On the Power of Faith

[As always, please excuse my use of male pronouns when referring to a Supreme Being without gender.]

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln regularly pondered the irony that two sets of peoples were fervently praying to the same Deity for diametrically opposed ends.  In September, 1862, he wrote:

“The will of God prevails.  In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God.  Both may be, and one must be, wrong.  God cannot be for, and against, the same thing at the same time.  In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something quite different from the purpose of either party – yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose.”  [Emphasis Mr. Lincoln’s]

In a letter to a friend on September 4, 1864, Mr. Lincoln wrote:

“The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. … God knows best … We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein.  Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains.”

Finally, in his March, 1865, Second Inaugural Address, delivered on the cusp of what had become an overwhelmingly-likely Union victory, Mr. Lincoln noted the aspect that faith was playing in the conflict:

“Both [Union and Confederate adherents] read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. … The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.  The Almighty has His own purposes.”

For someone who has been so viscerally engaged in our current electoral struggle, I find myself, if not serene, with at least a level of equanimity as we contemplate today’s uncertain outcome.  I have realized that it is because I believe – as Mr. Lincoln held – that God knows best.  What follows is the passage we chose as our wedding Gospel so many decades ago and has since been included in each of our children’s wedding celebrations:

“Therefore, I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on.  … Look at the birds of the air:  they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you of much more value than they?

… Consider how the lilies of the field grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which flourishes today but tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith?

Therefore, do not be anxious … But seek first the kingdom of God and His justice ….”

 Matthew, 6:25-26, 28-31, 33

As this Election Day unfolds, I know what I think is the best way forward for our country; but about half of my fellow citizens feel just as strongly to the contrary.  I have frequently referred in these pages to what I consider to be our struggle to maintain democracy; yet it cannot be forgotten that the peaceful expressions of different views are the essence of a democracy.  Given these circumstances, I feel fortunate – nae, blessed – to have the consolation of my faith.  Today, I am confining my prayers to this:  that the Almighty bring about the victory of the presidential candidate who will do the most good for our nation, our children, our grandchildren, and – given our geopolitical, financial, and military standing in the world – who will provide the most good for all of His people of the earth.

If you haven’t yet voted, quit reading this and go vote.  If you have voted, it’s time to sit back and embrace what has been, for over two centuries, the most magnificent expression of public will in the history of the world.

Pre-Election Notions

As all who care are aware, over the weekend the highly respected Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released results of its last Iowa poll taken October 28-31, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris – who in all of the organization’s previous polls since she became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee had trailed former President Donald Trump in a state he won in both 2016 and 2020 – had edged 3 points ahead of the former president.  Even more intriguing was the poll’s finding that Ms. Harris’ strongest Iowa demographic group was women 65 and older, in which she held a whopping 2:1 lead over Mr. Trump.  I find the results particularly noteworthy since there are a lot of Evangelicals in Iowa.

To start with the most glaringly obvious:  winning a presidential election is a matter of math — how many votes a candidate gets, and where the candidate gets them.  Although I’m confident that Ms. Harris would like to claim Iowa’s 6 Electoral College (EC) votes, the poll may be more important for what it indicates might happen elsewhere.

Although it will take some states, such as Georgia, days to reach a final vote tally – and thus, during those days, the outcome of the election could remain uncertain – I would suggest if we knew definitively on Election night the final results of all states east of the Mississippi River, we’d probably have a pretty good idea who our next president will be.  I’ll even go so far as to venture that if we definitively knew the results along the Atlantic seaboard, those alone might provide us a fairly firm indication as to the final outcome.

Take Ms. Harris first.  Commentators – including me 😉 – have gone on ad nauseam about her surest path to an Electoral College victory being the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  However, this presupposes that Ms. Harris claims all of the states carried by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020.  Since the “Blue Wall” path gets her to exactly the necessary majority of 270 Electoral College votes, if she unexpectedly loses even a pretty tiny New England EC state, such as New Hampshire or Maine, she’ll need to win one of the swing states now seemingly favoring Mr. Trump to reach 270, even if the Blue Wall comes in for her. 

