Immediate Post Election Observations

Stolen in whole from Infidel753. Emphasis where applied is mine:

There was no red wave. There was no blue wave. Most incumbents got re-elected. Whichever side ends up controlling the House and Senate will have a razor-thin margin.

Turnout was very high on both sides and the process ran smoothly pretty much everywhere, so it was a big win for democracy.

If the Republicans get the House majority, the margin will be small and the faction-riddled caucus will be difficult to keep unified. It may be that Democrats will still be able to pass occasional decent legislation by peeling off a few Republican votes. The really loopy stuff, like holding the debt ceiling hostage, may not work since just a few Republican defectors could undermine it.

There were some important state-level victories. Vermont, Michigan, Kentucky, and California voted by referendum to protect abortion rights — abortion is clearly a losing issue for the right wing. Illinois passed a ballot measure to strengthen unions, while Missouri passed one to legalize marijuana. Democrats won the Michigan state senate after forty years of Republican control.

Here in Oregon, the ballot measure I mentioned on Monday to take pro-slavery language out of the state constitution did pass, but more than half a million people voted against it.

The exasperating Lauren Boebert appears to have lost re-election.

Democrats need to stop trying to make Beto O'Rourke happen. An open and confirmed gun-grabber is never going to win any statewide office in Texas. It's just not possible.

If there was one big loser yesterday, it was Trump. Most of the major candidates he foisted on his party via his endorsements were defeated, some of them losing close races that a better candidate might have won. His intra-party arch-rival DeSantis won re-election as governor by a huge margin, boosting his stature and cementing his position as the dominant Republican alternative to Trump. The rivalry between the two will likely dominate the party from now until the 2024 race, perhaps dividing it severely.

But this election is over, and that's a hell of a relief.

MAGA Christians Are Dancing On God's Corpse

Evangelical Trump supporters live preposterously unexamined lives binding white Evangelicalism to the MAGA movement.

Donald Trump is the actual demonic person that white Evangelicals have convinced themselves liberals are. He's a marriage-wrecker, hedonistic sex freak, obvious atheist, litigious thief, welfare queen who never pays taxes, and he has gotten handouts from every level of government on his rise to his mobbish empire of cheap licensing deals. He is the personification of their liberal nightmares. Yet they're politically Christifying him.

So it's just sublimely apparent that MAGA Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus anymore. They've excommunicated Jesus for being a socialist Jew, and they're dancing on God's corpse proclaiming blasphemously all by themselves the arrival of the End Times and getting high on blood libel conspiracies, and snorting fat lines of racism huffing poppers of fascism to pregame for the party in Heaven where they'll watch America burn and all their political enemies suffer for eternity.

Remember that the God-fearing are the most impulsively capable of committing godless acts of unforgiving vengeance… in their devotion to their loving, forgiving god of moderation. Fascism depends on the religious fundamentalists doing the crusading dirty work in the streets.

Which is why QAnon's slow mainstreaming of the blood libel conspiracy is absolutely a cancer on society. It proliferates into so many toxic things, like anti-Semitism, Misogyny, and legalized persecution against society's downtrodden. The Republican Party's dogwhistle embrace of QAnon is inciting violence already. January 6th, the break-in of Nancy Pelosi's house, and it's going to get worse. And Christians are not breaking from the fascist coalition to be, you know, Christian.

God's immaterial corpse is being danced upon by ends-justify-the-means theocracy.

Pete Buttigieg is a much better Christian, acting through works rather than stupid faith alone, than Mike Pence.

Liberal atheist lesbians are the moral center of America.

It's amazing that Christian conservatives think they're losing the "Culture War" considering they made it up, they're the only ones fighting it, and their liberal enemies are not so much corrupting, demonic servants of Satan as just normal people unafraid of multiculturalism who wish conservatives would chill out, read a book other than the Bible, and realize that diversity has literally always been America's great historical strength. But instead they're striving to become a Christian branch of the Taliban mandating how everyone gets to live their lives.

Christians literally can't be against admitting refugees. It's everywhere in the Bible.

For too many, religion is a superfluous excuse to insist on being intolerant of people who are just being themselves. Don't be that kind of person.

To the pro-life crowd: in Deuteronomy 28:53 God promises to cause a terrible war that will make everyone eat their own children.

The Bible mandates we should stone Donald Trump several times for his various sins. I'm not saying we should do that, but I'm also not the one claiming I base my life on the Bible.

To all the people who want to force prayer back into schools: making repetitive things be absolutely mandatory typically makes people want to do them much less.

In terms of evolution, maybe we're making life much more complicated than it needs to be. Animals kind of exist because plants basically bred more complex life forms to eat their increasingly bright and tasty seeds and defecate them in other locations. Homo sapiens are extra good at it, and that's why plants, arguably, domesticated us to agriculturally be their slaves. So maybe try to relax, and enjoy existence!

