The absolute shit show that has been the UK's THIRD election since 2015 in Brexistential Breakdowns

I don’t know where to start with this one. Fuck, I don’t even know how to cope with this one; normally in the run-up to elections I’ve been able to find a wee smidge of cautious optimism from somewhere, even if the overwhelming zeitgeist was righteous fury or suffocating misery, but this time? This time it’s just fear. Of the unknown, of what happens next, of the dawning reality of just how out completely of tune with reality large swathes of my fellow Brits are that they can look at the swirling miasma of corruption, greed, lies and incompetence that has taken corporeal form in the globulous, sweating mass of lard and flesh that is Boris Johnson and everything that he has done in both his political career in general and the run-up to this election in particular and still think “yeah, he gets my vote”.

Because where do you start with that? Where can I even begin to break down the overwhelming volume of acts and incidents that should rightly and emphatically brand this man, whom polls indicate will be our PM on December 13th, completely unfit to run a public toilet, let alone the fucking country? And how do I explain to everyone else, especially people not caught in this damp and fetid bog of tea and xenophobia, why this is happening? I mean, in the strictly “X happened, followed by Y” sense, sure, I could outline the sequence of events that led from the 2015 campaign season to now, but that just tells you what happened, it doesn’t explain why, and it’s the why of the matter that’s more important, because it’s that which lets you make sense of how X and Y came to happen in the first place. You need to know why Cameron pledged a referendum in the first place, you need to know why May called an election, you need to know why “Britain Trump” (Trump, 2019) is leading in the polls against a man who wants to tax rich people and use that money to fund the fucking NHS.

But having said that, I really don’t know if it would help any more, because even when you do know why, it still doesn’t make sense, and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes, and you end up having to search for greater and wider-ranging explanations and reasons and rationalisations, and even the act of doing that doesn’t help because even if you find the fucking reasons and rationalisations you’re looking for you realise that nobody else has: where you might have looked for explanations of systemic power imbalances, institutional biases, and how the rich and powerful go about securing further riches and power, other people find “immigrants” as the answer to the question “why is everything in the country and/or my life shit and has been that way since time immemorial/2008?”

Which is a frankly terrifying prospect, because nobody wants to think that the rest of their country could possibly be as fucking prejudiced as that, especially if you’ve, say, previously studied the psychology of prejudice and what can happen if the extremes are allowed to be reached and made a video about it that’s not had as many views as your criminology one so you’re taking literally any opportunity you can to plug it:

The thought that your country may have some deeply-embedded racial prejudices as a result of previously having the largest empire built mostly on simply going to another country and slaughtering anyone who moans about you being there is fucking terrifying, and causes a significant amount of cognitive dissonance in someone who believes in the inherent good in people and looks for signs of advancing liberalism. The increasing importance of, emphasis on, and progression in the fights for, the rights of women, ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ+ people; the NHS; the significance of human rights, employee’s rights and unionisation; the ability of the state to provide social services and security; the fucking NHS; care for the homeless, the poor, and those in poverty; the motherfucking NHS and how valuable and essential to its continued functioning and existence immigration is; all of those things and more, anything and everything that can possibly be seen as a sign of the increasing liberalisation of society, all seem insignificant in the face of the realisation that a not-insignificant amount of the population of that society harbour racial prejudices, and are simply incapable of easing the cognitive dissonance caused by that realisation.

Because what else is there? What else explains the ability to look at everything that’s gone wrong with the country over the last few years at the hands of the party in power - the cuts to, and underfunding of, literally every public service and council, the brutal years of austerity and everything they begat, the impact of all that underfunding and the social unrest it has caused - and the horrendous, absolutely conniving and shamelessly insulting conduct of the current leader of that party throughout the election season - the interview dodging, the lying and question-evading, the suppression of the report into Russian interference in our political world, literally fucking everything about him - and think “yeah, I’ll give them my vote”? There is nothing left but the xenophobia-fuelled emboldened nationalism driving Brexit and the desire to “get Brexit done” that explains the current state of our political discourse.

And polluting that discourse is the media, all spewing bias and pushing toxicity with shameless abandon, to the point where the current political editor of the BBC literally broke the law when she spoke about the results of postal votes before the polls had closed, an act that is highly illegal because it’s considered influencing the vote. And it’s terrifying to see the power of the media to distort the perception of reality of its consumers, because it’s so fucking effective at what it does. You know that old line about the lie spreading before the truth has its clothes on? Yeah, that. Under any other circumstance it would be simply depressing to see the effectiveness of the papers and the BBC at poisoning the well, but when the lies being spread are so toxic and so dangerous as they have been, it’s fucking terrifying.

