POSTCARDS: |
| Dear Zoica, Your vote counts. I mean REALLY. You’re in one of those states that could elect the next president. Whereas, I live in Rhode Island, a state so ridiculously small it shouldn’t even be a state; and it's so Democratic, my vote is taken for granted. But you’re in a “battleground” state, where the outcome may be VERY close. Zoica, my vote barely counts. Yours can change history. Thanks, Brian – a volunteer. * * * Dear Freedom, Every day, I wake up scared out of my mind. I have panic attacks at the supermarket and walking down the street. The reason is Donald Trump. He lies. He abuses women. Calls people names. He tried to overturn the election that he lost. You’re in a battleground state, where a few thousand votes may decide this year’s election. Freedom, you can stop this monster. Thanks, Brian – A volunteer * * * Hello Destiny, We’ve never met. But I know the power of your vote. That’s because just a few states will decide this election. And you live in one. Will America continue as a democracy, led by Kamala Harris; or will it turn into a dictatorship, under Donald Trump? Destiny, your vote can save the country. Thanks, Brian – A volunteer * * * Hey Brian, Let’s speak frankly, Brian to Brian. Brians are not stupid. Many are patriots. But some, like me, live in states where our votes barely count. Others, like you, are in swing states, where your vote, and a few thousand others, could decide who’ll be our next president. So, Brian, stick up for Brians everywhere; for our families, friends, neighbors and all of our fellow citizens. I’m pleading. Vote! Please, Please, PLEASE, P L E A S E! Thanks, Brian - A Brian |
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HER DEBATE SUCCESS PREVIEWS HOW SMARTLY HARRIS WOULD GOVERN
I DREADED TUESDAY NIGHT’S DEBATE. I'm not apologizing, since Democrats worry a lot - and we have our reasons.
As it turned out, the debate was unquestionably a win for Kamala Harris. As for Donald Trump, except for of his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, the debate was his worst humiliation since his assault on our politics began nine years ago.
Harris's debate triumph was followed by an endorsement by Taylor Swift, perhaps the world's most popular singer, whose potential influence is limited only by the fact that some of her fans are too young to vote.
The irony of this double-header win is that it remains unclear whether Harris will carry the Nov. 5 election.
In part, this is due to the tenacious, supernatural force with which Trump holds tens of millions of voters.
And it's also because Trump has eluded the kind of justice found mainly in old comic books and Western movies, wherein the villain always gets what's coming to him - at least being sent directly to home confinement without passing Go.
But Trump persists like Long Covid. The polls say the election, which is now just weeks - not months – away, is close. Maybe the polls are right. Or maybe they're missing the lurking landslide that favors one side or the other.
What's for sure is that if Harris hadn’t pulled off a spectacular performance - some observers called it unprecedented in the history of presidential debates - her campaign likely would have stalled and failed.
Instead, she's holding her position in the race, and maybe has even increased the momentum that's defined her campaign since July 21, when she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, quickly named Tim Walz as her folk-hero running mate and then stage-managed a joyous Democratic National Convention.
AS LAST NIGHT’S DEBATE ENDED, I, and maybe lots of other Worrier Democrats, realized our fears were unfounded: she hadn't fallen flat on her face or started speaking in tongues.
But what had happened?
If you’d asked me immediately what I thought, I would have been at a loss. That happens sometimes when I watch a sports event, go to a concert, see a movie. It takes time – a long time - to even remember what what happened.
I did feel a tinge of disappointment that Harris had not delivered the “knockout” blow so many people yearn for. Of course, those single, defining moments are rare – Biden’s horrific failure in his June debate with Trump being one of the exceptions.
But I knew after the Harris-Trump debate that something had happened - something big - as if a powerful hurricane had swept into America's living rooms and, just as suddenly disappeared.
I like to think that when I witness something, I don’t need Big Media's analysts and pundits to tell me what I just experienced. But this time, the Know-It-Alls helped explain some of what happened.
TAKE THE OPENING MOMENT. I didn’t make much of it when I saw Harris walk across the stage and force Trump to shake hands.
But some pundits pointed out that was the moment Harris took charge. From the start, Harris forced Trump to say things and act in ways he shouldn't. From the start, she mostly controlled the proceedings.
The Commentariate also pointed out how Harris repeatedly lured Trump into a variety of traps that forced his lizard-brain to show himself at his true worst.
An example was when Harris suggested that voters drop into one of Trump's rallies. Here's what she said, according to the ABC News transcript:
As it turned out, the debate was unquestionably a win for Kamala Harris. As for Donald Trump, except for of his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, the debate was his worst humiliation since his assault on our politics began nine years ago.
Harris's debate triumph was followed by an endorsement by Taylor Swift, perhaps the world's most popular singer, whose potential influence is limited only by the fact that some of her fans are too young to vote.
The irony of this double-header win is that it remains unclear whether Harris will carry the Nov. 5 election.
In part, this is due to the tenacious, supernatural force with which Trump holds tens of millions of voters.
And it's also because Trump has eluded the kind of justice found mainly in old comic books and Western movies, wherein the villain always gets what's coming to him - at least being sent directly to home confinement without passing Go.
But Trump persists like Long Covid. The polls say the election, which is now just weeks - not months – away, is close. Maybe the polls are right. Or maybe they're missing the lurking landslide that favors one side or the other.
What's for sure is that if Harris hadn’t pulled off a spectacular performance - some observers called it unprecedented in the history of presidential debates - her campaign likely would have stalled and failed.
Instead, she's holding her position in the race, and maybe has even increased the momentum that's defined her campaign since July 21, when she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, quickly named Tim Walz as her folk-hero running mate and then stage-managed a joyous Democratic National Convention.
AS LAST NIGHT’S DEBATE ENDED, I, and maybe lots of other Worrier Democrats, realized our fears were unfounded: she hadn't fallen flat on her face or started speaking in tongues.
But what had happened?
If you’d asked me immediately what I thought, I would have been at a loss. That happens sometimes when I watch a sports event, go to a concert, see a movie. It takes time – a long time - to even remember what what happened.
I did feel a tinge of disappointment that Harris had not delivered the “knockout” blow so many people yearn for. Of course, those single, defining moments are rare – Biden’s horrific failure in his June debate with Trump being one of the exceptions.
But I knew after the Harris-Trump debate that something had happened - something big - as if a powerful hurricane had swept into America's living rooms and, just as suddenly disappeared.
I like to think that when I witness something, I don’t need Big Media's analysts and pundits to tell me what I just experienced. But this time, the Know-It-Alls helped explain some of what happened.
TAKE THE OPENING MOMENT. I didn’t make much of it when I saw Harris walk across the stage and force Trump to shake hands.
But some pundits pointed out that was the moment Harris took charge. From the start, Harris forced Trump to say things and act in ways he shouldn't. From the start, she mostly controlled the proceedings.
The Commentariate also pointed out how Harris repeatedly lured Trump into a variety of traps that forced his lizard-brain to show himself at his true worst.
An example was when Harris suggested that voters drop into one of Trump's rallies. Here's what she said, according to the ABC News transcript:
| I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about (how) windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your, your desires. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will. |
For Trump, anyone, but especially a woman, moreover, a person of color, making fun of his rallies is probably the severest insult imaginable, worse than the cruel nicknames, profane and racial slurs in which he specializes. And it set off a torrent of boasts, exaggerations, lies and fantasies.
Trump said:
Trump said:
| First, let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids. |
Really, if you had just dropped in from Mars and wanted to know what on Earth was causing so much fuss, that exchange was about all you needed to decide the differences between Harris and Trump.
And, of course, what the visitors from outer space could see with their 16 eyes on the split TV screen was just as important as what they heard with their giant ears protruding from their foreheads:
On their left, a scowling, menacing Trump; on their right, a skeptical, sometimes radiant Harris.
And, of course, what the visitors from outer space could see with their 16 eyes on the split TV screen was just as important as what they heard with their giant ears protruding from their foreheads:
On their left, a scowling, menacing Trump; on their right, a skeptical, sometimes radiant Harris.
ONE OF THE SEVERAL HUNDRED things I had worried about before the debate was whether Harris would show up over-prepared.
I had read that she'd holed-up in a Pennsylvania hotel for days, practicing in a studio-like space, going through all the possible scenarios, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by Trump’s insults and showmanship or by an actual surprise question from a debate moderator.
Biden had over-prepared in June, and it’s reasonable to think that the sheer volume of materials muddled his already over-taxed mind.
But Harris was once a prosecutor, comfortable with the advanced work that goes into knowing the facts and details of a case, as well as being prepared for the unexpected drama of the courtroom.
So her methodical advance work paid off, and she arrived as a walking, talking, breathing briefing book.
I doubt anything Kamala Harris said Tuesday night was spontaneous or unrehearsed.
Did that make her “inauthentic?”
Absolutely not.
The presidency is an impossible job, almost as daunting as the challenges that a candidate faces in accomplishing the trillion or so things that the experts demand that she “must do” in a single 90-minute debate.
The kind of person we want in the Oval Office is someone who will do everything that they humanly can to perform at their very best. And that’s what Kamala Harris demonstrated in Tuesday's debate.
The debate may or may not change the course of the election.
But surely the debate showcased the stark choices in this election:
A terrifying, wacko and inept president.
An inspiring, rational and capable president.
I had read that she'd holed-up in a Pennsylvania hotel for days, practicing in a studio-like space, going through all the possible scenarios, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by Trump’s insults and showmanship or by an actual surprise question from a debate moderator.
Biden had over-prepared in June, and it’s reasonable to think that the sheer volume of materials muddled his already over-taxed mind.
But Harris was once a prosecutor, comfortable with the advanced work that goes into knowing the facts and details of a case, as well as being prepared for the unexpected drama of the courtroom.
So her methodical advance work paid off, and she arrived as a walking, talking, breathing briefing book.
I doubt anything Kamala Harris said Tuesday night was spontaneous or unrehearsed.
Did that make her “inauthentic?”
Absolutely not.
The presidency is an impossible job, almost as daunting as the challenges that a candidate faces in accomplishing the trillion or so things that the experts demand that she “must do” in a single 90-minute debate.
The kind of person we want in the Oval Office is someone who will do everything that they humanly can to perform at their very best. And that’s what Kamala Harris demonstrated in Tuesday's debate.
The debate may or may not change the course of the election.
But surely the debate showcased the stark choices in this election:
A terrifying, wacko and inept president.
An inspiring, rational and capable president.
Election Countdown
ANOTHER GOOD MAN WADES INTO THE TRUMP SEWER. WHY?
SPENCER COX, Utah governor. CREDIT: Cox campaign
IT'S WORTH REMEMBERING that there are some really good Republicans, including those who saved democracy when Donald Trump sought to overthrow the 2020 election.
Among the most admirable GOPers has been Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, whose decency, compassion and willingness to defend the underdog set him apart from his party’s extremists, including Trump.
Until last month.
That’s when something terrible happened.
Among the most admirable GOPers has been Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, whose decency, compassion and willingness to defend the underdog set him apart from his party’s extremists, including Trump.
Until last month.
That’s when something terrible happened.
| It was sort of a miracle in reverse, if you think of miracles as astonishing, unexplainable events that change people and society for the better. What happened? On July 14, a day after an assassin attempted to kill Trump, Cox declared Trump’s survival a miracle, and that as a result, only Trump could unite the nation. “I will do my best to help and support you,” Cox wrote to the nation’s most dangerous and deranged politician. It gets worse. The following month, Spencer accompanied Trump on his infamous visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where 13 soldiers, one of them from Utah, were to be “honored” for losing their lives during the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Federal rules prohibit using the burial grounds as a backdrop for political purposes; nonetheless photos were taken of Trump and Cox; later, they were used in Cox reelection fundraising emails. The governor apologized, and seemed to blame staffers for using the materials. |  TWO MONTHS UNTIL NOV. 5 - ELECTION DAY Nothing is certain. Election outcomes in a divided nation are difficult - if not impossible - to predict. Are the polls accurate? If so, they show only that the race is "close." But a landslide is possible for either side. Clearly, Kamala Harris has improved the position of Democrats, since she replaced President Joe Biden as the party's nominee. Inconceivably, Donald Trump remains a strong contender, despite his record as an insurrectionist, a bigot, a liar, etc., etc. Catastrophe looms. But so does the chance for a newprogressive era in American history. Democracy continues at the cliff's edge. |
Cox’s embrace of Trumpism was now complete. Not only did he endorse Trump, he was acting like him. The Salt Lake Tribune described Cox’s fall from grace in a scathing editorial:
| … in a macabre sort of way, a photo of Trump and Cox in a cemetery is appropriate. It was where they came to bury Spencer Cox’s honor. |
 |
WE ARE NOW JUST TWO MONTHS from Nov. 5, Election Day. And once more, we are confounded by the essential treachery of Donald Trump, a psychopath, liar, bigot and criminal who should not even be on the ballot: how does he attract and corrupt decent Americans like Spencer J. Cox?
I became a Cox fan two years ago when he came to the defense of school athletes who had transitioned from their at-birth genders.
The Utah legislature had passed a bill banning their participation. Cox personally explored the issue, then vetoed the bill – knowing that his move would be both unpopular and unsuccessful.
Cox concluded that the proposed ban was a vast overreaction to a small group of young persons, whose struggles with gender identity left some open to suicide.
Here’s what he said:
I became a Cox fan two years ago when he came to the defense of school athletes who had transitioned from their at-birth genders.
The Utah legislature had passed a bill banning their participation. Cox personally explored the issue, then vetoed the bill – knowing that his move would be both unpopular and unsuccessful.
Cox concluded that the proposed ban was a vast overreaction to a small group of young persons, whose struggles with gender identity left some open to suicide.
Here’s what he said:
| Four kids and only one of them playing girls’ sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. |
Many people across the country were astounded by Cox’s courage and common sense. I wrote a blog piece about it, headlined:
We're betting that you'll
Wish to borrow this guy
To be your governor
Here's a link to that essay:
Cox was lionized nationally as one of the rare Republicans willing to stand up to the bullying of MAGA Trumpism. He did not vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and earlier in July, said he wouldn’t vote for Trump this year, based on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection that attempted to overthrow Joe Biden’s election.
Overall, Cox was concerned about the wide political and cultural divisions in the U.S., and as head of the National Governors Association last year, he backed a program called “Disagree Better.”
But on July 13, a would-be assassin’s bullet struck Trump’s ear, and missed his skull. Donald Trump would go on being Trump, but Spencer Cox underwent a drastic change.
Why? Was Cox’s U-turn just one more example of political opportunism? Had aliens taken over his being, as in the old horror movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
I HAVE BEEN WARNED against spending even a millisecond worrying about Trump’s effect on his supporters, because defeating Trump and electing Kamala Harris are the only things that matter.
Jody McPhillips, a friend who knows how to focus on the desperate stakes in the election, put this elegantly in a comment she made on one of my recent blog posts:
We're betting that you'll
Wish to borrow this guy
To be your governor
Here's a link to that essay:
Cox was lionized nationally as one of the rare Republicans willing to stand up to the bullying of MAGA Trumpism. He did not vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and earlier in July, said he wouldn’t vote for Trump this year, based on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection that attempted to overthrow Joe Biden’s election.
Overall, Cox was concerned about the wide political and cultural divisions in the U.S., and as head of the National Governors Association last year, he backed a program called “Disagree Better.”
But on July 13, a would-be assassin’s bullet struck Trump’s ear, and missed his skull. Donald Trump would go on being Trump, but Spencer Cox underwent a drastic change.
Why? Was Cox’s U-turn just one more example of political opportunism? Had aliens taken over his being, as in the old horror movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
I HAVE BEEN WARNED against spending even a millisecond worrying about Trump’s effect on his supporters, because defeating Trump and electing Kamala Harris are the only things that matter.
Jody McPhillips, a friend who knows how to focus on the desperate stakes in the election, put this elegantly in a comment she made on one of my recent blog posts:
| I don't care why so many continue to support Trump; it's like pondering why we all die or why dogs have such short lifespans when they are so much nicer than we are. If we all keep doing what we're doing to defeat him, we will. We can worry about understanding it all later. |
But I can’t help it. I’d even argue that understanding the Trump Effect may help determine the outcome of the election.
Let’s deal first with the theory there's been mischief by aliens from outer space.
When I read about Cox’s about-face, I was reminded of the 1978 science-fiction film, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” in which aliens drop down to earth and turn humans into scary pod-like replicas.
It’s a nice metaphor, but of course it’s malarkey, as Joe Biden would say.
Also fiction, but in a more serious way, is the assassination “miracle" theory. Lots of people believe that God intervened, so that the assassin’s bullet struck Trump’s ear, but spared his brain.
Governor Cox buys Big Time into the "miracle." In his letter to Trump, Cox wrote:
Let’s deal first with the theory there's been mischief by aliens from outer space.
When I read about Cox’s about-face, I was reminded of the 1978 science-fiction film, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” in which aliens drop down to earth and turn humans into scary pod-like replicas.
It’s a nice metaphor, but of course it’s malarkey, as Joe Biden would say.
Also fiction, but in a more serious way, is the assassination “miracle" theory. Lots of people believe that God intervened, so that the assassin’s bullet struck Trump’s ear, but spared his brain.
Governor Cox buys Big Time into the "miracle." In his letter to Trump, Cox wrote:
| I want you to know that I truly believe that God had a hand in saving you. * * * Your life was spared. Now, because of that miracle, you have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save America.” |
Why didn’t Cox look deeper into the miracle? If God wanted to spare Donald Trump, why did She allow the assassination attempt to happen in the first place? And how come God decided no miracle was needed for Corey Comperatore, the rally-goer, Army reservist and volunteer firefighter, who was killed by the assassin?
The miracle theory is bunk. And for that matter, so is the secular theory that old-fashioned political opportunism was at work: that Cox, like so many other Republicans, was making nice with Trump to help his reelection bid.
A number of news stories cast doubts on that, saying that after an unpleasant, but successful primary, Cox seems safely headed for reelection in November, without need of Trump’s blessing.
Further, Cox’s letter declared it that he didn’t want any favors:
The miracle theory is bunk. And for that matter, so is the secular theory that old-fashioned political opportunism was at work: that Cox, like so many other Republicans, was making nice with Trump to help his reelection bid.
A number of news stories cast doubts on that, saying that after an unpleasant, but successful primary, Cox seems safely headed for reelection in November, without need of Trump’s blessing.
Further, Cox’s letter declared it that he didn’t want any favors:
| Mr. President, I know we have some differences and you probably don’t like me much. And that’s OK. I get it. I’m not writing this letter looking for a position in your Cabinet or a role on your team. |
Instead, he later acknowledged that by supporting Trump, he had a better chance of his long-time goal of unifying the country – concluding that was something he couldn’t do as a Trump skeptic.
That’s what he told McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic magazine, who rushed to Salt Lake City to find out why Cox had veered off course. Coppins talked with the governor for 90 minutes. He wrote:
That’s what he told McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic magazine, who rushed to Salt Lake City to find out why Cox had veered off course. Coppins talked with the governor for 90 minutes. He wrote:
| … Cox was surprisingly transparent about the calculation he was making. He told me that the Never Trump movement had utterly failed, and said he’d come to realize that he couldn’t have any influence on the modern GOP “if I’m not on the team”—that is, Trump’s team. “It’s absolutely a litmus test. I don’t think it should be. I wish it wasn’t that way. But it is.” |
JAMES COMEY Finally, we get to the crux of why otherwise rational people pledge allegiance to Donald Trump, and pay an awful price when they do.
James Comey, the former FBI director, whom most people dislike, but who I believe has a cop’s insight into how the underworld works, outlined the process long ago, in a 2019 essay for the New York Times.
Comey said that well-meaning people – generals, lawyers, fellow politicians - think that despite Trump’s flaws, they can steer him in the right direction. But he noted the risks involved:
James Comey, the former FBI director, whom most people dislike, but who I believe has a cop’s insight into how the underworld works, outlined the process long ago, in a 2019 essay for the New York Times.
Comey said that well-meaning people – generals, lawyers, fellow politicians - think that despite Trump’s flaws, they can steer him in the right direction. But he noted the risks involved:
| You can’t say this out loud — maybe not even to your family — but in a time of emergency, with the nation led by a deeply unethical person, this will be your contribution, your personal sacrifice for America. You are smarter than Donald Trump, and you are playing a long game for your country, so you can pull it off where lesser leaders have failed and gotten fired by tweet. Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values. And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul. |
I hope that Spencer Cox, who has been a good citizen and an inspiring politician, finds a way to resurrect his honor and reclaim his soul.
He surely has the personal resources and intellect to wake up tomorrow morning and say: “How silly of me. What was I thinking?”
It’s not likely, of course. It’s hard to change one’s mind; and much harder change it again.
That would amount to a miracle.
But it would be the kind of real-life miracle a country needs on the eve of the most important election of our lifetime.
He surely has the personal resources and intellect to wake up tomorrow morning and say: “How silly of me. What was I thinking?”
It’s not likely, of course. It’s hard to change one’s mind; and much harder change it again.
That would amount to a miracle.
But it would be the kind of real-life miracle a country needs on the eve of the most important election of our lifetime.
ASKS THE CAT: WHY HAVE AN INTERVIEW, WHEN EVERY QUESTION WILL HAVE THE SAME ANSWER?
“WHAT’S THE POINT?”
“Who’s asking?” I said.
“What’s the point of that interview Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are scheduled to have Thursday night on CNN?”
The voice seemed to be coming from our living room ceiling, but I couldn’t determine the origin until I spotted Ben, the cat, sitting on the top of a tall step ladder I was using to fix some old windows.
“Are you sure you can get down from there?” I asked. The ladder was so tall that Ben's head practi;cally bumped the ceiling when he sat straight up.
“You’re avoiding the question” Ben scolded. “Sounds like classic deflection to me. You don’t know the answer, so you’ve changed the subject.”
“It’s possible,” I acknowledged. “But really, Ben, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
HUMANS HAVE A HARD TIME figuring out what cats think. Do they like us? Are they hungry? Does Ben relish the dry food that appears in his bowl day after day? What does he make of the rabbits in the backyard, whom he never gets to meet face-to-face, because he’s an “indoor cat,” a status in which he’s had absolutely no say? Will he, one night, murder us in our sleep?
The mystery has become worse since he began talking a few weeks ago. There’s nothing wrong with his diction - he has a slight Southern accent, since he was born in Florida - but when he talks, it only about one thing: the Election.
I suppose that makes sense. NPR and MSNBC play incessantly in our house, along with various podcasts featuring an array of conservative and liberal Never-Trumpers. The New York Times is delivered Monday through Friday. This is unhealthy for any brain, cat or human.
But Ben started talking when J.D. Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” surfaced after Trump named the Ohio senator as his running mate.
A lot of people took the comment as an ugly slur against single women. But Ben worried that Republicans were declaring war on an important element of the cat-care ecosystem. Suddenly, politics was personal.
“Who’s asking?” I said.
“What’s the point of that interview Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are scheduled to have Thursday night on CNN?”
The voice seemed to be coming from our living room ceiling, but I couldn’t determine the origin until I spotted Ben, the cat, sitting on the top of a tall step ladder I was using to fix some old windows.
“Are you sure you can get down from there?” I asked. The ladder was so tall that Ben's head practi;cally bumped the ceiling when he sat straight up.
“You’re avoiding the question” Ben scolded. “Sounds like classic deflection to me. You don’t know the answer, so you’ve changed the subject.”
“It’s possible,” I acknowledged. “But really, Ben, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
HUMANS HAVE A HARD TIME figuring out what cats think. Do they like us? Are they hungry? Does Ben relish the dry food that appears in his bowl day after day? What does he make of the rabbits in the backyard, whom he never gets to meet face-to-face, because he’s an “indoor cat,” a status in which he’s had absolutely no say? Will he, one night, murder us in our sleep?
The mystery has become worse since he began talking a few weeks ago. There’s nothing wrong with his diction - he has a slight Southern accent, since he was born in Florida - but when he talks, it only about one thing: the Election.
I suppose that makes sense. NPR and MSNBC play incessantly in our house, along with various podcasts featuring an array of conservative and liberal Never-Trumpers. The New York Times is delivered Monday through Friday. This is unhealthy for any brain, cat or human.
But Ben started talking when J.D. Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” surfaced after Trump named the Ohio senator as his running mate.
A lot of people took the comment as an ugly slur against single women. But Ben worried that Republicans were declaring war on an important element of the cat-care ecosystem. Suddenly, politics was personal.
“THE POINT OF THE CNN INTERVIEW is to find out what kind of a president and vice president Harris and Walz might be,” I said, getting back to Ben’s question.