Props to parents who don't force their kids into a religion so that they can decide for themselves what they believe without having nightmares about made up stories of eternal torture take root in their developing toddler minds.

The Tyrant
God does not sanction free and fair elections, He intervenes and cheats, He stuffs the ballot box for Himself, He is demagogic and says He alone can fix this, he smears his competitors and forbids their participation, and demands virginal prima nocta.

Comedy should always aim up, and never worry about aiming too high. All the way up. Because if anyone should ever be able to take a joke, it should be God, being benevolent and all.

Everything finite and mortal is more magnificent than the eternal and immortal. Enjoy the spectacular beauty of temporary life. Even God is watching us glued to His TV binging all our series' episodes, not us watching His.

The modern Jesus confesses to all the crimes of the year at the reception desk of the police station, but the prison wardens want their bonuses, and have state reservations full in the books, so they tell Jesus to go but he won't, and they arrest him for not resisting arrest.

[Source]

Now For The Good News (Updating Throughout the Day)

Gay Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia Wins House Race

Kentucky Voters Reject Constitutional Ban On Abortion

Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola Poised To Defeat Sarah Palin

Voters In Missouri And Maryland Approve Legal Weed

Voters Enshrine Abortion Rights In Three States

WI Gov. Tony Evers Defeats Election Denying Cultist

Mike Lee Defeats Evan McMullin In Utah Senate Race

Dem Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Defeats MAGA Rep

Maine Gov. Janet Mills Defeats Racist Paul LePage

MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Defeats Cultist Tudor Dixon

Ohio Dem Rep Defeats QAnon Stolen Valor Cultist

NC Dem Wins US House Race Against Cawthorn 2.0

MN Gov. Tim Walz Defeats Scott "Litter Boxes" Jensen

Sen. Patty Murray Defeats 2020 Denier Tiffany Smiley

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Defeats Rep. Lee Zeldin

Sen. Maggie Hassan Defeats Don "Litter Boxes" Bolduc

Josh Shapiro Trounces Christian Nationalist Mastriano

Rep. Abigail Spanberger Defeats "Anti-Woke" Cultist

Sen. Michael Bennet Defeats "Stupid RINO Big Mouth"

AOC Trounces Riot Attendee And Homocon Favorite

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Defeats "Litter Boxes" Nutbag

Wes Moore Defeats QAnon Cultist To Become MD Gov

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Defeats Cultist Darren Bailey

Maura Healey Elected First Gay Gov Of Massachusetts

Minnesota Sec Of State Defeats Cultist Election Denier

MI Sec Of State Beats "Dems Drink Blood" Kookbabbler

Vermont Elects Its First Openly Gay Congress Member

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly Defeats Covidiot Cultist AG

Gay Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia Wins House Race

Oregon Voters Elect Nation's Third Openly Gay Gov

WTF, Texas?!

And a note to all the candidates who have deluged me with calls and texts over the past two weeks: all the money begs in the world don't mean squat when people are just too fucking unmotivated or just plain lazy to get off their asses and vote until it becomes something that immediately affects them. Sadly, that appears to be a lot of the people in this country, and I fear nothing is going to wake them from their slumber until it's too late for them to do anything about it.

I had hoped that the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade would be the catalyst that would ignite this passion, but sadly that still did not materialize the kind of blue wave that was needed to bring to a full stop the MAGA Republican fascist agenda.

I dunno…maybe it's because I'm of a different generation, but I've voted in every presidential and midterm election since I was 18. With the advent of voting by mail in recent years, I've also voted in the lesser known local elections.

I cannot fathom why people do not vote. I just can't—especially when it is so insanely easy and a full 30% of the population seems to be fine with that right being taken away.

Someone please explain it to me like I'm 5 years old.

The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung Yet

But as of 8:00am this morning it's not looking good.

A lot of the races still being tabulated are in deep blue districts, so I'm trying to remain positive.

And I just heard that even if the Republicans take the house, it's going to be by a razor-thin majority which will hopefully put a damper on their most radical parts of their agenda to rename America in the image of Gilead.

Today's the Day, Folks.

What'll it be? Democracy or Fascism?

If you haven't yet…get out there and

like your life depended on it.

Because this time, it really does. The Republicans have made it abundantly clear their plans for the country should they regain power.

I'm as Disappointed as Anyone

But as this graph suggests, I don't think current viewership would've justified or sustained a fifth and final season.

But let's say for a moment that HBO did renew for a 5th season. What do you reckon viewership would look like? Did HBO make the right decision? Or was there nothing left to salvage?