vox--2020-11-06--America’s anti-democratic Senate, by the numbers

Democrats defeated Republican senators in Arizona and Colorado this year , while Republicans gained a Senate seat in Alabama .
That means that Republicans will control at least 50 seats in the incoming Senate , out of 100 total , assuming Republican incumbent Sens .
Thom Tillis ( NC ) and Dan Sullivan ( AK ) keep their seats , as seems likely .
Both of Georgia ’ s Senate seats are likely to be decided in runoff elections in January .
Wins in North Carolina and Georgia would give Republicans the Senate majority — something they would hold only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ malapportioned to give small states like Wyoming exactly as many senators as large states like California , even though California has more than 68 times as many people as Wyoming .
In the incoming Senate , Democratic senators will represent at least 20,314,962 more people than their Republican counterparts — and that ’ s if we assume that Republicans win both runoff elections in Georgia .
If the two Georgia seats go to the Democrats , the Senate will be split 50-50 , but the Democratic half will represent 41,549,808 more people than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ numbers using 2019 population estimates by the United States Census Bureau .
In states where both senators caucus with the same party , I allocated the state ’ s entire population to that party .
In states where the Senate delegation is split , I allocated half of the state ’ s population to each party .
Although Sens .
Bernie Sanders ( I-VT ) and Angus King ( I-ME ) identify as independent , both Sanders and King caucus with Democrats .
So I coded them as Democratic senators .
You can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One other fact is worth noting .
In the current Senate , Democrats control a majority of the seats from the most populous half of the states ( 26-24 ) .
Republicans owe their current majority to a crushing 29-21 lead in the least populous half of the states .
In the new Senate , Democrats will control between 27 and 29 seats from the most populous half , depending on who prevails in the Georgia runoffs .
Republicans , in other words , would not be in the majority now — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority next year — if not for malapportionment .
The implications of this malapportionment are breathtaking .
Among other things , Justices Neil Gorsuch , Brett Kavanaugh , and Amy Coney Barrett were all nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a bloc of senators who represent less than half of the country .
If the United States chose its leaders in free and fair elections , none of these individuals would serve on the Supreme Court — and it is likely that Democratic appointees would have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Republicans control the Senate in 2021 , the GOP will have the power to prevent Joe Biden from confirming a Cabinet , to block everyone Biden nominates to the federal bench , to prevent Biden from signing any legislation , and even to shut down the government .
This is not what the American people voted for in November .
But it is what a deeply broken Constitution , which effectively gives extra Senate seats to white conservatives in small states , has given us .

Democrats defeated Republican senators in Arizona and Colorado this year, while Republicans gained a Senate seat in Alabama.
That means that Republicans will control at least 50 seats in the incoming Senate, out of 100 total, assuming Republican incumbents Sens. Thom Tillis (NC) and Dan Sullivan (AK) keep their seats, as seems likely. Both of Georgia’s Senate seats are likely to be decided in runoff elections in January.
Wins in North Carolina and Georgia would give Republicans the Senate majority — something they would hold only because Congress’s upper house is malapportioned to give small states like Wyoming exactly as many senators as large states like California, even though California has more than 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
In the incoming Senate, Democratic senators will represent at least 20,314,962 more people than their Republican counterparts — and that’s if we assume that Republicans win both runoff elections in Georgia. If the two Georgia seats go to the Democrats, the Senate will be split 50-50, but the Democratic half will represent 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.
I derived these numbers using 2019 population estimates by the United States Census Bureau. In states where both senators caucus with the same party, I allocated the state’s entire population to that party. In states where the Senate delegation is split, I allocated half of the state’s population to each party. Although Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) identify as independent, both Sanders and King caucus with Democrats. So I coded them as Democratic senators.
You can check my work using this spreadsheet.
One other fact is worth noting. In the current Senate, Democrats control a majority of the seats from the most populous half of the states (26-24). Republicans owe their current majority to a crushing 29-21 lead in the least populous half of the states. In the new Senate, Democrats will control between 27 and 29 seats from the most populous half, depending on who prevails in the Georgia runoffs.
Republicans, in other words, would not be in the majority now — and they certainly would not be in the majority next year — if not for malapportionment.
The implications of this malapportionment are breathtaking. Among other things, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were all nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a bloc of senators who represent less than half of the country. If the United States chose its leaders in free and fair elections, none of these individuals would serve on the Supreme Court — and it is likely that Democratic appointees would have a majority on the Court.
Similarly, if Republicans control the Senate in 2021, the GOP will have the power to prevent Joe Biden from confirming a Cabinet, to block everyone Biden nominates to the federal bench, to prevent Biden from signing any legislation, and even to shut down the government.
This is not what the American people voted for in November. But it is what a deeply broken Constitution, which effectively gives extra Senate seats to white conservatives in small states, has given us.


vox--2020-11-06--Why networks haven’t yet called Pennsylvania for Biden

Major news outlets such as the the Associated Press and Fox News have not yet called Pennsylvania — the state that would give Joe Biden the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the presidency — as of 7:40 pm Eastern .
Biden took the lead from President Trump in the Pennsylvania count Friday morning , and soon afterward , Vox ’ s election-calling partner , Decision Desk , called the state for Biden .
But the other major election-calling outfits — NBC News , CBS News , NBC News , Fox News , CNN , the Associated Press , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — have not yet done the same .
As I wrote Friday morning , Decision Desk called Pennsylvania for Biden because its assessment of the votes that remain to be counted — how many there are , where they ’ re coming from , what type of votes they are , and how similar votes have broken down previously — is that the remaining votes will favor Biden strongly .
Decision Desk anticipates Biden ’ s current lead of about 19,400 votes , a 0.29 percent margin , will expand as the count @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already expanded significantly throughout Friday — it was at about 6,500 votes when Decision Desk called the race . )
That expectation is shared by many election wonks .
FiveThirtyEight ’ s Nate Silver tweeted that the outcome in Pennsylvania is “ obvious , ” the Cook Political Report ’ s Dave Wasserman tweeted Friday that there ’ s “ little reason ” to think Biden ’ s Pennsylvania lead won ’ t hold up , and the New York Times ’ s Nate Cohn wrote that “ it seems just a matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is put out of reach ” for Trump .
However , none of the news outlets these analysts are working with — ABC for Silver , NBC for Wasserman , and the New York Times for Cohn — have called Pennsylvania yet .
It ’ s possible that most or all of these outlets are close to calling Pennsylvania , but Biden ’ s lead is just a bit too small at this point for them to feel comfortable doing so .
They may be waiting for Biden ’ s margin of 0.29 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 0.5 percent — the threshold that would no longer mean a mandatory recount — before calling the race .
The Pennsylvania vote count has been agonizingly slow , so it may just be taking a while to get there .
A broader issue here is that it would be extra-embarrassing to incorrectly call the state that decides the presidential race , so even small levels of remaining uncertainty may make the networks gun-shy .
And the quick Fox News and Associated Press calls of Arizona for Biden may have made many a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden will keep his lead there , but Trump has regained significant ground in the count since then ) .
But MSNBC host Steve Kornacki laid out a more extensive case that there ’ s some real uncertainty remaining Friday afternoon : Kornacki ’ s argument is as follows : • Biden ’ s lead is currently small — when he spoke , it sat at 14,000 votes , a mere 0.21 percent margin , though it has since expanded — and the count is not done .
• The remaining tens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will heavily favor Biden .
But there ’ s some uncertainty about exactly how many of them will end up being counted ; some could be rejected .
So it may not pad his lead by as much as some expect .
• Most importantly , Kornacki said , there are reportedly around 100,000 provisional ballots out there in Pennsylvania that add uncertainty to this whole situation .
Provisional ballots are ballots cast when there ’ s some question about whether someone is truly eligible to vote , or some problem with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not yet been counted , and elections officials will eventually have to decide whether to accept or reject them .
The traditional assumption has been that provisional ballots tend to favor Democrats .
But , Kornacki asked , what if this time they don ’ t , due to various technicalities associated with the partisan polarization of mail balloting ?
Kornacki pointed out that a few Republican-friendly places have counted their provisional ballots already , and that they favored Trump .
Note that Kornacki did not say he thinks the larger universe of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He is just saying that he would prefer to see more of them counted to feel totally confident about what ’ s going on with them .
So what is up with those provisional ballots ?
But other analysts do not think it ’ s at all likely that the Pennsylvania provisional ballots will give Trump back his lead , for a few reasons .
First off , provisional ballots are provisional — some of them will be counted and some won ’ t .
Only the ones that actually count will matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the overall number that were cast .
Second , Kornacki emphasized that Trump was doing well in provisional ballots in Trump-friendly counties .
But as Wasserman points out , Trump ’ s performance in these provisional ballots was not really much different from his overall performance in these counties .
This matters because there were also many provisional ballots cast in Democratic-friendly areas — we don ’ t have an exact tally from every county yet , but Philadelphia , Allegheny County , and other areas where Biden has performed very well will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overall total .
If the provisional ballot vote largely resembles the rest of the vote in these areas , then it ’ s Biden who will pick up votes here — a lot of them .
To even make up his current 19,000-vote deficit , Trump would need to win the overall universe of approved provisional ballots across the state handily .
And remember , Biden ’ s lead is expected to grow as tens of thousands more mail votes in Democratic areas are counted .
The more Biden ’ s lead grows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do in approved provisional ballots to make up the gap .
Those pushing for a quicker call think the scenario of Trump utterly dominating provisional ballots statewide is fanciful .
But Kornacki is essentially saying , it ’ s a weird year , it ’ s a small margin , and with so many potential ballots outstanding , it can ’ t hurt to wait a bit longer and get a bit more information .
And we will see how much longer that wait will take .