Conversely, as to Mr. Trump:  since the 2000 Bush-Gore electoral debacle, I understand that Florida has sharpened its electoral processes such that it can now report its results reasonably promptly.  As of the time this is typed, 538 has Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris by a comfortable 6.7 points, but there are a lot of women over 65 and Latinos (remember the Trump Madison Square Garden rally) in Florida.  Although Mr. Trump’s path to the presidency becomes significantly narrower if he is somehow loses Florida, perhaps more realistic Election Night scenarios from which Ms. Harris might draw reassurance would be if prognosticators consider the Florida race too close to call for an extended period, or if Mr. Trump’s margin of Florida victory is significantly smaller than now forecast.  Either of these scenarios might well be an early indicator that Ms. Harris will do well in the Blue Wall states and have a better chance than now anticipated to claim either North Carolina or Georgia.  As I’ve also noted here repeatedly, if she does eke out either North Carolina or Georgia, she can afford to lose either Michigan or Wisconsin and still win the presidency.         

I understand that the Trump Campaign and the alt-right media silo have been constantly spreading the message that Mr. Trump’s victory is overwhelmingly likely.  Let me join those observing that such is a transparent tactic to condition MAGAs to blindly accept the Trump team’s claims of voter fraud that will inevitably begin immediately if the former president loses the election.  Likewise, Mr. Trump has recently ranted on his social media site about election fraud in Pennsylvania.  Let me also join the chorus who have observed that such is a clear indicator that Mr. Trump is worried that Pennsylvanians are trending toward Ms. Harris.

President Joe Biden was asked some time ago whether he thought our election processes were fair and accurate, and whether he thought violence might ensue in the election’s wake.  He replied that he was confident that our election processes would be fair and accurate, but he wouldn’t offer a firm opinion as to whether violence might result as the results were announced.  I obviously agree with the President as to the integrity of our electoral processes – only the willingly gullible can think otherwise – and time will tell whether or not there will be violence after the winner is declared.  I would offer that if Ms. Harris is declared the winner after all legal votes are tallied, Mr. Trump’s supporters might be less likely to riot than in 2020 because they will be acutely aware that unlike 2020, Mr. Biden is the Commander in Chief in charge of the National Guard and the U.S. Military.

At the same time, I consider the likelihood of election interference by swing state Republican officials, now fully immersed in MAGA election propaganda, at least a great a risk to Ms. Harris’ presidential bid as losing the vote.  Taking Wisconsin as an example:  If Ms. Harris wins the state’s popular vote after the initial tally, I do not consider it beyond if the state’s rabid MAGA-controlled legislature to adopt some rationale to disallow a significant number of votes in a Harris stronghold such as Dane County (Madison), in an attempt to award Mr. Trump Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes.  (To be fair:  I have no fears about Georgia.  GA Gov. Brian Kemp and GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger proved their mettle the last time, and they must each privately personally detest Mr. Trump.  If they declare that Mr. Trump won Georgia, I’ll believe it. 🙂 )

I have commented in different earlier posts that no matter what I might think about other aspects of former Vice Presidents Dick Cheney’s and Mike Pence’s respective conduct of their Vice Presidencies, I will always mentally qualify my assessments of them by noting that on the most important issue of their and our time, each got it right.  On the other hand, last week former Green Bay Quarterback and Hall of Famer Brett Favre spoke at a Trump rally in Wisconsin.  It is the latest of a series of disreputable incidents in which he has been involved since the end of his Packer playing days.  I will always have a bifurcated view Mr. Favre – the division between the truly incredible athlete and competitor … and the person he has shown himself to be.

I mentioned in an earlier note that Ms. Harris had been looking tired.  In the last couple of weeks – perhaps from the adrenaline she’s felt from being electorally on the upswing – she has looked revitalized, vibrant.  On the other hand, it is now Mr. Trump that seems spent – perhaps not unexpected given his 78 years.  Although I thought that Mr. Trump would fade away if he was defeated in 2020, I do not think it is unreasonable to suppose that if Mr. Trump is defeated this time, we will dispense with him personally, although the MAGA movement has now unfortunately grown deep-enough roots that it will survive him.  Another MAGA Messiah will emerge, although I haven’t yet seen a potential successor with the former president’s animal charisma.

