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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2gKZ3gP:
The promised side-post on New York State politics. For background, I was born near Albany in 1979 and grew up in this state and have lived here for all but two years of my life– one year spent in St Andrews, Scotland, and one year spent in Jersey City, NJ. I’ve lived upstate, downstate, and out west.
This is an unresearched rumination more than anything else. Donald is from here, after all; we created him. But I was just thinking, some of y’all live in red states and must feel like the only gay Eskimo, so here’s some pondering of what it’s like, politically, to live in a blue blue blue blue state.
And for this bluest of blue states, with our reliable in-the-bag 29 blue electoral votes [n.b. by the grace of our prodigous metro areas we go blue every year in every federal election but holy shit are we a purple state really, I saw more Trump signs on the back roads than you can even think about, and our small towns are all firmly Republican], there is a lot to say about our politics, some of it fond and some decidedly not; for the record, though, our shitshow of a Governor does one thing right, and that’s make grandiose anti-Republican gestures, which do warm my heart. But make no mistake, Cuomo is a complete and utter asshat whose name cannot be mentioned in most households without spitting. I mean, hashtag-bluestateproblems, I guess; he makes stupid laws and thinks he’s God and steals money and postures about being So Liberal while babies starve, he’s incredibly fond of unfunded mandates– but Cuomo did make it illegal for insurance to reimburse for conversion therapy all across NYS, and he outlawed [some] guns in a very nonsensical and ham-handed way that actually was pretty counterproductive but by God it was decisive action (it was stupid and terrible and is literally incoherent and was clearly written by a committee of people who’d never seen a gun in real life and has driven, anecdatally anyway, a lot of moderates straight into the arms of the NRA because sweet Christ what a terrible law) and he has gotten in a whole bunch of great digs at the Republican establishment but my buddy my guy, we’re really a purple state, and you think you’re a good showboater but I really really don’t think you’re going to ever get to make a run at the Presidency the way you’ve clearly been planning on since you were an infant. Although. I mean. Look what’s happened to the office. No, Andy, I think maybe you’re too coherent, and you still expect there to be rules, even if you don’t think they’ll apply to you. How sad is that?
(My favorite one was the widely-reblogged viral quote he said, something about how only Native Americans can claim not to be immigrants, something very witty and pithy and great (at the democratic national convention maybe?), but what has he actually done for Native Americans? I literally can’t find anything, and it’s not like we don’t have any here. The Six Nations’ ancestral homelands span most of the state. … More digging suggests his actual actions have mostly been to further protract a decades-long battle over stolen land, ho-hum. I mean, I guess it’s better than concussion grenades, but. I wouldn’t exactly brag about that, Andy.)
Basically New York is a lot of talk, a lot of money going to not a lot of people (and some federal corruption charges over it), and slow-if-ever progress. And I’ve been cynical about it my whole life; my father worked for the state government for decades, including inside the state Capitol Building for years and years, so I always was aware what a load of idiocy it all was. (My mother, as a public school teacher, was also technically kind of a state employee in a way, so. Both of them were involved in it.)
HOWEVER. When you contrast this with states where questions like “are non-Christians human” and “how can we keep the pesky minorities from voting” are OPENLY debated, I suppose this must seem like a utopia. Cuomo is a disingenuous, backstabbing, self-aggrandizing moron, but at least he’s not openly hateful???
It is telling, I think, that Donald did not even make an attempt to involve himself in local or state politics. Because New York City, let alone New York State, would have eaten him alive. He had to appeal directly to the cable news crowd. He wouldn’t have had a chance here; literally everything in Albany is decided by insiders in back rooms etcetera, and they are no amateurs. Tammany Hall may have been dismantled, but the shape of it remains. The Donald could not have hacked it.
(Also Hillary did a damn fine job as Senator for us, just as I predicted, Dad. We were fucking lucky to have her and I hope she retires here so we can treat her well.)
Anyway. Us blue states are the best bet to resist Trump by the sheer weight of our political machines; even if not out of decency, many of our politicians will [hopefully] stand up in cranky, self-aggrandizing droves to Spite Him because he is Republican and for no other reason than that, and that’s the last best hope of keeping the actual culture and society of the United States afloat. At least from where I’m sitting, stewing in anxiety. But we’re up to our elbows in red as well, and it’s not as simple as it seems.
Still. It’s safer for us. We’ll do what we can.
