Oh, Yeah, I Was Going to Write about Biden and Trump Leading up to the Election, Wasn’t I? 😬

 

(Trigger Warning: This piece contains a discussion of some suicidal ideations, as well as inappropriate but hilarious jokes about those very same suicidal ideations.)

 

Oops. Am I too late?

While Trumpists may feel that it’s not too late, that Trump may have actually won, I’m going to err on the side of reality, and acknowledge that Joe Biden won. He’s the President-Elect. It’s—I wish so goddamn bad—as simple as that.

My Trumpist friends—and I do have them—may be offended that I’m dismissing their beliefs about the election. I don’t care. This isn’t a subjective issue that’s open to interpretation, nor to any shades of gray. Joe Biden won the election. Republican and Democratic poll watchers observed the counting. There’s been no credible evidence of any widespread fraud. No valid claims of fraud were presented in any of the dozens of cases brought before the courts. Indeed, The Supreme Court stating that “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections” is among the sickest of burns, and I just loved it.

On the other hand, though, yes, I am rather too late to convince my leftist friends that a Biden Administration won’t be indistinguishable from a second Trump term. That ship has sailed, and I failed to contribute to its cargo a fully established argument that Biden doesn’t suck as much as Trump.

However, as I review the campaign season, I have come to liken my contribution to pre-election dialogue to an experiment of sorts. I just haven’t figured out whether the few posts I put on TedPerrin.com were sort of a minimal control group where my dearth of input can be compared to those who may have actually been getting the message out or if the experiment was a test of how my existential-dread-filled inability to function was able to somehow sway the electorate toward Biden. I don’t know. As Charlie Kelly might say, I didn’t have a well-formed hypotenuse before the experiment began.

If I were to give it some thought, the Bernie stans who were talking about their concerns with Biden’s “corporate Dem” history were just expressing their frustration about not having a more

I do not hold in high regard the opinion
that the Biden Administration isn't an 
improvement over Trump's.

progressive candidate (which I absolutely wanted as well). But my primary concern was that Trump might have a second term, and I had been concerned about that for most of the last four years. My “concern” about a Trump reelection manifested itself as some sort of conniption fit. The tizzy that I’d been experiencing since 2016 turned itself into a full-blown existential crisis.

I didn’t know whether I’d be able to live under a second Trump term. Yes, that is a bit extreme. And yes, I had talked to my VA shrink last spring about a potential referral to a therapist before the election. No, I wasn’t as honest with him as I should have been about how dark the situation felt for me. I felt kind of dumb about feeling so dark, and that—feeling so dumb about it—fed the darkness.

That’s been a pattern my struggle with mental illness. Even though I was able to accept—sort of—that it was possible for Trump to win a second term, it was a precarious grasp at acceptance that my catastrophic thinking constantly tried to erode. I bedeviled myself with thoughts of how horrible things would be (mostly for me, psychologically) should Trump have won.

And although most people probably don’t see it, I do think catastrophically. I just keep it to myself pretty well. (I guess this is the upside of not learning to express myself emotionally as a young person.) I’m usually able to reason with myself and set those thoughts aside. I may often seem like a really positive person, encouraging others that they can get past whatever they’re struggling with. I’m usually earnest about my belief that others can get over the kind of humps that might make me feel like throwing myself off a bridge.

[By the way, I don’t think when I’m in that place emotionally that I’d really jump off a bridge. I’d be too afraid of surviving. (Sorry, I kind of love suicide humor. It kills me. (Again, sorry) I guess I feel that being able to joke about it reassures me that I’m not in a place where I’m willing to attempt to die that way. I know that these jokes won’t sit well with my family. We’ve lost someone to suicide, and we’ve had some who’ve made attempts that were far too close to tragic. I try not to joke like this around them, but otherwise, I cope how I cope. Also, I’d never want to do that to my family again.) Now that I think about it, having a method of suicide that I wouldn’t trust pop in my head when I think about suicide is a rather good self-sabotage.]

Anyway, I can be incredibly positive when I’m talking to others. If I can’t help them process through something or see the upside of a situation, I often recommend that they seek profession help. Therapy has helped me quite a bit. I definitely suggest someone talk to a professional when dealing with a traumatic event. I just don’t have the tools to help them.

 

So, does any of this relate to Trump versus Biden? Well, as tenuous a connection that I often have to reality, I, to put it mildly, had a difficult time considering a reality that included a potential second term for Trump. He is inherently unreasonable, and when I thought about him, I just couldn’t deal with it. I surely couldn’t write about him. So, I largely disconnected from everything. Much of my discourse on Trump leads to my expression of how I just don’t understand how so many people can embrace him wholeheartedly. I certainly can't wrap my mind around the fact that over 70-fucking-million people voted for him.

When I think of those people and converse with them, I can, on occasion, become rather condescending and even downright insulting. There are so many people I care about—family members and people I served with and people who feel like family to me—who are huge Trump supporters. I just don’t like insulting them, that much. It makes me feel like I’m failing in my life goal of being a good person.

I certainly do not need to fail in that goal or even feel like I’m failing at it. It’s the easiest goddamn life goal there is. I can sit around on my ass doing jack shit except being nice to people every once in a while, maybe help someone move or let someone cry on my shoulder, and (yay me!) I’m a good person. Life’s goal achieved.

But fail at the easiest friggin’ goal in life that might make the most minimal positive impact on the world, and well, there’s a possibility that such a failure may have an outsized adverse effect on my sometimes-delicate grip on a positive sense of well-being. I feel that a further discussion of where my negative thoughts sometimes take me would, at this point, be rather gratuitous.

Oh, and please, friends and family, don’t get all, like, “Oh, Ted, you’re such a valued member of your community” or “You’re too pretty to be so sad about so much shit” or “We all love you so much” or “God, you’re so handsome” or “You’re so loved and important and stuff” or “The world needs your glorious mustache” or whatever. I’m fine.

So, yes, Trump and Biden. In a nutshell, let’s just say that I think Trump is a fucking idiot, and I have significant reservations about whether anyone who blindly adores him and agrees with him should have access to sharp implements. And if you think things won’t be better under Biden than they were under Trump, I got nothing for ya.

Hell, I’m glad Biden won. He’s not as progressive as I’d like, but he’s not Trump. I’m also glad the election didn’t come down to, say, five or ten individual votes—you know, the number of people I might have been able to convince that the whole “a Biden Administration will be the same as a second Trump Term” thing was bullshit.

One more time that doing next to nothing has worked out fine for me. Good?

I will admit that these last few weeks of Trump’s healthcare plan being two weeks away is going to have me on the edge of my seat.

Now, what am I going to write about next? Not politics, that’s for damn sure. There are too many fucking imbeciles involved in politics for my tastes. I may be able to write about a specific issue, here and there, but I’ll keep it to a minimum.  I will, however, write about cool shit, like sending “low-angle selfies” to my catphishers and trying to negotiate with them to send me money instead or maybe I’ll write about entertaining myself by planning to have my cat put down over the last few years.

I’ll find something. I know it’ll probably be in this space, at least for now, because I haven’t figured out what I want to do with TedPerrin.com.