“You mean that Dana Bash will ask Harris and her Veep, after they win this election, whether they will try to overthrow the 2028 election if they don’t win enough votes?” Ben said.
Give Ben credit for knowing that the interviewer would be Bash, the cable network’s chief political correspondent; but the cat gets zero points for suggesting a frivolous question.
“There are lots of important things,” I said, “that voters want to know and deserve to know about Harris and Walz – before they vote on Nov. 5.”
“Should Bash ask whether Harris-Walz are, like Trump?” Ben suggested. “Are they rapists, serial liars, would-be autocrats and dictators, women-haters, Putin poodles? Do they want to round up, detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants?”
“Respectable journalists have raised big issues," I said. "Take the New York Times’s columnist David Leonhardt; he came up with a list of 25 major questions, the kind Harris and Walz should be able to answer for voters. Here’s one:”
Madam Vice President, your agenda revolves around helping the middle class — such as offering a credit of up to $25,000 for first-time home buyers and increasing the child tax credit. You haven’t said much about some big related issues, though, including paid leave and universal preschool. Will you try to revive President Biden’s plans?
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Pompous, too wordy,” the cat said, “And that's just for starters. What’s the deal about ‘reviving’ Biden’s plans for paid leave and universal preschool? Sounds like a sneaky way of asking whether Harris is going to be a Joe Biden clone.”
“But a legitimate issue,” I argued. “Should voters know whether Harris plans to continue the work of President Biden?”
“Whatever Harris says won’t make any difference,” Ben growled, glaring down from his stepladder perch. “Let’s say she gives one of three possible responses:
"Answer A: Biden belongs in a nursing home, not the Oval Office.
"Answer B: President Biden is the greatest president in our lifetime.
"Answer C. Joe who?”
“So, Ben, the cat, sees no value in knowing what a Harris-Walz administration will do?”
“I know, and you know,” Ben said. “David Leonhardt and everyone else knows what this election is about. There’s only one issue: making sure that Donald Trump is not re-elected president.
“This is a “Yes or No” election.”
“Turn right at the fork; or turn left.”
“On or Off.”
“Forward or Backward.”
“I see what you're getting at,” I said. “This is not an ordinary election. If you don’t like this Harris policy or that Walz position, does that mean you vote for Trump instead? Of course not.”
“It’s just common sense,” said the cat.
“Pompous, too wordy,” the cat said, “And that's just for starters. What’s the deal about ‘reviving’ Biden’s plans for paid leave and universal preschool? Sounds like a sneaky way of asking whether Harris is going to be a Joe Biden clone.”
“But a legitimate issue,” I argued. “Should voters know whether Harris plans to continue the work of President Biden?”
“Whatever Harris says won’t make any difference,” Ben growled, glaring down from his stepladder perch. “Let’s say she gives one of three possible responses:
"Answer A: Biden belongs in a nursing home, not the Oval Office.
"Answer B: President Biden is the greatest president in our lifetime.
"Answer C. Joe who?”
“So, Ben, the cat, sees no value in knowing what a Harris-Walz administration will do?”
“I know, and you know,” Ben said. “David Leonhardt and everyone else knows what this election is about. There’s only one issue: making sure that Donald Trump is not re-elected president.
“This is a “Yes or No” election.”
“Turn right at the fork; or turn left.”
“On or Off.”
“Forward or Backward.”
“I see what you're getting at,” I said. “This is not an ordinary election. If you don’t like this Harris policy or that Walz position, does that mean you vote for Trump instead? Of course not.”
“It’s just common sense,” said the cat.
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:
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.
THE ELECTION HITS CLOSE TO HOME - SORT OF
USUALLY, THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION has seemed both urgent and personal – but always far away.
Then, suddenly, it’s practically in our backyard.
Which was the case yesterday.
Tim Walz - who just nine days earlier was named by Kamala Harris, the Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president, as her running mate - was right here in my hometown, Newport, R.I.
Walz, in fact, passed just a few feet away from my wife and me on his way to a fundraising event, which itself was a mere eight-tenths of a mile from our house.
Our goals were modest. Probably we wouldn't meet Walz. But would we catch sight of him?
Walz, since being introduced to the nation only on Aug. 6, has has added to the excitement that Vice President Harris as stirred among Democrats - including us - since she replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s best bet to keep Donald Trump out of the White House and to keep American free.
It was Walz who labeled Trump as “weird,” which quickly became the party’s favorite word to humiliate Trump. Overnight, Walz emerged as a the embodiment of the down-home favorite uncle, a guy who liked to hunt, who coached high school football, served in the National Guard and wasn’t at all ashamed of defending progressive outrages like serving lunch to hungry school children. One of his old campaign ads, when running for governor, showed him giving advice on a cheap do-it-yourself way of fixing your headlights, all the better to get voters safely to the polls.
So, it would have been great to chew the fat with the neighborly Tim Walz, maybe pick up some pointers on repairing our balky gutters, or probe his views on the best way to protect democracy from the despotic and despicable Mr. Trump.
WHEN WORD FIRST GOT OUT that Walz would be stopping off in Newport, there was a fair amount of mystery to the event. Nobody – at least nobody we knew – seemed aware of what time he would arrive, where he would be and what route he might take to get there.
Walz was in Newport as part of a five-state swing to gather campaign cash as opposed to actually meeting lots of voters.
Unwilling to part with $1,000 for a ticket for the event, much less $10,000 to have our photo taken with the guest of honor, Mr. & Mrs. Jones best hope was for a glimpse of the man, or at least to spot his car.
News stories indicated the event would be in one of the city's former Robber Baron mansions, including some that make up part of Salve' Regina University's spectacular campus, which overlooks the city’s ocean fronting Cliff Walk.
Then, my wife got an email from the Newport Democratic City Committee, suggesting an impromptu welcoming party gather between 12:30 and 1 p.m. at the corner of one of the city’s busiest intersections - Memorial Boulevard at Bellevue Avenue.
Bellevue Avenue is the city’s signature "street," which includes the Tennis Hall of Fame, along with restored mansion/museums like The Elms, Marble House, Rosecliff and Rough Point.
Thirty or so people showed up. No one seemed to know in which direction the Walz motorcade – assuming there would be a motorcade – would be traveling.
But it was a boisterous group – reflecting the mania Harris and now Walz have let loose. Some people brought handmade signs – MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS (a popular Walz quote defending abortion rights); DEMOCRACY YES, AUTOCRACY NO, WELCOME GOV. WALZ! And HONK FOR DEMOCRACY.
Then, suddenly, it’s practically in our backyard.
Which was the case yesterday.
Tim Walz - who just nine days earlier was named by Kamala Harris, the Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president, as her running mate - was right here in my hometown, Newport, R.I.
Walz, in fact, passed just a few feet away from my wife and me on his way to a fundraising event, which itself was a mere eight-tenths of a mile from our house.
Our goals were modest. Probably we wouldn't meet Walz. But would we catch sight of him?
Walz, since being introduced to the nation only on Aug. 6, has has added to the excitement that Vice President Harris as stirred among Democrats - including us - since she replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s best bet to keep Donald Trump out of the White House and to keep American free.
It was Walz who labeled Trump as “weird,” which quickly became the party’s favorite word to humiliate Trump. Overnight, Walz emerged as a the embodiment of the down-home favorite uncle, a guy who liked to hunt, who coached high school football, served in the National Guard and wasn’t at all ashamed of defending progressive outrages like serving lunch to hungry school children. One of his old campaign ads, when running for governor, showed him giving advice on a cheap do-it-yourself way of fixing your headlights, all the better to get voters safely to the polls.
So, it would have been great to chew the fat with the neighborly Tim Walz, maybe pick up some pointers on repairing our balky gutters, or probe his views on the best way to protect democracy from the despotic and despicable Mr. Trump.
WHEN WORD FIRST GOT OUT that Walz would be stopping off in Newport, there was a fair amount of mystery to the event. Nobody – at least nobody we knew – seemed aware of what time he would arrive, where he would be and what route he might take to get there.
Walz was in Newport as part of a five-state swing to gather campaign cash as opposed to actually meeting lots of voters.
Unwilling to part with $1,000 for a ticket for the event, much less $10,000 to have our photo taken with the guest of honor, Mr. & Mrs. Jones best hope was for a glimpse of the man, or at least to spot his car.
News stories indicated the event would be in one of the city's former Robber Baron mansions, including some that make up part of Salve' Regina University's spectacular campus, which overlooks the city’s ocean fronting Cliff Walk.
Then, my wife got an email from the Newport Democratic City Committee, suggesting an impromptu welcoming party gather between 12:30 and 1 p.m. at the corner of one of the city’s busiest intersections - Memorial Boulevard at Bellevue Avenue.
Bellevue Avenue is the city’s signature "street," which includes the Tennis Hall of Fame, along with restored mansion/museums like The Elms, Marble House, Rosecliff and Rough Point.
Thirty or so people showed up. No one seemed to know in which direction the Walz motorcade – assuming there would be a motorcade – would be traveling.
But it was a boisterous group – reflecting the mania Harris and now Walz have let loose. Some people brought handmade signs – MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS (a popular Walz quote defending abortion rights); DEMOCRACY YES, AUTOCRACY NO, WELCOME GOV. WALZ! And HONK FOR DEMOCRACY.
Now, Newport police began blocking traffic in all directions, a good omen, at least for the welcoming party. But backed-up motorists began leaning on their horns, but probably they were not honking for democracy.
Flashing lights appeared, coming in from the west.
A swarm of police motorcycles grew closer, sweeping through the left-turn onto Bellevue.
They were followed by handful of the kind of big black SUVs favored by politicians and those who guard them. The windows were rolled up, so you couldn’t make out who was who inside.
But one of them HAD to be carrying Walz.
And then they were gone.
Flashing lights appeared, coming in from the west.
A swarm of police motorcycles grew closer, sweeping through the left-turn onto Bellevue.
They were followed by handful of the kind of big black SUVs favored by politicians and those who guard them. The windows were rolled up, so you couldn’t make out who was who inside.
But one of them HAD to be carrying Walz.
And then they were gone.
BACK HOME, I HOPED FOR ANOTHER SIGHTING.
Driving to Salve Regina University obviously would be a lost cause.
But I figured I could walk there from our home in a modest neighborhood that once housed many of the people who worked in the original summer mansions. (My wife wisely took a pass on this venture).
Who would be suspicious of an elderly man, about the age of Joe Biden, stumbling along the side streets clutching his antique camera?
“I know you can’t answer this,” I said to one police person, whose cruiser was blocking one of the streets leading to the university, “but could you tell me when the motorcade will leave?”
“They’ll be there for an hour and 15 minutes. They arrived at 1,” replied the officer, who was surprisingly pleasant, but left me to do the rest of the math.
I headed toward the largest of the side streets, where earlier I'd had seen a smiling woman waving a huge TRUMP banner, and who now, thankfully, had disappeared.
I hiked down to Ochre Point Avenue, where the event reportedly was being held. There was a police person in the middle of the road, which was completely empty.
“I guess I can’t go down the street,” I said.
“That’s right,” the officer said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank you,” the officer said, but in a way that indicated I’d overstayed my welcome.
I headed back toward Bellevue Avenue, passing an intersection where several cruisers were parked, with officers directing traffic away from the university.
“Would I be wasting my time if I waited here?” I asked yet another police officer.
“They didn’t come this way,” the officer said. “They were supposed to, but the route was changed at the last minute.”
As I walked back to Bellevue Avenue, I was thinking how stressful it must be to be part of a security detail like this, especially after the near assassination of Trump, before which the gunman had been spotted, but eluded local and federal officers.
Now, police where holding up traffic in every direction on Bellevue Avenue and its intersections. Again the horns sounded, and not honking for democracy.
A long stretch of the roadway was empty of cars. Tourists visiting the mansions were on the sidewalks, seemingly unaware of what was going on around them.
Someone pushing a wheelchair moved it off the bumpy sidewalk and onto the smoother roadway.
“Get back on the sidewalk," an officer bellowed. "GET BACK ON THE SIDEWALK!”
A man hauling a wagon containing two small children tried the same thing.
“Get off of the road. GET OFF THE ROAD!”
In the distance, the rumble of motorcycles.
A squadron of motorcycles emerged from a side street and roared past. But no SUVs.
Then a second group of motorcycles, followed by the motorcade, raced up the avenue. Had that first group been a deliberate distraction?
I took as many photos as I could with the old camera. Again, presumably Tim Walz was in one of those big, black cars just a few feet away.
He HAD to be in one.
EPILOGUE
Back home, I looked through my text messages.
One was from Walz. It turned out that, despite my failed attempts to catch sight of him, he and I actually were on a first-name basis.
I took as many photos as I could with the old camera. Again, presumably Tim Walz was in one of those big, black cars just a few feet away.
He HAD to be in one.
EPILOGUE
Back home, I looked through my text messages.
One was from Walz. It turned out that, despite my failed attempts to catch sight of him, he and I actually were on a first-name basis.
| Brian, Tim Walz here. I had to text you about an observation that I’ve made. You’ve probably made it too. It’s about Donald Trump and JD Vance. These guys are creepy. And, yes, just weird as hell. Right? If you agree, then I hope you’ll pitch in to defeat them, power Kamala and my campaign, and support Democrats across the country today. https://kamala-harris.us/7x64Pm Let's win this thing, Tim |
The hyperlink leads to a campaign site, suggesting a range of donations, starting at a modest $25.
The election remained so urgent, so personal, and so far away. But it felt right that for an hour or two it really had been close to home.
The election remained so urgent, so personal, and so far away. But it felt right that for an hour or two it really had been close to home.
WITH 3 MONTHS LEFT, THE ELECTION IS A STARK CHOICE – GOOD OR EVIL
 KAMALA HARRIS CREDIT: Harris Instagram |  DONALD TRUMP CREDIT: Frank Gerardi |
I WAS DOING ONE of those really disagreeable political chores last week: telephoning people at suppertime.
I was part of a phone bank where volunteers were calling on behalf of a Democratic candidate, who happens to be well liked for his diligent, often brilliant hard work on critical issues.
Even so, I couldn’t imagine people answering their phone at this most important, precious hour of the day – when personally, I go berserk every time the phone rings, no matter who’s calling.
But the knockout surprise was not hat some people did answer, but they were more than civil: they were excited to hear from a fellow Democrat. In some cases, they were over-the-top ecstatic and eager to talk, at length.
It was the Kamala Harris effect.
By now, this isn’t news to you.
Ever since the vice president replaced Joe Biden as the Democrats’ nominee, Harris has had a phenomenal impact. She raised a huge amount of money in a short time – over $300 million – had thousands of people volunteer for her campaign and drawn big, energized crowds.
Harris has measured up.
She turns out to be a true Happy Warrior. She’s confident, sure-footed, well-spoken, quick-moving and adroit.
As if it were the most natural thing in politics to instantly move from second banana in the Biden administration to the top campaign spot, with a mission of rescuing not just White House, but the entire Democrat Party’s election prospects.
Which is not a bad place to be today, Aug. 5: exactly three months to go until the Nov. 5 election.
THERE ARE TWO WAYS of thinking about the next three months:
Sure she’s holding the spotlight – hogging most of the news coverage, largely positive; receiving spontaneous social media raves; and benefiting from the best sort of recommendations: neighbors chatting up neighbors.
But how many people actually know who she is?
I’m thinking of people who don’t do well in the kind of quizzes that ask them to list the three branches of government, point to California on the map and name the current vice president of the United States.
It’s quite possible that the Harris voice, the Harris image, the Harris presence will not have broken through to the kind of voters who may matter the most on Nov. 5: citizens who could care less.
Political analysts try to be polite about these folks, giving them pseudo technical names like “low-information,” “disengaged,” and “distracted” voters.
In actuality, they are lazy, selfish and negligent slouches, whom I personally think should be stripped of their right to vote. Which is why I’m glad I’m not in charge of anything, because in a democracy, everyone counts, including people who don’t care that they do count.
Simply put, is there enough time for Harris to reach enough of us?
THE OTHER SIDE of the three-month mark is the question of whether there’s Too-Much-Time between where we are now, broiling at height of summer and suffering the chill of late fall?
Imagine all the things that can go wrong, and understand that some of them really will.
Just this morning, for example, the stock market fell sharply as investor/lemmings panicked about a recession.
Other events could easily overtake her, just like Biden’s disastrous performance in his June 27 debate with Trump; or Trump’s truly miraculous escape from an assassin’s bullet.
Harris is sure to say something wrong, to stumble, to disappoint.
The Middle East war could turn nuclear; China could invade Taiwan; gas stations could suddenly billboard astronomical prices as voters stop to fill up on their way to the polls.
Trump, now seeming desperate to find just the right cruel, racist, misogynistic label to slap on Harris, will, in fact, find a nickname that will resonate with his base and beyond.
Maybe, people won’t like the person she selects as her vice president, which is expected today or tomorrow.
Worst of all, maybe Harris will be unable to keep her initial momentum going, and the excitement will go out of the race like a punctured campaign balloon.
Such are the dangers facing a country whose future has been brought unfairly to a cliff’s edge by Donald Trump, a treacherous, malevolent, criminal and cruel presence in American politics, whose enduring appeal baffles both friend and foe.
WHAT IS FOR SURE about the sudden arrival of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee is that she has sharpened the choices in this race in a way that we’ve never seen, at least in my lifetime.
Ralph Nader, the consumer hero turned political spoiler, once mocked the differences between Republican and Democratic candidates as that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
No longer.
The contrast between Harris and Trump couldn’t be starker.
- There’s no-time-at-all until Nov. 5.
- There’s too-much-time left before Election day.
Sure she’s holding the spotlight – hogging most of the news coverage, largely positive; receiving spontaneous social media raves; and benefiting from the best sort of recommendations: neighbors chatting up neighbors.
But how many people actually know who she is?
I’m thinking of people who don’t do well in the kind of quizzes that ask them to list the three branches of government, point to California on the map and name the current vice president of the United States.
It’s quite possible that the Harris voice, the Harris image, the Harris presence will not have broken through to the kind of voters who may matter the most on Nov. 5: citizens who could care less.
Political analysts try to be polite about these folks, giving them pseudo technical names like “low-information,” “disengaged,” and “distracted” voters.
In actuality, they are lazy, selfish and negligent slouches, whom I personally think should be stripped of their right to vote. Which is why I’m glad I’m not in charge of anything, because in a democracy, everyone counts, including people who don’t care that they do count.
Simply put, is there enough time for Harris to reach enough of us?
THE OTHER SIDE of the three-month mark is the question of whether there’s Too-Much-Time between where we are now, broiling at height of summer and suffering the chill of late fall?
Imagine all the things that can go wrong, and understand that some of them really will.
Just this morning, for example, the stock market fell sharply as investor/lemmings panicked about a recession.
Other events could easily overtake her, just like Biden’s disastrous performance in his June 27 debate with Trump; or Trump’s truly miraculous escape from an assassin’s bullet.
Harris is sure to say something wrong, to stumble, to disappoint.
The Middle East war could turn nuclear; China could invade Taiwan; gas stations could suddenly billboard astronomical prices as voters stop to fill up on their way to the polls.
Trump, now seeming desperate to find just the right cruel, racist, misogynistic label to slap on Harris, will, in fact, find a nickname that will resonate with his base and beyond.
Maybe, people won’t like the person she selects as her vice president, which is expected today or tomorrow.
Worst of all, maybe Harris will be unable to keep her initial momentum going, and the excitement will go out of the race like a punctured campaign balloon.
Such are the dangers facing a country whose future has been brought unfairly to a cliff’s edge by Donald Trump, a treacherous, malevolent, criminal and cruel presence in American politics, whose enduring appeal baffles both friend and foe.
WHAT IS FOR SURE about the sudden arrival of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee is that she has sharpened the choices in this race in a way that we’ve never seen, at least in my lifetime.
Ralph Nader, the consumer hero turned political spoiler, once mocked the differences between Republican and Democratic candidates as that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
No longer.
The contrast between Harris and Trump couldn’t be starker.
 |  |
With three months to go, will voters take the country backward, repeating some of the worst chapters of our history; or will they choose to try, once again, to achieve the vision of the founders?
Will the country finally acknowledge that women are 50 percent ore more of the population and deserve a chance to lead the country? Or will we regress into the machismo of a woman-hater, woman-abuser determined to create a second-class cast of breeders and cooks?
Will the country, which becomes more diverse every day, choose a biracial exemplar, or a white bigot?
Will the country choose someone whose career has included enforcing the law and upholding Constitutional values, or a traitor and dictator-in-waiting who tried to overturn an election?
Will the country choose a leader well aware of the country’s and the world’s perils, such as climate change and economic inequality; or will we choose a psychopath unconcerned that our grandchildren will inherit a planet on fire?
In the next three months, voters have a choice far simpler and more drastic than they’ve ever been: between democracy and dictatorship, and between good and evil.
Will the country finally acknowledge that women are 50 percent ore more of the population and deserve a chance to lead the country? Or will we regress into the machismo of a woman-hater, woman-abuser determined to create a second-class cast of breeders and cooks?
Will the country, which becomes more diverse every day, choose a biracial exemplar, or a white bigot?
Will the country choose someone whose career has included enforcing the law and upholding Constitutional values, or a traitor and dictator-in-waiting who tried to overturn an election?
Will the country choose a leader well aware of the country’s and the world’s perils, such as climate change and economic inequality; or will we choose a psychopath unconcerned that our grandchildren will inherit a planet on fire?
In the next three months, voters have a choice far simpler and more drastic than they’ve ever been: between democracy and dictatorship, and between good and evil.
AS THE NOV. 5 ELECTION APPROACHES, A COMMON SENSE CAT SPEAKS OUT
“HE DIDN’T REALLY WRITE THAT, YOU KNOW.”
“Who didn’t?” I asked.
“Bill Clinton. He doesn’t know you from Adam. And he had nothing to do with what you’re reading.”
I had been going through my email, which I do several times a day, and had stopped to look at a message that was slugged: “Now is the time to....” with the sender identified as “Bill Clinton.”
“It’s just fund-raising,” the voice said.
I was about to respond to the comment – which was so incredibly obvious that it hardly deserved a reply - then realized there was nobody to respond to. I was alone at my desk, alone that is, except for Ben.
Ben is our cat.
Ben turned 3 on July 12 and my wife and I forgot his birthday, as usual, and I wondered: Did his snide tone mean that he was still carrying a grudge?
Then I realized that was the wrong question.
“Are you actually talking?” I asked.
“Are you actually listening?” Ben said.
Ben, who joined our household when he was 4 months old, is a handsome Tabby – we like to think of him as Bengal, or Bengal-like. He weighed 3 pounds at the time. Now, like many Americans, he’s struggling with his weight, hitting the scales the last time we were at the vet’s at 15+.
My wife and I have considered Ben unusually communicative, and we’ve had a fair share of cats with which to compare. He’s got a hearty “Yee-Oow,” and if you say something to him, he’ll give you a “Yee-Oow” right back.
“Who didn’t?” I asked.
“Bill Clinton. He doesn’t know you from Adam. And he had nothing to do with what you’re reading.”
I had been going through my email, which I do several times a day, and had stopped to look at a message that was slugged: “Now is the time to....” with the sender identified as “Bill Clinton.”
“It’s just fund-raising,” the voice said.
I was about to respond to the comment – which was so incredibly obvious that it hardly deserved a reply - then realized there was nobody to respond to. I was alone at my desk, alone that is, except for Ben.
Ben is our cat.
Ben turned 3 on July 12 and my wife and I forgot his birthday, as usual, and I wondered: Did his snide tone mean that he was still carrying a grudge?
Then I realized that was the wrong question.
“Are you actually talking?” I asked.
“Are you actually listening?” Ben said.
Ben, who joined our household when he was 4 months old, is a handsome Tabby – we like to think of him as Bengal, or Bengal-like. He weighed 3 pounds at the time. Now, like many Americans, he’s struggling with his weight, hitting the scales the last time we were at the vet’s at 15+.
My wife and I have considered Ben unusually communicative, and we’ve had a fair share of cats with which to compare. He’s got a hearty “Yee-Oow,” and if you say something to him, he’ll give you a “Yee-Oow” right back.
BUT IF BEN HAS SEEMED “TALKATIVE,” we've known that we’re stepping into the Forbidden Swamp of Anthropomorphism if we push too far, and we fully understand that Ben isn’t actually conversive, at least in the human sense.
“I didn’t think cats could talk,” I said, trying to sound calm.
Ben said crossly, “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Let’s say that I’m not a crazy old man, and that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing,” I said. “How come you’ve decided to actually speak?”
“Because all I hear all day and into the night in this house is ‘The Election this; The Election that.’ It’s all you two talk about – especially YOU – and it just pours out of the radios and TVs hour after hour.