Major news outlets such as the the Associated Press and Fox News have not yet called Pennsylvania — the state that would give Joe Biden the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the presidency — as of 10:50 pm Eastern.
Biden took the lead from President Trump in the Pennsylvania count Friday morning, and soon afterward, Vox’s election-calling partner, Decision Desk, called the state for Biden. But the other major election-calling outfits — NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, Fox News, CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, and the New York Times — have not yet done the same.
As I wrote Friday morning, Decision Desk called Pennsylvania for Biden because its assessment of the votes that remain to be counted — how many there are, where they’re coming from, what type of votes they are, and how similar votes have broken down previously — is that the remaining votes will favor Biden strongly. Decision Desk anticipates Biden’s current lead of about 28,800 votes, a 0.43 percent margin, will expand as the count continues. (Indeed, it has already expanded significantly throughout Friday — it was at about 6,500 votes when Decision Desk called the race.)
That expectation is shared by many election wonks. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver tweeted that the outcome in Pennsylvania is “obvious,” the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman tweeted Friday that there’s “little reason” to think Biden’s Pennsylvania lead won’t hold up, and the New York Times’s Nate Cohn wrote that “it seems just a matter of time before the race in Pennsylvania is put out of reach” for Trump. However, none of the news outlets these analysts are working with — ABC for Silver, NBC for Wasserman, and the New York Times for Cohn — have called Pennsylvania yet.
Why not?
The Kornacki scenario
It’s possible that most or all of these outlets are close to calling Pennsylvania, but Biden’s lead is just a bit too small at this point for them to feel comfortable doing so. They may be waiting for Biden’s margin of 0.43 percent of the vote to rise above 0.5 percent — the threshold that would no longer mean a mandatory recount — before calling the race. The Pennsylvania vote count has been agonizingly slow, so it may just be taking a while to get there.
A broader issue here is that it would be extra-embarrassing to incorrectly call the state that decides the presidential race, so even small levels of remaining uncertainty may make the networks gun-shy. And the quick Fox News and Associated Press calls of Arizona for Biden may have made many a bit more cautious (it currently looks like Biden will keep his lead there, but Trump has regained significant ground in the count since then).
But MSNBC host Steve Kornacki laid out a more extensive case that there’s some real uncertainty remaining Friday afternoon. (We should note that Kornacki is not actually in charge of these calls — NBC’s Decision Desk is — but he gave the most detailed public explanation of this line of thinking.)
Kornacki’s argument is as follows:
Biden’s lead is currently small — when he spoke, it sat at 14,000 votes, a mere 0.21 percent margin, though it has since doubled — and the count is not done.
The remaining tens of thousands of mail ballots to be counted will heavily favor Biden. But there’s some uncertainty about exactly how many of them will end up being counted; some could be rejected. So it may not pad his lead by as much as some expect.
Most importantly, Kornacki said, there are reportedly around 100,000 provisional ballots out there in Pennsylvania that add uncertainty to this whole situation.
Provisional ballots are ballots cast when there’s some question about whether someone is truly eligible to vote, or some problem with the ballot itself. Most of them have not yet been counted, and elections officials will eventually have to decide whether to accept or reject them.
The traditional assumption has been that provisional ballots tend to favor Democrats. But, Kornacki asked, what if this time they don’t, due to various technicalities associated with the partisan polarization of mail balloting? Kornacki pointed out that a few Republican-friendly places have counted their provisional ballots already, and that they favored Trump.
Note that Kornacki did not say he thinks the larger universe of 100,000 provisional ballots will favor Trump. He is just saying that he would prefer to see more of them counted to feel totally confident about what’s going on with them.
So what is up with those provisional ballots?
But other analysts do not think it’s at all likely that the Pennsylvania provisional ballots will give Trump back his lead, for a few reasons.
First off, provisional ballots are provisional — some of them will be counted and some won’t. Only the ones that actually count will matter, and that will be less than the overall number that were cast.
Second, Kornacki emphasized that Trump was doing well in provisional ballots in Trump-friendly counties. But as Wasserman points out, Trump’s performance in these provisional ballots was not really much different from his overall performance in these counties.
So far in the seven heavily red PA counties that have reported provisionals, they've represented just 0.9% of all ballots and have only broken for Trump by 3.7% more than his share of the other votes (76.1% vs. 72.4%).
Here's why that's probably not good enough for Trump... — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 6, 2020
This matters because there were also many provisional ballots cast in Democratic-friendly areas — we don’t have an exact tally from every county yet, but Philadelphia, Allegheny County, and other areas where Biden has performed very well will make up a large share of the overall total. If the provisional ballot vote largely resembles the rest of the vote in these areas, then it’s Biden who will pick up votes here — a lot of them.
To even make up his current 28,800-vote deficit, Trump would need to win the overall universe of approved provisional ballots across the state handily. And remember, Biden’s lead is expected to grow as tens of thousands more mail votes in Democratic areas are counted. The more Biden’s lead grows, the better Trump would have to do in approved provisional ballots to make up the gap.
Those pushing for a quicker call think the scenario of Trump utterly dominating provisional ballots statewide is fanciful. But the rebuttal was essentially, it’s a weird year, it’s a small margin, and with so many potential ballots outstanding, it can’t hurt to wait a bit longer and get a bit more information. We will see how much longer that wait will take — but later on Friday night, as Biden’s lead expanded, Kornacki increasingly sounded like he’d seen enough.


vox--2020-11-06--Joe Biden breaks record for most votes ever in a presidential election

Joe Biden has defeated President Trump to become the next president of the United States .
And he ’ s gotten the most votes of anyone ever to run for the US presidency .
With more than 74 million votes so far , Biden broke the record previously set by President Barack Obama , who received about 69.5 million votes to win in 2008 .
The 74 million number puts Biden at more than 50 percent of the popular vote , with President Trump taking 48 percent .
Trump has now also passed the 70 million mark .
The 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turnout , with at least 159.8 million Americans voting , according to NBC .
That ’ s the highest turnout rate among eligible voters since 1900 .
This has bolstered both candidates .
Both parties will surely parse the meaning of Tuesday ’ s results in the days and weeks ahead , but one thing is clear : Even in the midst of a pandemic , American voters came out in unprecedented numbers to make their voices heard .
Biden paid tribute to that fact in a speech to the American people on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that democracy is the heartbeat of this nation , ” he said .
“ Here the people rule .
Power can ’ t be taken or asserted .
It flows from the people , and it is their will that determines who will be the president of the United States and their will alone .
”

Joe Biden has defeated President Trump to become the next president of the United States. And he’s gotten the most votes of anyone ever to run for the US presidency.
With more than 75 million votes so far, Biden broke the record previously set by President Barack Obama, who received about 69.5 million votes to win in 2008. The 75 million number puts Biden at more than 50 percent of the popular vote, with President Trump taking 48 percent. Trump has now also broken Obama’s record, having passed the 70 million mark.
The 2020 election is on pace for a record turnout, with at least 159.8 million Americans voting, according to NBC. That’s the highest turnout rate among eligible voters since 1900. This has bolstered both candidates.
Both parties will surely parse the meaning of Tuesday’s results in the days and weeks ahead, but one thing is clear: Even in the midst of a pandemic, American voters came out in unprecedented numbers to make their voices heard.
Biden paid tribute to that fact in a speech to the American people on Wednesday. “Yesterday once again proved that democracy is the heartbeat of this nation,” he said. “Here the people rule. Power can’t be taken or asserted. It flows from the people, and it is their will that determines who will be the president of the United States and their will alone.”


