Either the purpose of government is to deliver practical compassion -- or it is to line the pockets of swashbuckling grifters like Elon Musk and deranged crooks like Donald Trump.
Here's the story of one woman who found out who was on her side -- and wants us to know whose side she's on.
Some observations on the presidential election from historian Heather Cox Richardson:
... Trump’s campaign seems to be deliberately pushing the comparisons to historic American fascism by announcing that Trump will hold a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on October 27, an echo of a February 1939 rally held there by American Nazis in honor of President George Washington’s birthday. More than 20,000 people showed up for the “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.Trump’s full-throated embrace of Nazi “race science” and fascism is deadly dangerous, but there is something notable about Trump’s recent rallies that undermines his claims that he is winning the 2024 election. Trump is not holding these rallies in the swing states he needs to win but rather is holding them in states—Colorado, California, New York—that he is almost certain to lose by a lot.
Nazi enthusiasts march into Madison Square Garden, 1939
Longtime Republican operative Matthew Bartlett told Matt Dixon and Allan Smith of NBC News: “This does not seem like a campaign putting their candidate in critical vote-rich or swing vote locations—it seems more like a candidate who wants his campaign to put on rallies for optics and vibes.”
Trump seems eager to demonstrate that he is a strongman, a dominant candidate, when in fact he has refused another debate with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and backed out of an interview with 60 Minutes. He has refused to release a medical report although his mental acuity is a topic of concern as he rambles through speeches and seems entirely untethered from reality. And as Harris turns out larger numbers for her rallies in swing states than he does, he appears to be turning bloodthirsty in Democratic areas.
Today, Harris told a rally of her own in North Carolina: “[Trump] is not being transparent…. He refuses to release his medical records. I've done it. Every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a 60 Minutes interview like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. He is unwilling to meet for a second debate…. It makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away?... Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America? Is that what’s going on?”
“For these reasons and so many more,” she said, “it is time to turn the page.”
The political professionals who are running Trump's campaign are trying to compensate for their candidate's obvious deterioration by pouring resources into the seven states whose outcome will decide the Electoral College. I wouldn't be surprised if they like having him out of the way, fulminating threateningly somewhere else.
If you live in one of the swing states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona or Nevada -- you are seeing Republican anti-Harris ads in every medium. You might even be seeing a Republican canvasser, usually paid by Elon Musk, though the union and Democratic field programs seem much more robust.
If you don't live in one of those places, you can still do your bit against our cosplay fake Nazi. You don't even have to travel to help Harris. Join the UniteHERE union phone bank and make calls to voters from home.
There was plenty of wisdom, plenty of determination, plenty of delight, and plenty of laughs to share.
We have arrived at the stage in the seemingly interminable election when, after all the ads, and phone calls, and the flood of mail, it's voter-to-voter contact that seals the deal. In the places where there are close contests -- nationally the seven presidential battleground states, but also innumerable local races we hear less about -- it's the people talking with people that make this season our semi-annual festival of democratic engagement with the country's better aspirations.
So here's a canvassing story from suburban Pennsylvania, by @MattHardigree, grabbed from Xitter.
I door-knocked today for the Harris campaign in Bucks County, PA, one of the most important counties in one of the most important states. I've done a lot of door-knocking in a lot of elections, including this cycle, but what I saw definitely changed my view of this race.
Of course, this is just a single day covering about 90-100 doors. But it was also a persuasion run. We were hitting Ds but also had a list that included Independents and even a few Republicans who were considered possibly persuadable. Only had one pro-Trump door the whole day.
This isn't what I expected. This is a 50/50 county and the part we were in skewed Republican. My cousins Joe and Deb, who are wonderful, help organize this area and know their community well. It's a good community full of hardworking, nice folk, but it's not an easy one for Dems.
When I got there I saw a lot of Trump signs. Their [his cousin's] house stood out because it had a giant Harris-Walz sign, albeit one that was slashed by three men in hoodies a few nights before. It's a street fight out here.