In a couple of previous posts, I have likened this campaign to an NFL game.  In recent days, a different image has entered my mind, perhaps arising from what I consider Ms. Harris’ and Democrats’ Herculean efforts on behalf of our democracy.  It is from one of our daughter’s high school swim meets.  (This is, mind you, a distant memory; our daughter has been a practicing psychologist for over 15 years 🙂 ).  In that meet’s last event, a relay, a teammate of our daughter swimming one of the first “legs” had difficulty such that by the time the relay got to the last leg – always swum by a team’s “anchor,” the strongest swimmer of a team’s relay quartet — the other team’s anchor was half a lap ahead – a quarter of the leg’s entire distance — by the time our team’s anchor even hit the water.  Although the other swimmer’s lead looked insurmountable, our anchor was an extraordinary swimmer and competitor; she launched in, and took off.  With every stroke, she closed the gap.  We spectators, starting to collect our things to depart, at first called out support in moderate tones for what appeared an obvious lost cause; but then, as the gap closed — as the two swimmers hit the turn, and started back, one ahead, then the other, steadily closing — we stood, and started yelling; by the end – as what was initially a yawning chasm between the two young women unbelievably narrowed, and narrowed, and narrowed, as they strove to reach the pool wall, the impossible suddenly seeming possible — all were screaming and jumping.  It wasn’t clear until the last yard – the last second – who would win.

We’ll see what happens.  If I post at all tomorrow – and I appreciate your bearing with me if you have waded through this series of lengthy missives as we passed these many days to our election outcome — it will be from a different perspective.  That said, all who read these pages are aware that I am a West Wing fanatic.  My Twitter feed recently included a reference to a recent book event at which Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet in the television series, spoke.  The video is poor, but stay with this clip.  As the link indicates, Mr. Sheen, as undoubtedly was planned, first reads an assortment of snippets of Bartlet dialog crafted by series creator Aaron Sorkin over the years; but at the end, Mr. Sheen closes the binder and for a golden minute, he again is Bartlet.  As we look with hope at an uncertain electoral outcome, it seems fitting to conclude with inspiration from our greatest fictional president.

Queen Leigh 🥥🌴 on X: “Martin Sheen concluding 6th & I West Wing event with a sort of Bartlet pastiche of Sorkin speeches—and then he closes the book and *becomes* Jed Bartlet, speaking from the heart. It’s pretty cool. https://t.co/JZzl9TTXzU” / X

Wisconsin May Be Ground Zero … Again: a Postscript

After the last post – in which I indicated that today’s Packers/Lions game would provide us in Wisconsin a brief respite from election obsession — a very close friend of over 50 years – a Chicago Bear fan, to boot – pointed out to me the error in my thinking:  “This game is providing probably the most compelling political turf during the final minutes of this nail-biter election. The NFL ad space between two of the NFL’s hottest teams will provide not just an audience in two of the critically contested states with a great demographic (politically) but a great national audience as well.”

He is of course right (sigh  😉 ).  Although I record Packer games, and may well record this one, my conscience as a citizen won’t allow me to fast-forward through the commercials, as I normally do; indeed, if – perish the thought – Green Bay loses, I’ll probably fast-forward through the game, and only watch the political commercials  🙂 .

Our friend also wondered what I thought the respective campaigns’ ad themes might be for today’s game.  We’ll soon know; their choices will obviously be data driven, intended to micro-target specific voter segments.  I’m guessing that the Trump team will pound inflation and immigration, weighting the former over the latter.  [The MAGAs already have all of the votes of all of the Midwest citizens who are truly worried that the illegals are coming to take them away (Ha-Haa 😉 ).  It may well feel that it needs to make a final pitch to young women on tight budgets who find former President Donald Trump personally repellent].  Without the benefit of data, if advising the Harris Campaign my instinct would be to target women and young males of color.  Although Vice President Kamala Harris prefers an uplifting message, negative ads have for decades been proven the most effective, and we’re now down to the figurative final minutes of the campaign.  I’d recommend that the Harris team pound the loss of women’s reproductive rights wrought by Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court appointments (and raise the augur of the likelihood of further MAGA reproductive restrictions if he is re-elected), use “permission” ads aimed at the moderately conservative women repulsed by Mr. Trump (my favorite is in the link below), and an ad depicting a montage of last weekend’s Trump Rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, with the so-called comedian at referring to Puerto Rico as floating garbage and referencing watermelon with an African American and Mr. Trump’s reported reference to American citizens as the “enemy within.”  [I’d like to include an ad combining clips of Mr. Trump declaring on January 6, 2021, that his supporters had to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t have a country any more together with clips of the ensuing Capitol riot, but I would guess that the case against Mr. Trump on this issue has already been established with citizens (like me) most motivated by these appeals.]

