Something I wrote in 2008.
No less apropos in 2012.
THEY think you are an illusion.
Really.
Go look at any of the right-wing pools-of-cess -- Little Green Blueballs... Redstate Of Denial... the Free-Of-Any-Need-To-Hide-Our-Unmitigated-Hatred-Of-Non-White-Non-Heterosexual-Non-Christians Republic -- and you'll see the real "last gasps" of the insurgency.
YOU don't exist ("NO ONE I KNOW will vote for Obambi")
And IF YOU do exist, you won't show up to vote. ("The polls are all wrong because they're all HEAVILY weighted towards the Democrats and that's not going to happen".)
And If YOU DO SHOW UP, you won't ever make it to the ballot box.
And this last one is their big, pathetic, repressed, wet dream.
All ginned-up hope for a Republican President lies in the slim, BUT STILL REAL, possibility that the crush of an historic election will cause the "unlikely" likely voters to be overwhelmed by four hour waits and lines that snake into increasingly inclement weather.
THEY think, we'll go home.
To the "youth vote"... THEY think you are lazy and undisciplined and distractable.
Prove them wrong.
Stay. The. Fuck. In. Line.
To the "African-American vote"... THEY think you are lazy and undisciplined and easy to intimidate.
Prove them wrong.
Stay. The. Fuck. In. Line.
To the "Jewish vote"... THEY think you are stupid and old and terrified of middle names.
Prove them wrong.
Stay. The. Fuck. In. Line.
To the "Latino vote"... THEY think you are racist and too busy picking their lettuce for $50 and hour.
Prove them wrong.
Stay. The. Fuck. In. Line.
To the "Women's vote"... THEY think you can't tell your uterus from a policy position.
Prove them wrong.
Stay. The. Fuck. In. Line.
To the "Gay vote"... many of THEM wish THEY were you, but that's another rant.
Stay the fuck in line and don't settle for a provisional ballot unless you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO.
Provisional ballots WILL NOT be counted on election night and therefore will not be part of the "winner" narrative and since you did stay the fuck in line, let's get your vote the fuck counted.
And take a photo of your ballot.
And take a friend who might not vote.
And take an umbrella and a thermos of soup and your music and whatever else it might take to get you from the back to the front to the booth and beyond.
WE have the right and stamina to finish what we started and WE can hear Lady McBeth whispering in our ears, "But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail." (which is lofty, edujewmicated, Shakespeare for STAY THE FUCK IN LINE!)
***
NOTE: Its weird how little has changed.
I had to edit "McCain" to "a Republican President"... and the original diary referenced the imagined Hillary backlash (I guess at least there 4 years does change things)... and I'm told Little Green Footballs is now LEFTY? OK.
But beyond that?
It is simple.
We show up. We win.