[From our friends at The Connecticut Centinal. --Ed.]
It's not every day that a group of furries walks into the Stamford Diner to have brunch, but yesterday was the second day of "Furpocalypse 2024" — the Halloween-themed anthropomorphic convention in Stamford that raises money for local animal and social charities.
This is now the 10th year that furries from all over the world have gathered in New England to celebrate Halloween and be furry animals together. The first "furcon" took place in Cromwell, CT, in 2014. There are there now an estimated 1 million furries in the US.
But this being an election year, our table couldn't help but wonder how the furries would be voting come Tuesday, especially after 'Peanut' the Squirrel and Fred the Raccoon were murdered by New York State government thugs.
Coincidentally, Peanut's owner, Mark Longo, hails from Connecticut. He moved to Elmira, NY, in 2023 to start the Freedom Farm, a nonprofit, set up to rescue animals.
I feel so sorry for this guy. The government came and took his squirrel “Peanut”, which he’s owned for 7 years, and another pet raccoon and euthanized them both, for no apparent reason.
— 🇺🇸↪️aptain Ⓜ️organ🇺🇸 (@CaptainMorganTN) November 2, 2024
“Peanut” was the mascot for his animal non-profit and had a social media following of over a… pic.twitter.com/5EfoOKqelE
So we put together a little sign with "Trump" on one side and "Kamala" on the other, and headed over to the convention to check it out.
We spoke with nearly 50 furries and anthropomorphic enthusiasts who had assembled outside in front of the Hilton after completing a parade around the convention.
Nearly half of the furries and enthusiasts had absolutely no interest in the election or politics whatsoever. They were so fully immersed in the furry world that some didn't even seem to be aware of the election. But they all felt sad and angry over what happened to Peanut and Fred.
We met one furry who was disappointed that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., had dropped out of the race. "Now that Bobby is out, I'm probably just not going to vote at all," said one of the foxes who felt Bobby was the only candidate who really cared about animals and the environment.
Most of the furries eagerly endorsed Kamala, saying she was the "obvious" choice but no one could really articulate why she was the obvious choice.
They mostly repeated the kinds of lines you hear on the mainstream media about "saving democracy" from the orange man and "protecting LGBTQ+ and women's rights" though no one could explain which "rights" were being threatened.
We met a Canadian couple in love with Justin Trudeau which confused us -- how could anyone love what Trudeau did to Canada for the sake of "covid"?
Nonetheless the couple wished they could vote for Kamala, and even joked that considering the state of American "election integrity" that they probably could vote. (They probably aren't wrong.)
We found one furry enthusiast who was not afraid to share his support for Donald Trump. He served in the military, and saw first hand how badly the Biden-Harris admin treated servicemen, including the poor and stupid decisions made when pulling out of Afghanistan, for instance. And how Biden-Harris policies have destroyed morale in the military. He was glad to show his support for Trump.
While the furries around us seemed surprised to see a Trump supporter in their ranks, they were very welcoming of his views and appreciated his thoughtful perspective.
But perhaps the most interesting conversation we had was with an older furry from New Hampshire.
She was so excited to see us asking folks about the election, that she came right up to say thank you.
Turns out, she is a long-time volunteer for the League of Women Voters ("LWV"). She brought along a Harrod's bag full of handmade "please vote" pins which she kindly shared with the group.
Then the LWV furry, a black cat, told us how upset she was about what had just happened in New Hampshire.
She proceeded to explain that the state was now requiring photo ID to vote, and she just couldn't believe how terrible that was!
She said requiring voter ID amounts to voter suppression, and complained that "we shouldn't be doing anything to make it harder for people to vote."
The other furries in her group nodded in agreement.
The irony, of course, is that photo ID was required to attend Furpocalypse, and that requirement didn't seem to suppress anyone from attending the con.
