Doubling Down on Debates, Dems, Demagogues, Divisiveness and Depression: I VOTED


001

The most recent polling of my personal state of mind reveals a slight shift from 52% Negative and 48% Positive to 52% Positive and 48% Negative. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek asks what are readily identifiable factors that have led to this impressive 4-point swing? The answer is the Daily Double, or the Daily Doubling Down: I voted. My depression is slightly improved without an increase in my anti-depressant medication.

I feel like a great burden has been lifted from my scrambled brain that has been trying for the past two years to sift facts from fiction at debates in the bruising endless primaries and now bipartisan presidential debates. Is it my imagination or are the debates really longer with just two candidates onstage than they were with a gazillion candidates vying for attention. Whatever. For the most part, the candidates have been unresponsive to the moderators’ questions, and the moderators have been unresponsive to their unresponsiveness. The single most consistent feeling I have after I watch a debate is that I would have been a better moderator. I’m just saying.

But guess what?

What?

I don’t even need to watch the final debate tomorrow because I already voted. Yep. One of the perks of being older than dirt is the right to vote absentee and I jumped all over that yesterday. Me and my 1.5 million early voting friends, that is.

002

Today’s buzz words for the campaigns according to the political talking heads are Doubling Down. Whatever a candidate advocates that will solidify her/his voter base (those voters who will vote for you regardless of any mention of sex, lies, emails or videotapes), now is the time to pull out all the stops, say whatever motivates your base the most and make sure your peeps vote. For example, comment on the “rigged system” of voting in general. This is Doubling Down – a populist candidate appealing to supporters who already feel like political outsiders – by attempting to suggest the voting process itself is fundamentally flawed. Oops – flawed unless you win, of course.

I pity the Undecideds because they will, no doubt, be watching tomorrow night’s debates with the same “wishy- washyness” they’ve been watching all of the previous ones. They’ll still be hanging onto the sounds and images of every political TV commercial between now and November 08th. hoping and praying for that moment of inspiration, that pearl of wisdom which will finally push them into someone’s camp. But not me. I already voted. I can mute those suckers and the divisiveness they perpetrate.

003

No really, seriously. I voted.

 

About Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award in 2008. Her writings have been included in various anthologies - most recently the 2017 Saints and Sinners Literary Magazine. Her latest book, Four Ticket Ride, was released in January, 2019. She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.
This entry was posted in Humor, Life, Personal, politics, Reflections and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

8 Responses to Doubling Down on Debates, Dems, Demagogues, Divisiveness and Depression: I VOTED

  1. Well done you! What angst can you fill your life up with now? Guess there’s just that little matter of the election to wait for…

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Wayside Artist says:

    How I wish I could join you in early voting. As I live deep in Trumpetland, running the gauntlet of committeemen and women and other last minute polling place torturers will be particularly unpleasant. I plan to wear a Hillary tee shirt just to make my position clear and unassailable.

    I love Obama all the more for telling Herr Headcase to stop whining. Brilliant!

    Only a few more weeks until it’s over!

    Like

  3. mareymercy says:

    Early voting starts here October 24th and we intend to be first in line to get this mess done. I already fear for what the next presidential election will be like. Every day is a new low with this one! But I am definitely ‘with her’ so even though here in TX my vote won’t count for much, I’m doing my part.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Pingback: Doubling Down on Debates, Dems, Demagogues, Divisiveness and Depression: I VOTED – I'll Call It Like I See It

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