“And then there’s all the doomscrolling that you, in particular, do on your computer, checking the same websites over and over and over, and frankly, I’m fed up to here!” he said.
As he said that, Ben made a cutting motion against his throat with one of his paws – I’m not sure which one, because I’ve never noticed whether Ben is right-pawed or left, much less whether, politically, he leans left or right.
“So that means that you can read, too?” I said.
“I try my best not to swear,” Ben said. “But you make it really hard to be civil. Of course, I can read.
Which is why I know that the email you’re looking at is not from Bill Clinton. It wasn’t written by Bill Clinton; Bill Clinton doesn’t know your email address; and for sure, Bill Clinton does NOT know your first name, much less your last.”
“But the email starts out ‘Brian, it’s Bill Clinton,’ “ I said.
“#*@!+?$,” the cat said. “Did you even go to college – at least one that’s anyone’s heard of? It’s a computer-generated-money-raising pitch. Clinton has told someone it’s okay to use his name, and the algorithm does the rest.”
“They start small,” Ben said impatiently. “Scroll down a little and it starts off with a $25 contribution, which won’t buy you much cat food, but it gets their claws into you. You do REALIZE that!”
“Well,’ I said, “I did wonder where Bill gets the time to write to someone like me. I know that he’s not president anymore, but still, I’m sure he’s got a lot else going on, wondering what Monica is up to these days and all."
“Is there anything in there,” Ben asked pointing at my head, “other than a rock?”
Now, I was getting a little put off: “I get a lot of emails these days from important people.”
“You’ll notice, Mr. Smarty Cat, that the next email down from Bill’s is from Kamala Harris. And as you may have noticed, she is one busy person these days. She’s the likely Democratic nominee, juggling her vice presidential duties, picking her own veep, raising missions of dollars. She’s got Democrats smiling again. And, still, Kamala’s sending ME emails.”
“This answers the question about God,” Ben said. “If She did exist, She certainly wouldn’t have sent me to a house with you in it.”
I was searching for a pithy reply, when Ben continued:
“What makes living here bearable is that sometimes you leave the house, and I get to spend time exclusively with someone who actually likes and understands cats. You know whom I’m talking about: the Nice One.”
“She’s that and more,” I said. “At least we agree on something.”
“I didn’t think cats could talk,” I said, trying to sound calm.
Ben said crossly, “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Let’s say that I’m not a crazy old man, and that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing,” I said. “How come you’ve decided to actually speak?”
“Because all I hear all day and into the night in this house is ‘The Election this; The Election that.’ It’s all you two talk about – especially YOU – and it just pours out of the radios and TVs hour after hour.
“And then there’s all the doomscrolling that you, in particular, do on your computer, checking the same websites over and over and over, and frankly, I’m fed up to here!” he said.
As he said that, Ben made a cutting motion against his throat with one of his paws – I’m not sure which one, because I’ve never noticed whether Ben is right-pawed or left, much less whether, politically, he leans left or right.
“So that means that you can read, too?” I said.
“I try my best not to swear,” Ben said. “But you make it really hard to be civil. Of course, I can read.
Which is why I know that the email you’re looking at is not from Bill Clinton. It wasn’t written by Bill Clinton; Bill Clinton doesn’t know your email address; and for sure, Bill Clinton does NOT know your first name, much less your last.”
“But the email starts out ‘Brian, it’s Bill Clinton,’ “ I said.
“#*@!+?$,” the cat said. “Did you even go to college – at least one that’s anyone’s heard of? It’s a computer-generated-money-raising pitch. Clinton has told someone it’s okay to use his name, and the algorithm does the rest.”
“They start small,” Ben said impatiently. “Scroll down a little and it starts off with a $25 contribution, which won’t buy you much cat food, but it gets their claws into you. You do REALIZE that!”
“Well,’ I said, “I did wonder where Bill gets the time to write to someone like me. I know that he’s not president anymore, but still, I’m sure he’s got a lot else going on, wondering what Monica is up to these days and all."
“Is there anything in there,” Ben asked pointing at my head, “other than a rock?”
Now, I was getting a little put off: “I get a lot of emails these days from important people.”
“You’ll notice, Mr. Smarty Cat, that the next email down from Bill’s is from Kamala Harris. And as you may have noticed, she is one busy person these days. She’s the likely Democratic nominee, juggling her vice presidential duties, picking her own veep, raising missions of dollars. She’s got Democrats smiling again. And, still, Kamala’s sending ME emails.”
“This answers the question about God,” Ben said. “If She did exist, She certainly wouldn’t have sent me to a house with you in it.”
I was searching for a pithy reply, when Ben continued:
“What makes living here bearable is that sometimes you leave the house, and I get to spend time exclusively with someone who actually likes and understands cats. You know whom I’m talking about: the Nice One.”
“She’s that and more,” I said. “At least we agree on something.”
“WHICH BRINGS ME TO WHY I’VE DECIDED TO SPEAK OUT,” Ben said. “I’m realizing that this Election is could be a make-or-break event. I mean, forget the stuff about whether “democracy is on the line” and this climate change business and whether the earth will burst into flames if Trump wins.”
“Those ARE big issues,” I pointed out.
“You want to know what’s a BIG issue?” Ben said with his little feline sneer. “It's all this stuff we’re hearing about ‘wilderness cat ladies.’ “
“I think you mean ‘childless cat ladies,’ “ I said.
“Whatever,” Ben said. “It’s downright super-wild-scary.”
Realizing that I now had the upper paw because we were discussing “facts,” I proceeded to lecture Ben on what Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice presidential pick, had said three years ago to the notorious Tucker Carlson, then on Fox TV.
Vance had warned about
"... a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
"It's just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.... And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
“Worse than worrisome,” the cat said. “Very dangerous.”
“We’re in agreement, again,” I said. “Lots of people don’t have children – although Harris is a stepmom, and Buttigieg and his partner now have twins. But you can’t disenfranchise people who don’t have children.”
“Not my concern,” Ben said. "Who cares about 'the children?' "
“What does bother you?”
“If Trump and Vance win, they’ll go after the cat ladies. They’ll deport the undocumented cat ladies first, and scare the rest into letting their cats loose; ladies simply won’t want the stigma of having us in their homes.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.
“Nobody has,” Ben said.
Now he was on a roll:
“Cats of America, rise up. Protect the cat ladies. Vote the cat ladies’ ticket. Who will look after, cherish, talk to and most importantly FEED America’s cats if we become a country without cat ladies? Nine lives will no longer be enough to protect us.
“SAVE THE CAT LADIES!
"SAVE THE CATS!”
“In the end," I said, "politics is always personal.”
“It’s just common sense,” Ben said.
“Those ARE big issues,” I pointed out.
“You want to know what’s a BIG issue?” Ben said with his little feline sneer. “It's all this stuff we’re hearing about ‘wilderness cat ladies.’ “
“I think you mean ‘childless cat ladies,’ “ I said.
“Whatever,” Ben said. “It’s downright super-wild-scary.”
Realizing that I now had the upper paw because we were discussing “facts,” I proceeded to lecture Ben on what Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice presidential pick, had said three years ago to the notorious Tucker Carlson, then on Fox TV.
Vance had warned about
"... a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
"It's just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.... And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
“Worse than worrisome,” the cat said. “Very dangerous.”
“We’re in agreement, again,” I said. “Lots of people don’t have children – although Harris is a stepmom, and Buttigieg and his partner now have twins. But you can’t disenfranchise people who don’t have children.”
“Not my concern,” Ben said. "Who cares about 'the children?' "
“What does bother you?”
“If Trump and Vance win, they’ll go after the cat ladies. They’ll deport the undocumented cat ladies first, and scare the rest into letting their cats loose; ladies simply won’t want the stigma of having us in their homes.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.
“Nobody has,” Ben said.
Now he was on a roll:
“Cats of America, rise up. Protect the cat ladies. Vote the cat ladies’ ticket. Who will look after, cherish, talk to and most importantly FEED America’s cats if we become a country without cat ladies? Nine lives will no longer be enough to protect us.
“SAVE THE CAT LADIES!
"SAVE THE CATS!”
“In the end," I said, "politics is always personal.”
“It’s just common sense,” Ben said.
FINALLY!
A SAD, INEVITABLE DAY
AS BIDEN QUITS THE RACE
THE NIGHT BEFORE Joe Biden quit his campaign, I was raging to my wife and our cat - who unjustly have had to endure so many political harangues - what a stubborn, selfish man the president had turned out to be.
Trying to cling to his candidacy for a second term, putting the nation – and all of us - at risk of another Donald Trump disaster, but much worse this time. Can you imagine the ego of the man.
But by yesterday afternoon, when Biden finally did “the right thing,” I just felt sad.
Wish came true, yup. But a letdown? Also, yes.
I missed him immediately. I can’t fully explain why, except that I’ve grown to like Joe Biden immensely in the more than three years in which he’s been president, the best president of my lifetime.
Here’s the thing: I’d gone all in on the Biden shtick: the aviator sun glasses, the bike-riding guy from Scranton, car-loving Everyman grinning in the cockpit of his ’67 Corvette Stingray.
He’d done the most important thing anyone could possibly do, saved the country, and all of us in it, from another four years of Donald Trump.
A friend once warned me that's the wrong thing to do, “liking” a politician.
They are not your buddies, he said. Ultimately, they aren’t even nice. The charm they exhibit doesn’t make them a good neighbor. Likeability is political Darwinism, natural selection; it’s impossible for them to get elected if they aren’t fun to be around.
Instead, my friend said, pols, officials, the people in charge, should be judged impersonally, dispassionately on the things they do right, which is rare; and condemned for the what they screw up, which is routine.
SO I GUESS I SHOULDN'T go all weepy about Joe’s exit.
Here’s the thing: it sure took him long enough – maybe too long – and drove everyone crazy waiting for the obvious. And when Joe did do it, it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, or because he’s a patriot, or because he loves America.
He did it because he had to. Period. After the disaster of his June 27 debate, fellow Democrats, including his supposed “pals” like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, along with the pollsters, the media, rank-and-file voters, the Senate and House creatures of the “down ballot” and even Ben, our cat, they all made it impossible for him to remain in the race.
It's one of the realities of politics: sometimes you can’t do what you want.
Trying to cling to his candidacy for a second term, putting the nation – and all of us - at risk of another Donald Trump disaster, but much worse this time. Can you imagine the ego of the man.
But by yesterday afternoon, when Biden finally did “the right thing,” I just felt sad.
Wish came true, yup. But a letdown? Also, yes.
I missed him immediately. I can’t fully explain why, except that I’ve grown to like Joe Biden immensely in the more than three years in which he’s been president, the best president of my lifetime.
Here’s the thing: I’d gone all in on the Biden shtick: the aviator sun glasses, the bike-riding guy from Scranton, car-loving Everyman grinning in the cockpit of his ’67 Corvette Stingray.
He’d done the most important thing anyone could possibly do, saved the country, and all of us in it, from another four years of Donald Trump.
A friend once warned me that's the wrong thing to do, “liking” a politician.
They are not your buddies, he said. Ultimately, they aren’t even nice. The charm they exhibit doesn’t make them a good neighbor. Likeability is political Darwinism, natural selection; it’s impossible for them to get elected if they aren’t fun to be around.
Instead, my friend said, pols, officials, the people in charge, should be judged impersonally, dispassionately on the things they do right, which is rare; and condemned for the what they screw up, which is routine.
SO I GUESS I SHOULDN'T go all weepy about Joe’s exit.
Here’s the thing: it sure took him long enough – maybe too long – and drove everyone crazy waiting for the obvious. And when Joe did do it, it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, or because he’s a patriot, or because he loves America.
He did it because he had to. Period. After the disaster of his June 27 debate, fellow Democrats, including his supposed “pals” like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, along with the pollsters, the media, rank-and-file voters, the Senate and House creatures of the “down ballot” and even Ben, our cat, they all made it impossible for him to remain in the race.
It's one of the realities of politics: sometimes you can’t do what you want.
I had an image of Pelosi, the former House speaker and greatest woman politician of our era (so far), descending on his summer home in Delaware, dragging him out, leaping behind the wheel of Stingray, plopping Biden in the passenger seat and driving him far, far away until he “agreed” to leave the race.
None of this is fair to Biden, after all he has done putting the country back to normal after the criminal chaos of Trump’s four years.
But Biden hasn’t been fair, either, being so obstinate, clinging to power, thinking that he could ignore whatever is going on in his body that has made him so frail, his voice too low to be able to make the proper case against Trump.
I DO ADMIT to being surprised by the Republicans in how low and ugly they are, as in how they instantly responded to Biden’s withdrawal. But the GOP playbook is vast, and its chapters go far beyond Rule # 1: Always be a sore loser.
Yesterday’s was # 36 - Never miss a chance to kick a man when he’s down.
Biden leaves the stage and in about a minute and a half later, they’re getting a few whacks into the 81-year-old suffering from Covid, as well as despair.
“Kick him, Mikey.”
“Yeah, Donny, you kick ‘em, too.”
Mikey Johnson, the House speaker:
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
The “new” Donny Trump, chastened after God herself brushed an assassin’s bullet away from his brain, displayed his newfound compassion:
Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.
FOR A MOMENT, Kamala Harris is looking good, terrific, in fact.
Harvesting endorsements, including one from everyone’s favorite uncle, Uncle Joe Biden; from fellow Democrats; hailed as a 59-year-old youngster and democracy’s best, last hope. But just wait until she starts getting the business from the Republicans, the media, jealous fellow party members who dream at night of walking into that Oval Office themselves and not as a guest.
Can Harris stand up to it? Can she rally the party? Can she beat Donald Trump?
Can a sizable chunk of the electorate even know the answer to this civics quiz question: Can you name the current vice president of the United States?
None of this is fair to Biden, after all he has done putting the country back to normal after the criminal chaos of Trump’s four years.
But Biden hasn’t been fair, either, being so obstinate, clinging to power, thinking that he could ignore whatever is going on in his body that has made him so frail, his voice too low to be able to make the proper case against Trump.
I DO ADMIT to being surprised by the Republicans in how low and ugly they are, as in how they instantly responded to Biden’s withdrawal. But the GOP playbook is vast, and its chapters go far beyond Rule # 1: Always be a sore loser.
Yesterday’s was # 36 - Never miss a chance to kick a man when he’s down.
Biden leaves the stage and in about a minute and a half later, they’re getting a few whacks into the 81-year-old suffering from Covid, as well as despair.
“Kick him, Mikey.”
“Yeah, Donny, you kick ‘em, too.”
Mikey Johnson, the House speaker:
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
The “new” Donny Trump, chastened after God herself brushed an assassin’s bullet away from his brain, displayed his newfound compassion:
Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.
FOR A MOMENT, Kamala Harris is looking good, terrific, in fact.
Harvesting endorsements, including one from everyone’s favorite uncle, Uncle Joe Biden; from fellow Democrats; hailed as a 59-year-old youngster and democracy’s best, last hope. But just wait until she starts getting the business from the Republicans, the media, jealous fellow party members who dream at night of walking into that Oval Office themselves and not as a guest.
Can Harris stand up to it? Can she rally the party? Can she beat Donald Trump?
Can a sizable chunk of the electorate even know the answer to this civics quiz question: Can you name the current vice president of the United States?
We should be humble about this: there's a lot we just don't know.
We just don’t know, can’t fathom, how a big part of the country has been driven crazy by Donald Trump. He shouldn’t even be in the race, and here he is, literally dodging bullets, getting legal cases dropped, on and on and on, and we all don’t know how he does it. Therefore, we don’t know what can be done about it.
But on Nov. 5, we’ll know almost everything: Did we do the right thing about throwing Favorite Uncle Joe under the bus? Did we wait too long to do that? Do people loath Donald Trump enough? Will we live free or die? All riddles will be solved.
But one question will haunt our generation and history itself, because it never will be answered:
Could Joe Biden have beaten Donald Trump?
We just don’t know, can’t fathom, how a big part of the country has been driven crazy by Donald Trump. He shouldn’t even be in the race, and here he is, literally dodging bullets, getting legal cases dropped, on and on and on, and we all don’t know how he does it. Therefore, we don’t know what can be done about it.
But on Nov. 5, we’ll know almost everything: Did we do the right thing about throwing Favorite Uncle Joe under the bus? Did we wait too long to do that? Do people loath Donald Trump enough? Will we live free or die? All riddles will be solved.
But one question will haunt our generation and history itself, because it never will be answered:
Could Joe Biden have beaten Donald Trump?
AS HE BATTLES COVID, WHICH
MESSAGE IS BIDEN HEARING:
“GET WELL.” OR, “GET OUT.”
SO, THE PRESIDENT HAS COVID.
After suffering “mild symptoms” Wednesday, President Joe Biden tested positive for the Covid-19 virus and left the campaign trail to recuperate and “self isolate,” while working from his Delaware home.
You’d expect an outpouring of good wishes for a swift recovery, with piles of sympathy cards, calls and emails to the commander-in-chief from political comrades, world leaders and ordinary citizens.
Biden purportedly sent a tweet over X, the loathsome social messaging platform, declaring that "I am feeling good and thank everyone for the well wishes."
But I’m not aware of an avalanche of get-better cards for Biden, at least there have been no hints of that sort encouragement in the icy, just-the-facts news reports about his illness so far.
Indeed, the subliminal theme suggests that the Covid development is just one more sign of frailty and decline perceived on national television June 27 when the 81-year-old Biden flubbed his debate with Donald Trump.
Indeed, the contrast between Biden and Trump seems to grow daily as the Republican convention roars to a finish, delegates euphoric about Trump’s narrow escape from an assassin’s bullet last weekend.
Trump: the inspiring survivor, proudly wearing a bandage over the ear injured in a sniper’s attack, his fist-pumping cry still echoing throughout the convention hall and nation: fight, fight, fight.
Biden: the Democratic Party’s sick old man, forced to retreat from the campaign trail, carefully, slowly picking his way down the ramp from a presidential aircraft that brought him home, one deliberate step at a time.
Still, you’d expect a modicum of national concern for Biden.
After all, Covid still kills – nothing like the nearly 4,000 weekly deaths when the pandemic was at its peak several years ago. But the virus continues to arrive with a special grudge against old people.
I’M IGNORING, OF COURSE, the elephant in the room – well that’s the wrong political mascot – I’m ignoring the donkey in the room.
Ever since the debate debacle, Biden has been fighting for his political survival, with growing demands he give way to a more vigorous (i.e. younger) and articulate replacement.
Democrats are terrified that not only could Trump win a second term, which would be guaranteed to be far more malevolent than his first, but that Democrats could forfeit control of both chambers of Congress.
Adam Schiff, the California Congressman now running for the Senate and one of Trump’s fiercest and most effective critics, this week issued a sober plea to Biden to leave the race.
“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy,” Schiff said. “And I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Powerhouse Congressional leaders - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer – were reported to have held separate, private meetings with Biden, warning of dire outcomes.
And today, word spread that former President Barack Obama has told allies that he’s worried about his former vice president’s impact on the race.
Polls show not only do many Democrats want Biden to give up the race, but there is genuine anger at the way he has stubbornly, pridefully refused to step aside, or engage in the conversation, at least so far
AT 1:39 P.M. TODAY, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, announced that Biden would continue working at home, saying that Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, the presidential physician, noted that that Biden “is still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms.”
“He does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal,” O’Connor said. “He will continue to conduct the business of the American people.“
So, the medical term – “self isolating” - that describes Biden as working at home to avoid spreading the infection, has political symbolism as well.
Bereft of the good will usually accorded everyone who’s under the weather, Biden continues a second day to manage his bout with Covid while cut off from the public and increasingly friendless, politically,
The incoming messages seem less likely to wish Patient Biden a cheerful “Get well,” than to take the form of a stern demand that Candidate Biden should “Get out.”
After suffering “mild symptoms” Wednesday, President Joe Biden tested positive for the Covid-19 virus and left the campaign trail to recuperate and “self isolate,” while working from his Delaware home.
You’d expect an outpouring of good wishes for a swift recovery, with piles of sympathy cards, calls and emails to the commander-in-chief from political comrades, world leaders and ordinary citizens.
Biden purportedly sent a tweet over X, the loathsome social messaging platform, declaring that "I am feeling good and thank everyone for the well wishes."
But I’m not aware of an avalanche of get-better cards for Biden, at least there have been no hints of that sort encouragement in the icy, just-the-facts news reports about his illness so far.
Indeed, the subliminal theme suggests that the Covid development is just one more sign of frailty and decline perceived on national television June 27 when the 81-year-old Biden flubbed his debate with Donald Trump.
Indeed, the contrast between Biden and Trump seems to grow daily as the Republican convention roars to a finish, delegates euphoric about Trump’s narrow escape from an assassin’s bullet last weekend.
Trump: the inspiring survivor, proudly wearing a bandage over the ear injured in a sniper’s attack, his fist-pumping cry still echoing throughout the convention hall and nation: fight, fight, fight.
Biden: the Democratic Party’s sick old man, forced to retreat from the campaign trail, carefully, slowly picking his way down the ramp from a presidential aircraft that brought him home, one deliberate step at a time.
Still, you’d expect a modicum of national concern for Biden.
After all, Covid still kills – nothing like the nearly 4,000 weekly deaths when the pandemic was at its peak several years ago. But the virus continues to arrive with a special grudge against old people.
I’M IGNORING, OF COURSE, the elephant in the room – well that’s the wrong political mascot – I’m ignoring the donkey in the room.
Ever since the debate debacle, Biden has been fighting for his political survival, with growing demands he give way to a more vigorous (i.e. younger) and articulate replacement.
Democrats are terrified that not only could Trump win a second term, which would be guaranteed to be far more malevolent than his first, but that Democrats could forfeit control of both chambers of Congress.
Adam Schiff, the California Congressman now running for the Senate and one of Trump’s fiercest and most effective critics, this week issued a sober plea to Biden to leave the race.
“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy,” Schiff said. “And I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Powerhouse Congressional leaders - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer – were reported to have held separate, private meetings with Biden, warning of dire outcomes.
And today, word spread that former President Barack Obama has told allies that he’s worried about his former vice president’s impact on the race.
Polls show not only do many Democrats want Biden to give up the race, but there is genuine anger at the way he has stubbornly, pridefully refused to step aside, or engage in the conversation, at least so far
AT 1:39 P.M. TODAY, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, announced that Biden would continue working at home, saying that Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, the presidential physician, noted that that Biden “is still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms.”
“He does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal,” O’Connor said. “He will continue to conduct the business of the American people.“
So, the medical term – “self isolating” - that describes Biden as working at home to avoid spreading the infection, has political symbolism as well.
Bereft of the good will usually accorded everyone who’s under the weather, Biden continues a second day to manage his bout with Covid while cut off from the public and increasingly friendless, politically,
The incoming messages seem less likely to wish Patient Biden a cheerful “Get well,” than to take the form of a stern demand that Candidate Biden should “Get out.”
AS DEFEATISM STALKS THE ELECTION, DEMOCRATS MUST STAY IN THE GAME - AND PLAY TO WIN
HERE’S SOME BREAKING NEWS for Democrats and all voters of good will:
The 2024 election is not over.
The election is not next week, next month or in two months. It’s Nov. 5.
This means there’s an opportunity to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous and vile politician in our lifetime, and perhaps the most hideous character in all of American history.
But a treacherous counterforce is starting to take hold: defeatism.
Trump’s momentum is so powerful that for some people his takeover of American government is no longer s question, but rather a matter of when work will be finished converting the Oval Office into a throne room.
This inevitability creeps into news reports. The word “if” - as in “... if Donald Trump wins a second term” - seems both obligatory and unconvincing. Sometimes the “if” is left out altogether.
The other night, I heard TV reporter say off-handedly that she had talked to a Democratic fund raiser, who not only was sure that the race was lost, but said the massive defeat would be a “party extinction event.”
That’s an expression that I’ve not heard, and I’m older than, let’s say, Joe Biden.
Yesterday, I saw a posting on The Bulwark website, which is unfriendly to Trump, in which Jonathan V. Last headlined his commentary “It’s Time to Prepare for the Worst,” and proceeded to give readers a talking-to about realism and coming to grips with a probable new Trump era.
THERE’S NO DENYING that events have been relentlessly bad, very bad, for Democrats and fellow voters.
It began with New York Times polls, which, instead of looking at the nation as a whole, concentrated on seven battleground states that are expected to determine the election, and finding that Trump was winning in most of them.
Later came the moment that permanently wrecked our brains, President Joe Biden’s debate, in which he looked grave-ready rather than just old, speaking in a spectral voice that was too quiet and incomprehensible.
And that was followed by an intraparty “debate” about replacing Old Joe with a fresh face, or maybe keeping Old Joe; the outcome was itself disastrous because it ended with no decision, only increased squabbling.