An ad I’d make room for:

Lebron James’ recent Twitter endorsement of Ms. Harris.  The link is below.

https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1852093996350275595

An Ad I would like to see:

Clips of Mr. Trump calling immigrants vermin, mocking the handicapped, and telling his supporters to beat up demonstrators at his rallies, followed by Arnold Schwarzenegger (who has endorsed Ms. Harris) talking into the camera:  “Bullies are not strong.  They are weak.  I’m voting for Kamala Harris.  You should, too.”

An ad that I wish existed, and would run repeatedly if it existed (but if there was any prospect it was coming, the story would be too big; we’d already know about it):

Former President George W. Bush – who, shamefully, hasn’t endorsed Ms. Harris despite the fact that all are aware that he detests Mr. Trump – talking into the camera:

“When you elected me I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  My oath didn’t end when I left the oval office.  Country over party.  I’ve voting for Kamala Harris, and you should too.”

The latest game odds I saw favor the Lions by 2.5 points over the Packers.  I would have thought that Detroit would be favored by more, even in Lambeau Field.  To win, the Green and Gold need to play close to error-free football – which has not been starting Quarterback Jordan Love’s tendency this season – and win the turnover battle by at least two.  That said, I am confident that even the most diehard of Packer fans will agree that today’s game is not the most important contest we’ll witness this week.  There has never been a time in our lifetimes in which it has been clearer that our most important colors are Red, White and Blue.  

Wisconsin May Be Ground Zero … Again

To state what you already know:  given polling trends, Vice President Kamala Harris’ surest path to the 270 Electoral College (EC) votes she needs to win the White House remains the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin plus the single vote in Omaha, NE’s congressional district.

Let’s take Omaha first.  Although former President Donald Trump is vastly ahead of Ms. Harris in Nebraska as a whole, Ms. Harris is up by double digits in Omaha.  Since the state allocates its EC votes by congressional district – an idiosyncrasy that may well be vital to Democrats’ hopes — that vote is as secure for Ms. Harris as California’s.

Let’s look at Michigan next.  President Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump there in 2020 by about 150,000 votes, and Ms. Harris presumably picked MN Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate instead of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro in part to avoid having Mr. Shapiro’s sharply pro-Israel stance in the Israeli-Hama conflict alienate Michigan’s powerful progressive Muslim, pro-Palestinian constituency.  Right now, although the polls indicate that the race in the state remains close between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, if she can’t win despite all of the support she will get in the city of Detroit, from the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, from Michigan’s two huge state universities, and from the progressive Muslim voter segment, she’s not going to win the presidency.

On to Pennsylvania.  As all who have read any number of notes posted here are well aware, I have been obsessed with the Keystone State’s 19 EC votes since it became clear that the MAGA movement wasn’t fading away.  Although it is mathematically possible for the Democratic presidential nominee to win the presidency without winning Pennsylvania, such a path has looked (and looks) to me to be considerably more doubtful.  I have seen it reported that the Trump camp feels that if it can win both Pennsylvania and North Carolina, it will win the presidency, and from purely a mathematical standpoint, it’s hard to disagree. 

I’ve always thought that Pennsylvania was going to be this election’s Ground Zero, and it may well still be.  Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in 2020 by 80,000 votes out of almost 7 million cast – decisive but hardly overwhelming.  I have noted here earlier the observation of James Carville, former President Bill Clinton’s chief political strategist, that between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is Alabama.  That said, if there is going to be an “October Surprise” in this race – akin to then-FBI Director James Comey’s declaration, less than two weeks before the 2016 Election Day, that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Democratic Nominee’s Hillary Clinton’s emails – it may well have come at the Trump rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden this past weekend, in which a so-called comedian declared, Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” and “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”  I have seen it reported that the Puerto Rican community is understandably outraged, and that there are approximately 500,000 citizens of Puerto Rican descent living in Pennsylvania.  If these citizens are registered or can still register to vote, they can be decisive.  While one has to assume that the vast majority of Pennsylvanian Puerto Rican citizens who cast a vote in 2020 supported Mr. Biden, it would also seem that the so-called comedian’s remarks could markedly increase turnout among Pennsylvanian Puerto Rican and other Latino voters for Ms. Harris.  I would submit that if the traditional Democratic turnouts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Mr. Shapiro’s enthusiastic and able assistance, and a galvanized Puerto Rican/other Latino citizen voting bloc don’t provide Ms. Harris a decisive edge over Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania, she’s not going to win the presidency.

