Nov 7, 2020
Definitive Proof That I Am Trapped in the Twilight Zone
And have been for months now
Like many Americans, I am waiting incredibly impatiently for the results of the Presidential election that took place on 3 November 2020. I told myself I would stay off of Donald Trump’s Twitter, that I would log out of all social media, that I would distract myself with work and video games until my dad called to tell me who won.
However, seeing as it was been three full days since polls closed on Tuesday, I gave up on that pipe dream. I certainly haven’t been on Instagram as much as I normally am but I have been staying up to date on Twitter and refreshing my Google search of “Election Results” every twenty minutes. You know, just in case.
And just like many other Americans, I am also impatiently waiting for Covid-19 to settle down so that I can dick around Target as much as I want again. I’ve been waiting since March.
Over the last several weeks, I have gathered four key pieces of data that prove that I am trapped in my own version of the Twilight Zone, which I am going to share with you all today.
1. Wearing a mask has been proven to help protect citizens against the coronavirus, yet people continue to not wear them.
The Center for Disease Control, Dr. Fauci, and every doctor at John’s Hopkins has said it. If you wear a mask, you are not only protecting yourself, but you are protecting everyone around you.
I seem to be the only person in my (very conservative) home town that understands this simple fact. You wear a mask — over your nose and mouth — and you don’t you or other people sick. Easy, right? Apparently not.
I can’t go to the grocery store anymore without seeing at least half a dozen people wearing masks on their chins, or pulling them down to speak to cashiers. Believe you me, the cashier and everyone around you can hear you just fine. You don’t have to pull down the mask. It’s not sound proof.
2. Trump declared that mail-in voting was going to result in a fraudulent election and advised his cultist following to vote in person, and is now flabbergasted as to why he is losing in swing states after absentee ballots are being counted.
For days now the world has been waiting on Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia to finish counting votes. All are leaning blue, but things are still up in the air until every vote is counted.
Math is by no means my strong suit, but I know that when you count more, the numbers go up. Why is it that Trump and all Trump-Republicans seem to think
The entire Republican Twitter-sphere is littered with Breitbart lies about how absentee voting is illegal. I find it quite funny how absentee voting has been an option and a regular occurrence in elections for 100 or so years now, yet this year it’s somehow illegal. These tweets will certainly go down in the history books.
3. Larry Hogan opened up Maryland much faster than he had originally projected, and now our numbers are surging.
I live in a small Republican town in Maryland, which makes Larry Hogan my governor. Now I’m a registered Democrat and a self-identified radical nasty woman. But I voted for Hogan last time he ran for reelection because he tends to be very moderate and goes with the flow.
In early April, I was proud of the way my state was handling the pandemic. Hogan issued a mask mandate, he issued a Stay at Home order, and only essential workers were able to go out and about. We could go to the grocery store but pretty much everything else was closed for safety. Hogan published a “roadmap to recovery” that gave certain milestones for opening restaurants and stores back up.
While he has mostly followed this roadmap, many have claimed that he is opening Maryland back up too quickly; including myself. On 5 November 2020, Hogan held a press conference to update the state on Covid-19. Always the optimist, I hoped that Hogan would respond to the State’s concerns about rising numbers (around a 4.7% positivity rate as of 6 November 2020, up from 3.9% on 3 November 2020) with another Stay at Home order, or possibly reduce store capacity back to 50%. But alas, he did not.
Hogan did say “wear the damn masks” which made me and my husband audibly gasp, but other than that, the press conference was nothing short of pointless. It still boggles my mind how Hogan can tweet about numbers being up and still wonder out loud about why. You know why, Governor. It’s because you gave counties the power to decide what to do about opening, just like the President did. You don’t want to be held responsible.
My county is up by 80% in positivity according to Hogan’s press conference. He keeps saying that it is up to the people to slow the pandemic spread, but without some orders, people aren’t going to follow the rules. People are selfish.
4. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court a week before Election Day even though when Obama wanted to confirm a judge eight months before the 2016 election it was shot down.
My issue with Barrett being a judge is a whole other story itself. My problem that I want to focus on here is that the entire process was hypocritical.
Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said: “Nearly every Republican in this chamber led by the majority leader four years ago refused to even consider the Supreme Court nomination of a Democratic president on the grounds … that we should wait until after the presidential election because the American people deserved a voice in the selection of their next justice…there is no escaping this glaring hypocrisy.”
Obama wanted to confirm Merrick garland during an election year and the Senate refused to hold hearings because it wouldn’t be fair to the next President.
Okay, cool. Fine.
But somehow it’s okay for Trump to fill the seat days before the election?
Worse more, the nomination and confirmation comes mere weeks after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, whose last dying wish was that her seat not be filled until after the election. Now whether you believe in honoring last wishes or not, the fact still stands that the seat should not have been filled during an election year, just as Obama was not allowed to fill it.
The worst thing about being in the Twilight Zone is that you feel alone. And I certainly feel alone in this. I know there are more people out there who think and feel the way I do, but my feed is riddled with Trumpist propaganda that I feel like the only free thinker in America.
