Blog#209-7/23/24
HOPE RESTORED
By Richard Davis
It seemed like the Democrats were facing a gamble that might not be worth taking. Could Joe Biden really beat Trump after so many of his party allies called for him to step down? The problems that he displayed were clearly not going away and they provided too much fuel for a vindictive opponent to burn a candidate at the stake.
Biden did something that Trump would never do. He looked at the situation objectively and listened to a lot of people and he put his own needs aside and made a decision that was best for the country. The real embodiment of what it means to be a mensch and a true patriot.
Now we have Kamala Harris as the heir apparent. I was never really excited about the possibility of a Harris run for president but when Biden made his announcement I felt a sudden sense of relief. I felt a level of hopefulness that I have not experienced from politics in a long time. This reaction surprised me.
I hope that if Harris ends up being her party’s nominee that she can show this country why Trump should not be president and why she is the best person to be in charge.
The election will be close no matter who is the Democratic candidate and they have to go after Trump head on.
The fact that Harris was a prosecutor, serving as a District Attorney and Attorney General in California, gives her a great deal of credibility when it comes to making the legal case for the prosecution of Trump. That will be a strong suit for her and I hope she can use that experience to show the American people why justice should prevail in all of the legal battles that Trump faces. She needs to make it clear why a convicted felon should not be in the White House.
The fact that a woman is now so close to the presidency should be of comfort to at least half of the country. The United States is long overdue to have a woman president. Hillary Clinton had her chance and she blew it. Harris has learned from that debacle and she is in an excellent position to use her gender as a reason why she should be elected.
Harris has been touring the country and talking a lot about the blow to women that happened when Roe v. Wade was overturned. If she is elected she will not be able to appoint enough new Supreme Court justices to change the balance of power in the now right-wing court. But she can be a strong advocate for helping states move in a direction that returns control of women’s bodies back to women. Having that kind of advocate in the White House is no small thing.
Of course Harris will be blamed for any shortcomings that the Republicans think that Biden had. She has some cover being Vice President, but she should be able to use Biden’s major accomplishments to her benefit. She also needs to outline a new course, a course that she will plot in her administration.
If Harris can create a new political identity for herself, one that is positive and that marginalizes the nastiness of a would-be dictator and if she can clearly articulate the danger to this country if Trump is elected then she can become the new leader of the free world. She needs to make the distinction between dictator and president clear.
The best hope for a win for the Democrats is if people turn out in large numbers to vote. We still have a democracy and if we want that to continue we need to vote in large numbers. Otherwise, this country will head in a direction that will harm the entire world.
Interesting palace intrigue, if nothing else
The Dems selected Biden not because they thought he had the best chance against Trump, but because he was best positioned to crush Bernie Sanders. [1] They knew his brain was mush back then, as did anyone who watched a video of 2020 Biden back-to-back with one from 2016 or, heaven forbid, 2012. Now after crooked primary processes in 2016 and 2020 (the Dems successfully argued in court that they were not required to run fair primaries[2]), the Dems bypassed a democratic primary in 2024 in order to install perhaps the least popular candidate from 2020, one who was polling below 5% in her own state. It’s more straightforward at least to have voting just canceled this time around, instead of the charades of 2016 and 2020.
Voters should remember when Harris was dismantled live on stage by Tulsi Gabbard of all people[3], simply by pointing out Harris’s deliberate efforts to keep innocent, exonerated people on death row, and to imprison people past the end of their sentences to provide cheap labor. It was especially amazing that Harris was so gobsmacked and unable to defend herself in that moment. The charges Gabbard made (all true) were laid out ~6 months before in detailed reporting in blue-team-friendly media[4] and represented an obvious and predictable line of attack. According to her staffers, Harris blew off planning meetings where possible defenses were laid out, and then raged at her staff after footage of her exchange with Gabbard (rightly) further sunk her campaign.
What’s interesting is why the Dems – who knew about Biden’s melted brain for years – decided to abandon him and install Harris at this particular moment, in chaotic and undemocratic fashion.
I don’t think there’s much to be hopeful about here. Trump will probably win, or maybe he won’t. Either way we’ll have no meaningful action to fix global warming. We won’t have universal healthcare, even though the Koch brothers (!) think it would be cheaper and better. Trump began privatizing Medicare; Biden and the Dems doubled down. Trump cut taxes on rich people; the Dems didn’t raise them. The Gaza genocide will continue, even though America could stop it tomorrow by cutting off ammo and money, just with enthusiastic cheerleading by red team or meaningless tut-tutting by blue team.
[1]: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/joe-biden-bernie-sanders-democrats-2020-primary-trump/
[2]: https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-CRrMDSLs
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html
PS: Harris the prosecutor
> The fact that Harris was a prosecutor, serving as a District Attorney and Attorney General in California, gives her a great deal of credibility
(Hilariously?) Her record here may help her with Republicans: she fought to keep people she knew were innocent on death row, and kept people, many of them non-white, locked up past the end of their sentences for – in her words – “cheap labor”.
https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-keep-nonviolent-prisoners-locked-up/
She also killed investigations into catholic church pedos due to them being big power brokers in her area.
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/
We didn’t vote for her, but we’re stuck with her.
If Harris wins, won't the Republicans block her certification?
Unlike 2020, when only a few Congressional Republicans refused to recognize the election of president Biden, there seems to be little doubt that many Republican-dominated state legislatures will certify phony electors, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Republican members of Congress and Republican U.S. Senators.
What then?
Richard and Grumpy are both right
I think hope was restored for people that had lost hope that Biden could win in November. The chance of losing decreased, at least for the moment.
But, hope was not restored for people who want to see the world get better through different policies and ethics. A choice between more center-right Democratic issues, or far-right Project 2025 issues, should not be the only options.