Which brings us to – I note with a sigh for all Badger State residents – Wisconsin.  If Ms. Harris can’t win Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes, she needs to win either Arizona (EC 11) – where according to 538, she trails Mr. Trump by 2 points, and in which, despite an abortion referendum on the ballot, Mr. Trump’s stand on immigration appears likely to provide him a decisive edge in this border state – Georgia (EC 16) — where 538 indicates that Mr. Trump holds a similar 2-point edge that seems impressive in a race this tight – or North Carolina (EC 16) – seemingly her best shot to claim a “reach” swing state, where 538 has her but a point down, with a Democratic governor and a population slowly becoming more liberal, but a state that Mr. Trump has carried twice.  North Carolina might surprise for the Democrats in 2024, as Georgia and Arizona did in 2020, but it must certainly be considered a Democratic long shot.

The Harris-Walz ticket’s best chance for the final EC votes it needs to win is clearly Wisconsin.  It won’t be easy – 538 has Ms. Harris ahead of Mr. Trump by only half a point, and Mr. Trump has scored better in the state than polls indicated he would in both 2016 and 2020.  That said, the state has a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator running for re-election, a marked preference for abortion rights (clearly Mr. Trump’s substantive policy Achilles heel) and a burgeoning population of young science and technology workers in Dane County (Madison), the county that provided Mr. Biden his edge over Mr. Trump in 2020.  (Of note:  the state didn’t lose an EC vote in the last census, as both Pennsylvania and Michigan did.  Whether or not it was because of an influx of these younger, predominately liberal voters, it certainly wasn’t because older rural voters are flooding into the state. 😉 )  The Harris-Walz ticket also has … Mr. Walz.  We’ll get back to him.

I don’t pay attention to candidate campaign schedules, but if I was advising the Harris-Walz ticket, I would suggest that it deploy Mr. Biden to Pennsylvania, former President Barack Obama to Michigan, Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton to the Democratic strongholds of Georgia and particularly North Carolina, and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney to the Republican suburbs of all of the cities of all of the Blue Wall states.  As for Ms. Harris:  although she obviously needs to make a showing in all of the Blue Wall states in the final days, I would submit that her primary focus in these final days is generating turnout in Milwaukee, Madison, and other liberal bastions within Wisconsin.

Finally, as to Mr. Walz.  By all accounts, he didn’t fare well in his debate against MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance.  Furthermore, I think it’s hard to dispute what I’ve noted earlier in these pages:  that if Ms. Harris picked the Minnesota Governor to hold the swing state older white males more likely to lean toward Mr. Biden than they would toward her, the pick probably hasn’t brought the returns she hoped for.  That said, I would submit that now is Mr. Walz’ moment.  I would suggest that Mr. Walz could play a key defensive role in these final days, akin — as every baseball fan will understand – to a left-handed reliever, whose sole value to his team is to enter in a late inning to get out the other team’s key left-handed hitter.  If Wisconsin is ground zero, Mr. Walz should be everywhere in the hinterlands of the state, seeking to persuade older white men (speaking as an older white man 😉 ) that Mr. Trump is too hateful, that what he proposes isn’t in keeping with the America in which we were raised.  Mr. Walz’ job wouldn’t be to win the Trump counties; it would be to hold down the Trump totals.  If he would be successful in doing that, while Ms. Harris hopefully hypes turnout in the Wisconsin Democratic strongholds, they can win the state.

Speaking for my fellow Wisconsinites – in this rare instance, for the Trump supporters as well as for the Harris supporters – I think we’re all exhausted at being Ground Zero.  But it is what it is, and we are where we are.  I suspect that all of us Badger Staters are looking forward to the brief respite that Sunday’s NFL NFC North first-place showdown between the Packers and the Detroit Lions will provide.  I don’t hold out that much hope for the Green and Gold – the team is not as good as its record indicates and the Lions may be the class of the NFL’s NFC – but the game will, for a few brief hours, serve as a blessed distraction in which we can all join hands.

After that, all focus will be on the battle for our democracy.

I apologize for any undue burden this recent proliferation of notes, or any hereafter posted between now and Election Day, impose; raking leaves provides additional mental space for idle ruminations 🙂 . 

We’ll see what happens.