vox--2020-11-06--The 2020 election, explained by TikTok

The 2020 election, explained by TikTok

Election workers all over the country have been doing the most crucial , and least celebrated , grunt work of democracy this week , and we should all appreciate their service .
But according to social platforms like TikTok , the ones in Nevada need to hurry the hell up .
“ The solo ballot counter in Nevada thinking they ’ re the main character rn , ” reads one viral TikTok of a man acting coy while tallying votes .
Another video uses audio of a painfully slow count to 11 to illustrate “ whoever be countin them votes.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the caption on a tweet of a video of the Brian McKnight song “ Back at One.
” In short , TikTok and Twitter were the perfect escape from this week ’ s hellishly long wait for an election result .
There ’ s a reason why the slow drip of information coming from the internet and cable channels was so exhausting : Many of us have low tolerances for uncertainty , which makes living inside one giant gray area for four days straight extremely uncomfortable .
Humans prefer to separate situations into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ right ” and “ wrong , ” and on TikTok , it was very clear who the villains and heroes were ( at least in a tongue-in-cheek way ) .
For starters , the heroes : Georgia .
After the state flipped to blue in the early hours of Friday morning , people began making memes set to songs like Eiffel 65 ’ s “ I ’ m Blue ” and “ Midnight Train to Georgia.
” And it ’ s impossible to talk about state election memes without talking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worshipping celebrities popular among fandoms : The state of Georgia even got its own fancam , featuring peaches , Coke , alligators , and of course , the color blue .
There were fancams for AOC .
There were fancams for CNN map guru John King .
There were fancams for absentee ballots and the concept of electronic ballot scanners .
When NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff asked what a fancam was , my colleague Alex Abad-Santos even made one for him .
Besides evidence that stan culture is mainstream now , the elaborate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a means of pure escapism .
“ These fancams are a way for users to redirect their anxiety , ” Ioana Literat , an assistant professor at Teacher ’ s College , Columbia University told CNN .
“ This stanning , even sexualizing , is so much more lighthearted than just doomscrolling.
” For many young people , this is the first — and easily the weirdest — election they ’ re voting in or paying close attention to .
It ’ s also an objectively chaotic one : Trump supporters are currently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stop the count !
” and conversely “ Count the votes !
” thus living out an exact recreation of an episode of Veep .
Basically , for the bulk of this week , nothing made sense — states would seem to go in one direction then immediately in the other , while news outlets would call the election for certain states at vastly different times .
The only way to divine anything was to turn it into a joke .
TikTokers used popular memes like “ I ain ’ t never seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fun at Virginia and its western neighbor , and another set up an elaborate fake coven depicting a group of servants praying to a screen projection of the state of Nevada ( and more still tried to manifest a blue Texas ) .
Of course , there were young people on social media who took the election seriously ; as the New York Times reported , one member of a TikTok collective called the Libertarian Hype House planned his election livestream outfit in advance ( “ It ’ s my drip outfit , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s what I wear when I want to be dripped out.
” ) .
Yet even as we get more clarity on what the hell actually happened this week — Vox , which uses Decision Desk to call elections , has already called it all for President-elect Joe Biden — the memes and jokes from this week will be a silly reminder of what we all went through together .
Hopefully , it ’ ll still be funny then , too .

Election workers all over the country have been doing the most crucial, and least celebrated, grunt work of democracy this week, and we should all appreciate their service. But according to social platforms like TikTok, the ones in Nevada need to hurry the hell up.
“The solo ballot counter in Nevada thinking they’re the main character rn,” reads one viral TikTok of a man acting coy while tallying votes. Another video uses audio of a painfully slow count to 11 to illustrate “whoever be countin them votes.” “Nevada counting votes” reads the caption on a tweet of a video of the Brian McKnight song “Back at One.”
In short, TikTok and Twitter were the perfect escape from this week’s hellishly long wait for an election result. There’s a reason why the slow drip of information coming from the internet and cable channels was so exhausting: Many of us have low tolerances for uncertainty, which makes living inside one giant gray area for four days straight extremely uncomfortable. Humans prefer to separate situations into “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong,” and on TikTok, it was very clear who the villains and heroes were (at least in a tongue-in-cheek way).
For starters, the heroes: Georgia. After the state flipped to blue in the early hours of Friday morning, people began making memes set to songs like Eiffel 65’s “I’m Blue” and “Midnight Train to Georgia.” And it’s impossible to talk about state election memes without talking about the influence of fancams or compilation videos worshipping celebrities popular among fandoms: The state of Georgia even got its own fancam, featuring peaches, Coke, alligators, and of course, the color blue.
GEORGIA JUST WENT BLUE FOR BIDEN HAVE A BLORGIA FANCAM pic.twitter.com/M0yp4yu0zC — BLORGIA FAN ACCOUNT (@bleorgia) November 6, 2020
There were fancams for AOC. There were fancams for CNN map guru John King. There were fancams for absentee ballots and the concept of electronic ballot scanners. When NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff asked what a fancam was, my colleague Alex Abad-Santos even made one for him.
Besides evidence that stan culture is mainstream now, the elaborate memes passed around this week are likely a means of pure escapism. “These fancams are a way for users to redirect their anxiety,” Ioana Literat, an assistant professor at Teacher’s College, Columbia University told CNN. “This stanning, even sexualizing, is so much more lighthearted than just doomscrolling.”
For many young people, this is the first — and easily the weirdest — election they’re voting in or paying close attention to. It’s also an objectively chaotic one: Trump supporters are currently protesting under the banners of both “Stop the count!” and conversely “Count the votes!” thus living out an exact recreation of an episode of Veep.
Basically, for the bulk of this week, nothing made sense — states would seem to go in one direction then immediately in the other, while news outlets would call the election for certain states at vastly different times. The only way to divine anything was to turn it into a joke. TikTokers used popular memes like “I ain’t never seen two pretty best friends” to poke fun at Virginia and its western neighbor, and another set up an elaborate fake coven depicting a group of servants praying to a screen projection of the state of Nevada (and more still tried to manifest a blue Texas).
Of course, there were young people on social media who took the election seriously; as the New York Times reported, one member of a TikTok collective called the Libertarian Hype House planned his election livestream outfit in advance (“It’s my drip outfit,” he said. “It’s what I wear when I want to be dripped out.”).
Yet even as we get more clarity on what the hell actually happened this week — Vox, which uses Decision Desk to call elections, has already called it all for President-elect Joe Biden — the memes and jokes from this week will be a silly reminder of what we all went through together. Hopefully, it’ll still be funny then, too.


vox--2020-11-06--These memes want Democrats and Republicans to be friends. Good luck!

