MISPLACED RAGE

 

As we all know, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of United Healthcare was recently gunned down in Manhattan by a still unidentified gun man.  In a grisly display of how brutal our modern discourse has become, the shooter, who actually wrote words on his bullet shell casings that seemed to hint at some kind of motive about refused healthcare coverage, has become something of a folk hero to people on social media.  Things got so bad that a news report on the shooting on Facebook had to be removed because so many people were responding to it with a smiley face emoji!

As a progressive who opposes the death penalty, I am offended that people would ever celebrate the shooting in the back of an unarmed, unthreatening  man.  Killing anyone like that is a despicable act, period.  And, since one thing we have seen of the shooter is his face, a fair question that arises is this: would this man  be considered by some to some kind of folk hero  if he weren't white?  I don't think so.

But the outpouring of dark jokes on social media after the shooting  reveal a harsh truth about this country: our healthcare system is broken.  After the shooting, several articles have pointed out that the company that the wealthy  Thompson was chief executive for, was infamous for denying clients healthcare coverage.  If the killer is captured, we will probably hear a story from the killer about a friend or family member being turned down by United Healthcare and perhaps dying because of it.

This situation highlights the essential problem with the American healthcare system: although national healthcare exists for the poor, the elderly and veterans through government programs, the rest of us have to rely on private, profit driven companies for our care.  And those companies obviously profit more from denying healthcare than providing it.  Even when that denial results in a person dying.

So it sounds like Thompson really was an amoral, profit driven  person.  But I still don't think that he deserved to be shot because of it.  After all, if we're going to say that executives who have done morally despicable but legal things should be shot, there would be a long list of potential victims!  From tobacco companies lying about their product to chemical companies dumping dangerous chemicals into our drinking water, the excesses of capitalism have lead to some pretty terrible things. 

Instead of supporting a killer, I wish people in this country would turn their anger over our health care system in a positive way, towards America having a national healthcare system.   Every other industrialized nation in the world has national health care, and the results are clear: numerous studies have shown that Americans pay on average twice as much for their health care, without any better outcomes in overall health and happiness.  A 2008 study by Families USA suggested that more than 26,260 Americans aged 25 to 64 died in 2006 because they lacked health insurance.  It's also the number one cause of bankruptcy, with around half a million Americans falling into bankruptcy because of medical bills every year.  Plus, on average about one million Americans every year travel to Mexico to get medial care that they can't afford here.  Given all of that, it's clear that our system is broken. 

Let's face it, the free market is just fine for some things, like setting the price for TVs, cars and computers.  But when you're talking about health as a commodity, you are literally putting a price tag on a person's health, well being, and perhaps their life.  But beyond that, our current health care system is a bureaucratic mess for doctors, who have to constantly check on what procedures and tests are covered for each client, depending on which company they have health care with and what level of coverage they have.  It's a lousy system and a dangerous one.

What I'm saying is that I wish the rage over our health care system results in the support of what Senator Bernie Sanders calls Medicare care for all instead of just empty venting on social media. America can and should have the same kind of health care found in every other industrialized nation.  There's no good reason against it.          

AND SO IT BEGINS

 Donald Trump isn't the first US president to serve 2 non consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland did too).  He is, however, the first president to be reelected after being found guilty of 34 felonies, not to mention his  being impeached twice in his first term. That first term was a dumpster fire of chaos and corruption, topped by his utter mismanagement of the pandemic, which, according to some studies, lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths in this country.  But tens of millions of Americans seem to have forgotten all of that and just remember that prices were lower when he was president, so here we are.

And any hopes that a second Trump term would be less insane than the first were quickly dashed when he started naming his intended cabinet members.  First, former Senator Marco Rubio was named for Secretary of State, which, under the circumstances, wasn't such a bad choice.  But then came the crazy trifecta: Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and Robert F.  Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Right off the bat it should be noted that each of these men has a history of alleged sexual misconduct: Hegseth made a payment on a sexual assault charge that he claims was actually consensual, Kennedy has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, and Gaetz famously was investigated for taking illegal drugs with and having sex with a minor, although he was never formally charged.  Once upon a time, these kind of allegations would cast a serious shadow over a nomination, but since the country just reelected a man with 28 allegations of sexual assault (including an adjudicated rape charge), things have clearly changed on that score.  Just ask Justice Kavanaugh.

But after even dismissing those allegations (even though we shouldn't!), none of these men are qualified to run the agencies that Trump wants them to: Hegseth is a combat veteran and TV personality who's never run anything on the scale of the largest military in the world.  Gaetz does have a law degree, but little experience.  And Kennedy is a lawyer with no scientific training.

Of the three, the one that scares me the most is Kennedy because of his anti-vaccine views, and the power he would have if he were confirmed. (He would run a department with over 80,000 employees and a three trillion dollar budget).  Although he publicly goes back and forth on the subject of vaccines, depending on who he's talking to, (he recently told a podcaster that “there’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” and then later tried to walk that back), it's clear that he is skeptical of their safety.  He has even chaired an anti vaccine organization, deceptively titled  The Children's Health Defense. All this  despite the fact that there has never been any proof of a link between vaccines and autism as he and other anti-vaccine people have claimed.  (A 2014 meta study by the University of Sydney that looked at 10 different studies covering over one million children  concluded that there was no such link).

Vaccines should be celebrated as one of the great scientific advancements of the 20th century, with terrible conditions like polio and diphtheria being eliminated.  But, mainly because in 1998 the medical journal The Lancet published an article by surgeon Andrew Wakefield that claimed that there was a link between vaccines and autism, the lie has spread on the internet.  Even though The Lancet retracted the story and Wakefield's questionable research methods and personal financial interest in lawsuits against vaccine companies were exposed, the damage was done.  Since then Wakefield has continued to lie about his findings while celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and social media have kept the lie going.  And the pandemic, and the fact that many conservatives refused the Covid vaccine, even when it came from the Trump administration, only furthered the anti vac movement in this country.

Kennedy's personal history on this issue is downright despicable: in 2019 in Samoa, he took a picture  with local anti vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein.  The Children's Health Defense and Winterstein both blamed the 2018 death of two Samoan infants on vaccines, even though it was later discovered that were wrongfully given muscle relaxant injections along with the vaccines.  These false allegations lead to a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed over 70 people.  So, putting it simply, Kennedy has blood on his hands.

And it gets worse, during the pandemic he came out against Covid vaccines and  absurdly claimed in 2023 that the virus was "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. the people who are the most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese ... we don't know whether it's deliberately targeted or not."  There is, of course, no scientific evidence that the virus was "targeted".  Clearly he was buying into the right wing media racist mindset of blaming China for the virus, which lead to an increase of hate crimes against Asian people in this country.  And he threw in some anti semitism for good measure.  In any normal time, this single offensive, stupid quote would kill any nominee for Health Secretary, but we haven't lived in normal times in this country since Trump first announced his candidacy back in 2016.

As for Trump's own views on vaccines, he's always seemed anti vac adjacent, but, because he's a fool who just repeats whatever he's just heard, and he's been listening to Kennedy a lot lately, he appears to have gone full on anti-vax himself.  Add that to his bigotry, sexism, dishonesty and corruption and you can see why I'm not excited about the next four years.

