Losing losers who lose

Look, I could say a lot about the Huang Kuo-chang recall vote.

I could point out, as New Bloom did, that twice as many people mobilized to vote against him (though ultimately not enough) as those who came to vote for him. Okay, yeah, that's true, but honestly the push was against him - that side was always going to get more people out on Let's Vote For Something Stupid Day. Those who support him might just as well decided to stay home.

I could mention, as Frozen Garlic did, that this mess was partly the fault of Huang and the NPP themselves, for pushing for ridiculously low bars to make recalls happen. This is correct, but the point has already been made and, in any case, Huang survived. I have heard that despite this debacle he still believes in the idea of relaxed recall criteria, which kind of feels a bit Socrates-with-the-hemock-y, y'know?

I could bring up the issue that the failure of the vote seems to have mostly been reported in English by 'new media' - for example, the Taipei Times published pieces leading up to the recall, but doesn't seem to have anything on the recall itself (if it does, it's buried so deeply that I couldn't find it).

I could talk about the fragility of democracy, the difficulty elected representatives face knowing they might not be able to serve their entire terms, and how fringe groups might will use the recall laws to cause problems in the future. That's all fine, but ultimately a little obvious.

But you know what? I don't feel like it.

What I feel like saying is this:

Hey anti-gay losers - guess what? You're LOSERS! That's because you lost.

Your agenda is not welcome in Taiwan. Your hatred is uninspiring. People didn't come out to support your bigoted garbage recall vote. You are losing losers who lost.

Taiwan may still have a strong undercurrent of conservatism - certainly it's an issue among the older generations, as it is everywhere - but we've proven that that conservatism doesn't extend to American-style bigotry and discrimination. Taiwan is, in fact, better than that. Taiwan is the first Asian country to move towards marriage equality and I think will, despite delays, be the first Asian country to implement it. You lost.

This is because - nyah nyah nyah - you are losers. 

You have some support, that's true. There are 40,000 or so bigots in Xizhi whom I'd like to flip off. But ultimately, not enough.

You could turn around and say "but you guys lost the 2012 elections and you will probably lose again someday". This is true. But those elections were between differing political ideologies which are tied to deep-set notions of identity and history, animated in part by powerful and wealthy interests that battle it out behind the scenes. In a two-party system such as this, each side will continue winning and losing in turn. At times, it seems to mean little.

Naw, your loss is far worse.

You asked for 66,000 or so people to show up to vote for hate - and they didn't. They woke up on Saturday, yawned, thought "nah, those guys are jerks" and poured a cup of coffee. They blew you off. 

You wanted them to stand against equality, and not even in any way that would make any difference. Seriously, marriage equality is coming. If you'd unseated Huang out of some twisted sense of vindictiveness, it would still be coming. Huang is not the key to stopping it - it can't be stopped. You can't force a reversal of the highest court's decision.

You just wanted to do it to be jerks.

But you lost. They didn't come, because you are losers.

Taiwan is better than that, and it's better than you.