In the wake of the 2016 election , messages of unity proliferated on the internet .
Bountiful social media posts promoted the idea of being stronger together , urging those across the political divide to move past their minor ( or major ) disagreements .
Particularly memorable was the “ Bob and Sally ” meme , which originated in January 2017 and swiftly gained popularity alongside Trump ’ s inauguration the same month .
The image , which showed stick figures of a man and a woman holding hands and wearing wide smiles , could be found in abundance on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that even though one had voted Democrat ( for Hillary Clinton ) and one had voted Republican ( for Donald Trump , who won ) , “ Bob and Sally are still friends , because Bob and Sally are both adults.
” At the time , this meme received plenty of derision , mainly from leftist voters who believed it trivialized the many issues they had with a Trump presidency .
It also spawned lots of mocking spinoffs and long , incensed Facebook and Twitter comment threads .
After all , as many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s easy to get along when you ’ re not directly impacted by the more dangerous aspects of Trump ’ s presidency — as many white people aren ’ t : In 2020 , as the meme makes the rounds once again following an even more polarized election season , it ’ s clear that the last four years have only heightened these ideological tensions — and that there ’ s no clear consensus from anyone on how to move forward as a united nation , regardless of politics .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ along ” memes have proliferated during election season There weren ’ t just two different political platforms at odds in the 2020 election , there were fundamentally different views of America .
At the center of those polarized sides — one staunchly in support of the Trump administration , one staunchly opposed — remains the idea that after the election is over , we can all move on and be friends again .
And what better way to convey this notion in 2020 than flimsy social media posts : The “ we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been a popular way to try to get past a polarizing election , but over the course of this year , the atmosphere felt much different .
Calls for compromise poured in before Election Day itself , as did blowback against them .
In September , fierce backlash hit CNN ’ s attempt to joke about the nation ’ s polarized status .
Its “ Any room in the middle ?
” promotion drew scorn from its audience .
A meme mocking the idea of “ compromise ” posted in response to CNN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But it was just one of an overwhelming number of replies pointing out that there ’ s not much middle ground to be found between a fair and just society and an administration fueling white supremacy .
The ridicule the CNN tweet received should have served , perhaps , as a warning to anyone looking to try this sort of argument closer to the election , but it seems many people ( and corporations ) didn ’ t get the memo .
As election week neared , examples of this type of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , most quickly notorious instances of failed middle-ground-seeking was a now-deleted Gap tweet that stressed , “ The one thing we know , is that together , we can move forward.
” Attached to the tweet was an image of a ( really ugly ) varsity-style hoodie , half-red and half-blue , emblazoned with the Gap logo , zipping both sides up together .
( The Gap later admitted that the hoodie design was not actually a real Gap product . )
Criticism came swiftly .
Gap ’ s mistake : using the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a complicated and polarizing idea , as well as attempting to commodify and capitalize upon election-related emotions .
One would think that , considering the potential for blowback , people would be discouraged from posting these pleas for compromise .
But people with varying degrees of influence and visibility continue to post this type of compromise-peddling meme online , spawning heated reactions in response .
After having lived through a tense and divisive four years , many people no longer see compromise and unity as a desirable outcome .
The backlash over social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And it ’ s the Bob and Sally meme in particular that seems to have re-emerged as a conduit through which this conflict has played out .
For many on social media , “ Bob ” and “ Sally ” have become ironic symbols for denial , indifference , and privilege The age-old push to find a middle ground has been an ongoing theme throughout the Trump administration .
In one such plea , self-declared Bernie Sanders supporter and urban fantasy writer Connie Huth used the Bob and Sally meme as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Crazy thought , ” she wrote .
“ Sally and Bob could both sit down and actually talk about what the election meant to them beyond the superficial level thrown out as truth by the mainstream media and come to the understanding that both sides want the best for our country.
” But the basic belief underpinning Huth ’ s argument — that “ it ’ s not you vs me , but We the People vs Elected Officials who are taking great advantage of the fear and hate in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in question .
The extremities of the Trump era affect many people on a personal level , from citizens impacted by escalations in hate crimes and violence under his presidency to LGBTQ minorities threatened by his policies to people battling Covid-19 in red states that have done relatively little to blunt the spread of the virus .
Many of the rebuttal variants to the Bob and Sally meme stress this by pointing out that Bob the Republican has implicitly supported some policies most Americans find abominable .
Bob isn ’ t just supporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one who ’ s advanced causes that make life difficult for many sectors of society : Of course , this idea often generated pushback of its own : As the 2020 election neared , many people continued to greet the resurfacing Bob and Sally meme with overt hostility .
The dismissive attitude behind it , critics implied , was part of the reason the era of Trump had been so divisive .
Memes reflect the times that we ’ re in , so it ’ s helpful to understand the many memes peddling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” as a crucial part of the ongoing gaslighting of American citizens .
That might sound to some readers like exactly the type of hyperbolic rhetoric that got us into this mess , but I mean it very literally .
Not only does Trump engage in gaslighting techniques , but , more broadly , there ’ s no longer a clear consensus about what is true , what American values are , or what things we should care about .
This is the kind of gaslighting that arguably began with the presidential lie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has continued ever since , as conservatives increasingly seem to embrace fundamentalist and regressive ideas about human rights .
And if there are many of us who can ’ t forget and forgive , say , when we see Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with George W. Bush , there are even more of us who are simply at a loss when confronted with the blatant racism , science denial , censorship , and authoritarianism of Trump and his administration .
Loren Piretra , whose quote about rejecting attitudes of compromise went viral on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at stake in this election than policy .
“ What this election has exposed is the stark difference in fundamental values between those who supported Trump ’ s hateful , divisive rhetoric and those of us who voted for the future of society and its civility and betterment , ” she told Vox in an email .
“ While this administration ’ s reign will eventually end , it will be a greater challenge to forget those of our friends and relatives , whom we thought we knew and held to a higher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanity .
We always knew Trump lacked scruples ; we didn ’ t expect to personally know people who unabashedly and at times even proudly shared those same ideals.
” The possibility of compromising with people who voted for Trump , especially in 2020 , isn ’ t always feasible .
A tweet from Hannah Chase , a 20-year-old college student from Ohio , went viral on Election Day for suggesting as much : “ This election is historically nothing like the last , ” Chase told Vox .
“ Donald Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ categorize yourself in.
” “ He has made derogatory remarks toward the disabled , the late John McCain who was a veteran , the Black , Latino , LGBTQ+ , Muslim communities , I could go on forever .
People who support this man and think they can be friends with me , the daughter of a Mexican woman who had to teach herself English at 5 , are delusional .
This election is too personal , and Donald Trump made it personal.
” To Chase , supporting Trump is a deal-breaker .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ off because of their political views this election and it ’ s quite sad , honestly , ” she told me .
“ Some of these people I grew up with , some even related .
But my sister is African American , my brother is a little brown boy .
So I feel when people praise Trump , they are discriminating [ against ] us all.
” She pointed out that the Bob and Sally meme and its ilk trivialize the high stakes of this election .
“ It ’ s hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ They make memes and make it a joke .
Eighty percent of those people have never had to live through oppression .
I ’ m sure they have all had their difficulties , as life is never easy .
But a lot of them have never been mistreated for the color of their skin.
” But not everyone takes a scorched-earth approach with Trump supporters .
Dylan , a Biden supporter who asked that I not reveal their real name out of privacy concerns , told me that shunning Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re currently facing go away .
“ There ’ s such a balancing act right now , ” Dylan said .
“ Folks in one camp saying , rightly , ‘ white people need to address the issue of other white people , ’ and folks in the other saying , also with good reason , ‘ there is no point in talking to white Trump voters , they won ’ t change.
’ Seems like a disconnect that will come back to bite us if we don ’ t address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years working as a mediator in divorce settlements , described the process of mediating a divorce in a way that sounded awfully similar to the process of trying to talk politics in 2020 : “ Everyone often starts out unhappy , ” they said .
“ Everyone thinks they are not only right but right in such a way that if they don ’ t get what they want , everything will fall apart .
Everyone is coming from a place of deeply felt emotion.
” To Dylan , meeting people where they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minds — and changing minds is crucial to the future .
“ Scorn notwithstanding , if we want to effect change in future elections , we will have to change the minds of some voters.
” Dylan especially stressed that the onus is on white voters to speak to white relatives and friends , to do the work on behalf of marginalized people with more at stake in the conversation .
Chase agreed — up to a point .
“ After this election , a lot of conversation needs to take place , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people we have had to remove from our lives are willing to listen , that changes things.
” Chase told me that there are plenty of things she ’ s willing to agree to disagree about , like gun control , tax plans , the economy , even social issues like health care , immigration , and police brutality .
But the bottom line for her — and for many of us — is human rights : “ When you say a woman does not have a choice in what happens to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or kill them based on their skin color , when you discriminate against people based on who they choose to love , it ’ s a deal-breaker.
” In short , compromising is complicated .
And even as the presidential election result reveals that Joe Biden won , the tension over these issues continues to stay high .
It looks like Bob and Sally won ’ t be getting together for a pleasant afternoon of tea and community bonding anytime soon .