THE FACTOR THAT CAN'T BE IGNORED

 

The day before the election, I blogged that if Donald Trump won, a large part of it would be because of the lingering effects of the pandemic and Vladamir Putin's invasion of Ukraine,  both of which  caused  inflation to skyrocket all around the world.  I definitely stand by that statement because it has been shown that globally this year, as John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times noted, "...governing parties and leaders have undergone an unprecedented series of reversals this year. The incumbents in every single one of the 10 major countries that... held national elections in 2024 were given a kicking by voters. This is the first time this has ever happened in almost 120 years of records."  Interestingly, this is not a conservative or progressive thing: while the Democrats lost big here in America, the conservative Tories in England just suffered their worst loss on record.  One way of looking at it is that there is one thing that everyone all over the world can agree on: we all hate inflation, especially when it effects the price of food.

So, being an incumbent in a time of global anger at incumbents made this election an uphill battle for Kamala Harris.  But there was another factor here.  In the last eight years, Trump has run three campaigns and won two of them; the only time he lost was when he ran against another man.  Now, both losing campaigns had their own set of difficulties: Hillary Clinton had a history of legal troubles, Harris had to step into a campaign just before the convention, but it's still hard to say that gender didn't play any role here, especially given that Harris played it up by giving talkshow host Oprah Winfrey a prime speaking role at the convention and then appeared on the female oriented political talk show The View.  

One of Harris's big strategies was to make abortion a central issue of the campaign, which made sense give that this was the first presidential campaign in the post Roe world.  To push that issue, Democrats put abortion support on the ballot in 10 states, hoping to drive out the pro Harris female vote.  In 8 of those 10 states, the abortion support won, but in several of them Trump still won the state, meaning that voters voted for abortion rights while also voting for the man who caused those rights to be threatened in the first place.  In Arizona, for example, more than 60% of female voters voted to protect abortion rights, but only around 50% voted for Harris.

The sad fact of the matter is that it just seems that there are millions of Americans (perhaps even tens of millions) who just won't vote for a woman for president, even if they agree with them on the issues. And they're not all just men. (Trump has now won a higher percentage of the white female vote than his opponent in all 3 of his electoral contests.) Way back in 2013 I first wrote about this issue, and I don't think its changed that much.  That is, a combination of fundamentalist religious beliefs and the sheer masculine nature of the president being known as the "commander in chief" of the armed forces,  have driven many people in this country to think that our president should be a man.

And Trump, for all his despicable sexism, is very much the epitome of the all American male success story for around half of the country.  While some see the fact that he cheated on his first wife with his second, and then on his second with his third, all the while boasting of his many sexual partners in between, as proof that he sees women as disposable, others just see him living the rock star celebrity lifestyle they wish they had.  To them, the sexism is a feature, not a bug.

Now that the Democrats have suffered two stinging losses with female candidates running against a man  I truly believe to be a sexual predator, the question arises as to whether there will ever be a female president.  Sadly, it's really hard to say; the only real way I could see it happening is if both parties were to run female candidates at the same time, an unlikely but not impossible scenario.  Until something like that happens, I think we will be stuck with men leading the country for years to come.

UTTERLY DEVASTATING

In 2016 after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency, I was shocked.  I cried, I had trouble sleeping, and I suffered from what was basically panic attacks for days afterwards.  This time, I was more prepared for the possibility of a Trump victory, so right now I'm not as shocked.  But I'm actually more worried about the future of this country than I was then.

I still can't believe it.  A twice impeached president who sent a mob to the nation's capitol after he refused to accept his loss has now won a second term.  Part of the reason he won is that the numbers already show that the female voters who appeared ready to vote for Kamella Harris failed to do so.  You would think a man who once bragged about grabbing women by their genitals, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault or rape by 28 women, and who put the judges on the supreme court that overturned Roe Vs Wade, wouldn't appeal to female voters, but here we are.  A majority of white women have voted for him every time he has run, proving, I suppose, that race matters more than gender.

If Trump does the things that he has promised to on the campaign trail, the next four years are going to the some of the ugliest in American history.  Here's just the worst parts of his coming agenda:

A mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants unlike any seen before.  Demonizing undocumented immigrants, whom Trump has referred to as "vermin" has been Trump's big issue since the beginning.  His plan to use state, local and federal law enforcement officials to hunt down the undocumented, house them in camps, and then deport them, will cost billions of dollars to implement, rip families apart, and seriously damage the economy.  (A recent story in the New York Times said that the dairy industry is so dependent on undocumented labor the dairy industry in the country might not survive without it).

He wants to put a tariff on all imported goods of 20% and on ones from China at 60%.  Nearly every economic expert says that Trump's tariff plan would cause prices on goods to skyrocket, hurting the poor and the middle class more than the rich.  And, of course, many of those countries will start putting their own tariffs on our exports, hurting our industries.  He would also make his massive tax cuts for the rich that he passed in his first term as president permanent, blowing a hole in our deficit. 

He wants to turn the Justice Department into his own personal vendetta outlet.  In recent weeks Trump has discussed turning our military against "the enemy within", specifically meaning his political opponents.  Now just how far he'll be able to go with what is essentially a fascist attempt to jail political party  members for no reason other than running against him before the courts stop him is debatable.  But the fact that the question is even raised is terrifying.

He has talked about turning massive parts of our nation's health regulation over to anti Vaccine extremist Robert Kennedy, who's desire to ban all vaccine mandates for children could bring diseases like polio back.  He wants Elon Musk to run an efficiency task force to cut federal waste.  It should be pointed out that Twitter had a value of over 40 billion when Musk bought it a  few years ago, and its current value is under 10 billion.  Oddly, Musk himself has admitted that his attempt to cut waste might cause some "hardships" in the short term.  How heartening!

He would undo all the good work the Joe Biden administration has done to encourage a green economy and proudly boasted that he would open up vasts areas of the country for more oil drilling.  He would do this in the face of more and more obvious effects of climate change happening all over the world.  It would also allow China to take the lead in developing green energy, which will be a huge growth industry in the future.

He has also said that he would end the war in the Ukraine in one day.  While that's impossible, what he clearly will do is cut all aid to the Ukraine and try to give Vladimir Putin whatever he wants.  Which would basically open the door to Putin invading other countries.  But what does Trump care about that?  He's threatened to withdraw from NATO too. And he has encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do whatever he wants concerning the horrific bombing in Gaza.

These are just a few of the awful things that Trump will try to do in his next term: it's an agenda of corruption, cruelty, unhealthiness and economic disaster.  The fact that tens of millions of Americans have voted for this is appalling to me.  I am so deeply disappointed with this country right now.

PESSIMISTIC/OPTIMISTIC

 

With  the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris a mere two days and the race seemingly deadlocked, I have reasons to be both pessimistic and optimistic.  Here the reasons I'm pessimistic:

1.  Trump outperformed the polls in the last two elections.  When trump won in 2016, it hit many Americans (myself included!) like a thunderbolt, because every poll had Clinton ahead.  And then the polls were off again in 2020, with Biden winning by a smaller margin than predicted.  It appeared that either pollsters weren't reaching Trump supporters, or that many people weren't willing to admit to those pollsters that they were going to vote for him, or a combination of both.  Either way, if Trump beats the razor thin polls again, he will almost certainly win.

2.  Trump is winning on the economy.  The number one issue with Americans in presidential elections is almost always the economy, and voters have been looking back fondly on the days of the pre pandemic Trump years and giving him higher marks on the issue than Harris.  This is frustrating, because the economy has been good overall for the past four years, with solid job growth and a soaring stock market.  But people really notice and hate inflation, which exploded in 2021-2022 for a number of reasons.   While inflation has come down significantly in the past few months, residual anger over it may give Trump the win.

