There weren’t very many elections yesterday in the US, it being an off year for any sort of federal elections. We had none where I live, for instance. But some of those elections will have a big impact. Redistricting in California that balances against Texas’ gerrymandering. Pennsylvania keeping its Democratic state Supreme Court, which may play a role in the midterm and next Presidential elections if there are legal challenges. Maine voters rejected a proposal meant to disenfranchise voters. JD Vance’s half-brother was absolutely humiliated in a race for Cincinatti mayor, against the child of an Indian immigrant and a Tibetan refugee. And the next mayor of New York City is a Democratic Socialist, a Muslim, and a strong supporter of trans rights — and he won by a huge margin.
That last bit is huge. 38 out of 50 states (and something like 90 nations) have a smaller population than NYC. That is a lot of voters, and a real chance to change the course of American politics.
All Republicans offered was anti-trans attack ads (in Virginia the candidate spent 57% of their campaign budget on that alone) and other culture war stuff. Democratic messaging focused on peoples’ actual needs and rights. The winners seemed to know what people actually want… unlike the so-called strategists who were, up until yesterday at least, still on the “everyone needs to move to the right” train.
Trump, of course, had a hissy fit on social media. But, damaged as his brain is, he seems to be fully aware that people are not buying the shutdown strategy of “punish the people and blame Democrats for it.” He’s distancing himself from “Republicans” in general, because in his mind he’s not a loser and nothing is ever his fault. But my prediction is, he’ll tell his pet senators to put health care back on the table and get things moving again, and then attempt to claim credit for ending the shutdown because “art of the deal.”
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Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I feel physically better today. For a couple of weeks now I’ve had a combination of back pain, a tendency toward anxiety, and let’s call it an uncertain digestive system. Perhaps a lot of that really is driven by anxiety, so a little emotional relief brings some physical relief as well.
My current read is Starless by Jacqueline Carey. I haven’t read any of her other stuff, so I have no idea how it compares. It’s certainly very tropey, in a quite stereotypicasl desert setting that has a couple of clever worldbuilding twists to it. I’m a little bothered by the idea that one of the tribes/cultures is very much associated with thievery, and everyone (including those people) just goes with it — this isn’t too much different from real-world racist tropes about the Romani for instance.
Despite that I’m enjoying it so far, but I see a lot of reviews saying it will start to drag and feel slow later on. We’ll see.
This book no doubt wound up on my list due to the trans angle — the main character is bhazim, an “honorary boy” because boys bring families more status than girls — and for some reason he was raised in ignorance of that fact at first. At ten years old he’s been living his whole life since infancy in a monastery training in martial arts, never even seeing a woman. He’s destined to be a bodyguard for a princess, which would have required castration if he’d been born with those parts. So, individuals vs. sexism is definitely a theme here, as well as class struggle.