There's something about the women ...

Since Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, it's been fun for your vacationing campaigners (that's EP and I) to read about an outpouring of enthusiasm, anchored by women. We feared this was going to be a death march against impending MAGA fascism -- ethically necessary, but entirely defensive rather than uplifting.

They met in January as veteran campaigners do. They knew they would have to take up this fight for decency and sanity. I hope most can now share the new hope

Apparently there are plenty of people who are now feeling engaged. 44,000 Black women jammed a zoom call. 40,000 new voter registrations -- most likely young people -- in one day. 

Sure, there will be bumps in the road; many of us will wish Kamala were more able to break free from the inclinations of the administration which brought her here. 

But she gives us a chance. When you've been terrified you were condemned to a MAGA world, the relief is energizing.

Frank Bruni of the NYTimes catches some of this: 

... [Women] still don’t enjoy full equality with men in America, but we sure have been leaning on them lately to save American democracy. The appallingly stymied attempts to hold Trump responsible for his crimes have rested largely on the efforts of women, a few of whom did vanquish him in court, as my Times Opinion colleague Jessica Bennett noted in an essay in April. She did a roll call of his pursuers: “Letitia James. Fani Willis. E. Jean Carroll, and her lawyer Roberta Kaplan. And, of course, Stormy Daniels. The five women who are living rent-free in Mr. Trump’s mind these days.”

I’d add “crazy Nancy Pelosi” — Trump is still regularly calling her that, unable to purge her from his thoughts — to the list. (Jessica wrote about Pelosi in an essay this week.) Also former Representative Liz Cheney: Nobody on the House panel investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, was more forceful or impassioned than she was in exposing Trump’s actions and inaction on that day. She, too, squats somewhere in Trump’s gray matter, so much so that he recently amplified social media posts that accused her of treason and urged that she be subjected to a televised military tribunal.

... Women’s reproductive rights are in the foreground of this presidential election, Harris is practiced and eloquent in her defense of them, and that could widen a gender gap in a way that works to Democrats’ advantage. Women voters could be the barricade between Trump and that first-day dictatorship.

Also, as my Times colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote recently, and as I discussed with two prominent Democrats in a conversation published on Wednesday, women opponents bring out the ugliest in Trump. Harris will quickly take up residence with Pelosi, Cheney and the gang.

And Trump will have to build an annex, maybe to his frontal or occipital lobe, to accommodate the sorority.

Unless the law gets further twisted to accommodate Trump's crimes, New York State Judge Merchan has now scheduled sentencing in his hush money felonies for September 18. 

It's the crook v. the prosecutor now -- and she's a girl!

*Title borrowed from the 1970s "women's movement" anthem.

Thank you Joe Biden; bring on Kamala Harris. And Nancy delivers again.

So our Democratic leaders have, at length, led. We can now get on with the business of trouncing MAGA. The dis-eased and depleted state of the nation may defeat us, but the majority of us still have a chance to live to struggle another day for hope, justice, civil compassion and government of the people.

Many of us have watched in horror for the past three weeks as the Democratic Party, through whose big tent we are forced to work, has seemed mired in indecision and in desperate need of a generational transition. Well, we've begun one.

In this moment I want to bring forward a bit of almost forgotten San Francisco history. My Congresscritter, the former Speaker and still Party wisewoman Nancy Pelosi, first came into office through a managed generational transition not so different than the one we are seeing now.  She knows how this goes.

In the 1960s and '70s, San Francisco was represented in Congress by Phil Burton, a liberal giant whose legislative efforts included civil rights, environmental protection, disability rights, and the struggle for health care for all. And then, at in 1983 at age 56, a ruptured aortic embolism killed this man on the move. His wife Sala Burton slid into the safe Democratic seat and served two terms, before succumbing to colon cancer in 1987. The shocking Burton transitions left many progressive Californians unmoored.

Nancy Pelosi was a prominent California Democratic leader, a powerhouse fundraiser. But she had not ever held elective office herself. As Sala Burton was dying, Pelosi came away with her death bed endorsement for the San Francisco Congressional seat. Oh, now this Pacific Heights lady wants to be in Congress?

Not all San Franciscans were ready to jump on what seemed an anti-Democratic dynastic transition. The city was then full of left activists, supporters of revolutions in Central America, of affordable housing for all, and particularly of gay and lesbian AIDS campaigners, desperately trying to force the murderous epidemic onto the national agenda. In the special election held to replace Sala Burton, these forces combined behind gay Supervisor Harry Britt. Nancy consolidated the money, the party regulars, and the politically active unions; Nancy wiped the floor with Harry. (I know. I did some door knocking for poor Harry.)