And then there was Supreme Court ruling which said Trump, as a once and future president, could get a way with murder.
And then there was the near assassination in Pennsylvania, with ionic photos of a bloodied Trump defiantly pumping his fists, giving supporters the fight chant while the American flag flew overhead. Put those images side by side with any photos of Old Joe at his most charming.
And then Judge Aileen Cannon opened the new week by dismissing the stolen records case, the most clear-cut of the cases against Trump.
As I’m writing now, I’m constantly scanning the news streams for the next development that will batter the spirits of soon-to-be-extinct Democrats. In the event your TV isn’t working, because you threw something at it after the last blast of bad news, I’ll be sure to let you know when there’s something fresh and mean and heart-breaking.
THIS IS DANGEROUS STUFF: defeatism is an affliction that can take hold during an election campaign or any other human undertaking. It’s destructive. When we were young and candid, it was known as chickening out.
Defeatism is particularly noxious because it’s something we do to ourselves. When the stakes are so high, as they are in this election – when the end means either democracy or dictatorship – this sort of self-inflicted surrender is a sin.
Discouragement, disappointment, hopelessness, resignation, fatalism, they are lethal because they cancel the one thing, the only thing, that we have under our control, which is our will to keep trying.
Sure, it sounds grown-up, mature, practical and responsible to realize that even before the votes are counted it’s obvious that we’re going to lose, so that it makes sense to prepare now to survive the consequences.
But we can’t have it both ways – staying the in the fight or or surrendering. Defeatism is not a neutral step. Planning to lose means giving up the possibility of winning.
I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT SPORTS, because they provide the best metaphors and cliches that Democrats and their pals desperately need at this moment if the election is to be saved.
We need an inspired coach and enthusiastic cheerleaders, not disaster forecasters and fallout shelter architects.
We need the kind of encouragement - short and simple bits of wisdom – that can be plastered onto locker room walls, reminding players what their brains require as they head onto the field:
The 2024 election is not over.
The election is not next week, next month or in two months. It’s Nov. 5.
This means there’s an opportunity to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous and vile politician in our lifetime, and perhaps the most hideous character in all of American history.
But a treacherous counterforce is starting to take hold: defeatism.
Trump’s momentum is so powerful that for some people his takeover of American government is no longer s question, but rather a matter of when work will be finished converting the Oval Office into a throne room.
This inevitability creeps into news reports. The word “if” - as in “... if Donald Trump wins a second term” - seems both obligatory and unconvincing. Sometimes the “if” is left out altogether.
The other night, I heard TV reporter say off-handedly that she had talked to a Democratic fund raiser, who not only was sure that the race was lost, but said the massive defeat would be a “party extinction event.”
That’s an expression that I’ve not heard, and I’m older than, let’s say, Joe Biden.
Yesterday, I saw a posting on The Bulwark website, which is unfriendly to Trump, in which Jonathan V. Last headlined his commentary “It’s Time to Prepare for the Worst,” and proceeded to give readers a talking-to about realism and coming to grips with a probable new Trump era.
THERE’S NO DENYING that events have been relentlessly bad, very bad, for Democrats and fellow voters.
It began with New York Times polls, which, instead of looking at the nation as a whole, concentrated on seven battleground states that are expected to determine the election, and finding that Trump was winning in most of them.
Later came the moment that permanently wrecked our brains, President Joe Biden’s debate, in which he looked grave-ready rather than just old, speaking in a spectral voice that was too quiet and incomprehensible.
And that was followed by an intraparty “debate” about replacing Old Joe with a fresh face, or maybe keeping Old Joe; the outcome was itself disastrous because it ended with no decision, only increased squabbling.
And then there was Supreme Court ruling which said Trump, as a once and future president, could get a way with murder.
And then there was the near assassination in Pennsylvania, with ionic photos of a bloodied Trump defiantly pumping his fists, giving supporters the fight chant while the American flag flew overhead. Put those images side by side with any photos of Old Joe at his most charming.
And then Judge Aileen Cannon opened the new week by dismissing the stolen records case, the most clear-cut of the cases against Trump.
As I’m writing now, I’m constantly scanning the news streams for the next development that will batter the spirits of soon-to-be-extinct Democrats. In the event your TV isn’t working, because you threw something at it after the last blast of bad news, I’ll be sure to let you know when there’s something fresh and mean and heart-breaking.
THIS IS DANGEROUS STUFF: defeatism is an affliction that can take hold during an election campaign or any other human undertaking. It’s destructive. When we were young and candid, it was known as chickening out.
Defeatism is particularly noxious because it’s something we do to ourselves. When the stakes are so high, as they are in this election – when the end means either democracy or dictatorship – this sort of self-inflicted surrender is a sin.
Discouragement, disappointment, hopelessness, resignation, fatalism, they are lethal because they cancel the one thing, the only thing, that we have under our control, which is our will to keep trying.
Sure, it sounds grown-up, mature, practical and responsible to realize that even before the votes are counted it’s obvious that we’re going to lose, so that it makes sense to prepare now to survive the consequences.
But we can’t have it both ways – staying the in the fight or or surrendering. Defeatism is not a neutral step. Planning to lose means giving up the possibility of winning.
I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT SPORTS, because they provide the best metaphors and cliches that Democrats and their pals desperately need at this moment if the election is to be saved.
We need an inspired coach and enthusiastic cheerleaders, not disaster forecasters and fallout shelter architects.
We need the kind of encouragement - short and simple bits of wisdom – that can be plastered onto locker room walls, reminding players what their brains require as they head onto the field:
| IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER. WINNERS NEVER QUIT. YOU CAN'T WIN IF YOU DON’T PLAY. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A FACT; IT’S AN OPINION. |
Lately at our house, we’ve taken to streaming the British Premier League – soccer. After a couple of seasons, we still understand little about the sport and remain confused by arcana, like the offside rules.
But we have seen matches that end in stunning upsets during the closing minutes and seconds.
Even as TV cameras show fans of the losing side exiting the stadium in disgust at their team’s betrayal, things are happening down on the pitch.
Suddenly, the presumptive losers score a goal during a mob scene at the net that’s so confusing several replays are needed for commentators and fans to figure out who did what and how.
Or the losing side gets a penalty kick, in which a lone player gets a shot at the goal that’s almost impossible for the opposing goal keeper to block.
“You, you, you defeatists,” we yell at the departing fans who have missed the most thrilling moments of the game. “You should have stayed in your overpriced seats.” (We have no idea what tickets cost.)
To be honest, these things usually don’t happen.
But they can.
There’s a reason why underdogs often don’t win.
But they can.
Teams that are behind rarely overturn lopsided scores.
But they can.
But we have seen matches that end in stunning upsets during the closing minutes and seconds.
Even as TV cameras show fans of the losing side exiting the stadium in disgust at their team’s betrayal, things are happening down on the pitch.
Suddenly, the presumptive losers score a goal during a mob scene at the net that’s so confusing several replays are needed for commentators and fans to figure out who did what and how.
Or the losing side gets a penalty kick, in which a lone player gets a shot at the goal that’s almost impossible for the opposing goal keeper to block.
“You, you, you defeatists,” we yell at the departing fans who have missed the most thrilling moments of the game. “You should have stayed in your overpriced seats.” (We have no idea what tickets cost.)
To be honest, these things usually don’t happen.
But they can.
There’s a reason why underdogs often don’t win.
But they can.
Teams that are behind rarely overturn lopsided scores.
But they can.
FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT AN UGLY, AMERICAN DAY
AS SOMEONE who loathes and fears Donald Trump, I’m relieved that he survived a would-be assassin’s attempt to end his life.
Now, he can be confronted the right way, kept from the White House by voters, not a gunman. Now, he can be tried for his many sins by juries, not vigilantes.
Those of us who are of Trump’s and Joe Biden’s generation have witnessed successful assassinations, and we know their awful result.
John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King were snatched from our lives and our history before the promise of their life’s work was fully realized.
And the nation, and the world at large, remain the worse for their violent early exits.
I AM WRITING THIS EARLY in the morning the day after what was an ugly day, the ugliest so far in the 2024 election campaign.
So, I haven’t read the latest news, especially about what’s known about the purported assassin.
Last I heard, the gunman was killed by the Secret Service, that a person attending Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was also killed and that two other persons were critically wounded.
So, I don’t know even the basic facts that already may in public view and surely will be by today’s end.
WHAT WON’T CHANGE, no matter what the onslaught of breaking news tells us in the coming hours and days, are several probabilities.
One is that Trump, to his followers, will assume even greater god-like stature. The Trump cult will now have a martyr, and a living one at that.
As awful as the news will be about the plot to kill Donald Trump, whether by one crazy man, a leftist study group, a Wall Street PAC, the Republicans will not be content with the truth.
Indeed, Trumpsters yesterday already were spinning up their lies, fantasies and conspiracies to glorify their leader and demonize Biden, Democrats and everyone else trying to block Trump’s march to become a dictator.
Also, the nation, once again, will miss an opportunity to confront and tame its violent character, and in particular, curb the use of guns whose only purpose is to kill presidents and the rest of us.
Democrats, sadly, will take the attempt on Trump’s life as one more dispiriting setback in a string of relentless misfortunes – Biden’s terrible debate, unsettling polls, the party’s fracturing constituencies – and lose still more ground and waste more time in the campaign to save democracy.
ON THIS LAST POINT, I’m hoping to be wrong.
My own plan, right after breakfast, is to hand-print another batch of postcards to send to folks in states where there are crucial Senate and House races, imagining that at least a few recipients will vote the way my scrawled messages suggest.
I hope not to let up, not for a second, in my contempt for and fear about Donald Trump and the terror he already has visited upon my country and the people I love.
I will not stop in worrying about and working against his vile plans going forward to do permanent and historic harm to the country and to the people I love.
As I said, the last I knew, Trump’s wounds were not serious, and he has survived in good health.
I am glad of this, because in the coming months, I’ll get to keep on learning, talking and writing about how hideous he is and what, collectively, we can do to stop him.
Best of all, come November, I'll get to vote against him.
Now, he can be confronted the right way, kept from the White House by voters, not a gunman. Now, he can be tried for his many sins by juries, not vigilantes.
Those of us who are of Trump’s and Joe Biden’s generation have witnessed successful assassinations, and we know their awful result.
John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King were snatched from our lives and our history before the promise of their life’s work was fully realized.
And the nation, and the world at large, remain the worse for their violent early exits.
I AM WRITING THIS EARLY in the morning the day after what was an ugly day, the ugliest so far in the 2024 election campaign.
So, I haven’t read the latest news, especially about what’s known about the purported assassin.
Last I heard, the gunman was killed by the Secret Service, that a person attending Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was also killed and that two other persons were critically wounded.
So, I don’t know even the basic facts that already may in public view and surely will be by today’s end.
WHAT WON’T CHANGE, no matter what the onslaught of breaking news tells us in the coming hours and days, are several probabilities.
One is that Trump, to his followers, will assume even greater god-like stature. The Trump cult will now have a martyr, and a living one at that.
As awful as the news will be about the plot to kill Donald Trump, whether by one crazy man, a leftist study group, a Wall Street PAC, the Republicans will not be content with the truth.
Indeed, Trumpsters yesterday already were spinning up their lies, fantasies and conspiracies to glorify their leader and demonize Biden, Democrats and everyone else trying to block Trump’s march to become a dictator.
Also, the nation, once again, will miss an opportunity to confront and tame its violent character, and in particular, curb the use of guns whose only purpose is to kill presidents and the rest of us.
Democrats, sadly, will take the attempt on Trump’s life as one more dispiriting setback in a string of relentless misfortunes – Biden’s terrible debate, unsettling polls, the party’s fracturing constituencies – and lose still more ground and waste more time in the campaign to save democracy.
ON THIS LAST POINT, I’m hoping to be wrong.
My own plan, right after breakfast, is to hand-print another batch of postcards to send to folks in states where there are crucial Senate and House races, imagining that at least a few recipients will vote the way my scrawled messages suggest.
I hope not to let up, not for a second, in my contempt for and fear about Donald Trump and the terror he already has visited upon my country and the people I love.
I will not stop in worrying about and working against his vile plans going forward to do permanent and historic harm to the country and to the people I love.
As I said, the last I knew, Trump’s wounds were not serious, and he has survived in good health.
I am glad of this, because in the coming months, I’ll get to keep on learning, talking and writing about how hideous he is and what, collectively, we can do to stop him.
Best of all, come November, I'll get to vote against him.
A BIT OF LUCK AND A LITTLE LOVE
COULD GET DEMOCRATS THROUGH
THEIR CRUSADE TO STOP TRUMP
WHAT’S THE SINGLE, most important crisis of the election?
Is it deciding whether to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee?
Or shaming the media into paying as much attention to Donald Trump’s monstrous character defects as they are in monitoring Biden’s struggles with old age?
Nope.
It’s staying personable: treating each other with respect, kindness and dignity, keeping connected to each other despite our differences.
We can’t argue that Donald Trump is too abhorrent to be allowed back in the White House, if our tactics mimic his savage insults, slurs and sneers.
More importantly, we cannot win, much less survive, if we turn on one another.
None of this is easy, especially now, when the stakes in the election are so desperate; when our choices seem so limited; when time is so short; and when the outcomes are so uncertain.
It will take humility, discipline and equal bits of luck and love to make sure our debates stay civil and that our conversations nurture, rather than maim, the participants.
AN EXAMPLE of how to do this right way is a comment appended to my last posting on this blog by Jody McPhillips.
Jody is a friend, but what’s important for this discussion is that she’s a superstar when it comes to making the world a better place.
She was a reporter at the Providence Journal, where she served a stint in the paper’s Washington bureau. Later, she and her husband, Dave Bloss, the paper’s sports editor, undertook second careers to train new reporters in places that are hostile and dangerous for journalists, like Cambodia, East Timor and Georgia (the country).
Back home in Rhode Island, they are deeply interested, to put it mildly, in the election.
Take Jody’s contribution to the comments section of my last blog posting, in which I criticized Biden’s behavior and tactics in fighting to hold onto the Democratic nomination.
Hers is the classic way to do a tough, but humane rebuttal.
She goes after the ideas and not the speaker, at the outset, gently pushing aside anything that suggested it was personal:
You know I disagree with all of this.
She avoids saying things like what an idiot her friend, the author, turned out to be. Or questioning his limited qualifications, like mentioning the not-so-well-known college he attended. Or making snide asides: You do remember you’re actually older than Biden?
Nor does she savage the essay. Instead, she quotes one particularly objectionable passage:
A "selfish, untruthful bully, who is dividing his party and country" -- really?
Then moves on to state her case, with some eloquence, about the media and others who are paying undue attention to Biden, while virtually ignoring Trump; she argues that replacing Biden is unworkable; and states that she’s sticking with him.
How about a politician of his generation who is putting the best spin on things as he sees it, and who knows that *any* admission of weakness will be relentlessly, cruelly used against him?
This blatant media pile-on breaks my heart. It is so outrageously unfair that we hear barely a whisper about Donald Trump's incessant, malicious lying and demagoguing during this travesty of a debate, while pundits can't shut up about ashen-faced Joe and his struggles to get words out.
The guy was exhausted and sick. Bad judgment? Sure. Deserving of all this contempt and anger? NO. I read a lot of public commentary, and I believe actual voters are with Joe, as opposed to the Beltway crowd.
And I will keep working to get him elected a. because it's too late for any of the fanciful schemes being floated to work and b. because he has earned our support.
HERE’S THE THING (to use one of Biden’s pet phrases): Maybe she’s right.
Nobody can guarantee that she is, of course. Certainly not me. My claim in what is a long-running discussion is that I have been on both sides of it.
In March of last year, I argued that Joe Biden was too old to seek a second term, and there were plenty of able substitutes. I wrote this headline:
JOE BIDEN'S GREAT. IT
DOESN'T MAKE HIM AN
'INDISPENSABLE MAN'
Six months later, I decided that Joe Biden wasn’t too old after all. No other candidate was as well-known; magically, Biden had turned into the indispensable man, which required this headline:
'OH, NO!'
LET'S NOT WAKE UP NOV. 6, 2024 SAYING:
'WE DITCHED JOE BIDEN AS BEING TOO OLD'
Now, because of Biden’ dismal performance in the July 27 debate with Trump, I’ve again swerved my vintage Model T around.
I’m terrified Biden cannot win, especially among a relatively few, but critical, voters in “battleground” states, who seem only dimly aware, if at all, of Trump’s threat to the country.
Is it deciding whether to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee?
Or shaming the media into paying as much attention to Donald Trump’s monstrous character defects as they are in monitoring Biden’s struggles with old age?
Nope.
It’s staying personable: treating each other with respect, kindness and dignity, keeping connected to each other despite our differences.
We can’t argue that Donald Trump is too abhorrent to be allowed back in the White House, if our tactics mimic his savage insults, slurs and sneers.
More importantly, we cannot win, much less survive, if we turn on one another.
None of this is easy, especially now, when the stakes in the election are so desperate; when our choices seem so limited; when time is so short; and when the outcomes are so uncertain.
It will take humility, discipline and equal bits of luck and love to make sure our debates stay civil and that our conversations nurture, rather than maim, the participants.
AN EXAMPLE of how to do this right way is a comment appended to my last posting on this blog by Jody McPhillips.
Jody is a friend, but what’s important for this discussion is that she’s a superstar when it comes to making the world a better place.
She was a reporter at the Providence Journal, where she served a stint in the paper’s Washington bureau. Later, she and her husband, Dave Bloss, the paper’s sports editor, undertook second careers to train new reporters in places that are hostile and dangerous for journalists, like Cambodia, East Timor and Georgia (the country).
Back home in Rhode Island, they are deeply interested, to put it mildly, in the election.
Take Jody’s contribution to the comments section of my last blog posting, in which I criticized Biden’s behavior and tactics in fighting to hold onto the Democratic nomination.
Hers is the classic way to do a tough, but humane rebuttal.
She goes after the ideas and not the speaker, at the outset, gently pushing aside anything that suggested it was personal:
You know I disagree with all of this.
She avoids saying things like what an idiot her friend, the author, turned out to be. Or questioning his limited qualifications, like mentioning the not-so-well-known college he attended. Or making snide asides: You do remember you’re actually older than Biden?
Nor does she savage the essay. Instead, she quotes one particularly objectionable passage:
A "selfish, untruthful bully, who is dividing his party and country" -- really?
Then moves on to state her case, with some eloquence, about the media and others who are paying undue attention to Biden, while virtually ignoring Trump; she argues that replacing Biden is unworkable; and states that she’s sticking with him.
How about a politician of his generation who is putting the best spin on things as he sees it, and who knows that *any* admission of weakness will be relentlessly, cruelly used against him?
This blatant media pile-on breaks my heart. It is so outrageously unfair that we hear barely a whisper about Donald Trump's incessant, malicious lying and demagoguing during this travesty of a debate, while pundits can't shut up about ashen-faced Joe and his struggles to get words out.
The guy was exhausted and sick. Bad judgment? Sure. Deserving of all this contempt and anger? NO. I read a lot of public commentary, and I believe actual voters are with Joe, as opposed to the Beltway crowd.
And I will keep working to get him elected a. because it's too late for any of the fanciful schemes being floated to work and b. because he has earned our support.
HERE’S THE THING (to use one of Biden’s pet phrases): Maybe she’s right.
Nobody can guarantee that she is, of course. Certainly not me. My claim in what is a long-running discussion is that I have been on both sides of it.
In March of last year, I argued that Joe Biden was too old to seek a second term, and there were plenty of able substitutes. I wrote this headline:
JOE BIDEN'S GREAT. IT
DOESN'T MAKE HIM AN
'INDISPENSABLE MAN'
Six months later, I decided that Joe Biden wasn’t too old after all. No other candidate was as well-known; magically, Biden had turned into the indispensable man, which required this headline:
'OH, NO!'
LET'S NOT WAKE UP NOV. 6, 2024 SAYING:
'WE DITCHED JOE BIDEN AS BEING TOO OLD'
Now, because of Biden’ dismal performance in the July 27 debate with Trump, I’ve again swerved my vintage Model T around.
I’m terrified Biden cannot win, especially among a relatively few, but critical, voters in “battleground” states, who seem only dimly aware, if at all, of Trump’s threat to the country.
LAST NIGHT'S PRESS CONFERENCE did little to settle my jitters. Sure, Biden did better than in the debate, but that’s not saying much. His delivery seemed to me halting, sometimes unclear and hardly inspiring. And he made the much anticipated stumbles, for example, saying “Trump” when he meant Kamala Harris, his vice president.
This will happen every time he shows up in public: the president of the United States will make news not because of what he says, but whether he survives or flubs the moment.
I’m imagining the next debate, scheduled for Sept. 10.
Would a compassionate person, and more importantly, the rest of the country, want to subject Biden to such an ordeal?
Or would we rather that Donald Trump face Kamala Harris – if Trump, in that case, dared to show up at all?
People will disagree on the answer.
But if we are kind and united, we can put Donald Trump behind us on Nov. 5, leaving the historians and the courts to judge the effect of his evil trespass into our politics.
This will happen every time he shows up in public: the president of the United States will make news not because of what he says, but whether he survives or flubs the moment.
I’m imagining the next debate, scheduled for Sept. 10.
Would a compassionate person, and more importantly, the rest of the country, want to subject Biden to such an ordeal?
Or would we rather that Donald Trump face Kamala Harris – if Trump, in that case, dared to show up at all?
People will disagree on the answer.
But if we are kind and united, we can put Donald Trump behind us on Nov. 5, leaving the historians and the courts to judge the effect of his evil trespass into our politics.
THE ‘OLD’ JOE BIDEN BOTCHED THE DEBATE; A ‘NEW’ BIDEN IS MAKING THINGS WORSE
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN at his July 5 TV interview. CREDIT: ABC News
FOR THE FIRST TIME this year, I think Donald Trump will probably win the election in November, turning America into a diabolical dictatorship.
If so, it will be Joe Biden’s fault.
Let’s put aside age, because that’s not the immediate issue. Instead of looking at Biden, 81, as an old person, let’s consider him simply as a man, whom we used to like.
Biden, the man, put on a devastating performance June 27, at his “debate” with Donald Trump. He was frighteningly incoherent and failed to make a cogent, convincing case against Trump, which should have been an easy 90 minutes for an experienced politician.
Since then, Biden, the man, has only made things worse by declaring a civil war within his own party, dismissing his baffled and alarmed critics with contempt and disrespect.
By dividing, rather than unifying Democrats, Biden, the man, threatens the chances that Democrats will be able to control Congress, the only plausible defense during four years of terror promised by Trump.
Here’s what Biden, the man, could be doing since the debate:
THE THEME underlying Biden's behavior since the debate is his suggestion that he’s the Indispensable Man.
In this, he is imitating his opposite number, the most despicable man in American history.
Donald Trump declared, after he was nominated in 2016 at the Republican National Convention:
“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
Here’s what Joe Biden, wrote to members of Congress on July 8, responding to people questioning his ability to win:
“... I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.”
Nobody is the “only” or “best” man or woman who can do anything, including running the United States. It is absurd, as a matter of fact, and it’s a warning sign that the speaker has lost his objectivity.
Does Biden, the man, honestly believe that the woman he chose as his vice president, Kamala Harris, is not capable of serving as his replacement or running successfully against Trump?
LET’S LOOK MORE CLOSELY at what Joe Biden, a man, and a responsible one, could be doing.
He could candidly confront what went wrong during the debate, and, if he doesn’t know, he should get to the bottom of it – then share his insights with the public.
After all, it was Biden who challenged Trump to the debate and outlined the ground rules. The goal was to jump-start his stalled campaign. Biden did just the opposite.
It was all Biden’s doing, not the people who have reacted to his failed performance. He was impaired that night; he should find out how and why, and outline a plan to how he can overcome it, or, if necessary, how he'll get out of the race.
As to how he could respond to his fellow Democrats, who are as alarmed as Biden is about the consequences of a Trump presidency, he should embrace them, listen to them, work with them, rather than challenge their loyalty and character.
Two reasons:
One, is that he might learn something from them. They voted for him, supported him, trusted him, celebrated him. Now, their futures are imperiled.
Two, the worst thing that can happen to the Democrats is to fight among themselves. A splintered party has zero chances of winning on Nov. 5.
Instead, Biden is using his position as president, the leader of his party, the winner in the primary races, to divide people into enemies and allies. Echoes of Donald Trump, and Dick Nixon.
If so, it will be Joe Biden’s fault.
Let’s put aside age, because that’s not the immediate issue. Instead of looking at Biden, 81, as an old person, let’s consider him simply as a man, whom we used to like.