3.  Trump is also seen as strong on the border.  Trump's signature issue has been ending undocumented immigration and building a wall on the Mexican border.  During the pandemic, then president Trump sealed the border with Mexico for heath reasons.  Shortly after Biden returned to office, as the pandemic receded, the border was reopened and there was a flood of border crossings, from both undocumented immigrants and refugees, which caused many Americans to want to return to Trump's hard line policies.  As with inflation, recent numbers have actually decreased, but many voters are still angry about it.

4.  Trump is polling surprisingly well with African American and Latino men.  It's a bit hard to believe that a man who once characterized a white supremacist rally as having "wonderful people on both sides" could get more support from minority men than  any Republican Presidential candidate in modern history, but here we are.  Along with the above issues regarding the economy and immigration, Trump has really tapped into the anger and frustrations of working class men of all races in the country, which could obviously help him.

5.  Post pandemic anger at incumbents is real.  Even though the pandemic is well behind us, the residual effects of it, from inflation to a brief spike in violent crime, have soured voters towards incumbents not just in America, but globally.  While Harris has tried to break from Biden in her campaign, she has been Vice President for the past four years, and that anti incumbent feeling may be enough to push Trump over the top. 

Here's why I'm optimistic:

1. The polls could be right.  Most of the polls have shown Harris with a tiny lead (sometimes less than a percentage point) in many swing states.  While those polls are all within the margin of error, its better to have a very small lead in an election than none at all.  And because Trump's views have become more mainstream Republicans ones, people answering polls might not be ashamed about admitting that they're voting for him, which means the polls will hold and Harris will win enough swing states to take the White House.

2.  Abortion is a big issue,  One thing that the polls have shown definitively is that this will be the most gendered split election ever, with many female voters anger over the recent overturning of Roe Vs Wade pushing them towards the Democrats.  The issue is galvanizing enough that, for the first time in this century, a majority of  white women may vote for  a Democrat instead of a Republican for president.  And there are more female voters than male ones in the country.

3.  Harris is gaining on the economy.  When Joe Biden was still in the race, Trump was trouncing him on the issue of the economy.  While Trump is still being given higher marks on this issue than Harris, she has definitely closed the gap.  It helps that inflation has recently gotten under control and Americans, despite some economic pessimism, are still out there spending.

4.  Trump has had a terrible closing.  Trump's 2016 campaign was an absolute garbage fire, but somehow he still won, so we can't count him out just because he's surrounded by chaos; that's always been his thing.  But his Madison Square Garden rally, which featured a comedian making racist jokes about Puerto Ricans, a crucial voting bloc,  has been regarded as a mess that could cost him.  And his age is clearly starting to show, with his speeches veering into more and more incoherent rambling.  Hopefully, Americans have gotten fed up with Trump's non stop lies, boasts, and childish insults and realize that it's time to move on.

So there you have, my mixed feelings about this election in a nutshell.  Of course, there's also the issue of Trump refusing to concede if Harris does win, but that worry is for another day.

THE DUMB JOKE THAT COULD COST TRUMP THE WHITE HOUSE

 Yesterday, the Donald Trump presidential campaign did something it almost never does: it distanced itself from one of Trump's rally speakers.  The rally in question was in Madison Square Garden, an odd choice given that Trump has no chance of winning New York State, but it played to his desire to be fill the most famous stadium in America with cheering supporters.

The rally's opening speakers proudly said things that would have once been as being too offensive to say in a political speech  (Stephen Miller yelled that "America is for Americans and Americans only!”) that now seem to have just been accepted as part of his campaign.

But then comedian Tony Hinchliffe may have crossed a line:"There’s a lot going on." He began,  "I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico."  After the rally, Danielle Alvarez, a Trump campaign spokesperson,  said in a statement that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign”.  It should be pointed out that everything Hinchliffe said was vetted before the rally, although the Trump campaign is saying that he improvised the joke (sure he did).

In Hinchliffe's defense, this joke was standard issue for him: he's an insult comedian who grew up loving the late Don Rickles, the king of cruel put downs.  Hinchliffe's usual performance space is at celebrity roasts, where his offensive jokes play better than when he's endorsing a political candidate.  

It should also be pointed out that the Trump campaign is only condemning that one joke and not many of the other offensive comments  that Hinchliffe and others said.  (Another Hinchliffe joke: “These Latinos, they love making babies too.  There’s no pulling out, they don’t do that, they come inside, just like they did to our country.”) 

The reason for the Trump campaign to distance themselves from that joke is obvious: Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, has over four hundred thousand Puerto Ricans living in it, and Biden won that state in 2020 by only around twenty thousand votes.  Offending Puerto Rican voters a week before the election is the dumbest move Trump's campaign could make.  Will it cost him the state and the White House?  We'll know in about a week or so.

Trump has spent the last nine years always saying things that went right to the edge of outright bigotry without going too far: remember in his first official campaign speech in 2016 he said that Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists" before slightly backtracking by adding "and some I assume are fine people".  Somehow, he has mostly gotten away with saying these offensive things without paying a political price.  And he has also associated with people who have a record of bigotry, from  having   Pastor John Hagee give a benediction at  dedication ceremony for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem  in 2018 even after Hagee had said that Adolf Hitler had carried out "biblical prophecy",  to having dinner with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes just a few months ago.   None of this seems to have hurt him, especially with his base. But this one joke seems to have gotten enough media attention so close to the election that it might break through.  Personally, I would love it if this one insult  comic at a rally is finally the thing that sticks to Trump and brings him down.

AN IRONIC TWIST THAT MAY PUT TRUMP BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE

 

Back in July I did a blogpost with the title "Can Harris Keep Up Her Momentum?", and now, with just a few days before the election, it appears that the answer might be no.  That doesn't mean that Kamala Harris will definitely  lose, the race now is essentially tied,.  But it does appear that some of energy and excitement that came when Harris first announced her candidacy and the Democrats ran a joyful convention, has dissipated.

This is enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall. Especially because, since the convention, Harris has run a near perfect campaign: she's raised over a billion dollars (considerably more than Donald Trump has), clearly bested him at the debate, and hasn't made any large, noticeable gaffes.  Meanwhile, Trump has not only continued his usual mix of lies, boasts and racist comments, but he's also clearly started to show signs of mental decline, with his rambling speeches lasting so long that even his own supporters sometimes leave his rallies early.

And yet he and Harris are still tied.  A big part of this comes down to Trump polling ahead of Harris on two big issues: the economy, and immigration.  This leads me consider a crazy irony that might take place: the pandemic, which is probably what cost Trump a second term in 2020, has had residual effects that may now  allow him to reenter the White House!

While we'll never know for sure, but it's likely that if there had been no pandemic, Trump would have won a second term in 2020.  In America, the presidential incumbent always has an advantage, and without the effects of the pandemic, the economy probably would have been good enough for him to win.  But he so obviously handled the pandemic poorly, from downplaying its dangers to suggesting that people inject bleach, that  his inept flailing sent him down to defeat.

So what has happened since?  Well, shortly after Joe Biden took over in the Spring of 2021, inflation started skyrocketing to its highest levels in 40 years.  While there are a number of reasons that this happened (like Valadmir Putin's  invasion of the Ukraine), one of the main factors was the then continuing pandemic,  with consumers staying home and buying goods online driving up demand while sickness and shutdowns compromised  supply chains inevitably leading to price increases.  Now, overall, the economy has been good in the past four years, with the Federal Reserve raising of interest rates causing inflation to finally cool in 2023 without pushing the country into a recession.  But most voters have paid less attention to the state of job growth and the stock market than they have to inflation, which, even though it has slowed, still remains in their memory every time they go to the grocery store.  Biden has been quite upset with this situation, and he has a point: even if you ignore the pandemic, in the first two years of the Trump presidency, 5 million jobs were created, while in the first two years of Biden's, 10 million were.  But, sadly, people still wish for the lower prices of the Trump era and give him high ratings on the economy. 

