The Blue Wave and jokes from the watch

Small background: "blue wave" is the term used today by CNN to describe the election results yesterday and their aftermath. Unlike CNN, we saw it first hand as election officials.

Folks who loved the Cold War are ever so delighted lately about the use of Russia as a universal scapegoat and universal taboo, almost like the McCarthy period revived, even as the John Birch Society has done much better than anyone imagined possible back in the 1960s. But the real situation in Russia, as in all large nations, is much more complicated. Even at its worst, and most sensitive, Russia has lots of folks who appreciate certain kinds of jokes. The "blue wave" was accompanied by many of those.

One starts from Jerry Falwell today, who has said "DC should annex Arlington." (I don't THINK the 80% vote for Northram in Arlington decided the outcome here, but I haven't run THOSE numbers.) The first echo is a joke:"Most realistic proposal for DC statehood we have ever heard. Do a bipartisan deal where Dems get DC statehood LINKED TO their taking Arlington with them, and maybe even a little more of blueest Virginia, for Falwell. Who would really object with real power?" The counterjoke: "Hey, that's the best plan ever for a military coup d'etat finally getting rid of the last vestiges of democracy in the US. All you have to do is tell all the troops working for the Pentagon and the CIA (and a few other unnamed folks) that they will have to pay DC taxes and send their kids to DC public schools, and they will be ripe for Cheney's minions to lead them quickly into outright restructuring." (Guess what kind of federal employees are most common in Arlington, especially now that they have gotten rid of NSF from here?)

More seriously, Luda and I both signed up to work as election officials, and of course went through the required hoops to relearn the strict rules which Virginia now has. We woke up at 4AM, and were delighted that we were allowed to go home as early as 8 to 8:30, much earlier than we could after the Presidential election last year. Also delighted that it was possible because things went so incredibly smoothly, maybe in part because these were more experienced voters, and maybe in part because election officers and voters are both more familiar with the new systems in Virginia, introduced back when debates about fraud and hacking led the state to beef up security a few years ago. Almost everyone had a Virginia driver's license (a picture ID) or Virginia ID card (which looks the same for nondriver), easily scanned into a barcode checker which gives extra checks, or a US government military photo ID. In the few slack times when we were manning the poll books, Luda and I had friendly conversations with the poll watchers behind us, mainly just a Republican watcher, and she was upset today to hear I did not get his email address or tell her yesterday after our discussions of economics.

The long lines in the morning became a bit tricky to handle at times, especially given the sudden intense cold and rain outside (first cold day of the year). In truth, I enjoyed meeting neighbors and famous local people, and seeing them smile when I gently showed where to go when they were initially a bit confused. ("What happened to voting ON a computer? Why four stages?). Luda says I was running around like a smiling puppy.  And of course, no tense partisan debates; when one woman pleaded with me for information on whom to vote for, I did gently cite Virginia law forbidding us from even giving away our personal views. But I did tell one guy how much I liked his economics textbook, which I used many years ago when teaching graduate classes on policy analysis at the University of Maryland. Did my puppy good vibes actually help turnout in some esoteric way? Who knows. But all of us felt a bit like a winning football team towards the end of the day, when our "score" for how many people voted seemed to be breaking records.

Knowing the people, and knowing what they have been debating, I am skeptical about the interpretations I have heard on CNN, from analysts from both parties. Yes, a lot of people in this area know how money (and a few of the more confused billionnaires, who may or may not always know what their money has been buying) are not only wasting money but seriously interfering with national security. But they have mostly NOT become clones either of Trump or of Sanders. When I heard one of the Sanders folks gushing about the new order in detail this morning, my instant reaction: "If they had put HER on CNN the past few days, Northram would have come in third, after Gillespie in second, and a coywolf  in first." (I was going to say "wild hyena" but coywolves are more present in this area.) But in fact, Gillespie has worked hard to prove his loyalty to fake news and the ugliest swamp creatures, and really did that. CNN says "health care" was issue number one, but I wonder what fraction of that was about women's rights and the terrible realistic implications of some of the screwed up proposals we have seen from Congress which Trump meekly tried to sell. People are not stupid in this area, and they did notice the extreme bait-and-switch aspect of the health care plans which folks tried to ram through, which were blatantly pushed by blatant corrupt swamp creatures.

As for conspiracy theories -- a lot of folks in this neighborhood understand BOTH that the Binney stuff we heard about today was crazy, but they also know that this sad planet really is full of conspiracies lately, mainly because of people who no longer seem to have so much commitment as they did in the past to more unifying principles, all over the earth (A GAP WHICH HAS ALLOWED LOTS OF NOISY HYPOCRITES TO fill in part of the political gap, all over the world).

All for now. But for this week: TRY to wrap my full mind around China, and pull away from both basic math and CNN, to be revisited intensely when I get back (or on the final stages of my return).