In 2004, I and others in the United States of Canada were dismayed about the prospect of Bush 43 winning another term. He symbolized the political power of conservatives and evangelicals, who at the time I saw as an existential threat. Remember that in 2000, the US Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida, voting along partisan lines, essentially giving the election to the conservative Bush instead of the seemingly progressive Al Gore. This cycle, we glued ourselves to electoral-vote.com and hoped for the calculus that would allow John Kerry to emerge the victor. The hope was in vain: Jesusland had the electoral votes to carry the day.
For me there was one website in particular that captured the spirit of the day: JohnKerryIsADouchebagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com. My aim is to capture this spirit for a new generation, to rally support around this cycle’s delightfully default Democratic candidate. I am of the understanding that there are a lot of people who do not like Donald Trump [citation needed] and so I would like to provide this as a platform for them to express their views.
I should disclose that I, the website creator, am Canadian. I have nothing to do with this election, although I naturally can’t help having opinions about it. If this becomes as great a scandal as the Russians’ activities in 2016, I may have to formally hand the operation over to a United Statesian friend. But in general, I have the stance that cross-border communication about politics is permissible (and I’m engaging in it), but coercing people, wilfully publishing misleading information, and hacking voting systems is reprehensible. (By the way, electronic voting is a bad idea. People should adopt the Canadian system.) There’s a distinction between influence and interference. I am going to endeavour, however, to have as much content as possible be written by Real Americans, as this is primarily about them and their amazingly successful and powerful country that perhaps could be better still.
I hope the discourse is fruitful and that, whatever happens with the election result, we continue in the direction of niceness, community, and civilization.