The first neighborhood we hit was a fairly representative middle-class part of the county. We saw a mix of Harris and Trump signs, though more Trump signs. And, sure enough, the first door I knocked there was an older woman who told me "Democrats are ruining this country."
"Ah!" I thought, "it's going to be one of THOSE kinds of days." I wished her a nice day and went to the next house. I had a few nice interactions, a few people weren't home, and then I went to a door to find an older gentleman. He'd passed away and his wife was a lifelong R.
She wasn't on my list, but she was all-in on Harris. She couldn't imagine anyone voting for Trump. This was the first time I heard this from a Republican, but it wouldn't be the last time. The more doors I hit, the more Republicans or former Republicans I met who said the same.
I met an older Jewish gun-owner, a Republican who became Independent in January 2020. I met parents who were registered Republicans but whose daughters became engaged and persuaded them to vote Harris. They asked me to put up a yard sign for them.
I was surprised that the Republicans and Independents were actually the most excited about the election and felt strongly about voting for Harris. Democrats were mostly split into two groups: Older women and younger families.
Older women are extremely active and looking for a fight. At one door I was looking for the daughter and the mom asked me if I was there for Harris or Trump. I said Harris and she said "Good! I keep getting mail from Trump and I keep ripping it up!"
She was hilarious and had whipped her family into caring about voting. She even had her mail ballot and was going to return it to a drop box so she made sure her vote counted. These are high propensity voters and they're voting early.
And they also want signs, partially because they don't want to be intimidated by their Trump-supporting neighbors. This is pretty much the opposite of the experience I had with young Dems and Dem families.
Younger Dems, especially those with kids, are calling relatives and getting people to vote but they're also more nervous. Very few wanted signs and multiple people told me it was because they were afraid of their "Trumper neighbors." All the signs made them nervous.
The next neighborhood seemed slightly more upper-middle-class and signs were about 50/50 when we got there, but more Harris tilted when we left.
Overall (TL/DR), Dems are motivated, not a single Independent was voting for Trump and instead voting for Harris, moderate Republicans were all voting Harris. Other than the first door I didn't meet a single Trump voter.
Dems are active and voting by mail ballot and taking nothing by chance. There are a lot of Trump signs and I think it'll still be close, but a lot of people were happy to tell me they were voting Harris even if they didn't want their neighbors to know.
Some observations on this story:
• Campaign organizers hate election signs. They are bulky to store and distribute. The presence of many of them doesn't promise you'll win an area. But signs matter to voters who need to express themselves as in this neighborhood.
• In our present moment, it's often older women who are carrying the struggle for the Dems. We've had it. We won't go back!
• You can call what these guys are encountering "Republicans for Harris" but you can also just call it realignment. Middle class, sane, white Republicans are becoming Dems in the suburbs, much to the their own surprise.
The nation is in a race between grievance and hope for the future -- who will prevail?
In the wake of this cultural breach, we still live and struggle against vicious enemies who would like to wipe out feminism's achievements -- yes, I'm talking about you Mr. Vance.
From Bingham's introduction:
In 1963, a twenty-year-old American woman could not expect to run a marathon, or play varsity sports in college. She could only dream of becoming a doctor, scientist, news reporter, lawyer, labor leader, factory foreman, college professor, or elected official. She couldn't get a prescription for birth control, have a legal abortion, come out as a lesbian, or prosecute her rapist. She almost certainly knew nothing about clitoral orgasm or women's history. She could not get a credit card, let alone a mortgage, without the imprimatur of her husband or father. By 1973, the doors to these options and opportunities had cracked open, and a women turning twenty in 1973 faced a future of possibilities that no generation before had ever experienced.
... This generation of women, as one feminist wrote, found "an opening in history." ... The women in this history [in The Movement] speak in their own words and tell their own stories.Bingham has done a remarkably coherent job in twenty-one short chapters of organizing these testimonies into an understandable narrative of struggle and accomplishment. I read the book on audio and found this performance sensitively done and perfect for the subject matter.