The promised side-post on New York State politics. For background, I was born near Albany in 1979 and grew up in this state and have lived here for all but two years of my life– one year spent in St Andrews, Scotland, and one year spent in Jersey City, NJ. I’ve lived upstate, downstate, and out west.
This is an unresearched rumination more than anything else. Donald is from here, after all; we created him. But I was just thinking, some of y’all live in red states and must feel like the only gay Eskimo, so here’s some pondering of what it’s like, politically, to live in a blue blue blue blue state.
And for this bluest of blue states, with our reliable in-the-bag 29 blue electoral votes [n.b. by the grace of our prodigous metro areas we go blue every year in every federal election but holy shit are we a purple state really, I saw more Trump signs on the back roads than you can even think about, and our small towns are all firmly Republican], there is a lot to say about our politics, some of it fond and some decidedly not; for the record, though, our shitshow of a Governor does one thing right, and that’s make grandiose anti-Republican gestures, which do warm my heart. But make no mistake, Cuomo is a complete and utter asshat whose name cannot be mentioned in most households without spitting. I mean, hashtag-bluestateproblems, I guess; he makes stupid laws and thinks he’s God and steals money and postures about being So Liberal while babies starve, he’s incredibly fond of unfunded mandates– but Cuomo did make it illegal for insurance to reimburse for conversion therapy all across NYS, and he outlawed [some] guns in a very nonsensical and ham-handed way that actually was pretty counterproductive but by God it was decisive action (it was stupid and terrible and is literally incoherent and was clearly written by a committee of people who’d never seen a gun in real life and has driven, anecdatally anyway, a lot of moderates straight into the arms of the NRA because sweet Christ what a terrible law) and he has gotten in a whole bunch of great digs at the Republican establishment but my buddy my guy, we’re really a purple state, and you think you’re a good showboater but I really really don’t think you’re going to ever get to make a run at the Presidency the way you’ve clearly been planning on since you were an infant. Although. I mean. Look what’s happened to the office. No, Andy, I think maybe you’re too coherent, and you still expect there to be rules, even if you don’t think they’ll apply to you. How sad is that?
(My favorite one was the widely-reblogged viral quote he said, something about how only Native Americans can claim not to be immigrants, something very witty and pithy and great (at the democratic national convention maybe?), but what has he actually done for Native Americans? I literally can’t find anything, and it’s not like we don’t have any here. The Six Nations’ ancestral homelands span most of the state. … More digging suggests his actual actions have mostly been to further protract a decades-long battle over stolen land, ho-hum. I mean, I guess it’s better than concussion grenades, but. I wouldn’t exactly brag about that, Andy.)
Basically New York is a lot of talk, a lot of money going to not a lot of people (and some federal corruption charges over it), and slow-if-ever progress. And I’ve been cynical about it my whole life; my father worked for the state government for decades, including inside the state Capitol Building for years and years, so I always was aware what a load of idiocy it all was. (My mother, as a public school teacher, was also technically kind of a state employee in a way, so. Both of them were involved in it.)
HOWEVER. When you contrast this with states where questions like “are non-Christians human” and “how can we keep the pesky minorities from voting” are OPENLY debated, I suppose this must seem like a utopia. Cuomo is a disingenuous, backstabbing, self-aggrandizing moron, but at least he’s not openly hateful???
It is telling, I think, that Donald did not even make an attempt to involve himself in local or state politics. Because New York City, let alone New York State, would have eaten him alive. He had to appeal directly to the cable news crowd. He wouldn’t have had a chance here; literally everything in Albany is decided by insiders in back rooms etcetera, and they are no amateurs. Tammany Hall may have been dismantled, but the shape of it remains. The Donald could not have hacked it.
(Also Hillary did a damn fine job as Senator for us, just as I predicted, Dad. We were fucking lucky to have her and I hope she retires here so we can treat her well.)
Anyway. Us blue states are the best bet to resist Trump by the sheer weight of our political machines; even if not out of decency, many of our politicians will [hopefully] stand up in cranky, self-aggrandizing droves to Spite Him because he is Republican and for no other reason than that, and that’s the last best hope of keeping the actual culture and society of the United States afloat. At least from where I’m sitting, stewing in anxiety. But we’re up to our elbows in red as well, and it’s not as simple as it seems.
Still. It’s safer for us. We’ll do what we can.
