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Chris Arnade 🐢

9 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read

As someone who has literally been walking around country, I can tell you Virginia wasn’t a fluke. Unless something radically changes (mostly with a Covid crisis they can’t control), Dems gonna get crushed in 2022

Not sure there is really anything they can do about it though. 1/

It isn’t that anyone particularly loves GOP, they mostly don’t. It is that the country feels “off” & stuff feels “weird”. Again. Most of this is about a Covid crisis Biden pitched the electorate he was gonna get under control & return us to Normal. But normal hasn’t returned 2/

Also a lot of people jumped on team Biden because he wasn’t Trump. They never loved him, but he wasn’t Chaos, ranting, & volatility. He was a normal dude promising normal stuff. But That hasn’t, in their minds, materialized. Stuff is still crazy, weird, & wrong. 3/

Most Americans have an experiential political mindset. They don’t read long Substacks about policy. They ask a very simple question, “is shit working?” Most policy doesn’t touch them in visceral way. Not that they can see/connect. But Covid, & policy around it, does. 4/

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More from @Chris_arnade

Chris Arnade 🐢

@Chris_arnade

6 Nov

I get the downtown renovation project (good!) has a bench every x feet requirement (also good!), but could you have thought a little more about placement. And maybe sat in them first

Current view is kinda nice because the idling garbage truck & F450 filling up, are gone

Another great view

Read 4 tweets

Chris Arnade 🐢

@Chris_arnade

5 Nov

My essay on walking twenty miles across Orlando.

Sixth in my Walking America series

intellectualinting.substack.com/p/walking-amer…

I have come to appreciate every city I have walked across, but Orlando has been the toughest.

The overall landscape of the city is brutal, and does its best to stamp out any community, soul, & beauty.

But it is still there. Because people need all of those.

Next piece in the Walking America series is Florence SC

Then who knows. Maybe Waterbury CT, maybe Bridgeport. Maybe Houston, Dallas, El Paso. So many towns, so little time.

Read 4 tweets

Chris Arnade 🐢

@Chris_arnade

30 Oct

So begins my 17 miles across Orlando. In a McDonald’s with a homeless guy & fashionable Japanese tourist. Different place (grew up near here) then where else I walked so far. Less planned, more ad hock dealing with growth

If I make it will end up somewhere north of here tonight

Post coup, Official name is now Democratic People’s Republic of Chocolate

Man. I just wanna be kept dry & out of sun. Not part of some art project to pretend most of the area doesn’t have the feel of an airport grounds

Read 95 tweets

Chris Arnade 🐢

@Chris_arnade

30 Oct

Had my Substack for a month, & so far got a lot of nice feedback

When i started it didn’t known where exactly I would take it, but now I do

I am going to focus on the walking America series & since I do more in these towns than just walk expand it from just short essays 1/

So in addition to a short essay about what I saw/thought walking across X, I will add some things like “best dive bar in X” & “best strip mall ethnic food in X”, best McDonald’s

My tastes are not about best food or best IPA, but about best vibe, “ambiance, & community 2/

I don’t want it to be a normal travel thing, but I am a traveler, so. It can’t be entirely not that

Also, I will be expanding to stuff outside of US, as COVID restrictions lesson. Like walking in Quito, Istanbul, & Bucharest. And hopefully eventually a long walking in Vietnam 3/

Read 6 tweets