Almost.
The anxiety won’t entirely go away till they call this freaking nightmare of an election, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
I’ve followed politics for a long, long time, as in one of my earliest memories was JFK’s inauguration, with my mother explaining to little three-year-old me what a president was and how this man was the new one. At which point I had to ask about the old one, so we got early on into the peaceful transition of power.
She and my dad had voted for Kennedy, hope and change and a family to mirror our own, a boy and a girl. By 1968 they were voting for Nixon, and I was the 6th grade nerd yelling, “N-I-X-O-N, Nixon, Nixon’s going to win.” They got over that phase, and so did I, which gives me hope for the handful of incipient Republicans at the school where I work.
As a longtime follower of politics, I’ve gotta say, this campaign season isn’t normal. We don’t state we’ll lock up political opponents. We don’t impeach people who aren’t even in office yet. Once upon a time we could have nice things, like a full Supreme Court.
I admire Hillary Clinton a lot more than I’d ever imagined. After watching this election cycle I am reasonably certain that I’d find it impossible to look away from a slow moving train wreck too. I haven’t been able to back away from the screen in about six months, which is upping my natural born anxiety and turning me into a regular clickgibbon. How Hillary gets up everyday and walks right into this mess is pretty damn impressive. I’ve long past reached the limits of my patience with her opponent and his supporters.
But today, I saw two things that made me realize that everything is probably going to turn out okay after all. We’re doing a mock election at school, one in which students, parents, and teachers can vote for President, Senate, and House of Representatives. It’s the National Student/Parent Mock Election. When you vote, you can see the percentages from other voters in your state.
Hillary is leading Trump, 54% to 29%. In Georgia.
I don’t know how many votes have been cast in the state, and this is far from scientific. But it reminded me of Scholastic Books’ Mock Election. The kids haven’t been wrong since 1960. So I did a quick Google, and lo and behold, there were the results from Scholastic, showing Hillary with 52% of the popular vote nationwide and Trump with 29%. And Georgia blue, 48/37. And Texas. And Florida. And… here’s the link: Scholastic Mock Election 2016.
Seeing this beautiful map settled me right down better than David Plouffe. The kids are all right. She’s got this.
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