And so I’m scared, like I was after the referendum, because I fear the hate this election has emboldened and empowered to speak with increasing impunity. I was blissful in my ignorance, I always thought that that sort of hate had no place in our society, that the signs of liberalisation I could find were evidence that supported my conclusion, and ever since Cameron conceded ground to the more extreme members of his party and the fear of Farage I’ve struggled to deal with the increasingly imposing reality that is, well, the society that I am part of is still really fucking racist, you guys…

I’m aware I’m saying this from the perspective of a cishet white male who has the luxury of facing literally no systemic prejudice against me throughout my life, and I can’t even begin to comprehend the experience of any of the people who will be affected by this; immigrants and ethnic minorities, people of colour, people who are LGBTQ+, the disabled, the poor, and I’m fucking terrified of what the results of this election will mean to them. It feels like it’s time to fight, and it’s frustrating that I feel physically incapable of doing so, as well as the accompanying impotence of knowing just how huge and powerful the opposition is. And that physical incapability brings with it its own fears: I’m fucking terrified for the future of the NHS that has done so much to try to fix what’s wrong with me at no upfront cost whatsoever and how the result of this election will affect it. I’m ill, I’m officially disabled (I have a blue badge and everything), I need the NHS right now and for the foreseeable future, and the result of this election will profoundly affect my ability to access and receive the treatment I need.

I’m really fucking scared.

I think I’ll wait until after 10pm to post this; unlike Laura Kuenssberg I don’t want to break the law by posting something that might be considered as influencing the vote (and since some people here are British it can be argued that this has the potential to do that), so it might just sit here until after Dimbleby announces the exit polls.

Oh god, I feel sick just thinking about it. It’s currently 9am as I write this, thirteen more hours of feeling like this and then the horror of watching the results coming in throughout the night, and then having to go back into Uni tomorrow for the last day of lectures before we break up for Christmas. Tomorrow we’ll be using the VR facilities and then having a guest lecture about digital forensics for Investigating Crime and Courtroom Processes, and then discussing the use of fMRI scans to investigate the role of language in higher cognitive functions in Cognitive and Neuropsychology lectures. In previous elections I’ve had the luxury of being able to spend a few days after processing the results and the emotional and mental impacts thereof, but this time, after such a huge and significant election, I have to immediately return to normality for seven hours no matter what the result. How do I process it when trying to focus on how computers are forensically examined and the limitations of fMRI research design?

Jesus, I need a smoke…

I think that’s how I’ll cope for most of the day: shameless distraction. Get high, play games, read, whatever it takes to not think about it today. Oh, and as if it wasn’t bad enough as is, today is also the three-year anniversary of my first back op. Three years. I’ve had nine medical appointments this year; for scans and results, for pain management, for steroid injections, all while on a waiting list for an operation that can’t be performed because the NHS is so understaffed that the hospital cannot secure the services of an anaesthesiologist, and yet as cash-strapped as it is after nearly a decade of Tory oversight their services have still cost me nothing. Well, except for parking, but you get the point.

But I can’t keep thinking about it. Had my preachy post on Facebook, gotta roll up, can’t keep obsessing about it today. It’s out of my hands, there’s nothing I can do to affect any change beyond using my vote. I am slightly reassured by the amount of red I’ve seen in people’s windows around here, but on a national level I’m still fucking terrified. I’ll leave this here for now, unpublished, and might come back to it later if I’ve anything to add during the day, then at ten, I’ll post it.

Edit: Went to vote with Mum. It was surprisingly busy, and we saw a lot of people coming and going; there weren’t any queues, unlike has been reported elsewhere, but we figured most people would either vote in the morning, before work, or in the afternoon or evening, after work, so we went around mid-day, specifically half eleven. The women in the polling station said it had been very busy all day, which is surprisingly reassuring to hear.

I’m hoping for a hung parliament, that’s the best-case scenario here as far as I can see. I don’t see Labour winning, and I really hope the Tories don’t, so a hung parliament would be the best outcome. That way the SNP and whatever meagre showing the Lib Dems can manage would come into play, as well as the few Plaid Cymru and Caroline Lucas. See, that’s the problem with being a left-leaning voter, the vote is split, making it easy for Tories to slip in on low turnouts and fractured votes. Broadly, the country is liberal, but the right isn’t as split as the left, so it’s easier for them to steal power.

Or is that just something I’m telling myself to try to ease the dissonance I mentioned earlier?

Second edit: Dozed off for a bit before going to pick up a prescription. On the advice of my neurosurgeon my meds have been increased to help me deal with the pain I’ve been feeling recently, also I’ve had to have another scan because I’ve been in so much pain recently that the neurosurgeon wants to check the state of my back before he’ll operate on me. Nine times this year, and all I’ve paid for is parking, I cannot even begin to do justice to just how incredible and wonderful and amazing our healthcare system is, and when I think about its possible future I feel so sick I should call an ambulance.

There’s an hour and a bit left before the exit polls are announced, I’ve got just enough time to roll and smoke something and then play something. I really want to play bass but honestly my back’s just not up to it, everything’s been really sore recently. Oh god, what if I can’t get treatment? They’re going to fuck up the NHS, and this pain is going to be for the rest of my life, isn’t it?

I really can’t, I’m just tearing myself apart over this. Twitter discourse has been full of images of queues outside polling stations, but that doesn’t mean they’re all voting against the Tories, and the rumours that Johnson is in trouble in his own constituency are just that - rumours. Hope is a lie, truth doesn’t matter any more, I need to go roll up…

Edit the third: Exit polls predict a Tory majority of 368. This is a bigger result than any of Thatcher’s, and the worst Labour result since 1924.

What the fuck is wrong with this country? What does it take?

My Mum has just texted me “we need to riot”, I just replied with “I agree”.

What the actual fuck?