GIDDY-GIDDY RAH-RAH

The Democratic National Convention. It's over. Thank God, it's over.

The Democrats have packed their bags and headed back to wherever Democrats go when they go. And they are taking that Muppets-and-Teletubbies feeling with them; they are hopeful and happy. 

It did feel good. There were speeches, music, celebrities talking and singing (Oprah showed up, and Stevie Wonder), Republicans talking, Clintons talking on separate nights, white, brown and black people talking, just plain folks (where they could work them in), mayors, governors and politicians; victims in one way or another of the end of Roe V Wade brought tears to everyone's eyes; more singing, dancing, sign waving, a musical role call, and more. And the Palestinian protesters stayed outside, so the optics on the podium remained untainted.

There were Obamas talking. Both of them, ladies first. Their speeches were smart, sophisticated, urbane (except when snarky or just plain dirty where needed), stirring, energizing (and clever, God were they clever. Michelle even gouged Trump by saying he is about to discover President of the U.S. is one of those "black jobs"s he claims immigrants are coming to take away). They did their Ivy League educations proud (something JD Vance can't seem to pull off; dumb shit sounds like dumb shit even when a Yalie says it). I loved them. Everybody loved them.

It also occurred to me later that they are one of the reasons people on the right are upset and feeling everything from long left out to MAGA-ish and beyond. The Obamas spoke the language liberal Democrats love. They spoke the language of the smart and sophisticated, the erudite. And in complete sentences most of the time! They spoke a language we look up to. But it is a language that makes others feel smugly talked down to (those who are not with us, and not likely to be if we can't get past the liberal-isms -- or perceived liberal-isms -- to speak a language they understand about the things that trouble them). That can be a problem.

Biden, the old un-Trump, left to finish his presidency and he says he has lots left to do. Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in as the new un-Trump and spoke of freedom and the path to the future. Tim Walz is her running mate (the man who already introduced "weird" to describe Trump, JD Vance, Project 2025). Balloons fell. And then it was over.

"Feelin' good is feelin' good again," as Robert Earl Keen sings. Of course he is singing about wishful thinking. And the Democrats are carrying a load of wishful thinking with them as they go.

Hopeful and happy won't win elections. Neither will being appalled or offended. Kamala Harris must defeat predictably appalling and offensive people. Be appalled for Gus Walz but be appalled on your own time then get back to work. Being appalled is not the job at hand. Winning is the only job to be done.

TRUMP AND HARRIS: BALLOTS AND BULLETS

Let's talk.

Democrats have a candidate and Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate. Everyone -- as a young child I once knew said -- is excited with joy. Kamala Harris offers a sigh of relief and a bit of hope. But she is not the solution to the Trump problem. Happy days are not really here again.

Why?

President Joe Biden is willing to say it out loud. If Donald Trump loses the election in November, Biden is "not confident at all" there will be a peaceful transfer of power. "He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it. All the stuff about, 'If we lose there'll be a bloodbath, it'll have been a stolen (election).'"

It's time to have a talk. Actually it is past time.

An old friend from Texas said recently, "What you are saying is that the ideal voter will have a ballot in the box and a gun handy?" I don't think he was just talking Texas. He's right. Biden is right. I'm right.

 Donald Trump intends to be president again whether he wins or doesn't win the 2024 election. There's been lots of hemming and hawing around accepting the vote tally. If Trump wins, yes. Otherwise, who knows? That's a euphemistic "No." Threats of violence tremble over the election from Trump and others. Unpredictable but armed Trump believers wait quietly for the moment, for their moment. A man touched by God will not be allowed to lose. There is too much at stake. JD Vance (blue-eyed and fair haired sort-of-fascist family man -- a Kamala taunter with his own mixed brood) proselytizes and blathers about Trump and the wrath of God (there is a clear confusion of the two). More importantly Trump has the well-organized support of the Heritage Foundation and other groups. He has the apparent blessing of the Supreme Court and the Teamsters boss, the police unions and organizations, the megaphone MAGAs, lovers of guns, haters of women, racists, Christians and other groups. There are even outfits selling survivalist gear and food on TV.

There are lots of them and that's scary. But the frightening thing is how well organized they are. Thousands of members of this-or-that disgruntled group are simply awaiting marching orders.

What will happen, especially if it comes down to Harris and ballots and bullets? It's a clear people-get-ready moment.

But when I mention the idea that it could take more than a vote to right the ship and put it back on course, my fellow Democrats and various other un-Trumpers don't want to talk about it. They look down and mumble, "Nah" or "I hope not" or "That won't (or can't) happen" or "I don't want to think that could happen" or they resort to "We're not that kind of people."

There is no discussion of the idea that it could or might or will happen or that we might have to become "that kind of people" or live with the consequences. There is some good old dysfunctional family denialism, and there's can't-happen-here-ism, nobody's-that-stupid-ism, blind-hope-ism, ignorance-of-what's-at-stake-ism, no-way-ism, and some outright honest fear.

There is faith in it too. We are Americans and we've always believed that was enough to save us. I am 79 years old and it has always been there. Even in the 1960s when we were rabidly protesting the Vietnam War, the draft, the government itself, the various ills brought on by segregation, gender inequality, abortion rights and anything else we could think of (and I could be as rabid and frothing as the rest), we did it because we had a most often unacknowledged but deeply embedded faith that no matter how things were thrown off course, turned upside down, burned, trashed and smashed, the system we have known all of our lives would allow it to be fixed. That is why we could "misbehave" with such enthusiasm.

Presidents come and go, Democrats and Republicans come and go, Supreme Courts rule this way and that way but they come and go too, protests come and go too. But Americans are who we are. Things are what they are, democracy is what it is, things drift left and right but there are constant course corrections. This is our known world. It is the faith of our fathers who fought to save the world and democracy -- and told us and told us and told us they had saved it all for us. We believed it.