And then there's immigration: in March of 2020, Trump sealed the American border with Mexico for everything but commercial trade while expelling asylum seekers, citing Covid safety issues.  After Biden entered the White House, there was a relaxing of those policies, not only at the border but also between other Central American countries, which resulted in an inevitable flood of people crossing the border.  While there are many reasons for this increase, the ending of Covid restrictions was definitely a factor.  Even though border crossings have been reduced in the past year, that initial increase is what most voters think of when they give Trump higher ratings for immigration. 

What has happened in America is endemic of the entire post pandemic world, with voters still smarting from the global shutdown going after incumbents all around the planet.  I think it's hard for many people to accept what a massive event the pandemic was, and how long it will take before we are completely free of its effects. Yes, the very thing that cost Trump a second term could wind up giving him another  next year.  We live in truly crazy times...

STILL TOO CLOSE TO CALL

 It has only been a little more than two months since President Joe Biden decided not to run for reelection and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, but the whirlwind of activity that has occurred since then has come fast and furious.  The Democratic convention was a joyful affair, with Barack and Michelle Obama delivering great speeches and Harris herself emerging energized.  The Presidential debate with Donald Trump was even better for her, with most viewers overwhelmingly thinking that she clearly bested him.  Really, it seems that the Harris campaign has been perfect so far, with no major gaffes or missteps.  Sure, she has some residual baggage from the Biden administration, but her handling of it has been effective as she's laid out her new economic plans while trying to counter Trump on immigration  and hammering him on her strongest issue, abortion.  Along the way she's picked up endorsements from Republicans like Dick and Lynn Cheney, and over 700 former secretaries of state and defense who all signed a letter stating that Trump posed both a threat to democracy and our nation's defense.

You would think that a campaign with all that going for it would be riding high, but while she did get a slight bounce from both the campaign and the debate, current polls show her only slightly ahead nationally and essentially tied in many battleground states.  The poll analysis website 538.com has them running even.  And with Trump refusing to debate Harris again, there's probably no breaking story or "October surprise" awaiting that could radically change things.  It really looks like the vote on November 5th may be one of the closest ever.  What really scares me is that Trump's polls numbers were lower than his actual percentage of the vote  in 2016 and 2020, so he could have the advantage here. 

Why is this happening?  Is America really about to elect a twice impeached convicted felon?  Sadly, the answer could be yes.  And really, a lot of this comes down to American men. One thing the polling clearly shows is that this will be the most gender divided election ever, with some polls showing Harris leading Trump among female voters by a whopping 20 points.  That's no surprise, given that this is the first presidential election since Roe Vs Wade was overturned.  But this goes beyond the issue of abortion, with Trump's swaggering, absurdly boastful nature appealing to men who somehow see his string of marriages to younger and younger women as something to aspire to, and who cheer when he goes to Ultimate Fighting matches.  And who shrug off his infamous Access Hollywood tape comments as "locker room talk" and buy into his argument that the criminal charges against him are just being political witch hunts.

As an American male myself, I find it soul crushing that such a despicable man could be a role model to anybody, and I know I'm not alone in this.   But most male are going for Trump, raising the depressing possibility that a misogynistic man who's been accused of sexual assault or rape by 26 different women could defeat not one, but two different female candidates.  Again I have to ask, why is this happening?

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

 

Another assassination attempt was made against presidential candidate Donald Trump last Sunday when an armed, mentally unstable person camped out at his golf resort, waiting for him.  Thankfully the man was stopped with him ever firing a shot.  This is, of course, the second such attempt made against Trump during this campaign, and an investigation into just how two such dangerous people could have gotten so close to him is understandably, underway.

Trump has, not surprisingly,  blamed what he called the "inflammatory rhetoric"  from Democrats, as has his running mate, JD Vance.  In a classic burst of Trump hypocrisy, Trump used the exact kind of language that he was condemning to describe his political opponents, calling them the “enemy from within” and “the real threat.”  But what do you expect from a man who says that if he loses we "won't have a country anymore", calls his opponents "vermin" and says that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of America." 

Sadly, I could go on much further when listing the violence tinged, hateful words that Trump and his supporters regularly use on the campaign trail or in social media.  But what I want to do instead is to compare and contrast the reaction to this attack, and another violent. politically based one.

In October of 2022, just before the midterm elections, a mentally disturbed man, armed with a hammer, broke into the home of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and brutally attacked her husband.  While he eventually recovered,  he had to spend days in the hospital with a cracked skull. The attacker was obsessed with online rightwing conspiracy theories.

And what was the response of Donald Trump to such a vicious attack?  He made jokes.  He repeatedly made sick jokes during speeches about the attack that had left an innocent man hospitalized.  And he didn't stop, he still joked about it this very month while giving a speech in front of fraternal police officers, saying, "Nancy Pelosi has a big wall wrapped around her house. Of course, it didn't help too much with the problems she had, did it?" (Thankfully, witnesses described the joke as only getting a few awkward laughs).  And it wasn't just Trump, ridicule of the attack and conspiracy theories about Pelosi and his attacker being lovers, spread throughout  right wing media.  While this attack was obviously different than an assassination attempt made against a presidential candidate, they are both politically based, potentially deadly attacks made by mentally unstable men.

Compare that cruel response by Trump to President Joe Biden's about the recent  attempt on Trump himself:  Neither he nor anyone connected to the Kamala Harris campaign have in any way downplayed the seriousness of what happened, and Biden strongly condemned political violence and called for more government aid for the Secret Service.  And while some radical people on the left have made sick jokes about the assassination attempt on social media, no mainstream political figure on the left has embraced any anti Trump conspiracies or said anything to condone what happened.  The notion that it is people on the left that are using violent language, or even that both sides do it, is just a false equivalency.  

I myself often use strong language when describing my deep loathing of Donald Trump and the political cult movement that he represents, but naturally I draw the line at condoning violence.  My hope is that Trump will lose the election in November and then go to jail for the multiple crimes I think he has committed.  In fact, I think Trump has been engaging in lawless behavior for years and should have gone to jail for it long before he got into politics.  (I especially believe those 26 women that have accused him of sexual assault or rape, and those accusations stretch back decades.)  I can think all of these things and still be repulsed by the assassination attempts made against him.

WILL THE DEBATE CHANGE THE RACE?

 

I tend to not be good at gauging who won a presidential debate after I've seen it.  Being an unswayable progressive, I allow my own bias to think that my side has always won.  I even thought that Barack Obama did alright in his first debate with Mitt Romney back in 2012, a debate that even Obama himself later admitted that he lost.

Given that, I watched the first (and probably only) presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris with anxiety.  I knew that the bump in the polls that Harris received after President Joe Biden agreed to step down and she took over as the nominee had seemed to fade, with the race now being a tossup.  

Even right after the debate, I wanted to say that Harris won, but I wasn't sure.  My biggest fear was that the lies that Trump spoke, most of which he had repeated many times at his rallies, just might work on the American public at large the same way that they do for his rally crowds.  (And, for the record, a CNN fact checker says that he lied 33 times, and Harris only did once, and some of his more absurd lies were corrected live by the moderators).

I was relieved to hear that nearly all of the pundits have said that Harris won; she looked calm, collected and often even amused while Trump got angrier and angrier.  Plus she introduced some economic ideas that could be popular and firmly stated her position on abortion well.