In the wake of the 2016 election, messages of unity proliferated on the internet. Bountiful social media posts promoted the idea of being stronger together, urging those across the political divide to move past their minor (or major) disagreements.
Particularly memorable was the “Bob and Sally” meme, which originated in January 2017 and swiftly gained popularity alongside Trump’s inauguration the same month. The image, which showed stick figures of a man and a woman holding hands and wearing wide smiles, could be found in abundance on bipartisan Facebook feeds. The meme proclaimed that even though one had voted Democrat (for Hillary Clinton) and one had voted Republican (for Donald Trump, who won), “Bob and Sally are still friends, because Bob and Sally are both adults.”
At the time, this meme received plenty of derision, mainly from leftist voters who believed it trivialized the many issues they had with a Trump presidency. It also spawned lots of mocking spinoffs and long, incensed Facebook and Twitter comment threads. After all, as many were quick to point out then, it’s easy to get along when you’re not directly impacted by the more dangerous aspects of Trump’s presidency — as many white people aren’t:
Bob and Sally are both white. pic.twitter.com/JrYlsLAJqs — Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) February 6, 2017
In 2020, as the meme makes the rounds once again following an even more polarized election season, it’s clear that the last four years have only heightened these ideological tensions — and that there’s no clear consensus from anyone on how to move forward as a united nation, regardless of politics.
The “let’s try to get along” memes have proliferated during election season
There weren’t just two different political platforms at odds in the 2020 election, there were fundamentally different views of America. At the center of those polarized sides — one staunchly in support of the Trump administration, one staunchly opposed — remains the idea that after the election is over, we can all move on and be friends again.
And what better way to convey this notion in 2020 than flimsy social media posts:
It is election day. You may be thrilled or heartbroken with the results. No matter the outcome, let us remember who we are as Americans and what unites us — life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. United we stand, divided we fall. Onward, together. #ElectionNight — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) November 4, 2020
The “we can still get along” mantra has long been a popular way to try to get past a polarizing election, but over the course of this year, the atmosphere felt much different. Calls for compromise poured in before Election Day itself, as did blowback against them. In September, fierce backlash hit CNN’s attempt to joke about the nation’s polarized status. Its “Any room in the middle?” promotion drew scorn from its audience.
A meme mocking the idea of “compromise” posted in response to CNN’s ill-fated tweet gained particular traction. But it was just one of an overwhelming number of replies pointing out that there’s not much middle ground to be found between a fair and just society and an administration fueling white supremacy.
The ridicule the CNN tweet received should have served, perhaps, as a warning to anyone looking to try this sort of argument closer to the election, but it seems many people (and corporations) didn’t get the memo. As election week neared, examples of this type of point-missing were plentiful:
Among the latest, most quickly notorious instances of failed middle-ground-seeking was a now-deleted Gap tweet that stressed, “The one thing we know, is that together, we can move forward.” Attached to the tweet was an image of a (really ugly) varsity-style hoodie, half-red and half-blue, emblazoned with the Gap logo, zipping both sides up together. (The Gap later admitted that the hoodie design was not actually a real Gap product.)
Criticism came swiftly. Gap’s mistake: using the inanity of a hoodie to express such a complicated and polarizing idea, as well as attempting to commodify and capitalize upon election-related emotions.
One would think that, considering the potential for blowback, people would be discouraged from posting these pleas for compromise. But people with varying degrees of influence and visibility continue to post this type of compromise-peddling meme online, spawning heated reactions in response.
After having lived through a tense and divisive four years, many people no longer see compromise and unity as a desirable outcome. The backlash over social media pleas for agreement reflects as much. And it’s the Bob and Sally meme in particular that seems to have re-emerged as a conduit through which this conflict has played out.
For many on social media, “Bob” and “Sally” have become ironic symbols for denial, indifference, and privilege
The age-old push to find a middle ground has been an ongoing theme throughout the Trump administration. In one such plea, self-declared Bernie Sanders supporter and urban fantasy writer Connie Huth used the Bob and Sally meme as a starting point in a 2017 Medium post. “Crazy thought,” she wrote. “Sally and Bob could both sit down and actually talk about what the election meant to them beyond the superficial level thrown out as truth by the mainstream media and come to the understanding that both sides want the best for our country.”
But the basic belief underpinning Huth’s argument — that “it’s not you vs me, but We the People vs Elected Officials who are taking great advantage of the fear and hate in this country” — seems to be increasingly in question. The extremities of the Trump era affect many people on a personal level, from citizens impacted by escalations in hate crimes and violence under his presidency to LGBTQ minorities threatened by his policies to people battling Covid-19 in red states that have done relatively little to blunt the spread of the virus. Many of the rebuttal variants to the Bob and Sally meme stress this by pointing out that Bob the Republican has implicitly supported some policies most Americans find abominable.
Bob isn’t just supporting a traditional candidate; he voted for one who’s advanced causes that make life difficult for many sectors of society:
Bob: I think you should die, Sally.
Sally:
Bob: Sorry, I mean I hold political opinions favoring policies which would lead to your death.
Sally: Oh heck, that's just politics then, we can still be friends! — Cliff Jerrison (@pervocracy) November 2, 2020
Of course, this idea often generated pushback of its own:
and... you my friend are the problem... — Chaos (@Chaosxsilencer) March 4, 2020
As the 2020 election neared, many people continued to greet the resurfacing Bob and Sally meme with overt hostility. The dismissive attitude behind it, critics implied, was part of the reason the era of Trump had been so divisive.
A big fuck you to everyone who posted this on my Facebook wall four years ago when posting on walls was a thing pic.twitter.com/HmiB6eFvib — Esr(AAAH! A GHOST!) Erol (@EzyEggroll) November 4, 2020
Memes reflect the times that we’re in, so it’s helpful to understand the many memes peddling the idea of “just getting along” as a crucial part of the ongoing gaslighting of American citizens. That might sound to some readers like exactly the type of hyperbolic rhetoric that got us into this mess, but I mean it very literally. Not only does Trump engage in gaslighting techniques, but, more broadly, there’s no longer a clear consensus about what is true, what American values are, or what things we should care about. This is the kind of gaslighting that arguably began with the presidential lie that led to the Iraq War and has continued ever since, as conservatives increasingly seem to embrace fundamentalist and regressive ideas about human rights.
And if there are many of us who can’t forget and forgive, say, when we see Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with George W. Bush, there are even more of us who are simply at a loss when confronted with the blatant racism, science denial, censorship, and authoritarianism of Trump and his administration.
Loren Piretra, whose quote about rejecting attitudes of compromise went viral on Instagram, suggested that much more was at stake in this election than policy. “What this election has exposed is the stark difference in fundamental values between those who supported Trump’s hateful, divisive rhetoric and those of us who voted for the future of society and its civility and betterment,” she told Vox in an email.
“While this administration’s reign will eventually end, it will be a greater challenge to forget those of our friends and relatives, whom we thought we knew and held to a higher moral standard, who ultimately voted against humanity. We always knew Trump lacked scruples; we didn’t expect to personally know people who unabashedly and at times even proudly shared those same ideals.”
The possibility of compromising with people who voted for Trump, especially in 2020, isn’t always feasible. A tweet from Hannah Chase, a 20-year-old college student from Ohio, went viral on Election Day for suggesting as much:
As a minority, as a woman, as an ally, THIS is why I am ending relationships over this mans support. You cannot look me in the eye, praise this man, and call yourself my friend. No apologies over here. We are FIGHTING for BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. https://t.co/2rjM0VO6ba — ☠ (@__hannahchase) November 4, 2020
“This election is historically nothing like the last,” Chase told Vox. “Donald Trump has been hateful to every group you could categorize yourself in.”
“He has made derogatory remarks toward the disabled, the late John McCain who was a veteran, the Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, Muslim communities, I could go on forever. People who support this man and think they can be friends with me, the daughter of a Mexican woman who had to teach herself English at 5, are delusional. This election is too personal, and Donald Trump made it personal.”
To Chase, supporting Trump is a deal-breaker. ”I have had to cut people off because of their political views this election and it’s quite sad, honestly,” she told me. “Some of these people I grew up with, some even related. But my sister is African American, my brother is a little brown boy. So I feel when people praise Trump, they are discriminating [against] us all.”
She pointed out that the Bob and Sally meme and its ilk trivialize the high stakes of this election. “It’s hard for people to understand,” she said. “They make memes and make it a joke. Eighty percent of those people have never had to live through oppression. I’m sure they have all had their difficulties, as life is never easy. But a lot of them have never been mistreated for the color of their skin.”
Why do I have to be friends with people who don't think I deserve rights — Kristin Chirico (@lolacoaster) November 2, 2020
But not everyone takes a scorched-earth approach with Trump supporters. Dylan, a Biden supporter who asked that I not reveal their real name out of privacy concerns, told me that shunning Republican voters won’t make the problems we’re currently facing go away.
“There’s such a balancing act right now,” Dylan said. “Folks in one camp saying, rightly, ‘white people need to address the issue of other white people,’ and folks in the other saying, also with good reason, ‘there is no point in talking to white Trump voters, they won’t change.’ Seems like a disconnect that will come back to bite us if we don’t address it?”
Dylan, who spent years working as a mediator in divorce settlements, described the process of mediating a divorce in a way that sounded awfully similar to the process of trying to talk politics in 2020:
“Everyone often starts out unhappy,” they said. “Everyone thinks they are not only right but right in such a way that if they don’t get what they want, everything will fall apart. Everyone is coming from a place of deeply felt emotion.”
To Dylan, meeting people where they’re at is crucial to changing minds — and changing minds is crucial to the future. “Scorn notwithstanding, if we want to effect change in future elections, we will have to change the minds of some voters.” Dylan especially stressed that the onus is on white voters to speak to white relatives and friends, to do the work on behalf of marginalized people with more at stake in the conversation.
Chase agreed — up to a point. “After this election, a lot of conversation needs to take place,” she said. “If the people we have had to remove from our lives are willing to listen, that changes things.”
Chase told me that there are plenty of things she’s willing to agree to disagree about, like gun control, tax plans, the economy, even social issues like health care, immigration, and police brutality. But the bottom line for her — and for many of us — is human rights:
“When you say a woman does not have a choice in what happens to her body, when you lock children up or kill them based on their skin color, when you discriminate against people based on who they choose to love, it’s a deal-breaker.”
In short, compromising is complicated. And even as the presidential election result reveals that Joe Biden won, the tension over these issues continues to stay high. It looks like Bob and Sally won’t be getting together for a pleasant afternoon of tea and community bonding anytime soon.