Now to do more than vote will require us to test it and perhaps lose it to save it.

There will be violence involved. Admit it. Prepare for it. Do it. It's an honest human response.

Kamala Harris will never get to where we want her to be if we can do no more than say, "We are not that kind of people." It is likely to take an army of "that kind of people" to save us and our democracy.

I lost my faith on the way to reality. Now, here I am. I am that kind of people. Who will give the marching orders and who will march? We must know these things before election day.

 

HARRIS IGNORES TRUMP'S FLESH WOUND

President Joe Biden bit the bullet for democracy. Donald Trump got a flesh wound.

Biden wisely and heroically decided Americans want a president who is not a president he can be. His real job is being president not running for president.

Kamala Harris is running like she means it. And the Republicans
must know it because they are calling her names. They can’t use the
unseemly N-word so they use “DEI hire.” It’s the N-word. Trump
mispronounces her name and says he is not going to be “nice.” Name-
calling won’t stop her.

Harris knows Trump is not bulletproof. It was only a flesh wound: an
oops, an owie, a boo-boo. Now he is the official Republican Party pick to
run, a convicted felon with mangy morals, a confirmed liar and instigator of an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6. It’s a FLESH
WOUND. So give him a band-aid, send thoughts and prayers
(Republicans like thoughts and prayers) and get on with it. Trump got a
photo-op with a bullet. He got lucky, not because the bullet missed him but because it came close.

Biden’s response to Trump’s shooting? “This is not who we are.” He had a thermostat moment in the Oval Office and said the political
temperature should be “lowered.” He spoke apologetically, seriously,
words of kindness, conciliation, unity and peace. He responded like the
fine old liberal he is – and like a visitor from another time and place.
Harris and the Democrats have nothing to apologize for.

There was absolutely no need for Biden to kiss Trump’s boo-boo,
no need to take those campaign ads off the air for a couple of days. Biden should have used that moment to go from hoping to be the un-Trump savior of democracy to becoming the man who intended to be President again. He understands what it means to govern; he understands that the world is a complicated and nuanced place to live. But good governance, a strong record, quiet diplomacy, and let’s-get-together moments will not defeat Trump.

We are who we are. We cannot help ourselves. This IS who we are:
a nation of citizens in camo outfits with itchy trigger fingers. The violent
dimensions of the battlefield were established openly by Trump on Jan. 6, 2020, when he filled the Capitol building with his own camo-and-ammo boys with ready access to weapons, sweaty trigger fingers, blind hatred of Nancy Pelosi, a noose for Mike Pence, and a little poop to spread on the walls. They are Trump’s heroes and martyrs and he likes the way they sing. He insists these jailhouse canaries are patriots but many of them are simply his fellow felons.

Since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the Constitution there
have been acts and threats of violence against various elected officials,
election officials, their families and others. There was a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; Peolsi’s husband was smashed with a hammer; a Georgia election official and her daughter faced physical threats from election deniers. There have been hints and innuendos of violence from Trump himself. He likes to make people believe his followers are armed to the teeth and ready to save him. And that he must be saved. Will he accept the election results? Well, yes, if he wins. And if he loses? His followers agree that them’s fightin’ words. Trump encourages it. And a state senator in Ohio said it out loud at a recent J.D. Vance rally: “I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.” He added it’s great to have “Bikers for Trump on our side.”

He said later he was sorry, but we all know threats of civil war mean never having to say you are sorry. Not these days.

But in the windmill of Trump’s mind bullets fly only one way. It’s
how a man who spent lots of his life staying as far from combat as
possible sees it. The truth: People shoot and other people shoot back.
Even a slightly wounded warrior should know that.

Donald Trump intends to be president again.

If he is elected it’s a problem; if he is not elected it’s another kind of
problem. But he has made his intentions clear. However it happens there
will be no logic in it. No one will come to their senses. The Trump faithful
are true believers and true believers do not come to their senses. Trump
fills up their senses. Some even believe he has been ordained by the-
God-who-fits-their-needs-these-days to be president.

Trump is a convicted felon with squalid values. Some of his followers have taken to proudly wearing t-shirts reading: “I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon.” They don’t care about his values or squalidness. He has made threats and alluded to the possibility of violence. He praises the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as heroes. Immigration and the Mexican border are a problem that needs resolution. Yes. But he has chosen to turn immigrants into a dark menace and at least twice in recent days he has warned that those dark masses are showing up to take away the jobs of black Americans. He claims to know many black people, yet he always makes sure white people (especially armed, Bibled-up white people) know that he and God are on their side. He has mentioned his fear and belief that the next election will be snatched away from him, stolen in 2024 as he has convinced followers it was stolen in 2020. He has warned that such an effort already is under way already. And if that happens? One gray-haired Christian said ominously in a recent television interview, “It won’t be like last time.” And who’s to say the Supreme Court won’t back a Trump power grab? It’s his court. Are the cops his as well? And how deeply are his loyalists embedded in the military? He says there is a conspiracy afoot. Conspiracy is lurking. Everywhere. All the time.

In a July 24 speech Trump said he’s “not going to be nice.” Harris
believes he’s not the nicest sort of felon to begin with. She intends to be
president. She has hit the campaign trail running hard and ready to
rumble. It’s clear Biden was running low on rumble. And that’s what it will
take. Harris needs to rumble toward the nomination and the presidency.
And leave the dithering and doddering to the septuagenarian candidate.

WRITING THINGS DOWN

 

I proceed into the future

One word at a time

It's only way

I know how

to do it

        8/6/24