8/25/24

NOW, IT’S 'BUSINESS,' AS DEMOCRATS WORK TO ELECT HARRIS & BANISH TRUMP

“OKAY, LET’S GET TO BUSINESS. Let’s get to business. All right,” Kamala Harris pleaded, as she struggled to quiet the cheers and applause and whoops as she appeared at the podium on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.
     It seemed a strangely pedestrian way to introduce her speech, which was so anticipated, coming after the princes and princesses of the Democratic Party had assembled in Chicago to show off their skills as nation’s most eloquent, seasoned and practiced  political orators.
     But I thought it really was “business” that Harris had on her mind: there was so much to get done in a very little time in the heart-stopping mission of stopping Donald Trump from destroying the country.
      Harris’s immediate business on Aug. 22 was simply not to fall flat on her face.
     But the real challenge was not preaching to the adoring choir in Chicago, but convincing election skeptics, slouches and cynics of the seven “battleground” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia, who would determine the outcome to vote Democratic, with less than three months to do so.
     She already had established herself as a campaign sorcerer, taking hold of the Democratic Party instantly on July 21, when President Joe Biden finally withdrew from the race after his disastrous “debate” with Trump on June 27, endorsing his vice president to take his place.
     The response had astonished everyone. No pollster, pundit or fabulist would have dared predict the explosion of support Harris received, or how confident and happy she seemed as she assumed mantel of instant nominee.
      Her winning streak had continued with choosing as her running mate the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, a political Everyman, who disarmed friend and foe with his Midwestern charm; his biography as a high school teacher, football coach, National Guard veteran and hunter; daring anyone to challenge his embrace of progressivism, which he defined as the dastardly act of offering free lunches to hungry school children.
      Would Harris slip on the proverbial banana peel tonight? And then what of the endless carpet of banana peels that would appear the morning after and the one after that?

DEMOCRATS MAY NEVER GET OVER  NOV. 8, 2016,  the night that Hilary Clinton won the election, but Donald Trump captured the presidency because of the Constitution’s absurd Electoral College system of allocating votes.
     Post-traumatic stress disorder has crippled Democrats’ mental processes ever since, not only because the one-time First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State was so much more qualified than the profane, bigot, liar and business cheat.
     But it was the fact that so many neighbors, spouses, cousins and business colleagues had voted for him – an astonishing 62.9 million Americans had betrayed the other 65.8 million.
      Many believed that Joe Biden’s decisive victory, winning both the popular and Electoral College in 2020, had driven Trump from their nightmares at last.
     But Democrats’ PTSD proved well founded. Despite two impeachments, various court indictments, and an assassin’s bullet missing his brain by an inch, Trump has persisted and so has his appeal.
      On the day that Biden left the 2024 race, polls showed Trump beating Biden 43 to 39 percent.
     Three days later, presumptive nominee Harris was ahead by nearly 1 percentage point, and her margin has generally increased ever since, so that today according to some estimates, she’s leading Trump, 47.2 to 43.7 percent.
      But Democrats aren’t fooled and surely not by polls.
     You may see them joyful and dancing in the daytime, but at night, if they manage to sleep at all, they awaken screaming at the terror and mystery of Trump’s hold on so much of the country.

WHICH IS WHY SO MANY SPEAKERS warned the convention choir and the faithful everywhere not to get ahead of themselves.  
     Michelle Obama, the former First Lady and perhaps the best orator of our times, including her husband, spelled out the “business” in convincingly harsh terms:

... as we embrace this renewed sense of hope, let us not forget the despair we have felt. Let us not forget what we are up against. Yes, Kamala and Tim are doing great now. We’re loving it. They are packing arenas across the country. Folks are energized. We are feeling good.
     But remember, there are still so many people who are desperate for a different outcome, who are ready to question and criticize every move Kamala makes, who are eager to spread those lies, who don’t want to vote for a woman, who will continue to prioritize building their wealth over ensuring that everyone has enough.
     So no matter how good we feel tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, this is going to be an uphill battle. So folks, we cannot be our own worst enemies. No.
     See, because the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. And we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.

     Governor Walz described the “business” as a sports metaphor:

You know, you might not know it, but I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this. But I have given a lot of pep talks.
     So let me finish with this, team. It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field.      
     And boy, do we have the right team.
     Kamala Harris is tough. Kamala Harris is experienced. And Kamala Harris is ready. Our job, our job, our job, our job for everyone watching, is to get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling. One inch at a time. One yard at a time. One phone call at a time. One door knock at a time. One $5 donation at a time.
     Look, we’ve got 76 days. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when you’re dead.

     Kamala Harris defined the “business” as a single mission: confronting Donald Trump, the shady businessman and Constitutional criminal.

     Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.
     Consider — consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes.
     When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the U.S. Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite — he fanned the flames.
     And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans, and separately — and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse. And consider, consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol.
     His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens. Consider, consider the power he will have, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution.
     Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.

     Pundits often instruct this or that politician on what he or she “must do” when facing one particular crisis or that one.
      Before Harris’s speech accepting the nomination, the commentators said that she had to “introduce” herself to millions of voters, whom the punditry decided did not yet know who she was; had to “humanize” herself; had to “spell out” what she would do as president; had to present herself as “presidential” and a credible commander-in-chief; all the while trying not to fall flat on her face.
     She accomplished all of that and more. The consensus was that Kamala Harris gave one of the best convention speeches ever. One of my friends compared it to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech.

THE “BUSINESS’ QUESTION is whether Harris and the Democrats can convince enough voters to vote for her and not Trump.
     Stirring as the convention was, it’s hard for me to imagine that many viewers, listeners and readers tuned in if they were not ready to vote for Harris. I certainly didn’t watch a minute of the Republican convention last months.
      It’s possible that nationwide more people will vote for Harris than for Trump on Nov. 5, just as they did for her Democratic predecessors in 2016 and 2020. But what will voters do in the seven states that matter in the electoral count this year?
      The same tiresome, terrifying question that has haunted us for nearly a decade is still unanswered: why are so many Americans so drawn to Trump? Why has he endured as a political and cultural presence all of these years?
     Solving that puzzle is indeed the “business” Harris alluded to at the convention.
    What matters now is what she, Walz and the rest of us do in the remaining 72 days.
      Oops! I got that wrong.
      I was writing this late one night, which predictably turned into the next day.
     So, now the count is down to 71.
     I look forward to, as well as dread, what the number will be tomorrow.