The Early Voting Riddle

This week, we’ve heard political pundits intone, “Eight days to Election Day,” “A week to Election Day,” and so on.  Actually, it already is Election Day.  Early voting has started in the three “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that polls indicate is Vice President Kamala Harris’ most likely path to an Electoral College victory.  What I will go to bed wondering every night between now and November 5 is whether, by how much, and in which direction early voting impacted the outcome of the election.

This campaign has had the ebbs and flows of a classic NFL football game.  The MAGAs jumped out to a substantial early lead, and seemed to be coasting to victory against the President Joe Biden-led Democrats; the Democrats brought in a replacement quarterback, Ms. Harris, and staged a furious comeback for over a month that brought the teams even; then – while others might differ, I would place it at the Vice Presidential debate, in which MAGA Vice Presidential Candidate U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance is generally credited with besting Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate MN Gov. Tim Walz — the Democrats’ offense seemingly stalled while the MAGAs continued to grind out their propaganda, and over the last month the Trump-Vance ticket appeared to have crept back ahead by about a field goal.  Now, in the figurative last two minutes of the game, the Democrats seem to be back on the march.

By all appearances, the MAGAs are supremely confident – putting aside my obvious sympathies for Ms. Harris, I’d venture that from an objective standpoint, they seem over-confident.  Frankly, I don’t know how they can be; just going by the majority of presidential elections in this century, as Americans gravitated to cell phones and became ever more distrustful of pollsters, nobody’s numbers have been that precise in closely-contested elections.  Two factors have arguably helped the Democrats regain ground in the last couple of weeks:  first, inflation, a serious concern to perhaps a pivotal number of swing state voters, continues to ebb and what I believe are the last major economic indicators to be released before the election demonstrate a continually improving U.S. economy with strong job numbers; and second — staying away from the despicable substance, and speaking strictly in terms of political handicapping – there have been former President Donald Trump’s inexplicable and egregious unforced errors so late in the campaign:  expanding his execrable rhetoric about immigrants to labeling American citizens who disagree with him as “enemies within,” compounded by the Trump Campaign’s Madison Square Garden rally this past Sunday, in which a so-called comedian declared, Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” and “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”  If that wasn’t enough, the so-called comedian also made an allusion to a black man and a watermelon, another rally speaker referred to Ms. Harris as the “Anti-Christ,” and yet another referred to her “pimp handlers.”  Trump aide Stephen Miller declared, “America is for Americans” – seemingly not quite as loathsome until one remembers that Mr. Miller’s remarks echoed similar declarations at a Nazi rally in the old Madison Square Garden in 1939.  I am not a fan of horror movies, so I may have these references wrong, but it seems like Mr. Trump has removed a smiling mask of himself (itself hard enough to imagine 😉 ) to reveal the fictional Freddy Krueger underneath.  These later incidents have perhaps – finally — created determinative doubts among the former president’s softest supporters who had been heretofore very reluctantly planning to vote for him.

My gut tells me that every day between now and Election Day will help Ms. Harris.  In a razor-thin race, timing is everything.  MSNBC’s Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough has mentioned a number of times over the years that Mr. Trump indicated to him after winning the presidency in 2016 — when the two men were still talking – to the effect that if 2016 Election Day had been a week sooner or a week later, Mr. Trump would have lost.  Similarly, some will recall that AR Gov. President Bill Clinton beat then-President George H.W. Bush by criticizing Mr. Bush for an economic recession that economists later concluded had ended before Election Day 1992.

The political maxim has always been that early voting helps the Democrat; a relatively larger share of Democratic voters have traditionally been less motivated to cast ballots than Republicans, and were also more likely to have conflicting commitments on Election Day which interfered with their voting, so the longer voting period helped Democratic turnout.  (At least in 2020, Mr. Trump seemed to ascribe to this theory and disparaged early voting.  While his pronouncements may have cost him some votes, I’ve seen no reports indicating that he lost enough votes in any swing state to have changed any such state’s outcome.)

This year, we’ll see.  Assuming that Ms. Harris has regained some slight momentum, what I wonder is whether it will carry her far enough, and the riddle I ponder is whether early voting helps her or hurts her.  Conventional wisdom would hold that if the early votes were tallied today, she would win handily and that if Mr. Trump ultimately prevails, it will be because he stages a “comeback” on Election Day.  But at the same time, I would submit that virtually all of the votes she’s “banked” would have registered on Election Day anyway against as polarizing a figure as Mr. Trump, and am wondering whether early voting might have cost her the votes of some moderately conservative Republican suburban women and Latinos who might have shifted to her – or in any event, not voted for Mr. Trump — had they had another week to consider Mr. Trump’s and his surrogates’ hateful, racist, anti-American rhetoric.