vox--2020-11-06--Why white supremacy is a cult, according to novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers .
Although it may seem impossible given how strangely time is moving these days , Halloween was just last week .
To celebrate , the Vox Book Club met up with Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her novel Mexican Gothic , our October book pick .
Moreno-Garcia , who in addition to being a bestselling author has a masters degree in science and technology , took us all to school on the history of gothic literature , the communication skills of mushrooms , and why being attracted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven.
” Check out the video above to watch our full conversation .
I ’ ve also collected a few highlights , lightly edited for length and clarity , below .
Once you ’ re finished here , if you would like a book to help you deal with the state of vibrating uncertainty in which the prolonged 2020 election has left us all , you might take a look at our November book pick , Trust Exercise .
We ’ ll start our discussion of that book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our newsletter to make sure you don ’ t miss anything in the meantime .
Now let ’ s get to the gothic .
One of the most interesting things about this book is the way it ’ s building a whole conversation with classic 18th- or 19th-century gothic literature .
What is your relationship with gothic literature like , and what elements did you really want to explore in this book ?
It was one of the first types of speculative fiction that I encountered , because the first horror author that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And after him came H.P .
Lovecraft .
Somewhere in the middle of that , in my teens , I read Horacio Quiroga .
And I read a lot of what you would consider the bread-and-butter classics : Frankenstein , Dracula , Carmilla , Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .
I ’ ve been familiar with horror literature in general , and with gothic literature in particular , for a really long time .
I wasn ’ t very much interested in what is called gothic romance or a female gothic .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the male gothic , which is gothic books that have supernatural elements , graphic violence , and that kind of stuff .
Sometimes we also call it gothic horror , as opposed to what we consider to be the female gothic , which is more like Scooby-Doo types of stories .
Jane Eyre kinds of tales , in which a young woman goes to a distant location , meets some dude , and then there ’ s some kind of mystery to unravel .
There is a happy ending — that is mostly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Especially when you ’ re talking about the mid-20th century gothic romance revival , the new gothic romances .
Those are the ones that came out in paperback form and that we associate with the gothic form , because they have a woman running away from a castle .
There ’ s always a mystery , but there ’ s not a supernatural element , and the romance is really the emphasis .
It ’ s a liminal category , the gothic , and this is one side of it .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gothic .
Into the Draculas of the world and the Carmillas .
A lot of the classic gothic literature from that time is working with a very colonialist set of fears about basically everyone outside of Europe .
And as I was reading Mexican Gothic , I kept thinking , well , it was projection all along , because all of those anxieties that they ’ re attributing to non-Europeans actually apply way more to the British Empire .
So how did you think about creating that kind of reversal as you wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novels is the idea of the evil Other .
That ’ s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe .
It ’ s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard .
Catholicism is mixed with that .
It ’ s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us .
Once you move from the 1700s into the 1800s , the British Empire is expanding .
At the same time , gothic literature is also expanding , and it ’ s finding other sources of frightening Others from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mined .
So not necessarily Italy or Spain .
That ’ s when you get Dracula , who ’ s coming from Eastern Europe .
The source of evil is now not Spain , it ’ s Transylvania , Romania .
And then you have also this idea of decay and danger in things like Jane Eyre , where there ’ s the mad wife in the attic .
She is white , but she is Creole .
So she is a white-born woman raised in the Caribbean , and that has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period .
If you read the literature of the time and how people are talking about folks that are living and growing up in the Caribbean , there is very much a sense that there is a danger that you are going to be degraded , that something happens physically that brings you down .
It diminishes your whiteness and contaminates you .
So you find that going on in gothic fiction .
The Other , the person who is not an Anglo-Saxon Protestant upstanding male white person , is always a source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
Even if they ’ re not the outright villain , they ’ re still a source of anxiety in some way .
And then in Mexican Gothic , standing as a response to the creepy Doyles whose Englishness becomes a source of anxiety , you get Noemí being a brown woman who is sexually confident and gets to be the avatar of modernity and cosmopolitanism .
What did it mean to you to be able to build a character like that ?
I think one of the problems that happens with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ll say with Mexicans , but in general with Latin Americans — is that we only get one type of story told .
In general , the type of story that you get if you ’ re Latin American and you ’ re reading something in the English language — because it ’ s different if you ’ re reading Spanish fiction — you don ’ t get any genre fiction at all .
The stories that you can tell are very limited .
Normally they limit you to the suffering illegal immigrant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was in genre , because I like genre .
I wanted to do something that was horror , not [ hardship and suffering porn ] .
And I wanted to write something that reflected some of the people that I knew .
Some of the people that I saw reflected in my life and society growing up .
I was inspired by a great-aunt that I had , who dressed very well , very fashionably , and liked to go to parties .
She was , quote-unquote , very “ modern ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to somebody else and they were also showing me photos of their grandmother and some great-aunts , too .
Around the same time , 1958 , 1960s .
And they were all dressed like Mexican Audrey Hepburns .
I think we don ’ t think about that when we think about Mexican people , when we think about Latin American people .
We don ’ t imagine them having full and interesting lives in the same way that we imagine white people having full and interesting lives .
But they did .
Not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people lived in the city .
Not everybody was from the same social class .
People were of different social classes .
Not everybody was necessarily from the same ethnic background , either .
We have indigenous people , and we also had different waves of immigrants .
We had a big Lebanese wave .
I come from a city that had a huge Chinese population at a certain point in time .
So there ’ s all these nuances that get lost sometimes when you read these stories about us .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I want to bring a little bit of that .
I wanted to talk a little about the figure of Virgil , who is such an interesting take on the archetype of the gothic hero .
A lot of times that character is morally disgusting , but if you look at someone like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights , his creepiness seems to be supposed to make him more romantic and sexy .
But with Virgil , every time he was sexy , it seemed like I got more creeped out by him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that balance as you write ?
Yeah , Virgil is supposed to be a typical Byronic hero , mad , bad , and dangerous to know .
That applies to a wide number of men that appear in gothic fiction .
One thing that happens with gothic fiction , and I think the person who explores this most keenly is probably Angela Carter in her collection of retold fairy tales , is that gothic fiction seems to echo certain fairy tales .
It definitely seems to echo “ Beauty and the Beast , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bluebeard ” to a certain degree : A man that you don ’ t know if you can trust him .
In “ Beauty and the Beast , ” it turns out that he ’ s a nice guy in the end , so these fairy tales combine a happy ending and love with a feeling of darkness at the same time .
And we could say that gothic fiction does the same thing .
I mean , in Rebecca , ultimately , she is happy because she finds out that her husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he didn ’ t really love her that much after all .
So the cathartic reveal there for her is kind of like , “ I am the best kind of woman in the equation.
” But on the other hand , she doesn ’ t really seem to ponder the implications of living with somebody who is certainly a murderer and who ’ s possibly not telling her everything .
It ’ s his version of the story .
