My brain is so fritzy this morning. I keep attempting to use it to do other things (Christmas shopping, maybe write a baby-name post), but all I can do is scroll Twitter. I remember the Bush/Gore situation in 2000, when we waited more than a MONTH for election results—and part of it is that I wasn’t paying much attention back then, and part of it was that I had a baby and couldn’t focus on anything else anyway, but all I remember is thinking “Wow, it’s so weird we still don’t know who’s president!” There wasn’t any stress about it, just a sort of amused surprise. I double-checked with Paul, and he remembers the same: it was kind of NEAT and INTERESTING that we didn’t know who was president yet, but not STRESSFUL—and, he said, he hadn’t remembered it took over a month. (I wouldn’t have been able to say how long it took, either; I would have said “Weeks? I think?”) This time, every day feels SO LONG.
There was a shift on Twitter last night. If you’re not on Twitter: scrolling Twitter is kind of like being at a giant party, and there is definitely a MOOD to that party, and it changes. Sometimes it’s wayyyyyy too worked up and panicky and I leave almost right away; other times everyone’s sitting around quietly, drinking too much wine and being morose and commiserative; other times there’s a lot of jokes and silliness and memes of cute guys and re-watching that Tom Holland “Singing in the Rain” video; and so on.
Last night there was a sort of hepped-up joyful energy I haven’t seen in awhile, like we got a taste of REAL HOPE for the first time in years. I think it was a combination of an increased certainty of a Biden win, plus various media outlets finally, finally, finally calling out our current president’s lies AS lies, without that “Well, what TRULY IS ‘a lie’?” stuff. I wish they’d done more of that the last five years (at this point there’s more of a rats-deserting-sinking-ship feeling to it), but I’ll take what I can get, and Twitter-in-general seemed to feel the same. There was a sort of suppressed, anticipatory GLEE happening. We’re all traumatized by 2016, so no one wants to have too much faith—but on the other hand, it seems to be Really Happening. Anyway, it was a delight, and very much like going to a Really Good Party.
Perhaps we will know the results of the election TODAY! And perhaps the violent coup won’t happen after all!
I still don’t believe it, somehow.
I still can’t believe it, I guess. I’m worried my heart can still be broken.
Same. I am still protecting my heart because I don’t think I can take it if this somehow goes sideways (even farther than it already has I mean)
Ditto.
The race was just called for Biden in certain outlets, and the Secret Service crew that beefs up the team to President-Elect size has just been dispatched. I think it’s basically already over at this point.
That’s a great description of the Twitterverse-I had to log off immediately last night but the atmosphere is totally different (obv) this morning. I follow Sarah Cooper (the woman who does the Trump lip-synch/impressions), and she recently joked that no one should be retweeting anything older than 30 seconds and that kind of sums up how Twitter is different than other social media environments. It’s more “live” and more like a party/in-person experience.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed me explaining Twitter to you when we have followed each other for probably 10 years now!
Really hopeful for some peace if not happiness this weekend!
I live in GA and my sister lives in PA. I am grinning SO widely today!! *fist pump* I think we’re going to pull it off!
OOH Georgia! Are you ready to flip the senate in January?
You summed it up so perfectly.
I got married in October 2000, and was so caught up in the blur of being young and married that I barely remember any of that election year. I know I voted for Gore. I remember “Hanging Chads” being a popular Halloween costume that year.
Hanging chads would have been popular in 2001, though, right? Since the election was after halloween?
Someone down the street has a Biden/Harris sign that I have’t seen anywhere else. It says “BIDEN HARRIS Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead.” I think this is such a nice sentiment, and such a perfect refutation of the “Make America Great Again (Again)” slogan that I chalked it on the driveway today.
This is awesome, thank you for sharing.
I can’t accomplish anything. I don’t know what day it is or what I was supposed to be doing. But, I’m still going, so there’s that. And the rainbow sock yarn arrived, which is lovely.
I signed up to write letters to GA voters today to fix the senate conundrum.
2000 I lived in NOLA. I have zero idea what I was up to but politics had zero to do with it.
It’s been hard to concentrate this week. More news outlets are calling Biden the projected winner and that’s giving me hope.
In 2000 a lot of us still had dial up internet! Up to the minute news wasn’t as much of a thing. I worked for a dotcom and would wait to go into work to check on the news. I also remember it as a “the reasonable elected officials can be trusted to act like adults” type of vibe and wow, those were simpler times.