Plus she really did seem to get under Trump's skin better than Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden did in their debates with him.  Perhaps the most interesting exchange came when Harris said “I’m going to actually do something really unusual. I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies. Because it’s a really interesting thing to watch.” She then mentioned his usual rally speech subjects like windmills causing cancer and the fictional character Hannibal Lecter.  Then she concluded by saying, "And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”  

Not surprisingly, to a man obsessed with his rallies and their size, Trump looked flustered and threw out an absurd childish insult when it was his turn to speak, “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.”  Hopefully, most of the American public will see just what happened there, a bitter old man lashed out over an insult to the thing that he was most obsessed with; his own popularity.  For the rest of the debate he seemed flustered, ranting laughably about immigrants eating people's dogs while Harris just rolled her eyes at his ridiculous claims.  

One clear indication that Trump lost is that shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, fell more than 12 percent the next day.  He also looked like a loser when he started bleating that the debate was "rigged" against him; as usual, he thinks that everything he ever does is perfect and the only way he can ever lose is if the other side cheats.

But even if Harris did as good as possibly could be expected last night, I still fear it may not be enough to get her over the finish line. Don't forget that Obama in 2012 and George W Bush in 2004 both lost their first debates and then won reelection.  Debates tend to only have a slight effect on the polls, and with two months to go, this is still a very close election.  Still, it was great to see that at least once, Trump was called on his terrible lies and humiliated in front of millions.

BIDEN MISPLAYED INFLATION

 

Recently Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamela Harris announced an economic plan to federally ban price gouging by "setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”  This is the right thing to do politically, because President  Joe Biden's administration, and by extension, the Vice President herself,  have had low approval ratings on the economy for quite some time now.  By coming out on this issue more strongly than Biden has, Harris can forge a more forceful image for herself on the economy and blame big corporations for price inflation, a popular idea with many voters.  

But while it may be the right thing politically, economically it doesn't seem necessary: the most recent reports on inflation show that it has sunk to under 3% for the first time since 2021.  Clearly, the Federal Reserve raising interest rates have cooled down the economy enough that inflation is under control again.  So her plan feels like a solution looking for a problem, and honestly I think that by the time she's in office if she wins, inflation and price gouging will have been reduced as an issue to a point where she probably won't actually do anything about it.  To me it's all political theater, but if it helps her win, I'm fine with it.  

This issue does reveal one of the weaknesses of the mostly good Biden presidency: he should have made inflation a bigger issue.  Overall, the economy has been strong under Biden, with excellent job growth and a skyrocketing stock market.  But the issue of inflation has been blamed on him even though it wasn't his fault, and, of course, inflation is something that all Americans see at the grocery store.   It reached a high of  9.1% in 2022, and recent polls say that many Americans think that  increased government spending is what caused it, and while that is perhaps part of it given how much pandemic financial relief was passed by both the Biden and the Trump administrations, other factors like the pandemic leading to  increased product demands and compromised supply lines are another part.

And then there's the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.  Although Biden mentioned the invasion as it related to American inflation in some speeches, he failed to hammer the point home effectively, so few Americans know how that war has affected food prices not only in American but also all over the world.  Before the invasion, the Ukraine was the world's fifth biggest exporter of wheat and other grains, obviously the war has changed that.  The invasion also triggered a round of sanctions against Russian oil exports that inevitably lead to a rise in oil prices.

So, if one person is to be blamed for the increases in the price of gas and groceries, it should be Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but I doubt most Americans even are aware of this.  I wish that the Biden administration really had pushed harder on the fact that Putin's invasion was more than an attack on Ukraine, it was a blow against the economies of Western countries.  Oh sure, the right wing media would have scoffed at Biden blaming Putin for what they saw as his own failed economy, the message may still have gotten through to many swing voters.  Sadly, it didn't, and now Harris has to break with the soon to former president on the economy as a way to sell herself as a different kind of Democrat.  While I sure hope it works, I think she would have an easier job of it today if Biden had more effectively linked Putin to inflation.

WAS WALZ THE RIGHT CHOICE?

 

Ever since she announced her candidacy for president, there has been much speculation about just who Kamala Harris would pick for her running mate.  Although the effect of a vice president on an election is usually negligible, the race right now is extremely tight, and the right or wrong choice could make a difference in certain swing states.

Her choice, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, has both pluses and minuses: on the one hand, he seems like a genuinely nice guy.  He grew up in a small town, he's a former football coach, and he's progressive in a plain spoken way.  On the other hand, Minnesota is not a swing state, and while Walz's good nature may win a few votes from undecideds in middle America, whether he can help out with those prized swing voters in electoral rich states like Pennsylvania and Michigan remains to be seen.

Harris engaged in a lot of reviewing and considering before going with Walz, and while Democrats seem mostly happy with him, some have said that Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro should have gotten the nod.  This is understandable in that Shapiro is a very popular governor in a state with 19 electoral votes.  Picking him might have helped push Harris over the top there.  On the other hand, Shapiro is Jewish, and running a ticket with a mixed race woman at the top with a Jewish VP might have been a tough sell in middle America.  (For the record, there's never been a Jewish VP;  Joe Lieberman ran with Al Gore and they lost a highly contested election back in 2000).  Walz, on the other hand, is a Christian, Lutheran, to be exact. Shapiro is also seen as being too pro Israel at a time when that country's war in the Gaza strip has become highly controversial.  Personally, I tend to think that she should have gone with Shapiro, given the importance of the state he governs.  Still Walz's basic decency is hard to resist.  And Shapiro will certainly get out and campaign for her in his state, which should help.

If Harris loses both the state of Pennsylvania and the election in November, the choice of Walz will be seen as a big  mistake, but there's also a chance that having a likable middle American dad will help out in a Harris victory.  Certainly, he seems excited to be on the ticket, as their first joint rally showed.  Perhaps he's just what Harris needed.

CAN HARRIS KEEP UP HER MOMENTUM?

 The speed with which the Democratic party has coalesced around Kamala Harris's presidential nomination  is astonishing: since President Joe Biden's terrible debate performance a month ago, there was much speculation among Democrat party members as to how to pick a candidate if and when Biden stepped down, with the possibility of the party going into an open convention in August with no clear front runner being raised.  But then Biden almost immediately endorsed Harris after and she quickly moved to take over his campaign, including the money he had raised.

More importantly, Democrats who had been floated as possible presidential candidates themselves fell in line behind her.  Not only that, the party suddenly seemed thrilled to have Biden step down, with Harris raising record amounts of campaign donations and giving well received speeches that spread throughout social media.  And polls show her pulling even with Trump both nationally and in swing states, turning around the deep hole that Biden was falling into. 

The reason I'm so surprised by this is that the past four years have not been great for her; in 2020 her campaign for the Democratic presidential candidacy failed quickly.  Then when she became vice president, her term got off to a rocky start: there were stories about staff turnover and disorganization, and her trip to Guatemala in 2021 to try and stem the flow of refugees seemed weak ("Don't come." She lectured).  She later found her voice after Roe Vs Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, and her full throated defense of a woman's right to choose made her a stronger advocate on that issue than Biden ever was.   Still, the party's shift to her in such a short time may qualify as one of the biggest political turn arounds ever; seemingly overnight she went from a VP with a poor approval rating to a strong presidential candidate.  In a way, the viral video clip of her giggling  about "falling off a coconut tree" is the perfect encapsulation of what's happened with her: at first, that video was sent around by Republicans trying to ridicule her and her boisterous laugh.  But now that laugh is seen as good natured and endearing by her supporters.  (I always found it likable myself).