(If, like me, you actually know some of the women quoted, it can be a little jarring to hear the voices of actors instead of the women themselves, but go with the flow. On balance, it works.)
• • •
I think The Movement generation of feminists should be encouraged by the fire that still burns among many young women today even if their life experiences have been so very different. Jessica Grose writes a column for the New York Times that focuses on the travails of the 20-30 set; that focus in itself is a breach from the before-the-feminist-revolution times. Of the youngest women, she describes the gender gap in politics:
What’s changed is that young women have more of a voice. According to Deckman’s research, Gen Z women are more politically active than their male counterparts — a major historical shift, as men have heretofore been more politically active than women.
The reason that the gender gap in voting seems so pronounced is not because young men have become dramatically more conservative. It’s because of the political galvanization of the young women who came of age during the #MeToo movement, watching Donald Trump remain the leader of the Republican Party despite numerous credible accusations of sexual misconduct against him, and witnessing the fall of Roe v. Wade.
“For Gen Z women, women’s equality has become a defining issue of what they care about and how they perceive politics,” Deckman, who is also the chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, told me. She quotes a female student from the University of Maryland who told her in a focus group that “Trump winning just kind of scared us all to our cores.” The woman added: “My rights are being threatened and just walking down the street I am being threatened, and I need to do something.”Petula Dvorak is even more emphatic in the Washington Post. "The 2016 election crushed the girls. Now women, they’re revenge voting." [Gift article.]
Somehow, I don't think the effort among conservatives to sell young Christians on Queen Esther is likely to successfully compete. But they are sure trying.
Alongside workers in the hospitality industries -- hotels, airports, etc. -- organized by their union UniteHERE, volunteers have been calling the battlegound state of Pennsylvania this week. Specifically, the state capital Harrisburg. It's a learning experience.
Obviously, our main aim is supporting VP Kamala Harris, but there's more at stake here. Such as, the state's Congressional District 10.
The Los Angeles Times' David Lauter highlighted this contest in a column entitled "All politics local? Not in this election".
... The former head of the House Freedom Caucus, Perry is one of the few members of that far-right group to represent a closely divided district, rather than one that is solidly Republican.
Since first being elected in 2012, Perry has won five times, but in recent years, his district has grown more Democratic. Republicans have lost ground in the suburbs of Harrisburg, the state capital, and across the Susquehanna River to the west, where the growing population of Cumberland County is increasingly Democratic.
As the district has changed, Perry has become an increasingly uncomfortable fit.
According to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot, he took a prominent part in meetings with Trump advisors on efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. In 2022, FBI agents seized his cellphone as part of the investigation into the election plot. In 2023, after Republicans took control of the House, he was one of the 20 far-right lawmakers who repeatedly held up Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker.
His opponent, Stelson, worked for 38 years as a television reporter and anchor for stations in the area. That’s given her wide, favorable name recognition.
“The viewers have gotten to know me as a trusted, nonpartisan voice,” she said during the debate, contrasting her pragmatism with Perry, whom she characterized as “the chief obstructionist” in a Congress that has accomplished little.
A former registered Republican, Stelson says she decided to run for office after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe vs. Wade and ended the nationwide guarantee of abortion rights.
Stelson repeatedly hit Perry for his past backing of a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions.
The decision over ending a pregnancy should be left to women and their doctors, she said.
“There’s no reason why Scott Perry knows better than they do what to do with their own bodies in their most intimate decisions.” ...
It's hard to knock off a sitting Congressperson, but just maybe, thanks to women rebelling against being told what to do and support like the national phonebank, Stelson may pull an upset.
Phone banking isn't glamorous or even always fun, though often interesting. But when enough of us work together, we win.
This past week I had the satisfying experience of calling into Charlotte, North Carolina, with the national UniteHERE election phonebank.