Biden, the man, put on a devastating performance June 27, at his “debate” with Donald Trump. He was frighteningly incoherent and failed to make a cogent, convincing case against Trump, which should have been an easy 90 minutes for an experienced politician.
Since then, Biden, the man, has only made things worse by declaring a civil war within his own party, dismissing his baffled and alarmed critics with contempt and disrespect.
By dividing, rather than unifying Democrats, Biden, the man, threatens the chances that Democrats will be able to control Congress, the only plausible defense during four years of terror promised by Trump.
Here’s what Biden, the man, could be doing since the debate:
- Explain what went wrong.
- Take responsibility for his performance that night and in the days following.
- Be a conciliator, rather than an antagonist, in the discussion of what he and the Democrats should do now.
- Welcome, rather than condemn, the alarms his fellow Democrats have raised, both about his - and the party’s – ability to win on Nov. 5.
- Tell the truth.
THE THEME underlying Biden's behavior since the debate is his suggestion that he’s the Indispensable Man.
In this, he is imitating his opposite number, the most despicable man in American history.
Donald Trump declared, after he was nominated in 2016 at the Republican National Convention:
“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
Here’s what Joe Biden, wrote to members of Congress on July 8, responding to people questioning his ability to win:
“... I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.”
Nobody is the “only” or “best” man or woman who can do anything, including running the United States. It is absurd, as a matter of fact, and it’s a warning sign that the speaker has lost his objectivity.
Does Biden, the man, honestly believe that the woman he chose as his vice president, Kamala Harris, is not capable of serving as his replacement or running successfully against Trump?
LET’S LOOK MORE CLOSELY at what Joe Biden, a man, and a responsible one, could be doing.
He could candidly confront what went wrong during the debate, and, if he doesn’t know, he should get to the bottom of it – then share his insights with the public.
After all, it was Biden who challenged Trump to the debate and outlined the ground rules. The goal was to jump-start his stalled campaign. Biden did just the opposite.
It was all Biden’s doing, not the people who have reacted to his failed performance. He was impaired that night; he should find out how and why, and outline a plan to how he can overcome it, or, if necessary, how he'll get out of the race.
As to how he could respond to his fellow Democrats, who are as alarmed as Biden is about the consequences of a Trump presidency, he should embrace them, listen to them, work with them, rather than challenge their loyalty and character.
Two reasons:
One, is that he might learn something from them. They voted for him, supported him, trusted him, celebrated him. Now, their futures are imperiled.
Two, the worst thing that can happen to the Democrats is to fight among themselves. A splintered party has zero chances of winning on Nov. 5.
Instead, Biden is using his position as president, the leader of his party, the winner in the primary races, to divide people into enemies and allies. Echoes of Donald Trump, and Dick Nixon.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS interviews President Biden. CREDIT: ABC news
FINALLY, BACK TO THE “TRUTH.”
If Biden, the man, were being honest about a sincere exploration of what went wrong, and what the country can do about, I think he would have broad support.
Instead, he’s given a number of questionable excuses for what went wrong and downplayed the seriousness of his disastrous appearance.
On July 5, Biden sat down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which was supposed to show that the man we saw on June 27 was an aberration. Here’s some of the transcript:
If Biden, the man, were being honest about a sincere exploration of what went wrong, and what the country can do about, I think he would have broad support.
Instead, he’s given a number of questionable excuses for what went wrong and downplayed the seriousness of his disastrous appearance.
On July 5, Biden sat down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which was supposed to show that the man we saw on June 27 was an aberration. Here’s some of the transcript:
| BIDEN: It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and — and a bad night. STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you say you were exhausted. And — and I know you’ve said that before as well, but you came — and you did have a tough month. But you came home from Europe about 11 or 12 days before the debate, spent six days in Camp David. Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time? BIDEN: Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me, I asked if they did a Covid test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn’t. I just had a really bad cold. STEPHANOPOULOS: And — did you ever watch the debate afterwards? BIDEN: I don’t think I did, no. |
Really?
Biden, the man, did not watch a replay of the debate, the event he planned would turn the race around, but which did the opposite?
How could any man, woman, anyone, not watch the replay? And if not, why not?
Joe Biden is now a shadow of the man who’s had an exemplary presidency. He’s emerged as a selfish, untruthful bully, who is dividing his party and country.
This should be the old Joe Biden’s finest moment: a good man, leading the country to solve a catastrophic problem in an impossibly short length of time, listening, learning, healing and unifying.
I’m dismayed by the new Joe Biden. Of course, I'll vote for him, if it comes to that.
But I sure miss the old one.
Biden, the man, did not watch a replay of the debate, the event he planned would turn the race around, but which did the opposite?
How could any man, woman, anyone, not watch the replay? And if not, why not?
Joe Biden is now a shadow of the man who’s had an exemplary presidency. He’s emerged as a selfish, untruthful bully, who is dividing his party and country.
This should be the old Joe Biden’s finest moment: a good man, leading the country to solve a catastrophic problem in an impossibly short length of time, listening, learning, healing and unifying.
I’m dismayed by the new Joe Biden. Of course, I'll vote for him, if it comes to that.
But I sure miss the old one.
Election Countdown
4 MONTHS LEFT; STILL TIME
FOR THE RIGHT DEMOCRAT
TO DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP
NOTE: Things are changing fast, so that anything I’m writing now might be out-of-date and irrelevant as you’re reading this.
THERE ARE ONLY FOUR MONTHS to go until the Nov. 5 election, and the astonishing events of the past two weeks mean that there’s almost no time to waste to ensure a positive outcome.
Which is different than saying time has run out. Or, practically speaking, there’s no time left. Or that it’s a scientific fact that there’s insufficient time.
The consequences of Donald Trump returning to the White House are too awful for our country, and really, the rest of the world, meaning that while there is still an opportunity for a Democratic win, we must take full advantage.
EVERYTHING CHANGED for the country on June 27, when President Joe Biden put on the most devastating public demonstration of incompetence and unfitness to campaign or to hold office in the history of politics, and this goes for things that really happened in the past, or have been imagined in great fiction, like a Shakespearean tragedy.
I wish that was an exaggeration.
But if you’re like me, you’ve had enough space to have processed how terrible Biden’s part of the “debate” was and to have reached some conclusions.
Mine are simple:
I want Joe Biden gone from the race, fast; and for him to be replaced by someone terrific.
I HOPED HE WOULD QUIT on July Fourth, which would have been a perfect patriotic occasion.
But the day after will do. Supposedly, he’s to do a TV interview that night. That, too, would be fine moment for an announcement. So would Biden standing on a White House balcony and shouting: “I’m toast.”
Heck, Fifth Avenue would do, watching Trump around shooting people, now that the Supreme Court says anything he does is okay.
What I don’t want to hear is another word out of Biden’s mouth, other than “I will no longer be a candidate; if nominated, I will not accept.”
Same goes for his campaign, his “team,” his “advisors,” his family, including Dr. Jill (not a medical doctor) and especially Hunter Biden, who belongs in jail, not at Camp David strategy sessions urging Dad to keep on keeping on.
I don’t want to hear about what a great president he’s been, or what a debt we owe him for keeping Trump at bay four years ago, or that he’s a nice guy. That’s all just more “malarkey,” as Joe might have put in the days when he had something to say.
IF THERE’S the slightest chance that Joe Biden is, in any way, still functional during some part of any day or night or week, and if he retains the ability to say something spontaneously and without the help of electronic devices, it should be that he understands that he is not fit to seek a second term and will release delegates pledged to him at the national convention.
It would be nice if Biden’s withdrawal includes an apology, but none is needed. Because after what he put us and the rest of the country through two Thursdays ago, who cares whether he’s sorry, only that he’s gone.
MANY UNKNOWNS REMAIN in the next four months, but one thing is absolutely certain: Joe Biden cannot win.
After his babbling, incoherent, slack-jawed debacle at the “debate” with Donald Trump, Biden cannot be considered a serious candidate, and it would be a betrayal for those of us who believe in Democracy to pretend he can or should.
I personally want someone I can absolutely believe in, and her name is not Kamala Harris.
A lot of people don’t like Harris. For me, her name now brings unpleasant associations. The fact that she's vice president does not mean she's entitled for consideration; to the contrary, she's dropped from my list as being part of the Fib Machine that hid the fact that Biden’s brain has been on the blink.
I’m inspired by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
You may have someone else in mind.
I’ll be right beside you, as long as she or he, can win.
So, Democrats, let’s get moving.
And fast.
While there’s still time.
TWO TERRIBLE CHOICES,
BUT ONE GOAL: BEATING DONALD TRUMP
STICK WITH JOE BIDEN? REPLACE HIM?
The choice would be simple if we knew which offered the better chance of defeating Donald Trump.
We don’t.
In fact, there’s a possibility that neither will work, and Trump will walk back into the Oval Office to destroy everything: American democracy, world peace and survival of the planet.
Still, after Biden’s disastrous performance at last Thursday’s debate, a choice has to be made.
And this is one of those rare instances in which each one of us is as qualified as anyone else to make the best guess: we amateurs know as much as the experts.
I have my prescription, but it’s flawed right out of the box, because of two personal shortcomings:
One, I’m still in shock over Biden’s failure in the debate, so I’m probably not thinking straight.
Two, I’m furious at Biden, his wife and others close to him that they didn’t warn us about the president's mental deterioration; I hope my emotions aren’t skewing my judgement.
Here my suggestions for what should happen next:
The choice would be simple if we knew which offered the better chance of defeating Donald Trump.
We don’t.
In fact, there’s a possibility that neither will work, and Trump will walk back into the Oval Office to destroy everything: American democracy, world peace and survival of the planet.
Still, after Biden’s disastrous performance at last Thursday’s debate, a choice has to be made.
And this is one of those rare instances in which each one of us is as qualified as anyone else to make the best guess: we amateurs know as much as the experts.
I have my prescription, but it’s flawed right out of the box, because of two personal shortcomings:
One, I’m still in shock over Biden’s failure in the debate, so I’m probably not thinking straight.
Two, I’m furious at Biden, his wife and others close to him that they didn’t warn us about the president's mental deterioration; I hope my emotions aren’t skewing my judgement.
Here my suggestions for what should happen next:
- Biden quits the race. This is the better of the terrible two choices. A July 4 speech would be a symbolic moment for a patriotic gesture.
- Biden is pressured to quit. July becomes Get Rid of Joe Month. Democrats of all shapes and sizes, from Barack Obama, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, John Kerry and Al Gore, to Congressional and party leaders, to emailers, letter writers, phone callers urge Biden to get out of the race. If the effort is big enough, and the polls agree, he’ll be forced to leave.
- The Democratic convention in Chicago Aug. 19-22 picks nominees for president and vice president. There are plenty of capable candidates. Any one of them faces hideous hurdles with just two months until the Nov. 5 election.
- Or, Biden stays. The rest of us should back him – but be honest about it, saying we know that a flawed Joe Biden is better than a grotesque Donald Trump.
- Democrats control Congress. We must throw everything we have at retaining the Senate and retaking the House of Representatives; it’s the only way of checkmating a Trump presidency or strengthening a Democratic White House.
WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. As the 2024 campaign was shaping up, many people debated whether Biden should run again.
As a wishy-washy thinker, I went both ways.
Initially, I thought Joe should not seek a second term, mainly because he was too old.
I knew that, because I’m just a few months older than Joe, and I am facing the disappointing truths about aging. Some friends have died in their 70s and earlier, and now that my contemporaries are in their 80s, they're in a race to the cemetery.
What happens to old people is the one thing I still know about.
At 82, I’m getting worse every day in every way. I’m weaker, frailer and stupider.
My memory is a disappointment. Entire words disappear when I need them; sure, sometimes the words bounce back – but way too late to be of use.
Going for a walk with me is like standing still or, on a bad day, going backwards.
If I were to be ordered back to work – let’s say a Trump administration ordered a work requirement for everyone receiving Medicare – I could not do that, not to save me life.
If Jeff Bezos offered me the editorship of his troubled Washington Post – the chance of a lifetime for any journalist – I could not do it, not for one year, one week or even a day.
Given my own declines, I’ve been amazed at how well Biden has done. He rides (or used to) his bicycle; flies around the world; shows up in war zones; welcomes winning sports teams to the White House. Starts his day with the daily “brief” from the spooks, and ends it late at night raising money. In short, Biden has been doing all the little and momentous things we require of presidents.
That’s why I changed my mind and supported his campaign for a second term.
Many people say that Joe Biden has been the best president of their lifetimes, and I’m among them. I never expected he’d be so good. Not perfect, but good.
It seemed to me that somehow, Joe was getting away with being old. Some people do. I’ve met people in their 90s whose memories are infinite and judgements sharp.
Joe seemed an Olympian Elder.
Given that, it was a no-brainer that, with Trump emerging from the Republican sewer, Biden was best equipped to defend democracy and continue his long list of achievements.
There were several factors favoring Biden’s candidacy. No other Democrat was as well known as Biden; there were many capable men and women, but none were household names.
And there always was too little time to lock in a replacement and get her or him widely known. And every month, the time factor – too little of it – was more and more persuasive.
Until June 27, 9 p.m., Eastern.
As a wishy-washy thinker, I went both ways.
Initially, I thought Joe should not seek a second term, mainly because he was too old.
I knew that, because I’m just a few months older than Joe, and I am facing the disappointing truths about aging. Some friends have died in their 70s and earlier, and now that my contemporaries are in their 80s, they're in a race to the cemetery.
What happens to old people is the one thing I still know about.
At 82, I’m getting worse every day in every way. I’m weaker, frailer and stupider.
My memory is a disappointment. Entire words disappear when I need them; sure, sometimes the words bounce back – but way too late to be of use.
Going for a walk with me is like standing still or, on a bad day, going backwards.
If I were to be ordered back to work – let’s say a Trump administration ordered a work requirement for everyone receiving Medicare – I could not do that, not to save me life.
If Jeff Bezos offered me the editorship of his troubled Washington Post – the chance of a lifetime for any journalist – I could not do it, not for one year, one week or even a day.
Given my own declines, I’ve been amazed at how well Biden has done. He rides (or used to) his bicycle; flies around the world; shows up in war zones; welcomes winning sports teams to the White House. Starts his day with the daily “brief” from the spooks, and ends it late at night raising money. In short, Biden has been doing all the little and momentous things we require of presidents.
That’s why I changed my mind and supported his campaign for a second term.
Many people say that Joe Biden has been the best president of their lifetimes, and I’m among them. I never expected he’d be so good. Not perfect, but good.
It seemed to me that somehow, Joe was getting away with being old. Some people do. I’ve met people in their 90s whose memories are infinite and judgements sharp.
Joe seemed an Olympian Elder.
Given that, it was a no-brainer that, with Trump emerging from the Republican sewer, Biden was best equipped to defend democracy and continue his long list of achievements.
There were several factors favoring Biden’s candidacy. No other Democrat was as well known as Biden; there were many capable men and women, but none were household names.
And there always was too little time to lock in a replacement and get her or him widely known. And every month, the time factor – too little of it – was more and more persuasive.
Until June 27, 9 p.m., Eastern.
EVERY PERSON watching the CNN-produced debate saw the same thing and was horrified by the first 5 minutes and the next 85:
Joe Biden presented the nation with a caricature of an old man, a man horribly impaired by age. He walked old. He mumbled old. His talked old, his voice so low and husky you could barely hear it; he mangled his sentences; lost his way. Over and over.
Worse, he failed on his main mission: telling voters why Donald Trump should not be president.
He flunked Job One.
Biden had challenged Trump to the debate so he could tell the world why Trump was the most evil leader in U.S. history. When Trump lied, Biden should had countered with the truth, clearly, forcefully, persuasively. Biden should have played the prosecutor, giving both opening and closing statements to persuade the jury of Trump’s guilt of numerous crimes and misdemeanors.
And in the process, 81-year-old Joe Biden should have demonstrated in classic show-don’t-tell fashion why an old man was up to the job, whether on the campaign stump or in the Oval Office.
Republicans must have been dumbfounded. They could not have imagined, with all of their and Vladimir Putin’s vast archives of dirty tricks, that Joe Biden would deliver them a 90-minute ad, for free, proving that Joe Biden was not fit to be a candidate and maybe not a commander-in-chief.
A few hours later, writing in this blog I used a phrase along the lines that an “old man had a bad day.” It sounded okay at the time, but it was too glib, and certainly wrong.
It’s now obvious that Joe Biden has been having both good days and bad ones, just like me and the rest of our 80-Somethings. But it’s the bad days that count, and given the realities of life, the bad days will become more frequent.
Jill Biden, his wife, knows this. So does his chief of staff, appointments secretary, members of cabinet, and everyone else who sees Biden in action or the opposite of action. And this goes for the press – including the reporters in the White House media “pool” who follow the president around day and night.
And nobody spoke up, until Joe Biden pulled his June Surprise in Atlanta.
HERE’S MY LIST of replacements. I’m sure you have your own (remember Michelle Obama says she won’t and Taylor Swift is on tour):
Joe Biden presented the nation with a caricature of an old man, a man horribly impaired by age. He walked old. He mumbled old. His talked old, his voice so low and husky you could barely hear it; he mangled his sentences; lost his way. Over and over.
Worse, he failed on his main mission: telling voters why Donald Trump should not be president.
He flunked Job One.
Biden had challenged Trump to the debate so he could tell the world why Trump was the most evil leader in U.S. history. When Trump lied, Biden should had countered with the truth, clearly, forcefully, persuasively. Biden should have played the prosecutor, giving both opening and closing statements to persuade the jury of Trump’s guilt of numerous crimes and misdemeanors.
And in the process, 81-year-old Joe Biden should have demonstrated in classic show-don’t-tell fashion why an old man was up to the job, whether on the campaign stump or in the Oval Office.
Republicans must have been dumbfounded. They could not have imagined, with all of their and Vladimir Putin’s vast archives of dirty tricks, that Joe Biden would deliver them a 90-minute ad, for free, proving that Joe Biden was not fit to be a candidate and maybe not a commander-in-chief.
A few hours later, writing in this blog I used a phrase along the lines that an “old man had a bad day.” It sounded okay at the time, but it was too glib, and certainly wrong.
It’s now obvious that Joe Biden has been having both good days and bad ones, just like me and the rest of our 80-Somethings. But it’s the bad days that count, and given the realities of life, the bad days will become more frequent.
Jill Biden, his wife, knows this. So does his chief of staff, appointments secretary, members of cabinet, and everyone else who sees Biden in action or the opposite of action. And this goes for the press – including the reporters in the White House media “pool” who follow the president around day and night.
And nobody spoke up, until Joe Biden pulled his June Surprise in Atlanta.
HERE’S MY LIST of replacements. I’m sure you have your own (remember Michelle Obama says she won’t and Taylor Swift is on tour):
| Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan governor. She’s got the experience and the cachet. She escaped a kidnapping plot, has overseen a progressive big state agenda. And it’s time for a woman president. |  |
| Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania governor. He got a destroyed Route 95 bridge replaced fast, in under two weeks. |  |
| J.B. Pritzker, Illinois governor. Big guy from a big state. Well-spoken, progressive. |  |
Not on my list: Kamala Harris. Already unpopular, the vice president has seen Biden up close, and she hasn’t said a word.
Any “newcomer” to the race that the convention might nominate faces near impossible hurdles: gaining name recognition, credibility and popularity in a very, very short period of time.
If Biden stays in the race, his limitations must be acknowledged. I daydream about going door-to-door in a battleground state (which I won’t do, because I’m too old); somebody tells me they’re worried about Biden’s well-being. What am I supposed to do: run to the next doorbell? No, I have to say Over-the-Hill Joe is better than Don-the-devil. Great message.
THESE ARE THE CARDS WE’VE BEEN DEALT.
Just the two of them.
Whichever one – Joe, Not Joe – it’s important that Democrats don’t fight with each other, but with Donald Trump.
Our focus must be on the two things that count: defeating Trump and electing a Democratic Congress.
Both are possible.
Any “newcomer” to the race that the convention might nominate faces near impossible hurdles: gaining name recognition, credibility and popularity in a very, very short period of time.
If Biden stays in the race, his limitations must be acknowledged. I daydream about going door-to-door in a battleground state (which I won’t do, because I’m too old); somebody tells me they’re worried about Biden’s well-being. What am I supposed to do: run to the next doorbell? No, I have to say Over-the-Hill Joe is better than Don-the-devil. Great message.
THESE ARE THE CARDS WE’VE BEEN DEALT.
Just the two of them.
Whichever one – Joe, Not Joe – it’s important that Democrats don’t fight with each other, but with Donald Trump.
Our focus must be on the two things that count: defeating Trump and electing a Democratic Congress.
Both are possible.
IF AN OLD MAN HAS A BAD NIGHT,
WILL A NATION PAY THE PRICE?
A DISASTER.
Probably a catastrophe.
Worse than your worst fears.
President Joe Biden sounded old and looked old during last night’s “debate,” from the opening to the closing moments of one of the most excruciating 90-minutes in American politics.
Whatever Joe Biden said was almost impossible to follow, jumping from subject to subject with his hoarse, weak voice, mumbling, stopping-and-starting, losing his way, forgetting, chewing his words, missing every opportunity – and there were many – to deliver rhetorical punches.
Donald Trump, with his fake hairdo and whatever it is he puts on his face, and despite his bizarre clownish expressions, looked and sounded like a spring chicken in comparison.
A chicken laying lies by the dozen. But no matter.
If you were a cartoonist or a satirist trying to make fun of a man too old to old to work the buttons of his TV remote, much less be a commander-in-chief, you could not have created a crueler caricature than Joe Biden delivered last night.
After last night, Biden surely will plummet in the polls – and not just in the seven “battleground” states where he has been lagging – but he will lose the near overall tie he’s achieved so far.
Probably a catastrophe.
Worse than your worst fears.
President Joe Biden sounded old and looked old during last night’s “debate,” from the opening to the closing moments of one of the most excruciating 90-minutes in American politics.
Whatever Joe Biden said was almost impossible to follow, jumping from subject to subject with his hoarse, weak voice, mumbling, stopping-and-starting, losing his way, forgetting, chewing his words, missing every opportunity – and there were many – to deliver rhetorical punches.
Donald Trump, with his fake hairdo and whatever it is he puts on his face, and despite his bizarre clownish expressions, looked and sounded like a spring chicken in comparison.
A chicken laying lies by the dozen. But no matter.
If you were a cartoonist or a satirist trying to make fun of a man too old to old to work the buttons of his TV remote, much less be a commander-in-chief, you could not have created a crueler caricature than Joe Biden delivered last night.
After last night, Biden surely will plummet in the polls – and not just in the seven “battleground” states where he has been lagging – but he will lose the near overall tie he’s achieved so far.
IT’S POSSIBLE that my assessment is too pessimistic and that, somehow, Biden will pull it out. Maybe he’ll be a superstar in the second debate. Maybe some crisis, some major event will prove him to be a national hero.
Anything is possible. And none of us should give up.
But Biden did himself no favors last night, not for the nation, not for his fellow 81-year-olds.
Where was the man who delivered such a powerful and inspiring speech at the State of the Union? He surely wasn’t in Atlanta, on CNN’s debate stage.
It’s terrible on two counts:
SO, IT WAS AN ILLUSION.
That's what appeared on our TVs last night, an illusion.
I believe that Biden remains capable, even inspired, as a president.
We did not see the real Joe Biden, the seasoned, practiced politician, with his sound judgement and forward vision for the country.
What we saw, instead, was an illusion.
It only looked like Biden had lost his way, if not his marbles, and that Trump was the one with the energy and vitality. But that also an illusion, but the kind of snake-oil fakery that can put a fast one over on the voters.
No small matters, illusions.
Democracy in the U.S. will collapse if Trump wins on Nov. 5.
Racism, violence, ignorance and injustice in its many forms will become the foundation of a new American character and culture.
And climate change will destroy the earth.
All because an old man had a bad night.
Anything is possible. And none of us should give up.
But Biden did himself no favors last night, not for the nation, not for his fellow 81-year-olds.
Where was the man who delivered such a powerful and inspiring speech at the State of the Union? He surely wasn’t in Atlanta, on CNN’s debate stage.
It’s terrible on two counts:
- The most obvious is that Donald Trump has no business being president, and now it seems he very well might be.
- Less obvious, it was Joe Biden’s performance on TV that was terrible, not his presidency during his first term, nor what his leadership would likely be in a second term.
SO, IT WAS AN ILLUSION.
That's what appeared on our TVs last night, an illusion.
I believe that Biden remains capable, even inspired, as a president.
We did not see the real Joe Biden, the seasoned, practiced politician, with his sound judgement and forward vision for the country.
What we saw, instead, was an illusion.
