Election Anxiety Open Thread

Hello, Dames Nationals.

Four straight days of the Map Show have left us… well… STRONGLY IDENTIFYING with this gif honestly seems like the most efficient way to express it.

Terrifying? Yes. But so are the present contents of our heads.

We have a feeling that, much like us, our American readers (and a fair few of you from other lands) are pretty preoccupied by the slowly accruing vote counts in the U.S. presidential election. And so! We thought, instead of our usual issue, we would host an open thread where we could discuss any of the following things:

• What gently bananas things have you done in the name of SUPERSTITION? Dame Margaret has been wearing the same dress since 4:30pm on Tuesday and is neither physically nor emotionally capable of changing out of it until 270 votes are assured for the right candidate.

• How are you channeling your anxious energy? Dame Sophie has been Venmoing funds to various local mutual aid organizations, ordering a regional pride hoodie, and re-organizing her woolens.

• Your preferred weirdo election thirst objects? Popular answers include: Steve Kornacki (and Steve Kornacki); Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John (“Jawn”) Fetterman; Lt. Governor Fetterman’s unnervingly hot wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman; Stacey Abrams, the! entire! city! of Philadelphia!; Gritty, and the color blue (very specifically not the blue of the blue lives matter flag, however. That flag is some anti-Black fascist bullshit & we’ll never stop yelling about it).

• How are you coping with the bleak and crushing reality that, despite the ceaseless and catastrophic cruelty that have characterized his time in office, white Americans turned out in droves to reelect Donald Trump? This is a dark undertow for Your Dames at present.

• What goals, both within your community and beyond it, are you hoping to pursue in the next four years regardless of which candidate emerges victorious in the coming days? This is the spar of driftwood to which Your Dames are clinging when the undertow starts pulling us out. For better or worse, huge change needs to keep happening for this country to become one we’re proud to call home again.

• If you are from outside the U.S., we’d love to know how you’ve dealt with similar issues in your own countries or aspects of your home politics in which you take great pride. Maybe we can get some ideas!

• What are you using to stay… well… as centered and sane as the chaos surrounding us all, within the U.S. or not, will allow?

We’ll be popping in and out and chatting with you all here as our sanity permits, but: thank you all for hanging in there with us through an unprecedentedly disorienting and exhausting year. We hope there’s a little peace for all of us soon, but have no illusions that next year is going to be much easier. Knowing you folks are out there in communion with us, however, gives us enormous energy even when the undertow is at its strongest.

Keep your heads up, Dames Nation. Our hope is both radically tender and staunchly implacable, and it’s vast enough to cover, lift up, and fortify us all for what lies ahead.