Just after the 2000 election I was in West Palm Beach, Florida (home of all most of the election issues that year!) for my cousin’s bar mitzvah. I remember all of the TVs in the hotel lobby blaring endless hanging chad commentary. The image of that guy squinting at that ballot is burned into my brain. I almost talked to SEVERAL people, including a doctor, who had accidentally voted for the wrong people thanks to Florida’s wonky ballots.
My father died in Nov 2000 and one of the first thoughts I had were he will never know who won the election.
Right now I’m on a self-imposed social media blackout (hooray for avoidance/denial). I’ve had to tell folks to stop texting me their political observations, speculations and conspiracy theories. Seriously people, I only want to hear one thing. And then I want to have a good cry.
I just showed my daughter how the numbers are trending and she said “The gap is Bidening!” and we high-fived. She’s 14. In 2020 I was 27 and may have been dimly aware there was an election going on down in the US at the time, but I couldn’t swear to it. Now we’re all riveted! We’re like that meme of Canadians eating ketchup chips and watching through our windows as it snows!
I had to quit Twitter a month or so ago and I miss it SO MUCH. It was just giving me too much anxiety. I switched to instagram, and am slowly remembering things I followed on Twitter and finding them there (the good things, like WeRateDogs and such).
Also @Shawna, “the gap is Bidening” made me snort-laugh. Give your daughter a high five from me too.
I have a very different memory of the Gore/Bush situation which I find so interesting. I remember the whole situation being extremely devastating and shocking. However, I was 30 with no major life events going on so maybe that is why it affected me more than some of the others who’ve shared? It was the first time since 1888 that a president lost the popular vote, he ultimately won with only 271 electoral votes and the supreme court stopped the recount because it was taking too long (and they voted 5 conservatives – 4 liberal) not for any other valid legal reason. For me, Bush’s whole 1st term felt completely illegitimate and I was devastated when he actually won a second term. Of course, Trump came along and made George w. Bush look like a Rhodes scholar. Here’s an article about it for those interested: https://www.history.com/news/2000-election-bush-gore-votes-supreme-court
I remember it this way, too! I was just sick about the tricky Florida ballot that had made some people vote for the wrong person and others not vote hard enough (so weird, but that was the thing about the chads — you had to really PRESS THEM OUT). I was so enthusiastic about Al Gore and so appalled by George Bush. The level for appalled has obviously changed a lot but, as Will Ferrell reminded us on SNL, George Bush was terrible. Not DT-level terrible, but not good.
I remember that feeling of illegitimacy. I remember reading the news of Dubya’s orders and gaffs and feeling so embarrassed by his representation of our country on the world stage. Ugh. And THAT was simpler times??
I just wanted to add that everything was being reported minute by minute by the 24 hours news cycle in 2000. Plus you had more active newspapers so there was a lot of information being given out and it was all at different levels of frequency which added to the confusion. So there was definitely the possibility of being overwhelmed by the news (or at least that is my memory). Part of the issues with the election occurred because the various channels were competing to report their info first which is why some of the confusion occurred. Also, in 2000 this was a complete surprise. While in 2020 thanks to the Pandemic, everyone knew it was going to take days to get results. In fact, many states (including the one I live in) completely altered the way voting occurred because of the Corona virus so it was anticipated that things would be slower. Not to mention our current president has been telling us for weeks that he will NOT accept any election results unless he wins the election. I am just relieved that we are trending in the right direction and there don’t seem to be any legitimate legal challenges for our current president to make. I really need him to become the one term president he was always destined to be (and I put him in the column of presidents where I even question if that should have occurred).
I was 20 in the 2000 election, didn’t vote, and would have proudly said that I didn’t follow politics. I had no idea of the privilege needed to make that statement, and I would have gotten defensive and angry if someone pointed it out. I cringe to think about it now.
I guess if one positive thing can be said for social media, it’s that it has really opened a lot of people’s eyes (mine included) to things they would have otherwise remained ignorant of.
I have been thinking about you all day!
Woohoo!!!
I was 20 and living in Australia so don’t have strong memories of the 2000 election… Except that Jay Leno did a bit where he had audience members running around frantically trying to count the number of chairs in his theatre. They all kept coming up with different numbers and having to start again and I found it funny enough that it struck in my brain for 20 years. But I’m a person who has to count eggs our loud when making a cake so I sympathize.
The sense here in Australia has been terrible stress and depression early in the week followed by exhausted relief. Thank God sanity has prevailed. Knock on wood.
I did find the 2000 election very stressful. I was pregnant with my eldest at the time and I just remember being very emotional about it, crying a lot, and then being so crushed when it went to Bush.