In the end, Pelosi has been a magnificent Democratic Party leader. From her safe seat in San Francisco, she has served her true constituency, her fractious party. Those of us who cast ballots for her are just extras in her Party drama -- but mostly she's been good for the broad progressive project. 

I feel confident that she has had a strong role in the Biden to Harris transition. This sort of thing is her political meat and potatoes and her political genius. Thanks again, Nancy -- I feel sure you have been in the middle of getting us here.

As we try to take in the changes we're riding though ...

... we can enjoy this remarkable art.

I find this creature very soothing. More later.

We already decided this -- we don't like kings

David Rothkopf writes a Substack, Need to Know, which is both hilariously funny (follow the link) -- and wise. He offers these reassuring reflections after watching the Republican convention. 

... The GOP, after all, are not just the party of Trump. They are also the party promoting the idea of the “unitary executive,” a monarch-like president around who sits atop a government that answers to him. Democrats on the other hand recognize or should recognize that the senior most position in our system of government is the citizen, the voter. The president works for us. He or she is accountable to us. That is one of the main reasons the Revolutionary War was fought and it is a concept that Americans have defended with their lives for the past nearly 250 years.

... The Democratic Party is therefore not only not all about our president or presidential candidate of the moment. To succeed, it must be about a large group of professionals committed to shared ideals and goals working to serve a much, much larger group of bosses—the public at large. We should not be, must not become, a party that places loyalty to any one individual ahead of the mission that has brought us all together, that has made what we agree on far more important than our disagreements but must also make a respectful hearing of those disagreements a central part of how we serve a profoundly diverse society.

They have taken blended their cult of personality with their authoritarian impulses and brought this country to the brink of autocracy. (Or returned us to it. After all, as I noted before, that was the state we rebelled against in the first place.) We Democrats ultimately offer the better answer for the country precisely because we are not about any one individual, we are not about blind loyalty to one person’s ideas. We are about capturing and embodying the spirit of democracy of finding a way to serve the many by representing, listening to, acting on behalf the many.

What Democrats are going through now is all good. It is just what we should be discussing. It will make us stronger. It is absolutely certain we all share and will work for the goal of defeating Trump. And that brings me to my last point. Which is I believe we will win in November and not just by a little and, just as importantly, I know we will be ready to better serve the people of this country than the alternative offered by the other cult-like party.

We haven't always, or even often, been a good country. But we were founded with a glimmer of hope for something novel and good. Now our "leaders" need to stop dillydallying and we the people need to get to work. No kings here.

Next post will turn to vacation pictures -- when I can get online again.

Before the railroads, there were canals

England's industrial innovations in the 1700s and early 1800s wouldn't have changed the world (and enriched capitalist entrepreneurs much like the tech moguls of today) if moving product had continued to depend on horses and wagons. And so, the country developed a network of small canals. In the mid-1800s, these water ways were rendered obsolete by railways, but many remain intact and boaters navigate them on what are called narrowboats, barely 7 feet wide and as much as 60 feet long.

The Erudite Partner and I have just enjoyed two weeks on the Llangollen, Trent and Mersey, and Bridgewater Canals, accompanying her brother who is moving such a boat north for its owner. Some pictures:

Would that more days were this bright and clear! Fog and wind in San Francisco is good preparation for an English summer. But when the sun breaks through, a glimpse of "England's green and pleasant land."

Along the shore, small business eke out a living from the traffic.

 

Passing through larger towns, the canal can become somewhat crowded.

 

Then back to quiet and solitude.

 

The canals made transport possible by using locks to raise and lower boats over the rises in the terrain.

 

Boaters operate the paddles at each lock, opening and closing off the water, sometimes with advice from local volunteers. These two women were learning the drill. Erudite Partner and I cranked through dozens of locks while Captain Josh drove.

This is what it looks like from the boat while passing inside a lock.

 

Where a canal encountered substantial rises, the builders dug tunnels. Boaters have to approach with caution; the tunnels are only barely wider and higher than a single boat. On long tunnels entry is timed -- first north bound gets 20 minutes, then the south bound boats take their short turn. Here's what a tunnel entrance looks like:

That's a short one. Sometimes there are curves and some are as long as a mile. Here's what this one looks like while inside.