It only looked like Biden had lost his way, if not his marbles, and that Trump was the one with the energy and vitality. But that also an illusion, but the kind of snake-oil fakery that can put a fast one over on the voters.
No small matters, illusions.
Democracy in the U.S. will collapse if Trump wins on Nov. 5.
Racism, violence, ignorance and injustice in its many forms will become the foundation of a new American character and culture.
And climate change will destroy the earth.
All because an old man had a bad night.
OUR FRAIDY-CAT ELECTION
Are you afraid to put a bumper sticker on your car?
Should you be even more afraid not to?
THERE’S NOTHING MORE AMERICAN than telling your friends and neighbors how you’re planning to vote, hoping they’ll take the hint and follow your example.
What could be simpler than slapping a Biden-Harris sticker on the back bumper?
You’re on the Interstate. It’s night; somewhere rural, dark and empty.You’re alone. But maybe not. Is someone behind you? What’s she thinking about that goddamned Biden-Harris bumper sticker ablaze in her headlights?
In a kinder era, you wouldn’t have given a second thought to something as mundane as a bumper sticker. Sure, another driver might have tossed you a middle finger; alternatively, an approving motorist might have shared a couple of happy taps of the horn.
But out in the badlands of today's politics, you can’t be sure.
Seeing that Biden-Harris slur, the fellow traveler’s brain lights up in all the wrong places. Shouting “Let’s Go, Brandon,” she guns the engine and rams the blasphemous bumper. Or, maybe, the other driver turns out to be a student of the Constitution, who decides to exercise his Second Amendment rights with a couple of blasts from an AR-15.
Actually, I haven’t heard of anything like that happening.
But I can imagine it. I worry about it. Which is why I haven’t put in my order, not yet, to Shop Joe Biden for bumper stickers, $6 a pair. Or, for that matter, I haven't signed up for a $20 yard sign; or a $35 baseball cap.
I’m just thinking about it. And not proud of that.
What could be simpler than slapping a Biden-Harris sticker on the back bumper?
You’re on the Interstate. It’s night; somewhere rural, dark and empty.You’re alone. But maybe not. Is someone behind you? What’s she thinking about that goddamned Biden-Harris bumper sticker ablaze in her headlights?
In a kinder era, you wouldn’t have given a second thought to something as mundane as a bumper sticker. Sure, another driver might have tossed you a middle finger; alternatively, an approving motorist might have shared a couple of happy taps of the horn.
But out in the badlands of today's politics, you can’t be sure.
Seeing that Biden-Harris slur, the fellow traveler’s brain lights up in all the wrong places. Shouting “Let’s Go, Brandon,” she guns the engine and rams the blasphemous bumper. Or, maybe, the other driver turns out to be a student of the Constitution, who decides to exercise his Second Amendment rights with a couple of blasts from an AR-15.
Actually, I haven’t heard of anything like that happening.
But I can imagine it. I worry about it. Which is why I haven’t put in my order, not yet, to Shop Joe Biden for bumper stickers, $6 a pair. Or, for that matter, I haven't signed up for a $20 yard sign; or a $35 baseball cap.
I’m just thinking about it. And not proud of that.
IT’S A LOT EASIER to scold others for being Election Fraidy-Cats, so cowardly, so silent as the 2024 election bears down and democracy is at the cliff’s edge.
It's the Fear Election.
Fear is at work among GOP Senators and Representatives whom Donald Trump put in harm’s way when he set his violent supporters upon the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The congressional folks feared for their lives that day, while the mob shouted “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump’s ultra-loyal vice president, who for one brave moment refused to go along with Trump’s scheme to upend the election.
But post-riot, the rescued GOP lawmakers decided that what they most feared was political suicide. Which is why you have an entire political party pretending that Donald Trump is not a psychopath, criminal, racist, rapist and traitor.
There are many other instances in which fear has scrambled our moral compass. Here are three:
#1 -THE MOVIE YOU CAN’T WATCH
The film “The Apprentice” received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on May 20, but has yet to find a U.S. distributor, so you probably won’t be streaming it or seeing it at a theater.
According to those who have watched it, the film depicts the young Donald as he was “apprenticed” to Roy Cohn, the master of the political dark arts. Here’s how the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg described the movie:
“ 'The Apprentice' also gives you a sense of the audacious glamour Trump projected before he became a caricature, and it makes his decision to pursue Manhattan’s Commodore Hotel in the 1970s, when midtown was a sleazy wasteland, seem visionary. It offers a fresh way of understanding how Trump — under the tutelage of Cohn, who once served as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy — evolved from an almost charming Queens striver into the lawless predator now bestriding American politics."
"I wish you could see it,” Goldberg wrote. “Unfortunately, you may not get a chance to anytime soon.”
The reason?
“Many studios fear a MAGA-led backlash to movies perceived as too ‘woke,’ which can include anything from having a diverse cast to the mere mention of the LGBTQ+ community,” according to an account in the Hollywood Reporter.
The news outlet quoted a producer knowledgeable about the discussion about U.S. distribution as saying that the country is too divided to risk offending one side or the other.
“If an audience is pro-Trump, they won’t watch an anti-Trump movie,” the producer said. “And the other side won’t watch a pro-Trump one.”
According to the Reporter, the film has some alarming depictions of Trump, including “scenes of Trump abusing amphetamines, getting liposuction and scalp-reduction surgery and, most controversially, one graphic sequence showing him raping his first wife, Ivana. (Ivana made the rape claim during her divorce proceedings with Trump in the early ’90s, but later disavowed her deposed testimony, saying she didn’t mean rape in the “literal or criminal sense.”)”
The real problem isn’t just old-fashioned censorship, it’s self-censorship, which I think is more insidious, along with the ludicrous fact that Trump fear is at work without Trump even being re-elected.
#2 - THE DISINFORMATION YOU WON’T KNOW ABOUT
This one is just as disturbing, because it involves a respected university, where you expect independent thinking, commitment to truth and some institutional gumption.
California’s renown Stanford University has turned its back on its “Standford Internet Observatory’s” which has done substantial work about election disinformation.
According to Platformer, a newsletter that tracks technology platform issues, Stanford has cut the Observatory’s staff and “will not conduct research into the 2024 election.”
The reason is a Republican attack on Stanford’s and other universities’ efforts to investigate political lies and other disinformation.
Stanford, according to the Washington Post, has spent millions of dollars to defend its researchers from lawsuits and Congressional probes.
Dee Mostofi, a university spokesperson, said that the Observatory, under new leadership, will continue to work on issues such as child safety.
But with bold doublespeak, Mostofi told the Post:
“Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research — both at Stanford and across academia.”
You don’t need precision instruments to measure the depth of the university’s “deep concern” about attacks on academic freedom and the work of its scholars.
Of course, the retreat couldn’t come at a worse time, with Russia and China launching sophisticated cyber attacks on American voters.
Brown University professor Claire Wardle told the Post that
“closing down a lab like this would always be a huge loss, but doing so now, during a year of global elections, makes absolutely no sense.”
Wardle said: “We need universities to use their resources and standing in the community to stand up to criticism and headlines.”
#3 - THE FOLK SONGS YOU WON'T HEAR
I don’t have authoritative sources on this one, just my own experience over the last nine years of the Trump nightmare.
But I have yet to hear a folk song devoted entirely to Trump and his attack on democracy, whereas folk music provided the soundtrack of the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.
As far as I can tell, there’s radio silence, and silence, too, on streaming services and on other media featuring songs about political and cultural threats to freedom and the just plain evil of the man they're not calling Donald John Trump.
I listen to two outstanding folk music sources, WUMB radio out of Boston and Folk Alley, an internet channel. Both feature “new music” by today’s singer-songwriters. And I haven't heard what I’m hoping for.
My guess is that early into the Trump experience, musicians and others made a calculation that if they sang about freedom and Big Bad Don, they’d lose half their audience and be subject to social media and physical threats.
If I’m wrong, please let me know. I'll order an old-school CD right away.
BACK TO BUMPER STICKERS – So, it's easy to belittle protest-free folk singers, university double-talkers and self-censoring movie moguls.
But how brave are the rest of us?
Is my paranoia off base about what can go wrong on the highway? Putting it bluntly, am I a bumper sticker Fraidy-Cat?
Then, I remember the threats against election workers, who aren’t even political partisans; or the care which the Manhattan judge took to protect jurors and witnesses in the case that convicted Trump of trying to hide hush payments to Stormy Daniels.
Do I want to drive a car with a road-rage target stuck on its bumper, with only me or my wife at the wheel?
So, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Election Fraidy-Cats on that one. Just too many manic drivers, so much ambient road rage, too many opportunities for mischief and worse.
As to a yard sign, that seems okay to me. My house, my fortress, at least sort of.
Same thing with the baseball cap, the t-shirt and other official and home-grown displays of where I stand in this election.
I wish I wasn't making these kinds of choices, because democracy is diminished when citizens compromise fear and free speech.
But I don’t live in a state that puts “Live Free or Die” on its license plates. I live in the place with “Hope” on the state flag.
What I’m hoping for is that the compromises I’m making will be good enough.
But what I fear is that, to survive, democracy needs something braver.
It's the Fear Election.
Fear is at work among GOP Senators and Representatives whom Donald Trump put in harm’s way when he set his violent supporters upon the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The congressional folks feared for their lives that day, while the mob shouted “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump’s ultra-loyal vice president, who for one brave moment refused to go along with Trump’s scheme to upend the election.
But post-riot, the rescued GOP lawmakers decided that what they most feared was political suicide. Which is why you have an entire political party pretending that Donald Trump is not a psychopath, criminal, racist, rapist and traitor.
There are many other instances in which fear has scrambled our moral compass. Here are three:
#1 -THE MOVIE YOU CAN’T WATCH
The film “The Apprentice” received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on May 20, but has yet to find a U.S. distributor, so you probably won’t be streaming it or seeing it at a theater.
According to those who have watched it, the film depicts the young Donald as he was “apprenticed” to Roy Cohn, the master of the political dark arts. Here’s how the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg described the movie:
“ 'The Apprentice' also gives you a sense of the audacious glamour Trump projected before he became a caricature, and it makes his decision to pursue Manhattan’s Commodore Hotel in the 1970s, when midtown was a sleazy wasteland, seem visionary. It offers a fresh way of understanding how Trump — under the tutelage of Cohn, who once served as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy — evolved from an almost charming Queens striver into the lawless predator now bestriding American politics."
"I wish you could see it,” Goldberg wrote. “Unfortunately, you may not get a chance to anytime soon.”
The reason?
“Many studios fear a MAGA-led backlash to movies perceived as too ‘woke,’ which can include anything from having a diverse cast to the mere mention of the LGBTQ+ community,” according to an account in the Hollywood Reporter.
The news outlet quoted a producer knowledgeable about the discussion about U.S. distribution as saying that the country is too divided to risk offending one side or the other.
“If an audience is pro-Trump, they won’t watch an anti-Trump movie,” the producer said. “And the other side won’t watch a pro-Trump one.”
According to the Reporter, the film has some alarming depictions of Trump, including “scenes of Trump abusing amphetamines, getting liposuction and scalp-reduction surgery and, most controversially, one graphic sequence showing him raping his first wife, Ivana. (Ivana made the rape claim during her divorce proceedings with Trump in the early ’90s, but later disavowed her deposed testimony, saying she didn’t mean rape in the “literal or criminal sense.”)”
The real problem isn’t just old-fashioned censorship, it’s self-censorship, which I think is more insidious, along with the ludicrous fact that Trump fear is at work without Trump even being re-elected.
#2 - THE DISINFORMATION YOU WON’T KNOW ABOUT
This one is just as disturbing, because it involves a respected university, where you expect independent thinking, commitment to truth and some institutional gumption.
California’s renown Stanford University has turned its back on its “Standford Internet Observatory’s” which has done substantial work about election disinformation.
According to Platformer, a newsletter that tracks technology platform issues, Stanford has cut the Observatory’s staff and “will not conduct research into the 2024 election.”
The reason is a Republican attack on Stanford’s and other universities’ efforts to investigate political lies and other disinformation.
Stanford, according to the Washington Post, has spent millions of dollars to defend its researchers from lawsuits and Congressional probes.
Dee Mostofi, a university spokesperson, said that the Observatory, under new leadership, will continue to work on issues such as child safety.
But with bold doublespeak, Mostofi told the Post:
“Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research — both at Stanford and across academia.”
You don’t need precision instruments to measure the depth of the university’s “deep concern” about attacks on academic freedom and the work of its scholars.
Of course, the retreat couldn’t come at a worse time, with Russia and China launching sophisticated cyber attacks on American voters.
Brown University professor Claire Wardle told the Post that
“closing down a lab like this would always be a huge loss, but doing so now, during a year of global elections, makes absolutely no sense.”
Wardle said: “We need universities to use their resources and standing in the community to stand up to criticism and headlines.”
#3 - THE FOLK SONGS YOU WON'T HEAR
I don’t have authoritative sources on this one, just my own experience over the last nine years of the Trump nightmare.
But I have yet to hear a folk song devoted entirely to Trump and his attack on democracy, whereas folk music provided the soundtrack of the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.
As far as I can tell, there’s radio silence, and silence, too, on streaming services and on other media featuring songs about political and cultural threats to freedom and the just plain evil of the man they're not calling Donald John Trump.
I listen to two outstanding folk music sources, WUMB radio out of Boston and Folk Alley, an internet channel. Both feature “new music” by today’s singer-songwriters. And I haven't heard what I’m hoping for.
My guess is that early into the Trump experience, musicians and others made a calculation that if they sang about freedom and Big Bad Don, they’d lose half their audience and be subject to social media and physical threats.
If I’m wrong, please let me know. I'll order an old-school CD right away.
BACK TO BUMPER STICKERS – So, it's easy to belittle protest-free folk singers, university double-talkers and self-censoring movie moguls.
But how brave are the rest of us?
Is my paranoia off base about what can go wrong on the highway? Putting it bluntly, am I a bumper sticker Fraidy-Cat?
Then, I remember the threats against election workers, who aren’t even political partisans; or the care which the Manhattan judge took to protect jurors and witnesses in the case that convicted Trump of trying to hide hush payments to Stormy Daniels.
Do I want to drive a car with a road-rage target stuck on its bumper, with only me or my wife at the wheel?
So, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Election Fraidy-Cats on that one. Just too many manic drivers, so much ambient road rage, too many opportunities for mischief and worse.
As to a yard sign, that seems okay to me. My house, my fortress, at least sort of.
Same thing with the baseball cap, the t-shirt and other official and home-grown displays of where I stand in this election.
I wish I wasn't making these kinds of choices, because democracy is diminished when citizens compromise fear and free speech.
But I don’t live in a state that puts “Live Free or Die” on its license plates. I live in the place with “Hope” on the state flag.
What I’m hoping for is that the compromises I’m making will be good enough.
But what I fear is that, to survive, democracy needs something braver.
BLAME THE NICE PEOPLE:
HOW ONE SATURDAY AT THE SUPERMARKET STARTED OUT SOUR BUT ENDED UP SWEET
THIS IS A SMALL STORY about a big moment, the kind you rarely hear about, because when nice people do their thing, it usually isn't news.
The day started wretchedly for my wife and me, with a routine round of Saturday errands. At home, we discovered that a “fob” had disappeared.
The "fob," one of those little weird things that make today’s complicated cars unlock, lock, start and turn off, and roll down all four windows, had been on a key ring along with another "fob," which operated a second car, the one used on the shopping trip, which explains why the furtive "fob" wasn't missed right away.
Glumly, we embarked on a probably hopeless mission, reverse-engineering the shopping run, going from one parking lot to another, walking up and down empty spaces, getting down on hands and knees to look under cars, the way they search for hidden bombs in movies.
At the Stop & Shop supermarket on West Main Road in Middletown, I spotted a young man wearing a yellow safety vest and racing around the parking lot to corral stray shopping carts. He was hard to slow down – but stopped a millisecond to say, no, he hadn’t seen any"fob," then sprinted back to his urgent duties.
Dispirited, we went into the store, to the customer service booth.
It was empty.
A young woman in a Stop & Shop smock was standing in front of an aisle. Could we find someone in customer service? "We lost one of those “fob” thingies that unlock cars and gets them started, blah, blah, blah."
She brightened.
“I remember seeing something like that,” she said.
We were near the checkout area, and she rushed to one of the workers, whom she thought might have more information.
Meanwhile, one of those robots that troll supermarket aisles appeared. It had a pair of big fake eyes, maybe to make it seem human or at least amusing. Instinctively, I suspected that the robot didn't give a fig about a "fob."
The young woman found yet another co-worker, who also knew something about a furtive “fob” and its travels.
Excitement was building. And not just on our part. It seemed like the group of workers were just as enthusiastic. A cashier, overhearing the conversation, joined in: “Those things are REALLY expensive.”
Everyone seemed united in a common purpose. The invisible wall between company “associates” and price-obsessed “customers” evaporated, as if we were all committed to a noble cause.
The Stop & Shop woman, who was leading the hunt, darted into the customer service booth, rummaged around a counter and triumphantly held up what for all the world looked like a genuine “fob.”
She handed it over.
The day started wretchedly for my wife and me, with a routine round of Saturday errands. At home, we discovered that a “fob” had disappeared.
The "fob," one of those little weird things that make today’s complicated cars unlock, lock, start and turn off, and roll down all four windows, had been on a key ring along with another "fob," which operated a second car, the one used on the shopping trip, which explains why the furtive "fob" wasn't missed right away.
Glumly, we embarked on a probably hopeless mission, reverse-engineering the shopping run, going from one parking lot to another, walking up and down empty spaces, getting down on hands and knees to look under cars, the way they search for hidden bombs in movies.
At the Stop & Shop supermarket on West Main Road in Middletown, I spotted a young man wearing a yellow safety vest and racing around the parking lot to corral stray shopping carts. He was hard to slow down – but stopped a millisecond to say, no, he hadn’t seen any"fob," then sprinted back to his urgent duties.
Dispirited, we went into the store, to the customer service booth.
It was empty.
A young woman in a Stop & Shop smock was standing in front of an aisle. Could we find someone in customer service? "We lost one of those “fob” thingies that unlock cars and gets them started, blah, blah, blah."
She brightened.
“I remember seeing something like that,” she said.
We were near the checkout area, and she rushed to one of the workers, whom she thought might have more information.
Meanwhile, one of those robots that troll supermarket aisles appeared. It had a pair of big fake eyes, maybe to make it seem human or at least amusing. Instinctively, I suspected that the robot didn't give a fig about a "fob."
The young woman found yet another co-worker, who also knew something about a furtive “fob” and its travels.
Excitement was building. And not just on our part. It seemed like the group of workers were just as enthusiastic. A cashier, overhearing the conversation, joined in: “Those things are REALLY expensive.”
Everyone seemed united in a common purpose. The invisible wall between company “associates” and price-obsessed “customers” evaporated, as if we were all committed to a noble cause.
The Stop & Shop woman, who was leading the hunt, darted into the customer service booth, rummaged around a counter and triumphantly held up what for all the world looked like a genuine “fob.”
She handed it over.
STOP & SHOP RETURNED to business as usual.
Cashiers scanned the barcodes of cabbages, loaves of bread, avocados and emergency Klondike bars; baggers bagged. Over at self-service, the amateurs continued working for free. The robot had disappeared. Out in the parking lot, the carriage wrangler continued his roundup.
The moment of truth had arrived.
We walked toward our car, the one that went with the wandering “fob," which we had driven on our Search-&-Rescue Operation, using the "fob's" spare twin.
Clutching the rescued "fob," I pressed the “open” button.
The car chirped. Welcome.
THINGS DID NOT not have to end this way.
Consider the Stop & Shop person who actually found the “fob.” (Your professionally trained, career journalist never did learn the Who, the Where and the How of the “fob's” actual discovery).
The finder surely could have ignored the thing. Kicked it under a counter. Left it for the sweepers. Not my job.
The young woman who led the hunt could have brushed us off with a “Wait (forever) for the manager” command and walked away. Not my job.
The people at the checkout could have ignored us, as they scanned barcodes and bagged groceries and counted the seconds until their next break. Not our job.
The amateurs at self-service surely wouldn't have noticed a tiny “fob” lying at their feet as they hurried to scan, to bag and to get the hell out of Dodge. Not their jobs.
As for the robot, I imagined that it could have handed us over to security. Or made a cyber note to keep a fake eye out for any more non-shopping "customers," slowing the pace of human “associates.” Maybe it had messaged Control, asking, “What’s a ‘fob?' " only to be rebuked by Control: NOT YOUR JOB.
Instead, nice people understood that a couple of elderly "neighbors" had been set upon by one of those those awful, everyday injustices, the kind that can happen to anyone, turning any spring day sour.
The community knew that some of those injustices extract a hefty price, as one of the checkout ladies had warned. Indeed, we learned later that replacing a fugitive "fob" can set you back $200 to $350.
That's equal to a week’s worth of groceries; a copay for a visit to the emergency room that comes with a CT scan; an overdue electric bill; an oxygen-deprived seat at a stadium.
Finding the thing that is lost is a universal good, part of the pursuit of happiness promised by the Founders, and maybe something the Fathers could have written into the Bill of Rights.
I'd like to think there are people who don't need a copy of the Constitution to do something nice. The people at Stop & Shop certainly didn't need to consult the Ninth Amendment to do what they did last Saturday.
Maybe, in these fraught, contentious times there many people who are just as nice. Maybe there are enough of them so that all the things we're worried about these days will turn out okay.
That really would be nice.
Cashiers scanned the barcodes of cabbages, loaves of bread, avocados and emergency Klondike bars; baggers bagged. Over at self-service, the amateurs continued working for free. The robot had disappeared. Out in the parking lot, the carriage wrangler continued his roundup.
The moment of truth had arrived.
We walked toward our car, the one that went with the wandering “fob," which we had driven on our Search-&-Rescue Operation, using the "fob's" spare twin.
Clutching the rescued "fob," I pressed the “open” button.
The car chirped. Welcome.
THINGS DID NOT not have to end this way.
Consider the Stop & Shop person who actually found the “fob.” (Your professionally trained, career journalist never did learn the Who, the Where and the How of the “fob's” actual discovery).
The finder surely could have ignored the thing. Kicked it under a counter. Left it for the sweepers. Not my job.
The young woman who led the hunt could have brushed us off with a “Wait (forever) for the manager” command and walked away. Not my job.
The people at the checkout could have ignored us, as they scanned barcodes and bagged groceries and counted the seconds until their next break. Not our job.
The amateurs at self-service surely wouldn't have noticed a tiny “fob” lying at their feet as they hurried to scan, to bag and to get the hell out of Dodge. Not their jobs.
As for the robot, I imagined that it could have handed us over to security. Or made a cyber note to keep a fake eye out for any more non-shopping "customers," slowing the pace of human “associates.” Maybe it had messaged Control, asking, “What’s a ‘fob?' " only to be rebuked by Control: NOT YOUR JOB.
Instead, nice people understood that a couple of elderly "neighbors" had been set upon by one of those those awful, everyday injustices, the kind that can happen to anyone, turning any spring day sour.
The community knew that some of those injustices extract a hefty price, as one of the checkout ladies had warned. Indeed, we learned later that replacing a fugitive "fob" can set you back $200 to $350.
That's equal to a week’s worth of groceries; a copay for a visit to the emergency room that comes with a CT scan; an overdue electric bill; an oxygen-deprived seat at a stadium.
Finding the thing that is lost is a universal good, part of the pursuit of happiness promised by the Founders, and maybe something the Fathers could have written into the Bill of Rights.
I'd like to think there are people who don't need a copy of the Constitution to do something nice. The people at Stop & Shop certainly didn't need to consult the Ninth Amendment to do what they did last Saturday.
Maybe, in these fraught, contentious times there many people who are just as nice. Maybe there are enough of them so that all the things we're worried about these days will turn out okay.
That really would be nice.
REMEMBERING TOM MULLIGAN
TOM MULLIGAN - In the Providence Journal newsroom, probably in the 1980s.
I’M PRETTY SURE that Tom Mulligan did not know everything.
He might have come up short on particle physics; and maybe he hadn’t heard that “there are always several meanings of each word in Urdu,” a factoid I saw in a recent Google search.
But you wouldn’t have wanted to bet that Tom Mulligan didn't know something about physics and Urdu. Or, that if necessary, he wouldn’t have quickly ferreted out the critical information, then explained it all, clearly and simply, maybe with a dash of humor.
He had an incisive, inquisitive mind. He read; understood what he read; remembered what he’d read. And he talked to people; understood what they told him; and remembered what they told him. After which, he came to informed, confident conclusions.
This made him perfectly suited to cover business and financial matters, both as a reporter and editor.