(You too can do this. UniteHERE is the union of people who change beds and serve drinks in hotels. And they know BS when they see it. They are working predominantly in PA and NV, though this day they were supporting a People to the Polls canvass in NC.)
Interestingly, the North Carolina voters didn't much talk about Hurricane Helene, but they did know there was an upcoming election.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has been reporting from North Carolina:
As if the good people of North Carolina haven’t suffered enough lately, they also have to worry about this: a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that tortures and kills children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome.
Or so believes the Republican candidate to be the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Michele Morrow.
“The evil, demon-possessed people who worship Satan have been using this to try to keep their youth,” Morrow said in a video she posted on Facebook in 2020. “They’ve been using it as a drug that is more powerful than street drugs. … It is gotten through children who are being tortured and know that they are about to die. Guys, this is deep, it is evil, and it is real. It is truly happening, and we have got to stop it.” Among those she has identified as adrenochrome users is the actor Jim Carrey.
And this is not the only shocking discovery made by Morrow. Just a couple of weeks ago, she informed the public that the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!” ...And that's not all about Morrow:
But here’s the truly crazy thing: Morrow has an even chance to become the state’s top educator. A poll by Raleigh-based WRAL last month found that she is in a statistical tie with her Democratic opponent.
I've had Aaron's sign in my front window for weeks. This is the most interesting contest on my California ballot. I'd sure prefer Aaron to any of the alternatives!
London Breed has been a terrible mayor -- corrupt, partial to our tech
and real estate overlords, and inept. Mark Farrell is for practical
purposes a Republican who has to run as a Democrat in this Left Coast
city, beholden to a bunch of billionaires who think they ought to run
the world -- and who, like Elon Musk, show themselves incompetent in
public life. Daniel Lurie seems a nice man, but being a Levi's heir and
non-profit exec doesn't prepare a person to be mayor of San Francisco.
Ahsha Safai was a good enough county supervisor from a part of the city
everyone neglects -- but can't make a dent.
You will be horrified to learn that City voters are offered a menu of A through O propositions to make choices on. I'm being polite when I say this seems excessive.
I can tell you what I did. My research was not exhaustive -- nor, I suspect will hardly anyone else's be.
Prop A. Money for maintenance and upgrades to aging school buildings. YES
Prop B. Money for necessary improvements to San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda and community health projects and parks. YES
Prop. C. Creates an Office of The Inspector General in the Controller’s Office. Since the current mayoral administration has been notably corrupt, this is an attempt at a corrective. We need something. Two of the incumbent mayor's senior staff are already in prison, and likely there will be more. Will a new Inspector General help? Maybe. Something in addition to federal prosecutions seems necessary. YES
Prop. D. Gives the mayor additional powers over the City's maze of commissions and boards. Our governance is a mess, but centralizing these things in the mayor's office seems more likely to hide their workings than to help. NO
Prop. E. Creates a task force to study the maze of commissions and boards. Seems more likely than Prop. D to utilize community input, but I find it hard to be enthusiastic.YES (I guess.)
Prop. F. San Francisco has a cop shortage. To try to incentivize senior police officers to stay on the job past their retirement date, this would give them their retirement pay plus their continued regular salaries. Seems like a heck of a boondoggle to me. It was a boondoggle when the Secret Service tried the same thing. NO
Prop. G. Rent subsidies for very, very, very low income seniors already in "affordable housing". What are we going to do? -- put 'em out to sea on an iceberg? YES
Prop. H. Earlier retirement (age 55) with full benefits for firefighters. The politics of the firefighters unions are a plague on the City, but I can go for this one. It's a tough job, keeping us from burning up. YES
Prop. I. Include per diem nurses and 911 operators in the regular city pension and benefit system. YES
Prop. J. Gives the mayor and the superintendent of schools more power to oversee the spending of the Children’s Fund. Can't figure out what this one does and the ballot pamphlet contains no arguments. Some of the more progressive Supes have signed on. YES (I guess.)
• • •
I shared my reactions to the California State ballot measures here.
