We usually open our endorsements with a pep talk! About the importance of voting! The power of voting! The glories of democracy!
But! Fuck! That!
Voting is still important and it’s still glorious, of course, and the Stranger Election Control Board (SECB) remains its usual peppy, foul-mouthed, pot-addled self. It’s just that we don’t have to talk you into voting. Not this year. Not these midterms.
Maybe it’s the weight of living in a country where kids sit in cages, tax breaks are handed out to billionaires, and our constitutional right to abortion is probably toast. Maybe it’s the listening to pundits obsess over “civility” while Nazis and white supremacists win GOP nomination contests across the country. Maybe, closer to home, it’s watching Democrats use their newfound majority in the state legislature to hide their records from public view when they aren’t placating anti-transit drivers or doing jack shit to address a tax structure that burdens the state’s poorest citizens. Or maybe it’s the giant orange turd—Orange Julius Caesar, Cadet Bone Spurs, Hair Führer—in the Oval Office.