We never see Rebecca by herself , so we really don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrible person as he says .
Fairy tales tend to have this play , where you ’ ve got the love story , but you also have this darkness .
And women seem to like that .
It ’ s a fantasy space , right ?
I think some people sometimes don ’ t understand that , and they think that a fantasy space is the same as a real space , but it ’ s not .
It ’ s also an erotic space , and certainly Angela Carter , in her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elements in all of them .
Her version of “ Bluebeard ” is very erotic , and her version of “ Little Red Riding Hood ” also .
She pulls at these threads that fairy tales have , these elements that they have that we don ’ t think about much .
Fairy tales definitely have that light/dark erotic tingle to them , and Byronic heroes go back to that .
You know , like , he ’ s bad for you , but you kind of like that .
So that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , among other things , because Byronic heroes tend to also be very wealthy and very powerful .
Things that we appreciate in society normally .
They wield power , they are the lord of the manor .
Often they ’ re physically imposing and very physically attractive , too .
So there ’ s something about that , right ?
That nexus of power , that nexus of sex , that nexus of the fairy tale , that people really kind of like , and women especially seem to really enjoy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and poke at it .
If we really had Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester nowadays hanging around with us , he would probably be fairly disgusting , and we would probably feel fairly threatened .
So Virgil is the horrific explosion of all these gothic romantic elements taken to the dark side .
And then , in contrast to Virgil , you get that really compelling comparison with Francis , who is well-meaning but trapped within the legacy of his family ’ s monstrousness .
At the end , there ’ s a little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finding some sort of happiness together .
Do you think they will ?
Or do you want to leave that in ambiguity forever ?
I want to leave it in ambiguity forever .
But I will say that one thing that I like to read is true crime fiction .
And one of the types of crimes that I find most interesting are cults .
There ’ s all kinds of cults .
Not necessarily horror kind of cults .
Some cults just take all your money , and then you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old lady .
Some other ones do get very weird .
They tell you that aliens will come and save you and take you to the Nebulon Galaxy and everybody kills themselves and horrible things happen .
But the interesting thing about cults is always you hear somebody talking about what it was like living in the cult , and then what it was like coming out of the cult .
But the first question that I always ask myself is , “ How did you get into the cult ?
” Francis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cult victim .
He doesn ’ t know anything else , so he ’ s been abused for a really long time and is in this very weird cult .
But I also think that white supremacy is like a horrible , dangerous cult , and like an infection .
And it doesn ’ t just harm — I mean , it harms people of color definitely .
Certainly African American people , Latinos , when somebody tries to hurt them , they are the most harmed .
But I think it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a dangerous kind of place , I think , white supremacy .
And if you get into it , you really start losing touch with reality , and it ’ s almost like you ’ re the member of a suicidal cult to me .
I love the big reveal of the mushrooms .
How did you hit on the idea that the mushrooms would be the mechanism by which Howard is able to achieve his omnipotence ?
I actually really like mushrooms .
I edited an anthology called Fungi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it was because we were both interested in doing something about mushrooms .
They are an interesting organism because they ’ re not a plant and they ’ re not an animal .
I know that they exist in botanical collections , but they really are not plants .
They are a different kind of kingdom .
And they form something that is called a mycorrhiza that is a mutual symbiotic association between the fungus and the plant in its root system .
What happens is that there is basically a mushroom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see , and that is what connects the forest .
And through that you can have sugar and water and mineral exchanges .
You can withstand disease .
You can have resistance to insects .
Suzanne Simard , who is a researcher over at the University of British Columbia , came up with this term called the hub tree or mother tree .
She figured out that trees communicate with each other .
There ’ s a central tree in the middle of the forest .
Through the mycorrhizal network , it can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that need nutrients get an exchange of nutrients .
It can do a lot of really , really cool things .
The way it does that is there ’ s a mycelium colony that colonizes all the trees and all the plants and is allowing different species to communicate with each other .
It has that central node , the hub tree , the mother tree .
So I think a lot of people , when they read the book , they think it ’ s outlandish and maybe even a little bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ science behind it .
I think we can open it up for audience Q & A now .
Marika asks , “ The sexism and racism behind Otherness in this genre really stands out to me in Mexican Gothic .
I love that the creepy Other was this European family .
Do you think it ’ s possible to move away from the idea of Otherness as a source of fascination and horror , or is the best solution to alter the perspective such that the Other is always something different ?
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used the Other as an element of terror , and not even all gothic fiction uses the Other as an element of terror .
If you look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , the element of terror there is within you , right ?
That you don ’ t know what resides within your own psyche .
I think there are other ways of manifesting horror .
But I also think that because the Other , the deviancy , has for a really long time been people of color , that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that in various settings and ways .
So that you can ’ t say , “ Okay , we did it once , and now that it ’ s been done , nobody ever do it again.
” It looks like we have a few different people asking about the pacing of Mexican Gothic and how everything is sort of slow and moody for the first portions of the book , and then once you hit the reveal it ’ s like , action , thriller time !
So I think people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you decide to kick it in high gear .
It was a 70/30 rule .
I said , 70 percent will be quiet , and then 30 percent will just push the pedal down .
I mean , gothics are slow .
I had somebody that had never read Dracula before and they read it and they told me , “ It ’ s just a bunch of journal entries .
It ’ s such a boring piece of crap.
” And I said , “ Yes , it is.
” Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like train tape timetables and lots of stuff .
It does tell a story , and it does get kind of creepy , but they wanted the vampire jumping out on page two and biting into somebody , and that just doesn ’ t happen .
Gothic has this slow , moody , syrupy sort of pace .
That is what gives gothic its shape .
So I was trying to respect that for most of the book .
But then I flip it around in the end and it becomes an explosion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , if you read The Monk , you know The Monk gets pretty crazy at the end .
It ’ s like , the devil is here , and now I am raping this chick that I wanted , but she ’ s also related to me and I didn ’ t know and I ’ m going to hell .
It ’ s just one thing after the other .
Amanda wants to know about the mechanics of Virgil having influence over Noemí in the shared dreams .
He has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start .
Does the sexual attraction fuel the influence that Virgil has over her ?
We get at one point that she likes guys who look like Pedro Infante , a movie star .
So she definitely has a type , and it ’ s more the Virgil type than the Francis kind of situation .
So definitely there is some sexual attraction .
But at one point the other thing that she expresses , or I hope that comes through , is that sexual attraction doesn ’ t mean that you are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somebody .
You can find somebody interesting and attractive .
It doesn ’ t mean that you ’ re open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven , just come in anytime you want , just because you find somebody attractive .
It doesn ’ t mean she ’ s going to act on it .
She likes her cousin .
She ’ s not going to do that .
And he ’ s just thinking , “ Well , this is a green light , all signs go , everything is allowed.
” That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when somebody just assumes , “ Oh well , she let me hold her hand , ” or , “ She let me kiss her , so now everything in the whole menu is in there.
” He ’ s that kind of guy .
He thinks like , if you shook his hand , everything is permitted .
That ’ s not right , Virgil !