 Is it possible that her surge has more to do with Biden stepping down than Harris herself?  While she is rising in the polls, trouble still lies ahead: she will be attacked as a San Francisco liberal (which is why I like her!) with radical views while Trump will eventually settle on some childish nickname for her that will be echoed ad nauseam in  the right wing media.

And then there is the thorny issue of race and gender; is the country ready to elect not only its first female president, but also its first woman of color?  While polls show that Harris is capturing the youth vote, she's apparently losing the older white voters who's turn to Biden in 2020 were important to his victory.  To his credit, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has told members of his party to lay off any race or gender based attacks on her: “This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” he said recently in a closed door meeting with party members, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”  But this is is the Republican party; race based attacks are their bread and butter.  Sure enough, several Republicans have tried to brand Harris as a "DEI hire", implying that she was only chosen as VP because of who she was and not her qualifications (even though those qualifications for office included more political experience than Trump had before he became president!).  Will these racist statements backfire against the Trump campaign as Johnson thinks they will?  Hopefully.

Am I afraid that  that the country will soon  see another version of the unsuccessful Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016? It's possible, but remember that  Harris is no Clinton, who was always, rightly or wrongly, a controversial figure.  Harris, on the other hand,  has been throughly vetted and has no apparent skeletons in her closet.  (There will be no FBI investigations into her email!)  I also like to think that the idea of a female president is less shocking in 2024 than it was in 2016, and the energy behind her candidacy now is giving me happy memories of Barack Obama's historic 2008 campaign.

The question is, can she keep the tide turning against Trump, who seemed unstoppable just a few weeks ago after the Republican National Convention?   While the prospect of a second female candidate losing to a famously misogynistic man, especially one with plans to dismantle American democracy, is terrifying, right now I'm cautiously optimistic about Harris's chances.

THANKS SO MUCH JOE!!

 In the past two weeks we've seen a failed assassination attempt made against Donald Trump and a Republican convention that degenerated into a cult fest around him.  In a truly surreal convention moment, former wrestler Hulk Hogan gave a speech that saw him ripping his shirt, and Trump, a convicted felon, fraud and adjudicated rapist, was introduced by Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting who was once caught slapping his wife on video.  So much for unity...

And now, our insane political environment just got a new wrinkle:  President Joe Biden has officially dropped out of the race.  In a way, this isn't a  big surprise: Biden's performance at the presidential debate on June 27th was painful to watch.  Although he and his staff have tried to salvage his campaign ever since, he just wasn't able to turn around that debate.  Going into it most Americans already thought that he was too old to run, and, sadly, that was just how he looked.

Along with dropping out, he has also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party's nominee, which goes a long way towards locking it up for her.  Any other candidate would not be able to access the money that Biden has raised, and as VP Harris is the logical choice.  Plus, passing up the first Black female VP for someone else would be a bad look for the party, especially given that Black women have long been some of the most faithful Democratic voters.

Is Harris a perfect candidate?  No, she had some staffing issues early in her tenure, and has given some weak interviews.  She also may inherit the bad feelings that many voters have (rightly or wrongly) about the Biden years.  But on the plus side, she's been giving very strong speeches about abortion after the overturning of Roe Vs Wade, she's a former prosecutor, which makes her taking on a convicted felon like Trump logical, and she's grown into the office of Vice Presidency well after a rocky start.

Now that Biden's tenure will soon be in the rearview window, let's take a look at how he did: personally, I think he was a great president, perhaps better than Barack Obama because his lengthy time in congress made him better at getting his priorities passed.  And pass them he did: first there was a stimulus bill, then  the infrastructure bill, the microchips bill and perhaps best of all, the Inflation Reduction act, which went further in fighting against climate change than any action taken by any past president (which in some ways says more about our broken political system than it does Biden!).  Biden will also be remembered as  first president to put a Black woman (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson) on the supreme court.  

One of the most frustrating aspects of his presidency has been that the public has given him low ratings on the economy and violent crime.  The reality is, unemployment is the lowest its been since the 60's, we managed to get through a pandemic recovery without lapsing into a recession, and violent crime has plummeted in the past few years.  Inflation, brought on by a number of factors (the pandemic, Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine) has been his Achilles' heel, with prices in 2022 spiking more than they had in 40 years, but raised interest rates have brought inflation down (although raised rates bring their own set of problems!).  Still, on the economy I would give him good marks in dealing with the tough hand that Trump (and the pandemic) dealt him.

Really, my biggest problem with Biden's presidency is that it has taken him so long to finally step down.  In a perfect world, he would have pledged to be a one term president four years ago instead of finally stepping down after much pressure a mere four months before the election.  And it appears that the people around Biden were hiding his age issues, possibly for years, before he finally crumpled during the debate.

Still, overall Biden's been an effective president who can now bow out gracefully.  Whoever the Democrats nominate, be it Harris or someone else, I will vote for enthusiastically.  Anyone but Trump! 

A SHOCKING ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

 

Yesterday at a rally in Pennsylvania, an assassination attempt was made on presidential candidate Donald Trump. Shots were fired and he was wounded slightly by a bullet hitting his ear, while the shooter was quickly killed by Secret Service agents.  Tragically, another rally attendant was also killed in the shooting.

Little is known about the potential assassin other than that he was a 20 year old white male.  While I am very deeply opposed to Trump being president again, obviously the use of violence against him is reprehensible.The most likely scenario is that this is the work of one lone person, a sad, lonely man not unlike past presidential assassins, who turned his hatred on a political figure.  While we may never know the now dead man's motivation, it really doesn't matter now, what does matter is that in the future shootings like this should be avoided with beefed up security at political events like this.  Especially because I'm afraid that a Trump supporter may attempt to extract some revenge on President Biden or other Democrats.  Sadly, we live in a country where access to firearms is so simple that it takes only one deranged assassin to make an another attempt.

Interestingly, in our instant reaction social media era, I almost immediately found myself arguing with fellow progressives on Facebook who thought that this whole thing was a false flag.  Their assertion was that Trump was doing this to build sympathy for himself just before the Republican convention next week.  This seems pretty darn silly to me: why would Trump, who by almost all measures is clearly set to win the White House in November if he's running against President Joe Biden, need to resort to such a wild and over the top method to pump up his base?  If Trump wanted to fake an assassination attempt, why wouldn't he have done it  back in 2020 when he was still president and running behind Joe Biden in every poll?  And that's not even considering the amount of work it would take to pull such fakery off; are we supposed to believe that not only the shooter but also the killed rally attendant are all fakers?  And how could he get so many people to sign off on it, from the Secret Service to the police?  Like many conspiracy theories, this just doesn't add up.

It would seem that in our deeply divided country, people struggle to express any kind of sympathy for the other side  and therefore have to construct a conspiracy theory to explain any tragic event like this. (Remember how conservatives tried to spin an intruder attacking Nancy Pelosi's husband?) But's it always possible to be of two minds about things: Donald Trump is a narcissistic psychopath, a convicted felon and fraud, an adjudicated rapist who has risen to the height of American politics on a wave of bigotry and misogyny.  His reecletion would do permanent damage to the American democratic system.  None of that justifies violence against him.  The only solution to an attack on democracy is to work harder to resist it within that system, as flawed as it may be.   

THE BIDEN CONTROVERSY CONTINUES

 In the past few days, I've struggled to think about much other than President Joe Biden's terrible debate performance last Thursday.  It was such a galvanizing and demoralizing moment.

The recent terrible (and partisan!) Supreme Court ruling that gives Donald Trump partial immunity for any crimes he may have committed while president has only increased my fears about a second Trump term.  With a compliant Supreme Court, one third of whom were appointed by him, Trump could very well carry out the plan of political retribution and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants that he has outlined.

