Saying “voting doesn’t matter” might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn’t reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn’t missed a one.
Why do you think they make it so hard to vote? And if you don’t vote this time… well, you certainly won’t be voting again!
So there’s a part of my brain that keeps making up conspiracy theories– or maybe just simulating what people who make up conspiracy theories might be thinking.
Hard to tell, because this part of my brain is pretty well-controlled by the other parts of my brain , which know very well how you can take ANY piece of information and ANY desired conclusion and make up a theory of how that conclusion is supported by that info, if you’re good enough at twisting logic around.
(it’s a thing you get good at, as a fiction writer whose primary concern is “I want this scene to happen” and whose second or third concern is “dammit now I gotta come up with a way to explain how this scene makes sense.”)
And in the wake of the recent Event, of course my conspiracy theory brain was brainstorming possibilities of how and why the Republicans might have staged or faked this. When it turned out the suspect was a registered Republican (according to current news stories anyway), that bit of my brain got thrown for a little loop– because wouldn’t the Republicans prefer to pin it on the Woke Left?
But then my conspiracy brain rallied for a moment and said, “nah, they already have the vote of everyone who’s rabid against the Woke Left. The ones whose votes are up for possibly being changed are 1. the Woke Left ourselves, if we decide to give up voting or vote third party because neither side’s good enough for our ethics, (they’re already working on undermining us there)… and 2. the lifelong Republicans who are disillusioned with how much worse the current Republican options are. If they can find a bogeyman who fits that description, and convince those people that their traitorous views are synonymous with being like That Guy, then they might win those votes back.”
And my sysadmin brain, listening to this conspiratorial rant, first goes, “okay that just sounds like your usual twisting logic around to make something sound like it makes sense. Whatever.”
But then, on second take, it adds: “oh, and also it does not even really make a difference, from our perspective!”
And conspiracy brain is like “lol wut”
And sysadmin brain is like “because however much we theorize about what was or wasn’t involved in the shooting – and how that did or didn’t benefit them or us– and how that was or wasn’t a motivation for anything that anyone did– it still all boils down to ‘those of us who don’t want that pile of shit in charge need to vote all the way down the ballot for everything that is not that pile of shit.’ nothing you’re saying even fuckin matters.”
And then conspiracy brain shuts up, for a little while.