I worked with him at the Providence Journal, where he spent more than 11 years, leaving in 1989 as the paper’s business editor; he spent the next 19 years at the Los Angeles Times, where one of his titles was “senior financial writer.”
Tom died June 3 after being diagnosed a few months earlier with esophageal cancer, which doctors told him and his wife, the equally talented journalist, Irene Wielawski, was probably incurable, but, with treatment, might be staved off for a considerable period of time.
So, they decided to live as normally and vigorously as possible. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Tom and Irene were at the luncheon that former Providence Journal staffers hold every month in Warwick. And the morning of his death, Tom played pickle ball.
Later that day, he had to be rushed to a hospital, where he died. That was only part of the shock that spread quickly across Tom’s and Irene’s national network of colleagues, friends and family.
Tom, after all, was only 73, and you wouldn’t have guessed he was even that. Also, unless you’d been told, you would not have suspected that he now was confronting a life-threatening illness that had intruded so cruelly, too soon, and so unfairly.
Which was not how Tom saw it.
“I’m still adjusting, but I don’t in any way feel cheated or ill-used,” he told me in an email after his diagnosis. “At our age, something’s going to get us, and there’s a weird species of relief in seeing the options narrow to exclude (more) horrible things.”
WHEN TOM WAS AT THE JOURNAL, he was part of an actual dynasty that included some of the newspaper’s most talented men and women.
Irene, whom Tom met at the paper, was the Journal’s award-winning medical writer; Tom’s brother, John E. Mulligan, was the paper’s Washington bureau chief. The circle was completed when Tony Lioce, the paper’s legendary columnist and music writer, married Janet Cusick, and John Mulligan married Janet’s sister, Nancy.
He might have come up short on particle physics; and maybe he hadn’t heard that “there are always several meanings of each word in Urdu,” a factoid I saw in a recent Google search.
But you wouldn’t have wanted to bet that Tom Mulligan didn't know something about physics and Urdu. Or, that if necessary, he wouldn’t have quickly ferreted out the critical information, then explained it all, clearly and simply, maybe with a dash of humor.
He had an incisive, inquisitive mind. He read; understood what he read; remembered what he’d read. And he talked to people; understood what they told him; and remembered what they told him. After which, he came to informed, confident conclusions.
This made him perfectly suited to cover business and financial matters, both as a reporter and editor.
I worked with him at the Providence Journal, where he spent more than 11 years, leaving in 1989 as the paper’s business editor; he spent the next 19 years at the Los Angeles Times, where one of his titles was “senior financial writer.”
Tom died June 3 after being diagnosed a few months earlier with esophageal cancer, which doctors told him and his wife, the equally talented journalist, Irene Wielawski, was probably incurable, but, with treatment, might be staved off for a considerable period of time.
So, they decided to live as normally and vigorously as possible. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Tom and Irene were at the luncheon that former Providence Journal staffers hold every month in Warwick. And the morning of his death, Tom played pickle ball.
Later that day, he had to be rushed to a hospital, where he died. That was only part of the shock that spread quickly across Tom’s and Irene’s national network of colleagues, friends and family.
Tom, after all, was only 73, and you wouldn’t have guessed he was even that. Also, unless you’d been told, you would not have suspected that he now was confronting a life-threatening illness that had intruded so cruelly, too soon, and so unfairly.
Which was not how Tom saw it.
“I’m still adjusting, but I don’t in any way feel cheated or ill-used,” he told me in an email after his diagnosis. “At our age, something’s going to get us, and there’s a weird species of relief in seeing the options narrow to exclude (more) horrible things.”
WHEN TOM WAS AT THE JOURNAL, he was part of an actual dynasty that included some of the newspaper’s most talented men and women.
Irene, whom Tom met at the paper, was the Journal’s award-winning medical writer; Tom’s brother, John E. Mulligan, was the paper’s Washington bureau chief. The circle was completed when Tony Lioce, the paper’s legendary columnist and music writer, married Janet Cusick, and John Mulligan married Janet’s sister, Nancy.
TOM MULLIGAN (center), Irene Wielawski, his wife, and John Mulligan, Tom's brother, at Salve Regina University in 2019, where John spoke about the late Senator Claiborne Pell
Explaining a journalist's talent is difficult without describing a little of what the practitioners do.
It’s worth noting that “business” is a subject that intimidates a lot of reporters, who otherwise wouldn’t give a second thought about confronting a bombastic politician or a violent mobster (in Rhode Island, they're sometimes the same person).
The trick is to master the off-putting business jargon and the sometimes mysterious math – Tom earned a masters in business administration from the University of Rhode Island – and then remember that, just like any other subject, business reporting eventually comes down to stories about people.
One article I found online was Tom’s description of Martha Stewart, America’s home-life advice goddess, when she was on trial in 2004 for securities infractions. Here’s how he started the piece:
It’s worth noting that “business” is a subject that intimidates a lot of reporters, who otherwise wouldn’t give a second thought about confronting a bombastic politician or a violent mobster (in Rhode Island, they're sometimes the same person).
The trick is to master the off-putting business jargon and the sometimes mysterious math – Tom earned a masters in business administration from the University of Rhode Island – and then remember that, just like any other subject, business reporting eventually comes down to stories about people.
One article I found online was Tom’s description of Martha Stewart, America’s home-life advice goddess, when she was on trial in 2004 for securities infractions. Here’s how he started the piece:
| Her posture is perfect: head high, shoulders squared, never slouching in her chair during even the most tedious hours of testimony. She never has a bad hair day. Yet the courtroom artists find Martha Stewart hard to draw. Her face, lively and beautiful on TV and in her magazine, emerges as taut and severe in their drawings. It isn’t a question of poor draftsmanship. On trial, with her freedom and fortune on the line, Martha Stewart looks like a different person. Today, Stewart’s top lawyer and the lead prosecutor will paint their opposing portraits of the media entrepreneur and her actions between her now-notorious sale of ImClone Systems Inc. stock on Dec. 27, 2001, and her interview with federal investigators the following April. Is Stewart the victim of a trophy-hunting U.S. Justice Department, or a shrewish multimillionaire who thinks the rules don’t apply to her? |
In four paragraphs, Tom wrapped together the business background of the alleged crime, the legal arguments and of course, the intriguing woman at the center of the story, seen not only through his eyes, but those of courtroom artists.
| AFTER CAREERS ON TWO COASTS, Tom and Irene retired to Providence, to the delight of friends like me and my wife, who had remained in Rhode Island. Still, we didn’t see enough of them, even though we lived in Newport, just 40 miles away, not hundreds or thousands. People our age should know better than to squander time and opportunity. |  |
After Tom’s diagnosis, we were in better touch.
Selfishly, I peppered Tom with emails about business subjects that baffled me but about which I was sure Tom had the answers, like Elon Musk’s vast wealth and the absurd stock market success of Donald Trump’s puny social media company. And I remembered how scornful Tom had been about state lotteries.
“I like lotteries better than sports betting, which I think has much greater potential to wreck young people’s lives,” Tom wrote back, “not to mention that it’s already coarsening and even adding violence (hostility, death threats) to the atmosphere of pro & college sports.”
As to Musk’s billions, Tom noted that his income at least was tied to remarkable success of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal. Trump’s ventures mostly were “black holes of failure or frauds or both. The main point is no investor ever made a dime on Trump; only he did.”
We talked about the couples getting together at a Newport restaurant, with Tom joking whether his New York-based toll pass would bill him and Irene $80 for crossing the Newport Bridge.
He ended one email this way:
“Thanks for your friendly thoughts. I’m sure we’ll see you in Newport before long.”
Selfishly, I peppered Tom with emails about business subjects that baffled me but about which I was sure Tom had the answers, like Elon Musk’s vast wealth and the absurd stock market success of Donald Trump’s puny social media company. And I remembered how scornful Tom had been about state lotteries.
“I like lotteries better than sports betting, which I think has much greater potential to wreck young people’s lives,” Tom wrote back, “not to mention that it’s already coarsening and even adding violence (hostility, death threats) to the atmosphere of pro & college sports.”
As to Musk’s billions, Tom noted that his income at least was tied to remarkable success of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal. Trump’s ventures mostly were “black holes of failure or frauds or both. The main point is no investor ever made a dime on Trump; only he did.”
We talked about the couples getting together at a Newport restaurant, with Tom joking whether his New York-based toll pass would bill him and Irene $80 for crossing the Newport Bridge.
He ended one email this way:
“Thanks for your friendly thoughts. I’m sure we’ll see you in Newport before long.”
Election countdown
A FATEFUL FORK IN THE ROAD IS 5 MONTHS AWAY
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
ONE OF THE MOST TANTALIZING aspects of the Nov. 5 election – which is just five months away as of today - is the enormous good turn American history will take if voters make the correct choice.
Much of the focus in the campaign has been about keeping Donald Trump out of the White House, to prevent the man-made catastrophe he and his acolytes have been planning in detail.
But much less attention has been focused on the positive turn the country will take if voters elect Joe Biden – and not just because Biden is the obvious better choice.
I believe that the United States is on verge of sweeping advances and reforms far beyond what most of us imagine, bringing the country closer to its idealistic but elusive historic goals.
Take racism – America’s original and, until now, its perpetual sin.
I think the county’s increasing diverse population, plus the collective accomplishments of the Civil War, the 1960s civil rights movement and the more recent Black Lives Matter crusade, are about to give birth to an era in which prejudice loses its grip.
There’s simply too many different kinds of people, of different colors and origins, to tolerate segregation, Jim Crow apartheid and the backlashes that have followed every advance in human rights. The bigots, simply put, will be outnumbered.
And then there’s climate change. What if, instead of a nearly inevitable disaster, America could lead the world community in an unprecedented global campaign for survival?
So much is known about the human-generated causes of a warming climate, as well as the emerging technologies which can reverse a burning planet, that it’s no longer a pipe dream to imagine that the planet can - and will - be saved.
Also, much has been made of the growing divide between rich and poor, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. Be we also know how to even the scales.
Housing is an example. Right now, ensuring that every person has an absolute right to a safe and sustaining home, seems hopeless. Houses and apartments are priced beyond the means of increasing numbers of people, particularly young people, forcing a rise in homelessness that now is not only accepted but regarded as a public nuisance.
But we know how to build houses and apartments; we know how to do that without destroying open space. We know how to subsidize housing costs when they exceed the buying power of paychecks. We know how to treat substance abuse and mental illness and how to deal with other contributors to homelessness. All that we need to do to provide homes is the will to do it. It’s not hard to imagine a consensus that demands solutions, simply because so many people need a place to live.
Those are just three of the remarkable opportunities that lie ahead if we choose – in this election – to take the country in one direction and not the other.
There are so many advances and breakthroughs in the arts, in education, in science, transportation, social science, healthcare, in space and at the bottom of the oceans – that you can practically feel collective knowledge and creativity straining to be set loose.
WHAT’S CLEAR about this election is the stark nature of the choices.
We’ve come to a profound cliche, a national fork in the road, one way leading to promise, the other to despair.
The choice, now merely five months away, is not simply electing Joe Biden, a well-meaning and often competent master of the mundane details of government, or choosing Donald Trump, a felon, liar, rapist, psychopath and dictator-in-waiting determined to destroy democracy.
The choices we make on Nov. 5 will outlive both men, who are well beyond their natural and political shelf lives.
The election of an agingJoe Biden has the potential to open an astonishing future far beyond the outlines of his own policies; while the election of an aging Donald Trump will destroy any hope of advances in equality, ecology, the economy and so much more.
I don’t mean to say that the Biden second term and the decades beyond will be rosy and without blemish; only that democracy, particularly the freedom to think and speak, fosters progress. Dictatorship crushes creativity, innovation, discovery and dialogue.
AT THE BEGINNING of this piece, I quoted one of famous witticisms of the baseball player and manager, Yogi Berra, which seemed to prescribe directionless directions: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
Actually, Yogi meant what he said.
According to the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center in New Jersey, Berra was telling his pal, the catcher and broadcaster, Joe Garagiola, how to get to his home: at the fork, either road would bring him there.
That is not the case with the electoral fork in the road we’re speeding toward on Nov. 5.
Swing to the right, and we’re doomed.
Take a left, and the future is as promising as it is profound.
VERDICT:
DON’T GIVE UP ON HOPE
HERE’S WHAT I got wrong about the Manhattan trial that has now marked Donald John Trump as a felon.
It wasn’t the guilty verdict itself; or the jury’s speed in reaching it; or even the clean sweep decision – guilty on all 34 counts.
Almost everyone got some or all of those guesses wrong.
The pundits, the legal eagles, analysts, inside-the-courtroom, outside-the-courthouse reporters – collectively, The Experts – didn’t forecast what happened late on a May 30 afternoon.
It’s a lesson that as much as we lean on and even respect The Experts, who arguably do their best, they are mortals and rarely have all the answers.
What I got wrong was forgetting that the most important factor of the 2024 election is hope.
I should know better.
Hope is the real X-factor of any crisis, no more so than an election that’s the most consequential of my lifetime .
None of us knows what’s going to happen on Nov. 5. At best, some are “worried;” and, at worst, others are "resigned" to an outcome in which America delivers itself to a dystopian dictatorship.
The odds often seem unsettling.
Bad enough that Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and other Republican notables, dressed up like Trump, showed up at the courthouse to support the defendant, then, after the verdict, attacked the justice system.
The most depressing factor in this campaign was, and is, that millions and millions of Americans say they’ll vote for a failed president, a serial liar, an insurrectionist, a racist and an anti-environmentalist.
All of which takes a toll on hope.
SO IT WAS with the New York trial.
My prediction was that there would be a hung jury – that one or more jurors would disagree with her or his fellows, resulting in a mistrial, which Trump would claim as an acquittal.
The case sounded too complicated. The jury needed to believe that Trump – long, long ago in 2016 - purchased the silence of porn celebrity Stormy Daniels about an even earlier encounter with her, then faked business records to pay the bill, all with the purpose of cheating on election laws.
Frankly, a fair-minded anti-Trumper could reasonably agree to disagree with the prosecution. We also could suspect that a member of the Trump cult had lied during jury selection to become the stealth hold-out.
There was also Trump’s most inscrutable, mysterious characteristic that has served him throughout his P.T. Barnum career in business and politics – his ability to fool so many, then to get away with it.
He’d managed to stall the other three pending indictments, about the far more serious charges of attempted election subversion and possession of secret records possession, so that those trials won’t occur until after the election – if ever.
HOPE WAS AT A LOW EBB when I returned from an errand late in afternoon and my wife reported that the jury had reached a verdict.
She been listening to the radio (we are old enough so that’s how we still get a lot of our news).
My reaction was that it was too soon, just two days of deliberations, rather than the two months I’d expected, and so this had to mean acquittal.
Rather than have my heart broken with the next “Breaking News” report, I went outside to adjust the pressure of the tires on our car. Better to do something positive.
When I returned, my wife had more news.
“Guilty!” my wife announced. “On all counts. Thirty-four counts.”
STUNNED. AND ASHAMED.
Shame on me: I had gotten it wrong. No mistrial, as I’d predicted. Nobody likes to be wrong, although I knew that somehow, I’d get over that.
But the real shame was that I’d forgotten the most important factor of the crusade to protect American democracy: hope.
I’d let Trump mess with my brain, nearly extinguishing hope. There were no excuses for that. After all, I live in a state whose motto is “Hope.” “Hope” is on the state flag. Hope is on the Rhode Island state seal.
It’s possible that the conviction, in the end, will work in Trump’s favor and inspire even more voters to come to his rescue.
And while it’s unlikely he’ll end up in prison, even that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of Trump. Many giants of history have spent time in the slammer, heroes like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and in Trump’s case, Adolf Hitler.
Appellate courts surely could overturn the jury’s verdict – The Experts tell us there’s plenty of legal wriggle room.
But the Manhattan jury did more than declare Donald John Trump a felon 34 times. It reminded me, and I think lots of others, of the power of hope.
As individuals, we can’t do much to influence the outcome of an election. We can cast our one vote; donate money; write letters; argue with neighbors; maybe go to the Six States That Count to ring doorbells.
But hope – that’s something we can control.
Hope is scary, uncomfortable, energizing and essential.
In the end, hope is not an option for a democracy. The future of our country and the planet depends on it.
It wasn’t the guilty verdict itself; or the jury’s speed in reaching it; or even the clean sweep decision – guilty on all 34 counts.
Almost everyone got some or all of those guesses wrong.
The pundits, the legal eagles, analysts, inside-the-courtroom, outside-the-courthouse reporters – collectively, The Experts – didn’t forecast what happened late on a May 30 afternoon.
It’s a lesson that as much as we lean on and even respect The Experts, who arguably do their best, they are mortals and rarely have all the answers.
What I got wrong was forgetting that the most important factor of the 2024 election is hope.
I should know better.
Hope is the real X-factor of any crisis, no more so than an election that’s the most consequential of my lifetime .
None of us knows what’s going to happen on Nov. 5. At best, some are “worried;” and, at worst, others are "resigned" to an outcome in which America delivers itself to a dystopian dictatorship.
The odds often seem unsettling.
Bad enough that Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and other Republican notables, dressed up like Trump, showed up at the courthouse to support the defendant, then, after the verdict, attacked the justice system.
The most depressing factor in this campaign was, and is, that millions and millions of Americans say they’ll vote for a failed president, a serial liar, an insurrectionist, a racist and an anti-environmentalist.
All of which takes a toll on hope.
SO IT WAS with the New York trial.
My prediction was that there would be a hung jury – that one or more jurors would disagree with her or his fellows, resulting in a mistrial, which Trump would claim as an acquittal.
The case sounded too complicated. The jury needed to believe that Trump – long, long ago in 2016 - purchased the silence of porn celebrity Stormy Daniels about an even earlier encounter with her, then faked business records to pay the bill, all with the purpose of cheating on election laws.
Frankly, a fair-minded anti-Trumper could reasonably agree to disagree with the prosecution. We also could suspect that a member of the Trump cult had lied during jury selection to become the stealth hold-out.
There was also Trump’s most inscrutable, mysterious characteristic that has served him throughout his P.T. Barnum career in business and politics – his ability to fool so many, then to get away with it.
He’d managed to stall the other three pending indictments, about the far more serious charges of attempted election subversion and possession of secret records possession, so that those trials won’t occur until after the election – if ever.
HOPE WAS AT A LOW EBB when I returned from an errand late in afternoon and my wife reported that the jury had reached a verdict.
She been listening to the radio (we are old enough so that’s how we still get a lot of our news).
My reaction was that it was too soon, just two days of deliberations, rather than the two months I’d expected, and so this had to mean acquittal.
Rather than have my heart broken with the next “Breaking News” report, I went outside to adjust the pressure of the tires on our car. Better to do something positive.
When I returned, my wife had more news.
“Guilty!” my wife announced. “On all counts. Thirty-four counts.”
STUNNED. AND ASHAMED.
Shame on me: I had gotten it wrong. No mistrial, as I’d predicted. Nobody likes to be wrong, although I knew that somehow, I’d get over that.
But the real shame was that I’d forgotten the most important factor of the crusade to protect American democracy: hope.
I’d let Trump mess with my brain, nearly extinguishing hope. There were no excuses for that. After all, I live in a state whose motto is “Hope.” “Hope” is on the state flag. Hope is on the Rhode Island state seal.
It’s possible that the conviction, in the end, will work in Trump’s favor and inspire even more voters to come to his rescue.
And while it’s unlikely he’ll end up in prison, even that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of Trump. Many giants of history have spent time in the slammer, heroes like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and in Trump’s case, Adolf Hitler.
Appellate courts surely could overturn the jury’s verdict – The Experts tell us there’s plenty of legal wriggle room.
But the Manhattan jury did more than declare Donald John Trump a felon 34 times. It reminded me, and I think lots of others, of the power of hope.
As individuals, we can’t do much to influence the outcome of an election. We can cast our one vote; donate money; write letters; argue with neighbors; maybe go to the Six States That Count to ring doorbells.
But hope – that’s something we can control.
Hope is scary, uncomfortable, energizing and essential.
In the end, hope is not an option for a democracy. The future of our country and the planet depends on it.
DON'T HEAD FOR THE STORM CELLAR YET. BIDEN CAN - AND MUST - WIN
I HAVE FRIENDS who are resigned to a Trump victory – and for sound reasons.
They believe that Donald Trump has momentum in the presidential campaign; that Joe Biden is stalled; and that the polls are stubborn in asserting that a psychopath is leading.
So, it makes sense that preparations are in order: Psychologically, to get through a terrible election night; Tactically, to survive a Trump catastrophe.
If you see a tornado coming ....
My view is different.
I believe that Biden will win. More about that later.
Even if the election looks seems close or worse – like a Trump landslide – it is too soon to head for the storm shelters.
Call me crazy, but I believe this fact: the only effective way to survive a Trump second term is to make sure there isn’t one.
They believe that Donald Trump has momentum in the presidential campaign; that Joe Biden is stalled; and that the polls are stubborn in asserting that a psychopath is leading.
So, it makes sense that preparations are in order: Psychologically, to get through a terrible election night; Tactically, to survive a Trump catastrophe.
If you see a tornado coming ....
My view is different.
I believe that Biden will win. More about that later.
Even if the election looks seems close or worse – like a Trump landslide – it is too soon to head for the storm shelters.
Call me crazy, but I believe this fact: the only effective way to survive a Trump second term is to make sure there isn’t one.
TRUMP, arriving at the Manhattan trial earlier this month
I DON’T BLAME PEOPLE for being worried, which is too mild a word for the terror that vaporizes our brains, the thought of a return Trump presidency.
If you are a Biden supporter, there's already a lot that's gone wrong, and now we'll have to contend with all the terrible events that surely will unfold the rest of this spring, summer and fall.
There's no question that Biden’s road to a second term is just like one of my state's infamously defective highways: nasty potholes, time-bomb engineering, time-wasting detours, confusing highway signs, all of which must be navigated by an elderly driver who may not have figured out his car's GPS system or remembered to charge his EV.
Roadblock One is the Constitution.
I'm sorry to say this. We were taught that the nation's central founding document is a work of genius, a miraculous tapestry of checks and balances that guarantee perpetual democracy.
But we now know that the Constitution is an antique, like one of those family heirlooms that visitors are warned not to sit on, too fragile to carry the weight of their original purpose.
You know the major problem: a presidential candidate can win the most votes overall, but lose the "electoral" count, so that the “winner” is decided by six or so special "battleground" states.
When Biden won four years ago, he did so not just because he got 7 million more total votes than Trump, but because he won the battlegrounds, three of them by a combined total of only 43,809 votes.
Polls say that, at the moment, Biden is losing in most of the battlegrounds, and that's been the case for months.
No wonder discouragement is setting in.
There are lots more wrong turns that could produce an Election of Doom:
People may decide not to vote, seeing Biden and Trump as too yesterday, too alike, too unlikable. These abstainers probably would vote for Biden, while Trump voters never have second, third or twenty-third thoughts.
Then there are the "principled" voters. Worried their souls will be corrupted by choosing either Biden or Trump, they might seek to protect their moral immorality by voting for someone else. Anyone will do: crazy Robert Kennedy Jr. Or how about write-in choices like Ben, the lovable option. Ben is our family cat. Ben will take votes away from Biden, not Trump.
Gloomier and gloomier.
Inflation. Gaza. Inflation. The Border. Inflation. Black and Hispanic voters determined, in this election, not to be taken for granted. Inflation. A Biden flub at a debate. Trump’s flubs don't matter. Inflation.
How about that Manhattan trial? What will an acquittal mean? A hung jury? Even a conviction? All good. Because when you're a Trump voter, nothing matters. Anyway, come Nov. 5, the Trump trial will have faded from the national memory. Stormy who?
Worry away, Democrats and anyone else who cares whether democracy survives, whether the climate can be rescued and whether the U.S. can continue its imperfect pledge to try to be better this year than last year.
If you are a Biden supporter, there's already a lot that's gone wrong, and now we'll have to contend with all the terrible events that surely will unfold the rest of this spring, summer and fall.
There's no question that Biden’s road to a second term is just like one of my state's infamously defective highways: nasty potholes, time-bomb engineering, time-wasting detours, confusing highway signs, all of which must be navigated by an elderly driver who may not have figured out his car's GPS system or remembered to charge his EV.
Roadblock One is the Constitution.
I'm sorry to say this. We were taught that the nation's central founding document is a work of genius, a miraculous tapestry of checks and balances that guarantee perpetual democracy.
But we now know that the Constitution is an antique, like one of those family heirlooms that visitors are warned not to sit on, too fragile to carry the weight of their original purpose.
You know the major problem: a presidential candidate can win the most votes overall, but lose the "electoral" count, so that the “winner” is decided by six or so special "battleground" states.