 

A towpath runs along the canal and serves walkers and runners well, though it is largely uncrowded.

 

Let me close with a pic of E.P. taking the helm.

 

The narrowboat made for an easy and enjoyable adventure. We disembarked near Manchester, leaving Josh to finish his journey with a new crew. We are now on to the Lake Country. More when I have connection and thoughts.

No wonder violence came for Donald

Still out of the country for another two weeks, but able to get online for a brief comment.

Again he dominates our heads. 

Donald Trump traffics in delight in violence. A convenient list via Jay Kuo.

• Trump urged supporters at rallies to beat up protestors. 

• He called for Black Lives Matter rioters to be shot.  

• He used racist language to inflame hate and hate-based attacks against Asian American during the pandemic.  

• He made fun of the brutal attack upon Nancy Pelosi’s husband.  

• He mocked the notion that radicals had plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.  

• His words helped inspire racist mass shooters in Buffalo and El Paso.  

• He approved of chants to “Hang Mike Pence.”  And he incited the violent January 6 attack upon the Capitol.

No wonder violence came for him. That's how the world works. We quite often get what we live by.

The MAGAs work to enable every idiot in the country to run around with weapons of war and then wonder why people, including their Orange Totem, get shot.

I guess I'm glad this incident didn't kill him, but if that broken boy's aim had been better, I'd still think Trump got what he asked for.

Too many MAGAs have put American democracy, the rule of law, and human decency in their gun sites. Most of us aren't among the gun-obsessed nor do we wish to stomp on the freedoms, and the people themselves, with whom we coexist, however uncomfortably at times. 

We still have the choice to practice diligent voting and compassionate justice activism.

And we can be kind to each other, seeking to sow better fruit and a better future. That is all.

• • •

Meanwhile there were the inadvertent casualties, the spectators killed and maimed as forced participants in a spectacle. The frolics of cruelty leave their victims.

• • •

I came of age in 1968, during the last era of directly political American violence. We've forgotten how good we've had it.

On vacay as the USofA simmers, literally and politically.

Take care of things, folks.

Our once and future king?

So says the Supreme Court majority. 

Are we going to put up with these black-robed partisans anointing a monarch? That's not our tradition.

I will now resume my vacation, writing from London where they set some precedents about what to do about kings who care only for themselves. Doubt that DJT knows about that. That was a messy process... not something anyone wants to live.

Blog and blogger on break for the month of July

Narrowboat, By RHaworth - Own work, Wikipedia

I'll be on one of these on English canals for a couple of weeks with Erudite Partner and her brother, moving it for the owner. We've seen pictures -- it looks pretty cushy. After that, several destinations in the UK.

Unless something earth shattering occurs, I'll try to stay off this blog -- but who knows? We never do know what to expect these difficult days.

Biden fights back

This is running in the battleground states. That's what they do with all that money they keep asking for. Will it help? It might. 

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

The test ahead

George Conway [@gtconway3d] used to be married to Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump's ubiquitous liar to media, she of the "alternative facts."

In consequence, he found himself spending time in proximity to the Orange Madman in 2016 and '17 (that was before his divorce.)

He's a surprisingly complicated observer. Here arehis thoughts on our challenge in this season of tough choices: 

Source unknown; someone's Twitter

... Trump embodies the worst in *all* of us. For we are all human.

Trump revels in and glorifies our worst human traits: self-absorption, greed, mendacity, vindictiveness, ignorance, and so much else. He embodies all that we should aspire, and teach our children, not to be.

Worse yet, he gives permission for others to be their worst selves. And that is the ultimate danger he poses. He’s a threat to truth, honor, reason, and decency.

And that’s mostly without regard to policy—remember, Trump’s party is the party without a policy platform—although it does have implications for policy. But those are secondary.

First and foremost, Trump and Trumpism pose a moral test, not a political test. I hope and pray and believe that our nation will pass and survive it.

We know what we have to do; opportunities to work on the election will be many. This soul-trying moment demands our all.

Selfishness in a crisis does not serve

So I watched the debate. For a good bit of it that's more than figuratively true. Seeing that Biden appeared befuddled, I turned the sound off, to see whether Trump's phony gibberish was disorienting me. Nope -- Biden as leader didn't show up. 

I'm sympathetic to the old guy. He's been a good president, achieving far more with less broad support than most in my lifetime. He's got us as far on the climate sustainability path as a very reluctant, oblivious, nation would allow. His projects lean toward better lives and inclusion for all, with necessary attention to those who have least. Not perfect, but on the side of the good. 