What you’ve just read is clearly idle speculation, which you may easily dismiss.  On one hand, one can justifiably point out that moderately conservative suburban women – the “hidden women’s vote” that so many liberal pundits wistfully allude to and fervently hope exists – and the Latino community – which Democrats have been too slow to recognize is not a monolithic block – have had nine years to figure out that Mr. Trump is a blackguard, and one more week wouldn’t have made any difference to how they voted; on the other hand – while of course deferring to two accomplished psychologists that read these pages 🙂 – one might argue that Ms. Harris still has time to nudge these potentially decisive voters to her side, because anybody truly unsure about an important decision will generally wait as long as possible before proceeding, so any citizen who has been truly torn about which presidential candidate to vote for hasn’t yet voted.

We’ll see what happens.  Once one has voted, there is little to do except idly speculate … and make Noise  😉 .

Candid Advice for Ms. Harris: a Postscript

In an entry yesterday, I suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris needed to toughen her message against Mr. Trump in order to win the presidency.  A very close and very discerning woman friend of ours thereafter sent me an email, indicating that she feared that if Ms. Harris followed my recommendation, “being angry might backfire on a woman because she’d be perceived as being too emotional and ‘out of control’ to become the president.”  It did make me ponder whether, in such a razor-thin contest, Ms. Harris might alienate more potential supporters than she would gain by being more combative as I had suggested.

Today, we got an answer.  If the Vice President had had any idea of our exchange, I’d say that she had thread the needle and addressed both our friend’s and my concerns.

As all who care are aware, retired Marine Corps. General John Kelly, the longest-serving Chief of Staff in the Trump Administration, has within recent days gone on record with the New York Times stating that Mr. Trump meets the definition of “fascist.”  Below is a link to a short speech Ms. Harris gave today in the wake of Mr. Kelly’s remarks.  I would submit that the extremely grave tone she struck was perfect for the message – neither plaintive, nor too strident — the tone of a president addressing us about a true crisis.  The three-minute length was perfect:  short enough that any media outlet that wishes to air it can do so in its entirety.  Two notes she made particularly resonated with me:  first, without undue emphasis she recast her reference to Mr. Trump’s allusions to the “enemy within” to include anyone who might disagree with the former president, not just government officials or journalists; second, she employed the ultimate word about Mr. Trump (while being able to correctly attribute the characterization to Mr. Kelly):  fascist.   

I don’t know how many voters’ sympathies can be shifted in the days culminating on November 5; I will affirm that I consider Ms. Harris’ efforts today to be pitch-perfect.

CALL TO ACTIVISM on X: “If you watch one video today and decide to share it with others, let it be THIS three minute speech by Kamala Harris over the latest bombshell by Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, former General John Kelly.   Trump is Hitler is trending because that’s who he admires. https://t.co/3BaR9jZzeb” / X

Candid Advice for Ms. Harris

On October 18, Branding Pundit Donny Deutsch observed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

“You feel the campaign – it’s within the 48-yard lines … [M]y message to … Vice President [Kamala Harris] is, ‘Just keep punching.’  People want to see strength.  I know the ‘Joy’ thing was kind of okay for a while.  ‘Joy’ is great, but strength and power and aggressiveness is what I think she needs right now.”

I raise this because TLOML was watching at the time, and she immediately looked at me and said, “He said exactly what you said!”  (And here, I had been pretty sure that she had long since zoned out on my political rants 🙂 ).

For quite a while, I thought that Ms. Harris might catch a wave in the campaign’s last days as Ronald Reagan did in 1980 – that race was close until the end, when all the citizens seemingly leaning toward then President Jimmy Carter decided that they couldn’t support Mr. Carter for another four years and voted in a landslide for Mr. Reagan.  I no longer think that’s going to happen for Ms. Harris, primarily because I’ve realized that the people who deserted Mr. Carter in 1980 were leaning Democrats.  Democrats are mavericks by nature (remember the old Will Rogers line: “I am not a member of any organized political party.  I am a Democrat.”), while Republicans are by nature more doctrinaire, more “Rah, rah, team.”  The people she needs to desert former President Donald Trump in order to prevail are leaner Republicans.  If she hasn’t persuaded them to vote against Mr. Trump before they vote, for too many muscle memory will take over in the ballot box.  They’ll vote for Mr. Trump.  If in the days remaining before the election, the main topic on voters’ minds is immigration or the economy (the latter inexplicable to me, even for those genuinely threated by inflation), Mr. Trump will win.  If the main topic is Mr. Trump, she will win.  She needs to set the dynamic.

