Take the Win

As I rejoice the blue wave, tsunami or whatever you want to call it that eviscerated the MAGA movement and its enablers from slim majorities in both houses of Congress for the last two years, and handed over a vast vote of power to a now domineering majority of Democratic lawmakers, one famous quote keeps coming to mind.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We Always Forget — #WorldPieDomination Blog
You can say that again!

Now variations of this quote have been attributed to many.

Everyone from:

-Albert Einstein (Note: An urban legend according to most historians) to —

-A Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet in 1981 (Note:  A variation of it but in the context of “mistakes”), and all the way back in time with —

Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin (Note: They spoke about the general idea but not in anything approaching that wording.

Point being, Americans in 2026 are not a) idiots, b) addicts or c) especially overly enlightened thinkers.

They’re just had enough.

Peter Broelman on X: "Trumped #Midterms2026 #Trump #auspol" / X
Message sent

This is understandable.

They’re paying the highest price for gas in American history, 30% more for food than they did five plus years ago and enduring massive tariffs directed by the White House to a Whac-A Mole of countries that have ultimately cost the average household $1700 more for goods and services annually.

There is also the “small potatoes” war in Iran (Note: POTUS’ words, not mine) that has emptied the treasury of more than $47 billion to date with no end in sight.

And speaking of sights, there is also the massive, nationwide roundup of brown and black and anything else but white-skinned, mostly legal immigrant neighbors of ALL AGES and sizes, grabbed in their homes, schools, cars or on the streets by masked ICE thugs and disappeared into detention centers or parts unknown with sometimes nary a trace.

Overwhelming Too Much GIF - Overwhelming Too Much A Lot - Discover & Share  GIFs
It sure is

As all the while as they watch their POTUS drone on endlessly on their screens about his construction projects: 

-The rare marble that will be a feature all through his new White House ballroom.

-The 250 foot arch that will be armed with a military grade weapon center in a populous area near Arlington National Cemetery.

– The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool algae debacle on the National Mall that turned a promised “American Flag blue” color to vomit green.

-And most recently the chopping down of dozens of century old trees around a beloved golf course in the middle of Washington, D.C. to make way for “improvements” personally ordered by the President.

Sunk us.. then sunk him

-The same guy who allowed the richest man in the world (Note: An immigrant who is the only U.S. trillionaire)  to commandeer the personal Social Security information of EVERY U.S. citizen (Note: That Means YOU/US) without asking.

To use a timeless concept that belongs to no single author but instead to the human species in general (Note: That Excludes A.I.)

Actions have consequences.

Contrary to popular thought among the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Oh look! It's the consequences of my own actions... - Surprised Pikachu Meme  Generator
Behold

I don’t know about you but given ALL of the above it felt like, well, s-o-m-e rejoicing was in order.

So I’m indulging.

And yet, around every corner, people want to bring me, and the rest of us so inclined, down.

Buzz Kill GIFs | Tenor
Go away Debbie!

Will the Dems blow it?  DJT is stillllllll president.   Steven Miller, likely one of the only Jews in America dedicated to the principles of the Third Reich, is now running the White House.

And my favorite — who knows if all these new people will even get sworn into Congress and if the vote will be certified because, well, remember what happened on Jan. 6th.

OMG!!!

Will everyone out there just TAKE. THE. WIN?

What Is Wrong With You Mabel Mora GIF - What Is Wrong With You Mabel Mora  Selena Gomez - Discover & Share GIFs
It’s OK to celebrate for a minute!

At least for this week???????

Because if we don’t then, truly, what is the point of anything?

Do you know that 75% of the states in the country now have Democratic governors? Among other things, this means that at minimum women will have the right to choose in that many locales in the U.S. since reproductive rights are left up to the states.

How about the fact that….oh…instead of me, here’s Rachel Maddow, the day after Election Day, to explain a lot of it to you. And far better than I, or anyone else, could. Watch it all the way through and you’ll see what I mean.

And now that you’ve watched that (Note: If not, go back and DO IT!) here are a few visuals that might make you stop and make you think.

-Georgia’s new Governor-elect, Keisha Lance-Bottoms, the first black female governor in the HISTORY of the U.S., meeting the late, former Gov. of Texas, Ann Richards, when she was 10 years old.

-The late Congressman and civil rights leader, John Lewis, posing with a kid who was his teenage intern, the newly re-elected Senator Jon Ossoff

HE LEARNED FROM THE BEST 💙 When Jon Ossoff was just 16, he read John  Lewis's memoir and was SO inspired, he wrote a letter to the congressman to  request a meeting.

And Paralympics gold-medal winner, Spina Bifida survivor and newly-elected Senator from Iowa, Josh Turek.

