Hello from deep Blortles country. It’s Election Day ‘24 or whatever and, after three hundred years of campaigning, it’s finally time for the midterms. Just like the midterms you remember from school, this is a test to find out how screwed we are after it’s already too late to do anything about it.1 Nevertheless, you still Grand Theft Oughta Go to the polls. The parties have made their final arguments to voters, with Democrats emphasizing kitchen table issues and affordability while Republicans are leaning hard on… revisionist Anakin Skywalker memes. “Yes,” writes Miles Klee for Wired:
“…it seems that while the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own (AO3) will remain shut down for the foreseeable future, MAGA conservatives are picking up the slack, using the last hours before the 2026 midterms to imagine themselves and Trump-aligned candidates as the disciples of a genocidal archvillain from a space opera.”
I’m sorry to do this to you but in my defense I’m gonna do worse later in this post, so here’s the kind of thing they’re counting on to save a potentially disastrous day for fascist candidates nationwide:
The fuck are you even talking about you weirdo.
Bad Faith Times’ Denny Carter took a broader historical view of intentional right wing misinterpretation of Star Wars, which goes all the way back to the Reagan administration.
“Republicans in a political era dominated by Republicans had looked at Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters who identified with "the dark side" and said hey, look at those folks, they did nothing wrong in their prolonged battle with scrappy insurgents doing whatever they could to poke at the underbelly of an empire bent on subjugation and domination. The people calling themselves the Dark Side were the victims, the thinking went.”
Meanwhile ersatz Black person Nkechi “fka Rachel Doležal” Diallo posted “I voted” feet for free on main. I did warn you I was gonna do worse than that Elon post.
Hear me out, though—
Not strictly election related but did you know there’s a Wikifeet just for cartoons, and Mrs. Jewls from Wayside has an entry?
This is what they stole from us.
Donald Trump delivered his closing message to voters in a speech yesterday and it was: “Like the human being, grass has a life also.” In addition to addressing voters’ concerns about grass, in the campaign’s final days Trump has also taken on the issues of gas and ass. Most of yesterday’s speech was about the Lincoln reflecting pool which is definitely not a symbol of anything, observed Alexandra Petri.
“Look, if I wanted to win the midterms, and I were Donald Trump, I would not go stand in front of the physical symbol of my failure and remind people that my chosen team installed its lining so badly that it looked like the work of vandals with box cutters, but that is just me. I am not Donald Trump for numerous reasons. I enjoy hugging my family and often admit that I was wrong. I am not Narcissus-levels of obsessed with a reflective body of water.”
If you just want to skip the drama and know how it’s all going to turn out, the experts at the Today in Tabs Decision Desk ‘24 Or Whatever have released what they feel is the most likely electoral map after today’s voting:
Fire ze missiles.
Meanwhile, not to be outdone, the U.K.’s Labour government just banned BBW facesitting.
Same.
John Ganz checked in on the fascism scorecard, and it could be worse tbh. We’ve only got ten days left anyway, according to University of Illinois physicist Heinz von Foerster in 1960. It seems like everybody’s losing it a little bit at the end of the campaign. European supermarket fridges hacked. I feel like I don’t have to say it right? We’re all thinking the same thing. Speaking of melting, here’s a short history of the melting face emoji from the former youngest newsletter in the world, Meltdown Quarterly 🫠. The pee accelerates. Ian Bogost is Adrian Chiles’s Wario. What Happened at the Peptide Party?
Today’s Surrealist Short Horror Film: “Where’s Dinner?” by Grace Pehrman
Meanwhile I’m like:
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1 I’m pretty sure that’s what midterms are? I didn’t graduate college but I don’t think it shows.
