November 3, 2024

Sunday, November 3, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

The Right Way to Deal With Election Stress.

Everyone's got a suggestion for how to de-stress. Alternatively, you could stress. This is stressful!

We’re in the breathless final stretch of this election—when new poll analyses drop seemingly every five minutes, “closing arguments” that contain no new information receive detailed reviews, homepages transform into liveblogs, opinion pages swing wildly between imagining different scenarios, and almost none of it is useful because there simply isn’t much to do other than wait until Election Day. Or rather Election Week: Chances are that we won’t know for days, or even longer, whether the White House will return to a guy who tried to overturn the last presidential election.

In fact, at this stage of the election cycle, The New York Times’ dining section, with its recommendation of what cookies to bake while watching election night coverage, arguably contains more new and useful information than most politics sections: At least you get some tips about baking with brown butter.

But this year, many outlets have added a new genre of article to the mix: how to handle election stress. Experts interviewed by ABC News suggest that people sleep, limit news and social media consumption, and “focus on concrete tasks that they have control over, like helping get people registered to vote or participating in canvassing.” People interviewed by the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida, likewise endorse action—and also prayer. Austin news station KXAN suggests people adopt a “day-by-day approach” and use “I” statements when “setting boundaries” with family and friends regarding political discussions. Psychologists in particular had a lot of advice: how to identify the root of your anxiety, “boost optimism up until the last minute,” relax via “deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, aerobic exercise, a warm bath, relaxing music, a walk in nature.” An article from the meditation app Headspace, unsurprisingly, suggested meditation. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus said that she knits, “compulsively.”

Your mileage with all these suggestions may vary. Personally, I found even collecting them to be overwhelming. (And that’s not ideal, given that my boss wrote Monday that we have a moral duty not to panic.)

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about a pair of essays Mary Annaïse Heglar wrote for TNR four years ago: the first about how mourning climate change prepared her to weather the Covid-19 pandemic, and the second about how being both a “climate person” and “a Black climate person” affected her perspective on the 2020 presidential election. Mary is emphatically not a “doomer”—i.e., someone who sees all the bad news and figures it’s time to give up.

But in these essays, she emphasized the importance of fully acknowledging the weight of the moment, rather than trying to ignore it. “This is painful,” she wrote in March 2020 about Covid and the climate crisis. “It’s supposed to be. We are suffering through a collective trauma. We’re watching our world change, and it feels like it’s falling apart. That’s not supposed to feel OK: It’s not OK. As hard as it is, as painful as it is, we have to accept the reality of our crisis. Denial, often a critical step in the grieving process, is not an option.”

Her assessment of the 2020 election was similarly unflinching. Being a climate writer means understanding just how high the stakes are, and that there’s no such thing as putting the crisis on “pause” for four years. Instead, as writer and activist Bill McKibben has repeatedly observed, in his newsletter The Crucial Years, these next years are more vital than ever—and merely failing to act during this time will put us on a very dangerous path.

“This election,” as Mary put it, “is less about whether we should act on climate than how we should act on it. Should we act with compassion or with cruelty? Given that our national commitment to democracy has become debatable, this election is also about whether we even have the ability to act on climate in any meaningful way in the future.” Against all that, her message was simple: “This past weekend, on the first day of early voting in New York City, I stood in line for more than five hours to vote like my life depended on it. Because it does.”

That’s not a warm bath. On the other hand, it is an “I” statement, and I’d argue it does engage with the “root” of election anxiety. It’s also a kind of optimism. As Mary put it, “I’ll take a shot in hell over a shot to the head any day.”

It’s a line worth meditating. (Heather Souvaine Horn, The New Republic, Nov. 1, 2024).

One more thing.

Given Trump’s threat of a firing squad aimed at Liz Cheney should the MAGA aspiring dictator win this election, we need to recognize that “I’ll take a shot in hell over a shot to the head any day.” may not be theoretical.

Is there an answer to anxiety about that? Sorry but I don’t see one.

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Kamala on SNL last night.

Touch to watch.👇

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Where will Kamala be the next 3 days?

TODAY: Litiz, PA, Kinston, NC, Macon, GA
MONDAY: Raleigh, NC, Reading, PA Pittsburgh, PA , Grand Rapids, MI, Philadelphia, PA.

Howard University, Washington DC, Election evening.

Kamala’s closing ad.

Michelle Obama was overwhelming in Norristown, PA last night. 👇

https://www.youtube.com/live/qijahkpGUoM?si=8epqSijqPApB_k3N

There is still work to do to help Kamala.

Take a bus to Pennsylvania
Call as many people that you can in Pennsylvania. Ask them if they have voted. If they haven’t, help them make a plan.
Your call will matter. 👇

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Ballot curing in America.

NPR’s pretty encyclopedic account of what ballot curing is.

What is ballot "curing"? How voters can fix their ballots.)

https://www.voteamerica.org/ballot-curing/

Many states allow remote “curing.” For example, you can sign up to cure votes remotely in Michigan today, Monday and Wednesday.

They will train you.

Here is a link 👇 with a list to “curing” in many states. Many limit volunteers to in-person “curing,” but some are happy if you “cure” from your living room. 😁

Be a hero. Cure a ballot. Help make every vote count.👇

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1KY4vAQzhM

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Your Daily Reminder

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

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One more thing.

Op-ed by the Vice President in the Pittsburgh Tribune.

Vice President Kamala Harris: A president for all Americans.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvanians have the chance to choose between a president who will fight for you or one focused only on himself.

I remember my mother sitting at our kitchen table, with a pile of bills in front of her, cup of tea in hand, trying to figure out how to make it all work, like so many Americans. My top priority will be lowering costs for you and your family.

As your president, I’ll cut taxes for more than 100 million middle-class Americans. Enact a federal ban on price gouging to lower the cost of groceries. Cap the price of insulin and limit out-of-pocket prescription costs for all Americans.

I’ll make housing more affordable. Expand Medicare to cover home health care and protect the retirement our seniors have earned. Lower the cost of child care, cut taxes for small businesses and bring down health care costs.

You deserve a president who respects the fundamental freedom of Americans to make decisions about their own bodies without their government telling them what to do. So when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, I will sign it into law.

My pledge to you is this: I will be a president for all Americans. To always put country above party and above self.

I am humbly asking for your vote, because I know that together we can turn the page on this divisive era of politics and start writing the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee for president.

Touch to watch. 👇

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