Since the debate, Biden and his people have stood fast against his resigning. They point to a fiery speech he gave a day later and some high fund raising numbers as proof that he just had one bad night that will soon be seen as a blip.  This is crazy: first of all, the mental agility Biden needed to read a speech off of a teleprompter well is a far cry from what he needed to display during the debate.  And that debate was seen by tens of millions of Americans, while his speech the next day was watched by only a fraction of that amount.  And fund raising numbers are no great indicator of support; any president, by the mere power of the office, can raise money.

Personally, I'm angry not just at Biden and his family's stubborn refusal to accept the ravages of time and gracefully step down, I'm also mad at his handlers and advisors who have been treating him with kid gloves almost from the day he took office.  It's been well documented by the media that Biden has done fewer press conferences and interviews than any modern president.  And the few interviews he has done have been mostly softball interviews with few tough questions.   Plus, the Biden campaign wanted this debate, and even got Trump to agree to the rules for it.  Biden's team knew that this was the most important moment for him in the run up to the election to turn around the polls that showed Trump winning in swing states, and Biden put in long hours of debate prep to get ready for it.  And look what happened.

 If Biden is going to convince the American voters that last Thursday was just a off night for him, he needs to put himself out there for interviews and press conferences where he will respond to questions in real time,  showing that he's up for the job.  But is he even capable of doing that?  The man who froze up so memorably last Thursday doesn't look ready to do that, which is the whole reason why he should drop out.

It's important for me to say that if Biden does remain on the ballot I will definitely vote for him in November over everyone else running, and encourage others to do the same.  Trump simply has to lose.  

But that's the very reason that I think Biden should step down for; I don't think he can win again.  Polls in the time since the debate have shown an increase in the number of voters who think that he's not mentally fit for the job.  And some polls have that number as high as 75%!  

Some of Biden's defenders have pointed out that no other Democratic candidates  poll any better against Trump than he does.  But that's impossible to really determine; once other candidates start stepping forward, the media will give them far more attention and they will start doing more interviews and laying out their political views, which could definitely give them a surge in the polls. Plus a younger candidate would flip the age issue back on to Trump, who's mental agility is also in question.   And an open Democratic convention, the kind that hasn't been seen  in years, would make for exciting media coverage that could help whoever emerges as the presidential candidate.  

And there's also some strategy to consider: Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is a Democrat who's more popular in her state than Biden.  Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania is also a Democrat who's more popular than Biden.  The important thing here is that both Michigan and Pennsylvania are swing states that would almost definitely vote blue if one of them were on the ticket.  (Whitmer and Shapiro together would also make a good ticket, although I don't know who would go on top!)  Another factor is that part of the disillusionment that many people on the left have towards Biden is his support (tempered as it is) for Israel's bombing of Gaza.  A new candidate more opposed to the bombing could reset the issue and win back those voters.  That reset could also be true of economic issues hurting Biden like inflation.  Add to that the fact that Americans are always excited by something new, like a new candidate and I think that the Democrats's chances of winning will improve,  I really think that any decent Democrat can win this thing.  Even a relatively weak debater could have taken apart Trump's absurd stream of lies last Thursday. 

Once again I will restate that if Biden is still running against Trump in November I will vote for him, but I really hope that he steps down.  Putting things bluntly, one stubborn old man who won't step aside could bring ruin to this country. 

DEBATE FALLOUT

 

After a mostly sleepless, worrisome night, I awoke to read the analysis of last night's presidential debate with a sense of dread.  No, I wasn't just being a paranoid progressive; Biden's performance really was a disaster.  How bad?  As the podcasters on Crooked Media pointed out in their post debate obituary, there was a moment when Biden, after being served up the issue of abortion, pivoted to the issue of immigration, going from his strongest issue to one of his weakest!   This may rank as the worst presidential debate performance in TV history.  The only upside may be that Trump was still unlikable to most viewers.  But that wasn't enough in 2016 and it probably won't be enough this year.

I should mention that it pains me to dump on Joe Biden.  In terms of policy, I agree with nearly everything he has done as president: he passed an infrastructure bill, the Chips Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which did more to fight climate change than anything done by any previous president.  He appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court, and put environmental regulations in place that will reduce lead poisoning and air pollution.  And he's supported Ukraine after the horrible Russian invasion.

And he's one of the most likable politicians ever: he's a good husband and father who has stood by his son Hunter despite all of his troubles.  His bromance with Barack Obama when Biden was Vice President produced some really fun political moments.  And the viral clip of him encouraging a young boy with a stutter like he  himself once had is one of the sweetest things you'll ever see.

But as endearing as Biden is, this is no time for sentiment.  Trump poses a truly existential threat to American democracy, with his plans to use the Justice Department to persecute political enemies while deporting millions of undocumented immigrants that would  tear apart families and wreck the economy. Trump must lose, and I can't see Biden beating him.  Not after a debate performance that was often painful to watch.  There comes a time in almost every person's life, if they live long enough, where they must step aside to let someone younger take their place.  That time for Biden is now.  Sorry Joe, you did a great job in your one term, but please step aside for the good of the world.

 

CAN BIDEN SURVIVE THIS DEBATE?

 

The first televised presidential debate took place in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy.  People listening to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon did better, but people watching on TV preferred Kennedy.  The reason given was that Nixon refused makeup beforehand and looked pasty on the screen.  And after seeing tonights first debate, it's possible future historians may see  Joe Biden's sore throat as the equivalent of Nixon's lack of makeup. 

I tuned into tonight's debate with cautious optimism: there seemed to be some momentum towards Biden in the past few weeks, with Trump's lead shrinking after he was convicted on 34 felony counts.  But within minutes of the debate starting my heart sank: the sore throat giving Biden a scratchy voice hurt, but even worse were the moments were he seemed to lose his train of thought, which Trump pounced on.

Although Biden did seem to get better as the debate went on,  it didn't make up for his earlier stumbles.  And he seemed to have to no counterpunches to Trump's absurd verbal charges.  He looked, weak, feeble and yes, old.  The one thing he needed to show was that he has enough vigor to get through 4 more years, and he didn't clear that bar.

Trump for his part ran through his usual list of grievances, lies and boasts.  He shrugged off the felony charges and accused Biden of being a felon at one point.  He ducked questions and moved each one to attacks on Biden concerning the border and inflation.  As horrible as he is, he came across as stronger, certainly more energetic, and yes, presidential.  

Now, presidents have recovered from bad debate performances before: Barack Obama clearly lost to Mitt Romney in 2012 in their first debate, but Obama turned it around in later debates.  In 1984 Ronald Reagan clearly lost his train of thought and rambled through a debate, and he too turned it around in later debates and won handily.  But I don't see Biden, in a race as close as this one is, recovering from this disaster.  

Is it too late for Biden to step down?  Technically, no, he doesn't accept the nomination officially until the Democratic National Convention in a few months.  But there's no way for him to pushed out, he has to step down on his own, and his clearly doesn't want to do that.

My hope is that his aides sit him down tomorrow and plainly tell him that he lost, show him the clips from the debate that made him look weak, and say that he has no chance of winning.  Perhaps that will change his mind.  Finding another candidate would be tricky for the Democrats, but this debate was a mess, and Trump, who was already leading, will have the wind on his back after this.  Four more years of Trump is starting to look likely.