I've read bushels of commentary -- what a mountain of anxiety and sometimes pure BS! I'm still prepared to work in the fall at winning the battleground state of Nevada (as I have every cycle since 2018) for the Dems and Biden, if that's where we end up.

But in my heart I'm with Bill McKibben -- environmentalist, founder of the old people's mobilizing group Third Act, and Presbyterian Sunday school teacher. Here's an abbreviated bit of his reaction to the debate. 

Give Joe some room

[With Thursday's debate} ... the tectonic plates shifted. And in ways that open up the possibility not just of decisively defeating Trumpism, but of pulling the country out of the polarized death spiral we’ve fallen into. But it’s going to take a while to play out, I think—time that we should grant Joe Biden, who’s at one of those hard, interesting, decisive points that come in the course of a life and of a nation.

... What happened of course was that Biden looked feeble. Yes, Trump lied with his usual feral energy, and yes the CNN moderators were utterly inept. But both those things were givens. What wasn’t a given was Biden’s performance. He lacked the agility and the poise to handle Trump’s onslaught, and it wasn’t close.

... An ineffective Biden would be a hundred times better (and a hundred times less worse, which might be more important) than any version of Donald Trump.

But again, that’s not enough. Politics is about changing people’s minds, channeling their intuitions, organizing their moods. Communication is the main tool for that. And Biden is no longer a consistently effective communicator. He’s got good people around him, he can and has made wise decisions, I am not worried about the operation of the Republic under his care. But clearly he can no longer count on his ability to rally Americans.

... There’s no shame in that. Most people never have that ability. Biden himself has never been a great speechifier, but across his long career he has always been able to communicate an effective in-your-corner regular-guy I’ve-got-this message. He’s been reassuring. He’s been a father figure, trending towards cool grandfather. But eventually you’re a great grandfather, and your hard-working days are behind you. Which is fine. You still have plenty to contribute, but that contribution is in the form of counsel, not leadership; it’s in the form of support, not of dominance.

He’ll be reluctant to admit it, because we all are reluctant to admit, even to ourselves, the things we lose as we age. (One of the odd secrets of aging is that you really don’t feel older from the inside). ...

... And I think Biden will get this. He’s a patriot, he’s spent his life in service, he clearly understands that the country is more important than any person. So he will steel himself to the task of watching the tape of last night’s debate, and he won’t make excuses. And then he may say ‘I’ve done my part well—I rescued America from Trump and from covid. And now I have one great duty left, which is to pass on the reins. So I’m freeing up my delegates to choose someone else.’

That’s not easy to do—save for the sad example of LBJ, no one’s ever really had to. It will take courage, and self-knowledge, and it will take time. But there is some time, thank heaven. Give him some time. It’s not that far from someone deciding that they need to leave their home and move into a retirement community; it’s an admission that one time is past and another coming.

... It’s not like we [would not] have time to adjust to someone new—our current news cycle guarantees we’d know all about a Whitmer or a whoever within days, and we wouldn’t have time to grow tired of her before November. She or someone like her would unleash the energy of the possible, at a moment when in fact we have huge possibilities. On energy, for instance: Biden has done a beautiful job of working the IRA through Congress, but the polling shows he’s never managed to make its importance sink in. He couldn’t explain its power last night, couldn’t summon people to a future that runs on the sun. That’s a crucial task, a way of giving young people hope as they face a daunting future. Not just young people—really, most Americans keep saying they’d like a fresher choice for our future. Suddenly there’s a moment when that could happen.

People keep saying ‘Biden won’t step aside, so we need to support him.’ And if he doesn’t we must.

But the very thing that makes him worth supporting—an old-fashioned commitment to something more than himself—is the thing that may convince him (and his wife, who actually loves him) to do the bold and interesting thing. To do the thing that could mark a new moment in our political life. If Biden chooses to stay in, so be it—I’ll work my heart out for him, and ungrudgingly. But even if he manages to win, we’ll still be stuck in the same poisonous paralysis we inhabit now. Someone sometime has to break us out of this stalemate, and it might as well be that right man for this moment, good old Joe Biden.

Trumpism is selfishness—that is its parts and that is its sum. With a powerful act of selflessness Biden can break the evil spell that selfishness has cast. It would be a remarkable thing for an old man to do, and a hell of a way to cap a career that began in the 1960s. Ask what you can do for your country!

Emphasis in the original.