Josh Turek, Shooting for the U.S. Senate - ABILITY Magazine

It’s cause to celebrate.  And time to give at least one other person hope.

Linda Ronstadt – “Blue Bayou”

Oh, and P.S. – Did you know that the newly elected Iowa Gov. Rob Sand helped pay for his college education as a print and runway model, in Paris and Milan, for, among other brands…. Prada?

You’re welcome.

VOTE

There are two political philosophies that I live by. 

The first is printed over a drawing of the American flag on a framed poster that hangs on the door of my office.  It reads:

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism – Howard Zinn.

Howard Zinn on History, Dissent, Democracy, and More – BIG OTHER
Thank you Uncle Howie

I bought it somewhere a little over 15 years ago (Note: Do the political math and you can figure out why) in utter frustration over where I feared the country was headed.

It wasn’t as if I thought a poster would do much but at least it would remind me, and whoever entered my lair, that voicing a counter opinion about anything is a time-honored tradition and a significant contribution to society.

Little did I imagine…well…so many things…

Dumpster Fire GIFs | USAGIF.com
You know… current times

It wasn’t about Mr. Zinn – though no surprise I’d be drawn to a fellow Jew from the boroughs of NYC who was a prolific teacher and leading writer on the civil rights, labor and anti-war movements. A man who self-described as something of an anarchist, something of a socialist and maybe a democratic socialist.

I might not be fully enough any of those for my taste (Note: These days I can’t figure out where I stand other than thoroughly and angrily disgusted)  but I sure do lean more in that direction than towards the side of blind fascism, rabid racism and an aspiring oligarchical billionaire class. (Note: Please know this is the first, and hopefully last time, I’ll ever used oligarchical in a sentence).

Best Animations
Putting down my quill, for now

As for the second philosophy:

Well, it’s emblazoned on a t-shirt I bought back in the late eighties or early nineties, aka The Plague Days. Sure, it’s a bit old, a bit faded and perhaps a bit dated to some. But then again, so am I.

It reads:

Freedom is the distance between Church and State.

When Freedom Of Religion Becomes Freedom Of Insanity
The wall I support

It’s almost 40 years old, and I purchased it in a store I don’t remember, but I do know it was long before you could order anything online from a touch phone. What I do recall is that, at the time, I was even more apoplectic than I was when I purchased the poster.

And it was over what the Rev. Jerry Falwell or the Rev. Pat Robertson or the Christian theocrat politicos like Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley, Jr. were running around saying about gay people night and day while huge percentages of us were dying of AIDS.

Our immorality, our danger to children, their legislation to have our rights stripped and perhaps our bodies quarantined.  Proclamations about sin and lies about the country not being secular but instead rooted in a type of dogmatic fundamentalism that goes against every philosophical principal our Founding Fathers (Note: And mothers in the background) had intended.

The non-looping elmo fire meme has bothered me for YE[A]RS ...
You know those old chestnuts

Lies, all of it, but lies that, at the time, threatened to be accepted as truth.

I knew the t-shirt wouldn’t do much but at least it was an advertisement of where I stood. And a reminder that government has nothing to do with the myriad ways any one of us choose or refuse to practice faith. And that anyone seeking to interject their dogma into law, or even the conversation, would get push back from at least one mouthy not very tall guy from Queens and all of the many people who thought like me…I mean, him.

Which, I knew, were many.

Mad As Hell GIFs | Tenor
We’re out there

All of the above is my way of saying prior to Election Day this week that it feels especially good to speak up in times when you’re frustrated, angry, pissed off, over it or trying so hard to hold it together that you fear if you let it out you will explode and spend the rest of your life in jail for murder.

You won’t. 

Because even better than buying a poster or wearing a T-shirt the best way to safely express all of it, and more, is to:

VOTE.

Vote : r/rupaulsdragrace
Tell ’em Ru

Sure, it doesn’t always feel like much when you do.  But it’s the ultimate golden ticket that, en masse,  keeps democracy flowing.  And you sane.

And yes, of course democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, as Winston Churchill was quoted as saying to the British House of Commons after the end of World War II and the defeat of Hitler.

But it’s all we have.

Ad exchanges still have quality problems - Digiday
We can at least try!

And the VOTE is the one thing we ALL have to keep it going. 

It WILL count and BE counted as long as enough of us do it and demand it happen.

So just do it.

Not in a Nike way.

In the most singularly American way.

Five Days Left to Vote! – Tidelines
Do it! Do it! Do it!

And then buy all the snidely insurgent posters and T-shirts you want and put them on display anywhere you so choose.

Because that’s what freedom is about.

Provoking people.

Among so many other things.

The Beatles – “Come Together”