When Biden won four years ago, he did so not just because he got 7 million more total votes than Trump, but because he won the battlegrounds, three of them by a combined total of only 43,809 votes.
Polls say that, at the moment, Biden is losing in most of the battlegrounds, and that's been the case for months.
No wonder discouragement is setting in.
There are lots more wrong turns that could produce an Election of Doom:
People may decide not to vote, seeing Biden and Trump as too yesterday, too alike, too unlikable. These abstainers probably would vote for Biden, while Trump voters never have second, third or twenty-third thoughts.
Then there are the "principled" voters. Worried their souls will be corrupted by choosing either Biden or Trump, they might seek to protect their moral immorality by voting for someone else. Anyone will do: crazy Robert Kennedy Jr. Or how about write-in choices like Ben, the lovable option. Ben is our family cat. Ben will take votes away from Biden, not Trump.
Gloomier and gloomier.
Inflation. Gaza. Inflation. The Border. Inflation. Black and Hispanic voters determined, in this election, not to be taken for granted. Inflation. A Biden flub at a debate. Trump’s flubs don't matter. Inflation.
How about that Manhattan trial? What will an acquittal mean? A hung jury? Even a conviction? All good. Because when you're a Trump voter, nothing matters. Anyway, come Nov. 5, the Trump trial will have faded from the national memory. Stormy who?
Worry away, Democrats and anyone else who cares whether democracy survives, whether the climate can be rescued and whether the U.S. can continue its imperfect pledge to try to be better this year than last year.
JOE BIDEN, wearing signature sunglasses, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in 2023
WHY AM I OPTIMISTIC?
Because Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. That's a fact. He is too corrupt, too cruel, too inept, too evil.
It simply cannot be allowed to happen.
I'm optimistic because Joe Biden has been a competent president, and will be the same for another four years.
Joey's not a perfect president now, nor will he be in 2025. There never has been President Perfect. I don't like Biden's Gaza strategy or China tariffs. But he makes some historic choices, like his defense of Ukraine, the climate and democracy.
Across the country, people - smart people, determined people, imaginative people - are working hard to reelect Biden and keep the nuclear codes out of a madman's hands.
I believe there are more people of good will than otherwise, and you have to factor them into any election equation. We pay attention to members of Trump's cult and to his Republican opportunists, but there are other powerful forces at work, and they count.
Many Americans - most Americans - believe in justice, more than are committed to a legal system that punishes only the weak and the enemies of the powerful, but pardons the rest.
More people are committed to climate-saving technology and policies than support a poisoned, burning planet. More people want to move forward with civil rights than hope to return to the Jim Crow days.
More people dream of an economy that provides homes, food, education and medical care for all Americans than would rather have millions living on sidewalks, going hungry, growing up ignorant and dying too early.
I’m betting that there are lots of people, who once were embarrassed by cliches like “patriotism,” “the flag” and “citizenship,” but who now see that their country is in peril, so they've decided that to defend it.
The election of 2024 seems complicated, but it comes down to a series of yes or no choices:
Even an optimist knows the outcome of this election isn't certain - only that it’s possible.
This is no time to head for the storm cellar.
Because Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. That's a fact. He is too corrupt, too cruel, too inept, too evil.
It simply cannot be allowed to happen.
I'm optimistic because Joe Biden has been a competent president, and will be the same for another four years.
Joey's not a perfect president now, nor will he be in 2025. There never has been President Perfect. I don't like Biden's Gaza strategy or China tariffs. But he makes some historic choices, like his defense of Ukraine, the climate and democracy.
Across the country, people - smart people, determined people, imaginative people - are working hard to reelect Biden and keep the nuclear codes out of a madman's hands.
I believe there are more people of good will than otherwise, and you have to factor them into any election equation. We pay attention to members of Trump's cult and to his Republican opportunists, but there are other powerful forces at work, and they count.
Many Americans - most Americans - believe in justice, more than are committed to a legal system that punishes only the weak and the enemies of the powerful, but pardons the rest.
More people are committed to climate-saving technology and policies than support a poisoned, burning planet. More people want to move forward with civil rights than hope to return to the Jim Crow days.
More people dream of an economy that provides homes, food, education and medical care for all Americans than would rather have millions living on sidewalks, going hungry, growing up ignorant and dying too early.
I’m betting that there are lots of people, who once were embarrassed by cliches like “patriotism,” “the flag” and “citizenship,” but who now see that their country is in peril, so they've decided that to defend it.
The election of 2024 seems complicated, but it comes down to a series of yes or no choices:
- Democracy or dictatorship
- Progress or regression
- Compassion or violence
- Truth or lies
- Good or evil
- Joe Biden or Donald Trump
Even an optimist knows the outcome of this election isn't certain - only that it’s possible.
This is no time to head for the storm cellar.
A “SORDID” STORY, TOLD IN COURT
THIS SPRING; WORTH RECALLING
IN AN ELECTION THIS FALL
STORMY DANIELS, if that's actually her, a photo on what's purported to be her Facebook site.
WHAT DID WE LEARN from the Trump hush-money/doctored business records/election-influence trial last week as Stormy Daniels swept in and out of the witness chair?
Nothing really new.
We already understood the basics about the defendant: Donald John Trump is a sleaze, a bully, a liar, a sexual outlaw, a misogynist, a corrupter, an adulterer and a creep.
Still, Daniels’ appearance was a reminder of some of Trump’s key character traits as he seeks a second term as president of the United States.
With the election less than six months away, it’s helpful to remember a word that’s often used in news reports about the trial, that so perfectly describes Trump: “sordid.”
Unfortunately, it’s also one of the the words that's often been used about Ms. Daniel’s testimony, making it seem like the “sordid” stuff is her fault and might even favor Trump.
For example, this headline from a Wall Street Journal analysis:
How Stormy Daniels’s Sordid
Testimony Could Help Trump
Porn stars’ details about alleged sexual encounter took trial about
falsifying business records off course, some lawyers say
Reporters also speculated about the possible backfire effect of Ms. Daniels’ testimony as being so explicit that, as one New York Times writer put it: “...the jury develops some sympathy for Trump.”
Sympathy for Donald Trump?
Ladies and gentleman on the jury (of public opinion), we are asked today decide who, exactly, is the “sordid” one:
LET’S GO TO THE TRANSCRIPT of May 7, 2024.
In which Ms. Daniels describes her “encounter” with Trump in 2006 as he slithers his way into bed with her – just briefly, just once, just one of many times he’s abused women.
Ms. Daniels testifies she is at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe, part of a team from her employer, Wicked Pictures, which has sponsored a “hole,” (she notes the irony) at the golf course, and later, she hands out company swag at a gift room visited by players, including Trump.
She’s 27 and Trump is “older than my father.” Later, he dispatches “Keith” to see if she’ll have dinner with Trump at a hotel.
At first she answers “F. no.” But after consulting her publicist, she decides there might be an advantage to her career, and she goes to his room.
They chat about her career, and Ms. Daniels asks about Trump's wife:
"Oh, don't worry about that," he tells her. "We are -- actually don't even sleep in the same room."
Trump brings up the possibility of Ms. Daniels appearing on his hit TV show, “The Apprentice,” which she first dismisses, doubting a national TV network would feature a porn star.
But Trump assures her can put in the fix, the way pro-wrestling shows do when they script a match.
“I can't have you win, but we can -- I am in control. I know what's going to happen,” Trump tells her. “I can give you some advantage to make sure you at least make a good showing.”
Sounds good to her.
As they talk, Trump flatters her progress in the adult film industry, praises how she’s overcome stereotypes that belittle participants as bimbos, even comparing Ms. Daniels to his own daughter:
“You remind me of my daughter, because she is smart and blond and beautiful and people underestimate her was well.”
Wow.
Nothing really new.
We already understood the basics about the defendant: Donald John Trump is a sleaze, a bully, a liar, a sexual outlaw, a misogynist, a corrupter, an adulterer and a creep.
Still, Daniels’ appearance was a reminder of some of Trump’s key character traits as he seeks a second term as president of the United States.
With the election less than six months away, it’s helpful to remember a word that’s often used in news reports about the trial, that so perfectly describes Trump: “sordid.”
Unfortunately, it’s also one of the the words that's often been used about Ms. Daniel’s testimony, making it seem like the “sordid” stuff is her fault and might even favor Trump.
For example, this headline from a Wall Street Journal analysis:
How Stormy Daniels’s Sordid
Testimony Could Help Trump
Porn stars’ details about alleged sexual encounter took trial about
falsifying business records off course, some lawyers say
Reporters also speculated about the possible backfire effect of Ms. Daniels’ testimony as being so explicit that, as one New York Times writer put it: “...the jury develops some sympathy for Trump.”
Sympathy for Donald Trump?
Ladies and gentleman on the jury (of public opinion), we are asked today decide who, exactly, is the “sordid” one:
- The businessman, author, TV star and politician who has won and lost presidential elections?
- The actor, writer and director, who once wanted to be a veterinarian, but built a career in pornography?
LET’S GO TO THE TRANSCRIPT of May 7, 2024.
In which Ms. Daniels describes her “encounter” with Trump in 2006 as he slithers his way into bed with her – just briefly, just once, just one of many times he’s abused women.
Ms. Daniels testifies she is at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe, part of a team from her employer, Wicked Pictures, which has sponsored a “hole,” (she notes the irony) at the golf course, and later, she hands out company swag at a gift room visited by players, including Trump.
She’s 27 and Trump is “older than my father.” Later, he dispatches “Keith” to see if she’ll have dinner with Trump at a hotel.
At first she answers “F. no.” But after consulting her publicist, she decides there might be an advantage to her career, and she goes to his room.
They chat about her career, and Ms. Daniels asks about Trump's wife:
"Oh, don't worry about that," he tells her. "We are -- actually don't even sleep in the same room."
Trump brings up the possibility of Ms. Daniels appearing on his hit TV show, “The Apprentice,” which she first dismisses, doubting a national TV network would feature a porn star.
But Trump assures her can put in the fix, the way pro-wrestling shows do when they script a match.
“I can't have you win, but we can -- I am in control. I know what's going to happen,” Trump tells her. “I can give you some advantage to make sure you at least make a good showing.”
Sounds good to her.
As they talk, Trump flatters her progress in the adult film industry, praises how she’s overcome stereotypes that belittle participants as bimbos, even comparing Ms. Daniels to his own daughter:
“You remind me of my daughter, because she is smart and blond and beautiful and people underestimate her was well.”
Wow.
TIME FOR A BATHROOM BREAK, Ms. Daniels tells the jury, and when she emerges, Trump is lying on a bed in his undershorts and t-shirt.
Too late, she realizes that the author of “The Art of the Deal,” has set up a sex-for-a-favor arrangement.
“I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet and almost like if you stand up too fast, and everything kind of spinned,” Ms. Daniels testifies.
She indicates she wants to leave, and Trump seems to block her exit, mocking her efforts to walk way from both hotel room and the quid pro quo.
“I thought we were getting somewhere,” she recalls Trump’s comment. “We were talking, and I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park....”
(She is offended, telling the jury: “I never lived in a trailer park.”)
“Then I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’ Because the intention was pretty clear, somebody stripped down in their underwear and posing on the bed, like waiting for you.”
She next recalls being on the bed, naked except for her bra, staring at the ceiling; Trump doesn’t use a condom, even though she’d told him how important condoms are in her industry; they are, briefly, in the missionary position.
Afterwards, Ms. Daniels struggles to put on her clothes.
“My hands were shaking so hard. I was having a hard time getting dressed. He said: ‘Oh, great. Let’s get together again, Honeybunch. We were great together.’ I just wanted to leave.”
THIS PROBABLY ISN’T the kind of sex scene Ms. Daniels would script for one of her films, perhaps too tame, maybe too lame.
It’s up to the jury of public opinion – just like the one in courtroom – to decide how credible it is.
Over the years, Ms. Daniels has changed her story, first denying they had sex, then altering some of the details. And for a while, she stayed in touch with Trump, hoping for the “Apprentice” spot that never materialized.
To me, the story she tells in a Manhattan courtroom describes a Total Trump: the sexual opportunist he bragged about being on the “Access Hollywood” tapes that emerged in the closing days of the 2016 election: a celebrity entitled to grab women’s crotches, to kiss women and to screw them.
Indeed, the story Ms. Daniel’s tells seems to warrant Trump paying $130,000 to keep secret, certainly until after the election, about a man who sent a go-between to proposition her; describing a man who suggested he could advance her career, then extorted some sex.
I don’t know what the jury in New York will decide. My guess is that the case is legally convoluted, so maybe he’ll be acquitted, or that one or two holdout jurors will cause a mistrial. And then there’s this week’s expected testimony by Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s dicey star witness.
But in the court of public opinion, I think the verdict on Stormy Daniels' testimony is uncontested.
I hope that on Nov. 5, a majority of voters will remember her spring testimony as being among the hundreds of reasons not to elect Donald John Trump.
“Just too sordid.”
Too late, she realizes that the author of “The Art of the Deal,” has set up a sex-for-a-favor arrangement.
“I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet and almost like if you stand up too fast, and everything kind of spinned,” Ms. Daniels testifies.
She indicates she wants to leave, and Trump seems to block her exit, mocking her efforts to walk way from both hotel room and the quid pro quo.
“I thought we were getting somewhere,” she recalls Trump’s comment. “We were talking, and I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park....”
(She is offended, telling the jury: “I never lived in a trailer park.”)
“Then I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’ Because the intention was pretty clear, somebody stripped down in their underwear and posing on the bed, like waiting for you.”
She next recalls being on the bed, naked except for her bra, staring at the ceiling; Trump doesn’t use a condom, even though she’d told him how important condoms are in her industry; they are, briefly, in the missionary position.
Afterwards, Ms. Daniels struggles to put on her clothes.
“My hands were shaking so hard. I was having a hard time getting dressed. He said: ‘Oh, great. Let’s get together again, Honeybunch. We were great together.’ I just wanted to leave.”
THIS PROBABLY ISN’T the kind of sex scene Ms. Daniels would script for one of her films, perhaps too tame, maybe too lame.
It’s up to the jury of public opinion – just like the one in courtroom – to decide how credible it is.
Over the years, Ms. Daniels has changed her story, first denying they had sex, then altering some of the details. And for a while, she stayed in touch with Trump, hoping for the “Apprentice” spot that never materialized.
To me, the story she tells in a Manhattan courtroom describes a Total Trump: the sexual opportunist he bragged about being on the “Access Hollywood” tapes that emerged in the closing days of the 2016 election: a celebrity entitled to grab women’s crotches, to kiss women and to screw them.
Indeed, the story Ms. Daniel’s tells seems to warrant Trump paying $130,000 to keep secret, certainly until after the election, about a man who sent a go-between to proposition her; describing a man who suggested he could advance her career, then extorted some sex.
I don’t know what the jury in New York will decide. My guess is that the case is legally convoluted, so maybe he’ll be acquitted, or that one or two holdout jurors will cause a mistrial. And then there’s this week’s expected testimony by Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s dicey star witness.
But in the court of public opinion, I think the verdict on Stormy Daniels' testimony is uncontested.
I hope that on Nov. 5, a majority of voters will remember her spring testimony as being among the hundreds of reasons not to elect Donald John Trump.
“Just too sordid.”
Election countdown
SIX MONTHS TO THE ELECTION
What will happen to Thanksgiving?
SOMEBODY MENTIONED THANKSGIVING recently, and a shiver went through me.
It’s my favorite holiday, and I’m sure that’s the case with lots of people. No obligatory gifts and a lot fewer holiday themed cards and music. Mainly a gathering of family and friends and the year’s best food. It’s a lot of effort for the cooks. Old and repurposed grievances are always on the menu. But on the whole, it’s a day to look forward to.
Not this year.
Come Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, the election will be three weeks in the proverbial rear-view mirror, so we’ll know whether the United States' future is that of a dictatorship or a democracy.
It’s not that I think Donald Trump will win the presidency.
Just that it’s possible he might.
And that possibility, because it's real, plausible and odds-even, is a nightmare that will haunt the country the rest of this spring, all summer and into the fall.
For me, anything that occurs after the Nov. 5 election - any holiday, any event, any date, anything scheduled beyond when the votes are all in and counted –fills me with one part dread, one part hope.
Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year.
Maybe. Maybe not.
It’s my favorite holiday, and I’m sure that’s the case with lots of people. No obligatory gifts and a lot fewer holiday themed cards and music. Mainly a gathering of family and friends and the year’s best food. It’s a lot of effort for the cooks. Old and repurposed grievances are always on the menu. But on the whole, it’s a day to look forward to.
Not this year.
Come Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, the election will be three weeks in the proverbial rear-view mirror, so we’ll know whether the United States' future is that of a dictatorship or a democracy.
It’s not that I think Donald Trump will win the presidency.
Just that it’s possible he might.
And that possibility, because it's real, plausible and odds-even, is a nightmare that will haunt the country the rest of this spring, all summer and into the fall.
For me, anything that occurs after the Nov. 5 election - any holiday, any event, any date, anything scheduled beyond when the votes are all in and counted –fills me with one part dread, one part hope.
Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year.
Maybe. Maybe not.
TODAY, MAY 5, we are exactly six months away from that fateful turning point.
It means there is still time.
The question is, is there enough time to affect the outcome?
Minds still can be changed. Mind you, not many minds, because changing your mind is among the hardest of human endeavors, and few of us are up to the challenge.
It asks us to admit we were wrong, that we made a mistake, that we hadn’t thought something through.
It took me a long time to admit that Bill Clinton was deeply flawed, most obviously the way he abused women in a way that called into question any of the things he said and did during his presidency.
Similarly, it took me a while to admit that Hilary Clinton wasn’t the ideal candidate it thought she was for the Democrats to put up against Donald Trump. In retrospect, she only seemed to be unusually capable, experienced and talented. But she flunked the test, the only judgment that mattered, and the nation has been paying the price ever since.
So, it’s a big ask to persuade someone who has signed on with Donald Trump to switch to Joe Biden.
I, for sure, don’t know the magic combination that will unlock the mind of a Trump supporter. In part, that’s because I’m astounded that anyone could find common ground with such a flawed, repulsive person in the first place.
A MORE PROMISING use of the time remaining until Nov. 5 is to persuade people to vote, but who today are actively or unconsciously planning to sit out the election.
There are a lot of reasons not to vote.
I hate politics.
I hate politicians.
All politicians are alike.
I don’t like Trump or Biden.
I voted for Biden, but he’s let me down.
My vote doesn’t count.
Even if I vote, nothing will change.
Nothing matters.
A lot of people have little room in their lives for politics, much less a spare hour or two to vote.
Many lives are overwhelmed by the effort it takes just to make it through the day, to get to tomorrow and maybe to next week.
There is too much illness; too little money; too many brutal parents and partners; too much energy needed to manage unmanageable preschoolers and high-schoolers; too far to drive the jobs that pay too little; too many gossipy neighbors; too many drugs and too much booze; too many leaks in the plumbing and on the roof; too many worn out parts in cars that are too old; too many apartments with rents in the stratosphere; too much gunfire.
The White House is too distant, too irrelevant, too removed from so many lives.
The irony, of course, is that all of these non-voters, whether they are simply cynical, lazy or genuinely worn out, are the very people who have power to determine their own fate and the fate of the nation.
Anyone planning not to vote, for whatever reason, is just plain wrong. It’s a democracy, and there’s enough time in most lives to think about the election and to vote.
How we vote makes a difference in every aspect of our lives. Politics and government determine whether rents and medical care can be available and affordable; whether the streets are paved and driveable; whether the water is poison-free; whether guns can be tamed; whether the plumbing gets fixed; whether paychecks are big enough to pay the bills; whether another bridge falls down; and whether the earth will be livable.
My guess is that if enough non-voters decide to vote, they’ll vote for Joe Biden, because, on balance, he’s a decent man, as much as that’s possible in politics, and because they realize that he’s a champion of democracy. More of them will decide against voting for Trump, because he’s so despicable, dreadful and dangerous; and enough people will realize Donald Trump isn’t joking about destroying democracy.
THERE’S STILL TIME, six months, to change a few minds and to encourage millions of others to vote.
It means there is still time.
The question is, is there enough time to affect the outcome?
Minds still can be changed. Mind you, not many minds, because changing your mind is among the hardest of human endeavors, and few of us are up to the challenge.
It asks us to admit we were wrong, that we made a mistake, that we hadn’t thought something through.
It took me a long time to admit that Bill Clinton was deeply flawed, most obviously the way he abused women in a way that called into question any of the things he said and did during his presidency.
Similarly, it took me a while to admit that Hilary Clinton wasn’t the ideal candidate it thought she was for the Democrats to put up against Donald Trump. In retrospect, she only seemed to be unusually capable, experienced and talented. But she flunked the test, the only judgment that mattered, and the nation has been paying the price ever since.
So, it’s a big ask to persuade someone who has signed on with Donald Trump to switch to Joe Biden.
I, for sure, don’t know the magic combination that will unlock the mind of a Trump supporter. In part, that’s because I’m astounded that anyone could find common ground with such a flawed, repulsive person in the first place.
A MORE PROMISING use of the time remaining until Nov. 5 is to persuade people to vote, but who today are actively or unconsciously planning to sit out the election.
There are a lot of reasons not to vote.
I hate politics.
I hate politicians.
All politicians are alike.
I don’t like Trump or Biden.
I voted for Biden, but he’s let me down.
My vote doesn’t count.
Even if I vote, nothing will change.
Nothing matters.
A lot of people have little room in their lives for politics, much less a spare hour or two to vote.
Many lives are overwhelmed by the effort it takes just to make it through the day, to get to tomorrow and maybe to next week.
There is too much illness; too little money; too many brutal parents and partners; too much energy needed to manage unmanageable preschoolers and high-schoolers; too far to drive the jobs that pay too little; too many gossipy neighbors; too many drugs and too much booze; too many leaks in the plumbing and on the roof; too many worn out parts in cars that are too old; too many apartments with rents in the stratosphere; too much gunfire.
The White House is too distant, too irrelevant, too removed from so many lives.
The irony, of course, is that all of these non-voters, whether they are simply cynical, lazy or genuinely worn out, are the very people who have power to determine their own fate and the fate of the nation.
Anyone planning not to vote, for whatever reason, is just plain wrong. It’s a democracy, and there’s enough time in most lives to think about the election and to vote.
How we vote makes a difference in every aspect of our lives. Politics and government determine whether rents and medical care can be available and affordable; whether the streets are paved and driveable; whether the water is poison-free; whether guns can be tamed; whether the plumbing gets fixed; whether paychecks are big enough to pay the bills; whether another bridge falls down; and whether the earth will be livable.
My guess is that if enough non-voters decide to vote, they’ll vote for Joe Biden, because, on balance, he’s a decent man, as much as that’s possible in politics, and because they realize that he’s a champion of democracy. More of them will decide against voting for Trump, because he’s so despicable, dreadful and dangerous; and enough people will realize Donald Trump isn’t joking about destroying democracy.
THERE’S STILL TIME, six months, to change a few minds and to encourage millions of others to vote.
 | A whole half year to go, and then, a couple of weeks, later and a lot of us will be sitting down for Thanksgiving. What will the talk around the table be? It’s crazy, of course, to be thinking about Thanksgiving just as spring is finally getting underway. |
Out my window in Newport, the trees are more than halfway to turning green; the temperatures are on the cool side but not for much longer; the days seem brighter and they stay that way for longer.
What will we be talking about on Thanksgiving?
Is there enough turkey for seconds, even thirds?
Did the polls get it wrong? Instead of a close election, was it a landslide? Was the outcome determined by people who voted in just three states, where the tallies were astonishingly close?
Was voter turnout low?
Did the numbers set a record?
Had enough of us worked hard enough; did we do everything we could?
Were we persuasive enough? Did we raise the alarm sufficiently about the historic stakes?
Did we make the point that this time, the choice wasn’t just between Candidate A and Candidate B, but about freedom and autocracy?
What will we say to one another on Thanksgiving?
Will Christmas be merry?
What will we be talking about on Thanksgiving?
Is there enough turkey for seconds, even thirds?
Did the polls get it wrong? Instead of a close election, was it a landslide? Was the outcome determined by people who voted in just three states, where the tallies were astonishingly close?
Was voter turnout low?
Did the numbers set a record?
Had enough of us worked hard enough; did we do everything we could?
Were we persuasive enough? Did we raise the alarm sufficiently about the historic stakes?
Did we make the point that this time, the choice wasn’t just between Candidate A and Candidate B, but about freedom and autocracy?
What will we say to one another on Thanksgiving?
Will Christmas be merry?
BRIAN C. JONES
I'VE BEEN a reporter and writer for 60 years, long enough to have learned that journalists don't know very much, although I've met some smart ones.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
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