In defense of 2020:

Although for that, I can never forgive it.

Oh, wow, I mean, 2020, amiright? Like, what else can it throw at us? Aliens? Locusts? A world-ending asteroid? 2020's just the worst. But is it though? We're a week away from an election in the midst of several crises, and I think it's important to bear in mind that 2020 didn't do anything to us. It's been a rough year, sure, for all of us-but again, it's not 2020's fault. 2020's just an arbitrary number that helps us keep track of how old we are and when we have to renew our license. Everything that's wrong now has causes. Quantifiable, traceable causes that could have been avoided. The only thing 2020 ever did to us is render our 2019 calendars obsolete. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that rolling our eyes and going ugh...2020 isn't placing blame where blame is due and it's giving a pass to the people and things that have made this year, and the years leading up to it, such an unmitigated goat-rodeo.

Pictured: 2020 and the years leading up to it.

Pictured: some of the shell casings
outside Breonna Taylor's apartment.
Not pictured: 2020.

2020 didn't invent the institutional racism that's been a part of American culture for centuries. It never called anyone the n-word and it never shouted all lives matter. 2020 never broke into the wrong apartment and shot anyone and it never kneeled on anybody's neck. Nobody ever died mysteriously in 2020's custody, and 2020's bosses and union never covered anything up. To my knowledge 2020 hasn't high-fived any gun-toting minors on their way to shoot protestors and it didn't shove a seventy-five year old man to the ground and then lie about it.

"Hate group? No, we just use intimidation
and violence to assert white male supremacy."

-Proud Boys

And not once did 2020 tear gas and club protestors so it could wave a Bible in front of a church it's never set foot inside of. It didn't put armed, unmarked, and completely uninvited quasi-police on to the streets of American cities. When it was off duty it didn't cover its face and smash windows in order to incite more police violence and blame it on the protestors. Being a number and not say, a violent goon, at no point did 2020 hop in its pickup truck and try to run over protestors. And 2020 didn't blow its racist dog whistle and tell armed hate groups to stand by in case it needs to overturn some election results.

Coronavirus is dangerous but controllable.
Coronavirus in the respiratory system of a
willfully ignorant narcissist is a national crisis. 

2020 didn't ignore the pandemic or tell the American people that it was a hoax and it didn't spread false information or prematurely re-open businesses or hold rallies and it didn't get up in front of reporters and whip its mask off before wheezing its way through a bunch of nonsense about how the victims of COVID died because they didn't try hard enough. It didn't endanger White House staff with its recklessness, and it didn't cram its contagious ass into a limo with Secret Service agents so it could take a spin around Walter Reed and wave at people. Even the virus itself can't be blamed for that.

2020 hasn't been dismantling the Post Office because it's afraid of people's ballots getting in on time. It didn't set up fake ballot boxes and doesn't close polling places in districts that lean Democratic. It isn't trying to pass restrictive voter ID laws and it isn't shrieking about voter fraud while at the same time committing voter fraud. 

"It's only voter fraud when Democrats do it.
When we do it, we're safeguarding the election."

-The GOP

But without the electoral college, the votes of
people in less populated states would-uh well, I 
guess they'd count as much as everyone else's...

And look, 2020 didn't saddle us with an outmoded electoral system designed to keep rural states from feeling under appreciated and it didn't spend the last ten years gaming it so that it could stay in power. See where I'm going with all of this? 2020 isn't the problem. People are the problem. Well, specifically people who vote for Republicans. And ok, fine, they didn't invent the electoral college, but they sure as hell have been getting the most out of it. Two of the five Presidential elections I've been able to vote in have gone to the candidate most voters didn't vote for. If it happens again, that'll be half.

Is he holding their families and pets hostage?
Because it can't possibly be his charm.

That's not democracy, that's a crap shoot. But not all Republicans, right? Sure, fine. But since GOP Senators aren't exactly calling the administration out on its coddling and encouragement of white supremacists, and because they've done nothing but enable this feckless goon most of us didn't vote for, yes all Republicans. There I said it. And I'm not even a little sorry. I mean, all but one of them just rammed through Ruth Bader Ginsburg's conservative replacement a week before a Presidential election. So again, all Republicans.

Voting isn't going to cure COVID and it's not
going to make the MAGA goons go away,  but it's
something we can do to make things suck less.

So all this to say, leave 2020 alone and go vote. Specifically go vote Democratic. What? I know I'm not the boss of you, I'm just using my platform and speaking to my readers. Yes, both of you. This isn't the time to make the point that we need a third party, or to write in Bernie Sanders. I love Bernie too, but there was exactly zero chance he was going to convert any on-the-fence conservatives and since the current President is being coy about whether or not he'll accept the results, we have to vote him out if we would like to have elections in the future.

Pictured: the woman most of us voted
for but isn't President somehow.

And by such an irrefutable margin that no amount of missing absentee ballots, artificially long lines in Georgia, and Supreme Court Justices the former host of The Apprentice got to appoint will make a difference. Last time Clinton won by three million votes. Three million. And yet the guy who we have on video bragging about sexual assault is the President and he's spent four years lying about how he actually won the popular vote; a nonsense claim nobody in his party has dared to refute. 

No matter what happens, the election is going to be a shit show. But for real, let's stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stop blaming the year 2020 and do something about the racist, misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, fascists who are openly threatening us with an armed uprising if they don't win.

"Yeah, but Biden and Harris aren't perfect human beings with spotless records and flawless
progressive credentials, so...um...guess I'll just let the country fall into despotism."

-Dumbs, who may be the death of us all