So this is what I said five days ago about what I would do on Election Night:
So. What I did in 2020 was making sure I ate dinner right after work WITHOUT LOOKING AT A THING. In that year my husband wasn’t working, so I literally had to go to the dining room table and eat my sandwich (I'd brought them home) while telling him I did NOT want to hear about what was happening. He was good about that; I ate dinner and then got on Daily Kos… staying up until 1:30 when I read that Wisconsin was likely to go to Biden. (This was from a Kos member, not the media.)
This year my husband does have a job, so I'm picking him up and taking him to a local Mexican place for dinner, all the while avoiding looking at my phone. When you're diabetic, you have to have a meal no matter what, and I don't want all the sturm und drang on Kos to make me lose my appetite. Which it will.
Anyway, my guidelines are:
1) Check the status of AZ-Sen and NH-Sen. If they're good, so far so good.
2) Not pay attention to House losses. It is what it is.
3) Ignore anyone who screams about a) Dobbs being a “losing issue” or b) Fetterman’s debate performance.
4) Ignore the initial dark red mirage of PA-Sen and NV-Sen ... if there IS one. (I think we're selling both of those really short.) I know there will be posters here who won't ignore that, so ignore those people too. To be honest, I'm going to find it as unsettling as I did in 2020, so this is going to be the hardest way to “zen" myself.
5) Check to see GA-Sen isn't insanely bad, which I don't think it will be. If it ends with a runoff, the night is over for me.
6) Make sure I post in all the successful “gain" threads big THANK YOUs to those who got out the vote and helped to make the success happen. Make sure I post in even the “unsuccessful" races a thank you to everyone who tried hard.
7) Once it's bedtime, take 15 mg of melatonin.
All of that ended up more or less correct, except there wasn’t even a dark red mirage for PA at all, so that was a bonus. #3 in particular I can feel pretty satisfied are elements that nobody will complain about anymore.
But one thing I didn’t do, because of my nerves: thank the people who got out the vote.
Thank you to all the people who phonebanked, who texted, who wrote postcards and letters, and who did all the gruntwork and supplied the food and drink for voting advocacy and Democratic outreach groups. Thank you to all the people who helped voters cure their ballots. Thank you to all the people who had to stand and patiently extol the benefits of voting Democratic to a populace overfed by media-led misinformation. Thank you to all the people who spent less time with their loved ones, less time doing beloved hobbies, less time relaxing or meditating, just to go out and be on the frontlines of a war for our democracy and for the values of compassion, justice, and respect.
You are all heroes to me. You are the ones we should all bow to. I am grateful for your service, and we couldn’t have done this without you.