THE BIBLE STORY YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T HEARD

 

Recently the state of Louisiana passed a law requiring that all public school classrooms  post the biblical ten commandments on the wall.  After he signed the law, Governor Jeff Landry said“ If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”  What I find hypocritical here is that conservatives like Landry will use the bible as justification for their actions, and then reject specific passages from that bible when they are confronted with them.  For example, let's take a look at how Moses himself enforced one of those commandments from the King James version of the bible, Numbers chapter 15 verse 32-36: 

 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation.  They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him.Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”  So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.

Yes, that's god working through Moses saying that a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath should be put to death.  Now, obviously, Landry wouldn't pass a law giving the death penalty to anyone gathering sticks on the wrong day.  But if he's going to use Moses as an example of a righteous law giver, why should he reject the way Moses carried out that law?  If the argument is that times have changed since then, why use Moses as an example at all?  As is so often the case in this country, politicians quote the parts of the bible that they like and ignore the rest, assuming that very few people have actually read the whole thing.  So passages from the book of Leviticus condemning male homosexuality are quoted, and other passages sentencing women found not be to a virgin on their wedding night to death, are not.  

While supporters of the law have shrugged off objections by pointing out that the paper with the commandments in the classroom can't be more than 11 by 14 inches large, and can therefore be easily ignored by students who don't want to look, it's clear what's going on here.  This isn't just about this one law, this is about states testing the boundaries of a conservative Supreme Court to allow religion in public school classrooms.  If the conservatives win here, and there's a good chance that they will, they won't stop: soon there will be laws mandating crosses in classrooms, and before you know it we'll be back to debating whether or "Intelligent Design" can be taught along with evolution in public schools.  This is despite the fact that that gussied up version of creationism was thrown out of public schools years ago. Sadly, the desire of conservative Christians to impose their beliefs on others and officially proclaim America as a Christian nation never seems to end, even as more and more Americans every year say that they have no religious affiliation.  

Much like the conservative desire to allow school vouchers that would use public funds to pay for children to go to religious private schools, putting more religious imagery  into  public schools is all about trying to influence the next generation of Americans into following their conservative beliefs.  Much like the debate around so called "critical race theory", conservatives want their values fed to the children of America so that they can stay in power for as long as possible.  The youth are the future, and they want to control them.

TRUMP'S WORST DAY AS PRESIDENT?

 

While the horrifying thought of Donald Trump returning to the White House continues to be a possibility, it doesn't hurt to look back at the chaotic 4 years of the Trump presidency.  There were many terrible days during the Trump administration: from  his possibly criminal behavior  on January 6th to his  offensive defense of white supremacist protestors in Charlottesville (remember "wonderful people on both sides"?), to the utter stupidity of him suggesting that injecting bleach could stop Covid.  

While all of those days were awful, I think today marks the 4 year anniversary of the absolute worst day of the Trump presidency.  On this day he held the first public rally of his 2020 campaign.  The rally itself was unimportant: it featured his usual ridiculous talking points about Covid, or what he offensively referred to as "kung flu".  But it was the context of the rally that made it so terrible: it was held at the BOK center in Tulsa Oklahoma, an indoor stadium.  And while masks were available, they were also optional.  It was the kind of gathering of thousands of people in one place that would have normally been banned during the dark days of the pandemic in 2020, long before the availability of a vaccine.

But Trump's enormous ego and desire to stand again in front of a cheering crowd was so great that he clearly didn't care that he was threatening the lives of his own supporters (not to mention other people that they would come in contact with).  While whether or not there was a surge of cases in Tulsa after the rally is a matter of some debate (different studies say different things), there simply was no good reason for Trump to have held this rally other than his incredible need for constant praise.

The perfect example of this can be found in the sad story of Trump supporter (and former presidential candidate) Herman Caine.  Caine attended the rally in Tulsa, and then planned to attend another Trump rally on July 4th.  On July 1st. Caine tweeted out" Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump. PEOPLE ARE FED UP!".  But Caine did not attend that second rally, because he was hospitalized for Covid on July 2nd and died before the month ended.  While it is possible that Caine contracted the virus somewhere other than the rally in Tulsa, it's certainly likely that attending an event with thousands of screaming people, few of whom were wearing masks, is what eventually killed him.  

For the record, Trump did make some public condolences about Caine's death on July 30th, the day he died.  But the next day he  just shrugged off the distinct possibility that Caine's attendance at the rally was when he first got Covid.  As always, Trump sees all other people as lesser beings; surely his rally was more important to him than the life of Caine and any other people who caught Covid at that rally.  And sure enough, a few months later he would boast that there were "no problems" from his rallies, essentially forgetting the death of Caine entirely.  In many ways Caine's sad story echoes that of former Governor Chris Christie, who nearly died from Covid that he is convinced he got from Trump while he was helping him prepare for a presidential debate.  And in typical fashion, Christie claims that Trump called him when he was sick, and his only concern was whether Christie would tell other people if  Trump was the one that gave Covid to him!

While there are many examples of Trump's psychopathic behavior over the years, I think that holding that rally four years ago was the absolute low point; a completely unnecessary gathering that could have been a super spreader event.  How anyone can vote for this man who clearly has so little concern for anyone other than him is beyond me.

TO JAIL OR NOT TO JAIL

 One of the frustrating things about politics in this century is how, every time a Republican presidential candidate wins the presidency while losing the popular vote, conservatives loudly say that "That's the system we have, accept the result."  But recently, after Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a court of law by a jury of peers, as our judicial system  dictates, virtually the entire Republican party has echoed his baseless assertion that the whole system was rigged.  It's obviously hypocritical to say that a system only works when it benefits your side, but that's where America is politically in 2024.  And that argument about a rigged legal system gets even weaker in light of President Joe Biden's son Hunter's recent conviction under that same legal system.

Hypocrisy aside, the question that now awaits is just what kind of penalty Trump should pay when he is sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11th.  Penalties include fees, community service, probation and yes, even jail time (with a maximum of 4 years).  

But should Trump go to jail? On the one hand, he's an old man, this is his  first criminal  offense, and it's a nonviolent crime.  On the other hand, he's been found guilty on all 34 counts, he's clearly shown no remorse for the crime he's been legally found to have committed, and he violated the gag order put on him  by the judge ten times during the trial.  Plus,  he would not be the first criminal convicted of falsifying business records in the state of New York to get jail time.

I'm not quite sure how I myself feel about this; Trump in an orange prison outfit is an amusing image   to me, and I am sure that the man has committed criminal offenses in the past that he's gotten away with (it's not hard to believe those 26 women who have accused him of sexual assault or rape).  So it is satisfying to think that man who has seemingly gotten away with so many terrible things over the years is finally facing jail time.  But there is every reason to believe that it would push his already insanely loyal supporters over the edge into some kind of act of violence, perhaps something even on the level of what happened on January 6th.

But it's not just his fervent supporters I'm worried about; since we would be entering completely uncharted territory with a presidential candidate behind bars (and yes, he could still legally run while incarcerated), it's impossible to gauge exactly how the American public would react to such a thing.  While there's a good chance that many swing voters might turn away from him in disgust, it's also possible that they might believe his lies about the system being rigged and see his incarceration as a political act master minded by Joe Biden, even if it's not true.  It seems crazy, but since American politics has been completely changed since Trump took that escalator ride back in 2016, we have no way of knowing whether jail time would help or hurt his campaign.  

Given that, I am leaning towards idea of Trump having to do community service instead of prison time: Trump with a pair of tongs picking up garbage off the highway would be such a humiliating thing for a man so obsessed with his own perceived strength that I think it would weaken his image and his campaign, while actual prison time could have the opposite effect.  But, again, who knows?  I remember thinking that Trump was going to be forced out of politics when he said that John McCain wasn't a real war hero, so what do I know?