My feelings about US Politics in 2025
Apr. 4th, 2025 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enujaI just read a fantastic, cogent description of where American politics and government are right now. When you see the current situation, and how we got here, all written out in one place, the terrible situation we're in is really quite stunning.
This friend of mine is a Wisconsin friend, which means her vote counts. I live in Illinois, which means my vote doesn't count. After voting in Florida in the 2000 election, when the New College Nader vote was, briefly, higher than the total margin between Bush and Gore, I've been really aware of the importance of voting. And upset that my presidential vote doesn't count, because of the electoral college.
I'm super happy that I ended up in Chicago. I love this city, for so many reasons. But Milwaukee is a very nice place, too, and it has more snow than Chicago. As a fairly new friend said to me the other day, "Oh, you're the winter outdoorsy type". And, yes, yes, I am, and yes, Wisconsin is better for winter outdoorsy stuff than Illinois is. Milwaukee has fairly good public transit, an excellent art museum, the same lake, and its skies are less polluted by artificial light. I really, really could enjoy living there.
But I've made my life here in Chicago. I don't want to leave. Moving to Milwaukee was, really, actually, a thing I was thinking about doing this summer, for electoral college reasons. I once had a boyfriend in Milwaukee, a Chicago friend of mine once had a job in Milwaukee, another Chicago friend came to my board game party last weekend after canvassing in Wisconsin.
I really don't live far from Milwaukee. Except that we've got very poor transit between cities. You have to drive, take a bus, or be very lucky with Amtrak. We could have high speed rail between these cities, but we don't. I met my above-mentioned Wisconsin friend at a party in Chicago, less than a mile from the Howard L stop, where a train from Milwaukee used to stop, 100 years ago. It doesn't, any more.
It's so hard to figure out what to do to make this country better, how to help. And it's so hard to do anything other than laundry, barely, with the world (figuratively) exploding around us.
This is why Charles said last year that the only thing he was happy about, as he was dying of cancer at the age of 51, was that he didn't have to watch the end of American democracy.
Of course, instead of me moving to Wisconsin (or the more likely outcome of just feeling guilty for living in Illinois) we could, as a nation, figure out electoral college reform. That would help our democracy, I think.
This friend of mine is a Wisconsin friend, which means her vote counts. I live in Illinois, which means my vote doesn't count. After voting in Florida in the 2000 election, when the New College Nader vote was, briefly, higher than the total margin between Bush and Gore, I've been really aware of the importance of voting. And upset that my presidential vote doesn't count, because of the electoral college.
I'm super happy that I ended up in Chicago. I love this city, for so many reasons. But Milwaukee is a very nice place, too, and it has more snow than Chicago. As a fairly new friend said to me the other day, "Oh, you're the winter outdoorsy type". And, yes, yes, I am, and yes, Wisconsin is better for winter outdoorsy stuff than Illinois is. Milwaukee has fairly good public transit, an excellent art museum, the same lake, and its skies are less polluted by artificial light. I really, really could enjoy living there.
But I've made my life here in Chicago. I don't want to leave. Moving to Milwaukee was, really, actually, a thing I was thinking about doing this summer, for electoral college reasons. I once had a boyfriend in Milwaukee, a Chicago friend of mine once had a job in Milwaukee, another Chicago friend came to my board game party last weekend after canvassing in Wisconsin.
I really don't live far from Milwaukee. Except that we've got very poor transit between cities. You have to drive, take a bus, or be very lucky with Amtrak. We could have high speed rail between these cities, but we don't. I met my above-mentioned Wisconsin friend at a party in Chicago, less than a mile from the Howard L stop, where a train from Milwaukee used to stop, 100 years ago. It doesn't, any more.
It's so hard to figure out what to do to make this country better, how to help. And it's so hard to do anything other than laundry, barely, with the world (figuratively) exploding around us.
This is why Charles said last year that the only thing he was happy about, as he was dying of cancer at the age of 51, was that he didn't have to watch the end of American democracy.
Of course, instead of me moving to Wisconsin (or the more likely outcome of just feeling guilty for living in Illinois) we could, as a nation, figure out electoral college reform. That would help our democracy, I think.
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Date: 2025-04-05 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-06 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-06 03:29 pm (UTC)https://substack.com/home/post/p-160624252