areas recently where the Harris signs equaled or outnumbered the Trump ones, and that kinda blew me away. Pretty unexpected, at least to my mind.
I also think Harris and Walz are good candidates. Not perfect, but looking for perfection in American candidates is the surest way to earn disappointment. I think they’re smart, I think they’re running a savvy campaign, I think they’re actually fun and moving to watch, I think they have a charisma and a momentum that Clinton and Biden both lacked.
But I still think Trump can win. Of course he can. He won in 2016 and I really didn’t think he could’ve won that election, but he did, he fucking did, and we endured four years of cruelty and stupidity as a result.
So one should never feel so comfortable in this election.
It can happen again.
But the takeaway here is, it won’t happen if we don’t let it. You gotta get out there and talk to others about their votes, and that means talking to neighbors and family members. Maybe it means phone banking or doing some canvassing. Whatever you’re comfortable doing. And it means you should definitely consider voting early (info here) and checking your voter registration (here). I voted early, and am glad to have that privilege.
If Trump wins again, I don’t know where we go as a country, but I know some of our most vulnerable — immigrants, LGBTQIA+ folks, women, people of color — are going to be punished. The economy is on the table. Abortion rights are on the table. Education, gun control, freedom of information, freedom of speech, art, all on the table. And above all else? Climate change. Trump will undo the efforts of the Biden administration to thwart climate change. They’ll press the accelerator on this awful machine and plunge us toward irreversible apocalypse. And that sounds dramatic, I know, but I believe it to be true. Project 2025 in his hands means we’ll be combining all the worst outcomes of our dystopian and apocalyptic fictions into one very real, very awful timeline.
So, stand up. Show up. Get your vote out and help others do the same.
Also, don’t miss out on SCARE UP THE VOTE — some really wonderful members of the horror community are coming together to get the vote out for Harris, and you can register for that here. Stephen King, Mike Flanagan, Victor LaValle, Gabino Iglesias, and more. All put together by the wonderful Tananarive Due — and you can watch her talking about it here.
