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This land is your land. These lands are badlands.
Just after 9 pm, a dark rainbow shone inside Badlands, the Old Town LGBTQ+ bar hosting an election night watch party. As former President Donald Trump’s electoral lead grew over Vice President Kamala Harris, groups of friends sat in the bar’s front room like loved ones waiting in a hospital lobby for the inevitable. Morose singletons fixated on their screens.
“We’re just disassociating in the back, watching drag,” said Ann Pyne, producer of the sapphic dance party Dyke Nite. “It’s dark...you have to find the beauty in the horror.”
Indeed, the scene at the dance club was of people trying to emotionally distance themselves from the prospect of victory for a candidate whose closing message centered on demonizing trans people, singling them out for individual scorn.
Badlands hosted a slightly less harrowing watch party in its rear room for The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. Season front-runner Asia Consent headlined the watch party, which started when Oregon’s polls closed at 8 pm.
“It is a little frightening seeing Trump in the lead—Team Kamala all the way—but I hope that no matter what happens, queer and trans lives are at the forefront of what they do,” Consent told WW.
By 9:30, the watch party reverted to Tuesday night’s usual karaoke night, with a dozen dancers working it out on the remix. Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” was an early choice.
“If you’re stressed, put a drink in the air,” entertainer Atlas Marshall told karaoke guests before busting out “Tennessee Whiskey” by David Allen Coe.
No matter the night’s outcome, the party twirled on.