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.
Although it may seem impossible given how strangely time is moving these days, Halloween was just last week. To celebrate, the Vox Book Club met up with Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her novel Mexican Gothic, our October book pick. Moreno-Garcia, who in addition to being a bestselling author has a masters degree in science and technology, took us all to school on the history of gothic literature, the communication skills of mushrooms, and why being attracted to someone does not mean you are “open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven.”
Check out the video above to watch our full conversation. I’ve also collected a few highlights, lightly edited for length and clarity, below.
Once you’re finished here, if you would like a book to help you deal with the state of vibrating uncertainty in which the prolonged 2020 election has left us all, you might take a look at our November book pick, Trust Exercise. We’ll start our discussion of that book on November 20; sign up for our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything in the meantime.
Now let’s get to the gothic.
One of the most interesting things about this book is the way it’s building a whole conversation with classic 18th- or 19th-century gothic literature. What is your relationship with gothic literature like, and what elements did you really want to explore in this book?
It was one of the first types of speculative fiction that I encountered, because the first horror author that I read was Edgar Allan Poe. And after him came H.P. Lovecraft. Somewhere in the middle of that, in my teens, I read Horacio Quiroga. And I read a lot of what you would consider the bread-and-butter classics: Frankenstein, Dracula, Carmilla, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I’ve been familiar with horror literature in general, and with gothic literature in particular, for a really long time.
I wasn’t very much interested in what is called gothic romance or a female gothic. I was always more into what is termed the male gothic, which is gothic books that have supernatural elements, graphic violence, and that kind of stuff. Sometimes we also call it gothic horror, as opposed to what we consider to be the female gothic, which is more like Scooby-Doo types of stories. Jane Eyre kinds of tales, in which a young woman goes to a distant location, meets some dude, and then there’s some kind of mystery to unravel.
There is a happy ending — that is mostly the desire of that kind of story. Especially when you’re talking about the mid-20th century gothic romance revival, the new gothic romances. Those are the ones that came out in paperback form and that we associate with the gothic form, because they have a woman running away from a castle. There’s always a mystery, but there’s not a supernatural element, and the romance is really the emphasis.
It’s a liminal category, the gothic, and this is one side of it. But I was always more into the horror gothic. Into the Draculas of the world and the Carmillas.
A lot of the classic gothic literature from that time is working with a very colonialist set of fears about basically everyone outside of Europe. And as I was reading Mexican Gothic, I kept thinking, well, it was projection all along, because all of those anxieties that they’re attributing to non-Europeans actually apply way more to the British Empire. So how did you think about creating that kind of reversal as you wrote?
One thing that happens with gothic novels is the idea of the evil Other. That’s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe. It’s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard. Catholicism is mixed with that. It’s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us.
Once you move from the 1700s into the 1800s, the British Empire is expanding. At the same time, gothic literature is also expanding, and it’s finding other sources of frightening Others from parts of Europe that Radcliffe might have mined. So not necessarily Italy or Spain. That’s when you get Dracula, who’s coming from Eastern Europe. The source of evil is now not Spain, it’s Transylvania, Romania.
And then you have also this idea of decay and danger in things like Jane Eyre, where there’s the mad wife in the attic. She is white, but she is Creole. So she is a white-born woman raised in the Caribbean, and that has a lot of important implications in this time period. If you read the literature of the time and how people are talking about folks that are living and growing up in the Caribbean, there is very much a sense that there is a danger that you are going to be degraded, that something happens physically that brings you down. It diminishes your whiteness and contaminates you.
So you find that going on in gothic fiction. The Other, the person who is not an Anglo-Saxon Protestant upstanding male white person, is always a source of anxiety in many different ways for people. Even if they’re not the outright villain, they’re still a source of anxiety in some way.
And then in Mexican Gothic, standing as a response to the creepy Doyles whose Englishness becomes a source of anxiety, you get Noemí being a brown woman who is sexually confident and gets to be the avatar of modernity and cosmopolitanism. What did it mean to you to be able to build a character like that?
I think one of the problems that happens with representations of — well, I’ll say with Mexicans, but in general with Latin Americans — is that we only get one type of story told. In general, the type of story that you get if you’re Latin American and you’re reading something in the English language — because it’s different if you’re reading Spanish fiction — you don’t get any genre fiction at all. The stories that you can tell are very limited. Normally they limit you to the suffering illegal immigrant.
So I wanted to do something that was in genre, because I like genre. I wanted to do something that was horror, not [hardship and suffering porn]. And I wanted to write something that reflected some of the people that I knew. Some of the people that I saw reflected in my life and society growing up.
I was inspired by a great-aunt that I had, who dressed very well, very fashionably, and liked to go to parties. She was, quote-unquote, very “modern” in her time.
I was talking to somebody else and they were also showing me photos of their grandmother and some great-aunts, too. Around the same time, 1958, 1960s. And they were all dressed like Mexican Audrey Hepburns.
I think we don’t think about that when we think about Mexican people, when we think about Latin American people. We don’t imagine them having full and interesting lives in the same way that we imagine white people having full and interesting lives. But they did. Not everybody lived in the countryside. Some people lived in the city. Not everybody was from the same social class. People were of different social classes. Not everybody was necessarily from the same ethnic background, either. We have indigenous people, and we also had different waves of immigrants. We had a big Lebanese wave. I come from a city that had a huge Chinese population at a certain point in time.
So there’s all these nuances that get lost sometimes when you read these stories about us. And in every story that I write, I want to bring a little bit of that.
I wanted to talk a little about the figure of Virgil, who is such an interesting take on the archetype of the gothic hero. A lot of times that character is morally disgusting, but if you look at someone like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, his creepiness seems to be supposed to make him more romantic and sexy. But with Virgil, every time he was sexy, it seemed like I got more creeped out by him. So how do you find and create that balance as you write?
Yeah, Virgil is supposed to be a typical Byronic hero, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. That applies to a wide number of men that appear in gothic fiction.
One thing that happens with gothic fiction, and I think the person who explores this most keenly is probably Angela Carter in her collection of retold fairy tales, is that gothic fiction seems to echo certain fairy tales. It definitely seems to echo “Beauty and the Beast,” and it seems to echo “Bluebeard” to a certain degree: A man that you don’t know if you can trust him. In “Beauty and the Beast,” it turns out that he’s a nice guy in the end, so these fairy tales combine a happy ending and love with a feeling of darkness at the same time.
And we could say that gothic fiction does the same thing. I mean, in Rebecca, ultimately, she is happy because she finds out that her husband murdered his previous wife, which means that he didn’t really love her that much after all. So the cathartic reveal there for her is kind of like, “I am the best kind of woman in the equation.” But on the other hand, she doesn’t really seem to ponder the implications of living with somebody who is certainly a murderer and who’s possibly not telling her everything. It’s his version of the story. We never see Rebecca by herself, so we really don’t know that she was such a terrible person as he says.
Fairy tales tend to have this play, where you’ve got the love story, but you also have this darkness. And women seem to like that. It’s a fantasy space, right? I think some people sometimes don’t understand that, and they think that a fantasy space is the same as a real space, but it’s not. It’s also an erotic space, and certainly Angela Carter, in her fairy tales, brings out the erotic elements in all of them. Her version of “Bluebeard” is very erotic, and her version of “Little Red Riding Hood” also. She pulls at these threads that fairy tales have, these elements that they have that we don’t think about much.
Fairy tales definitely have that light/dark erotic tingle to them, and Byronic heroes go back to that. You know, like, he’s bad for you, but you kind of like that.
So that’s the appeal of the Byronic hero, among other things, because Byronic heroes tend to also be very wealthy and very powerful. Things that we appreciate in society normally.
Especially in men.
They wield power, they are the lord of the manor. Often they’re physically imposing and very physically attractive, too.
So there’s something about that, right? That nexus of power, that nexus of sex, that nexus of the fairy tale, that people really kind of like, and women especially seem to really enjoy.
I wanted to toy around with it and poke at it. If we really had Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester nowadays hanging around with us, he would probably be fairly disgusting, and we would probably feel fairly threatened. So Virgil is the horrific explosion of all these gothic romantic elements taken to the dark side.
And then, in contrast to Virgil, you get that really compelling comparison with Francis, who is well-meaning but trapped within the legacy of his family’s monstrousness. At the end, there’s a little possibility of hope for Francis and Noemí finding some sort of happiness together. Do you think they will? Or do you want to leave that in ambiguity forever?
I want to leave it in ambiguity forever. But I will say that one thing that I like to read is true crime fiction. And one of the types of crimes that I find most interesting are cults.
There’s all kinds of cults. Not necessarily horror kind of cults. Some cults just take all your money, and then you’re left broke and you’re an old lady. Some other ones do get very weird. They tell you that aliens will come and save you and take you to the Nebulon Galaxy and everybody kills themselves and horrible things happen.
But the interesting thing about cults is always you hear somebody talking about what it was like living in the cult, and then what it was like coming out of the cult. But the first question that I always ask myself is, “How did you get into the cult?”
Francis is kind of an abuse victim and a cult victim. He doesn’t know anything else, so he’s been abused for a really long time and is in this very weird cult.
But I also think that white supremacy is like a horrible, dangerous cult, and like an infection. And it doesn’t just harm — I mean, it harms people of color definitely. Certainly African American people, Latinos, when somebody tries to hurt them, they are the most harmed. But I think it also harms the white people within.
It’s a dangerous kind of place, I think, white supremacy. And if you get into it, you really start losing touch with reality, and it’s almost like you’re the member of a suicidal cult to me.
I love the big reveal of the mushrooms. How did you hit on the idea that the mushrooms would be the mechanism by which Howard is able to achieve his omnipotence?
I actually really like mushrooms. I edited an anthology called Fungi with Orrin Grey many years ago, and it was because we were both interested in doing something about mushrooms.
They are an interesting organism because they’re not a plant and they’re not an animal. I know that they exist in botanical collections, but they really are not plants. They are a different kind of kingdom. And they form something that is called a mycorrhiza that is a mutual symbiotic association between the fungus and the plant in its root system. What happens is that there is basically a mushroom network underground that we don’t see, and that is what connects the forest. And through that you can have sugar and water and mineral exchanges. You can withstand disease. You can have resistance to insects.
Suzanne Simard, who is a researcher over at the University of British Columbia, came up with this term called the hub tree or mother tree. She figured out that trees communicate with each other. There’s a central tree in the middle of the forest. Through the mycorrhizal network, it can send information, so certain other trees that need nutrients get an exchange of nutrients. It can do a lot of really, really cool things.
The way it does that is there’s a mycelium colony that colonizes all the trees and all the plants and is allowing different species to communicate with each other. It has that central node, the hub tree, the mother tree.
So I think a lot of people, when they read the book, they think it’s outlandish and maybe even a little bit dumb. But there’s real science behind it.
I think we can open it up for audience Q&A now. Marika asks, “The sexism and racism behind Otherness in this genre really stands out to me in Mexican Gothic. I love that the creepy Other was this European family. Do you think it’s possible to move away from the idea of Otherness as a source of fascination and horror, or is the best solution to alter the perspective such that the Other is always something different?”
Well, definitely not all horror novels used the Other as an element of terror, and not even all gothic fiction uses the Other as an element of terror. If you look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the element of terror there is within you, right? That you don’t know what resides within your own psyche.
I think there are other ways of manifesting horror. But I also think that because the Other, the deviancy, has for a really long time been people of color, that there’s enough space to play with that in various settings and ways. So that you can’t say, “Okay, we did it once, and now that it’s been done, nobody ever do it again.”
It looks like we have a few different people asking about the pacing of Mexican Gothic and how everything is sort of slow and moody for the first portions of the book, and then once you hit the reveal it’s like, action, thriller time! So I think people are wondering how you developed that structure and when you decide to kick it in high gear.
It was a 70/30 rule. I said, 70 percent will be quiet, and then 30 percent will just push the pedal down.
I mean, gothics are slow. I had somebody that had never read Dracula before and they read it and they told me, “It’s just a bunch of journal entries. It’s such a boring piece of crap.” And I said, “Yes, it is.” Well, not just journal entries, but like train tape timetables and lots of stuff. It does tell a story, and it does get kind of creepy, but they wanted the vampire jumping out on page two and biting into somebody, and that just doesn’t happen.
Gothic has this slow, moody, syrupy sort of pace. That is what gives gothic its shape.
So I was trying to respect that for most of the book. But then I flip it around in the end and it becomes an explosion of violence and horror. But you know, if you read The Monk, you know The Monk gets pretty crazy at the end. It’s like, the devil is here, and now I am raping this chick that I wanted, but she’s also related to me and I didn’t know and I’m going to hell. It’s just one thing after the other.
Amanda wants to know about the mechanics of Virgil having influence over Noemí in the shared dreams. He has a line about her being his from the start. Does the sexual attraction fuel the influence that Virgil has over her?
We get at one point that she likes guys who look like Pedro Infante, a movie star. So she definitely has a type, and it’s more the Virgil type than the Francis kind of situation. So definitely there is some sexual attraction.
But at one point the other thing that she expresses, or I hope that comes through, is that sexual attraction doesn’t mean that you are going to actually consent to sleep with somebody. You can find somebody interesting and attractive. It doesn’t mean that you’re open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven, just come in anytime you want, just because you find somebody attractive.
It doesn’t mean she’s going to act on it. She likes her cousin. She’s not going to do that.
And he’s just thinking, “Well, this is a green light, all signs go, everything is allowed.” That’s another thing that is not right, when somebody just assumes, “Oh well, she let me hold her hand,” or, “She let me kiss her, so now everything in the whole menu is in there.” He’s that kind of guy. He thinks like, if you shook his hand, everything is permitted. That’s not right, Virgil!