Mr. Deutsch has earned millions dispensing his opinions; I haven’t, so I am confident you will – as you of course always do with all Noise – take the following with a grain of salt.  If I was counseling Ms. Harris, and having seen clips of her speeches over this past weekend, I would have the temerity to qualify Mr. Deutsch’s (and my 😉 ) message a bit and advise this:  You not only need to punch; you need to sharpen your jabs.  The overriding tone of disappointment, regret, sorrow — what have you – that I see you exhibit on the stump about Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and past deeds won’t get you over the 50 yard line.  You need to be angry.  You need to be outraged.  You need to be (speaking as I would if we were together in a Wisconsin pub) … pissed off.  Although you dress impeccably – you look like a president – you need to take off the jacket, literally roll up your sleeves, and go after Mr. Trump.  Also – it’s time to be explicit – you need to attack Fox News, try to bait them into airing your attacks on Mr. Trump.   

In an earlier note, I suggested that Ms. Harris risked damaging her brand if she got into a mudslinging contest with Mr. Trump; we all understand the adage (again, excuse my lapse from blog tone), “You can’t win a pissing contest with a skunk.”  Generally, good advice.  However, I would suggest that if she picks her spots carefully, she can show anger and she can score.  People never get offended by anger if you’re angry on their behalf, or they consider the outrage warranted.

Cue the tape, to the most important point first:

Kamala’s Wins on X: “BREAKING: Donald Trump’s rallies are going so poorly that Kamala Harris just played a highlight reel at her rally tonight. Retweet so everyone sees this hilarious moment. https://t.co/7D0hC9yG08” / X

I leave it to you; I don’t — despite the title of the link – consider Ms. Harris’ remarks a “win”; I consider her tone in that clip a plaintive one of regret, NOT anger:  that Mr. Trump’s despicable accusations are “a huge risk for America.”  She sounds like she’s advising a friend against adding sugar and cream to a Starbucks coffee.  She had the crowd –she led them right up to it – and then she dropped it.  After talking about journalists, election officials, and judges, she should have ended with, “… and then … and then … he’s going to come after you.  If you think enough of this campaign to come have out tonight as you have, you’re the ‘enemy within’ that Trump will target some day if he gets back in the White House.  What are you going to do about it?  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Fear mongering, you say?  Not if the risk is real.  I think it is.  On to Mr. Trump’s lies:

We have two swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, which have been devastated by Hurricane Helene.  Ms. Harris should go into the ravaged areas of these states and loudly declare, “Trump and Vance say we haven’t been helping you.  [GA Gov. Brian Kemp/NC Gov. Roy Cooper] is saying that we’re giving you all the help he asked for.  Trump and Vance are lying. They’re making you scared to get the help that is right there.  They don’t care.  They’ll sacrifice you and your family to win this election.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On the Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH:  “Trump keeps saying that illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating dogs and cats.  It’s a bald-faced lie.  Trump and Vance are lying. The only animal being eaten in this campaign is the bull that Trump is feeding the American people.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On the 2020 election:  “Trump is still saying he won the 2020 election that he lost.  Trump is a lying whiner. He lost 60 lawsuits challenging the results.  He knows he lost.  His election lawyers have pled guilty to criminal offenses for fraud.  Hundreds of people are in jail now because they believed his lie.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On January 6th:  “Trump says that January 6th was ‘a beautiful day.’  Trump is lying. He started a violent riot.  You tell the families of the cops killed that day by people that Trump told to go to the Capitol that it was ‘a beautiful day.’  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”     

On Mr. Trump’s felony convictions and sexual assault verdict:  “Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts, stemming from the fact he cheated on his wife with a porn star.  A different jury found that he assaulted a woman that he said under oath looked like his second wife.  He still denies that he cheated or assaulted.  He’s been adjudged a liar.  Even his supporters know he’s lying – they don’t want their wives or daughters around him.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”   

Finally, Ms. Harris should attack the macho image that Mr. Trump likes to project.  I see two avenues:

Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Polls show that even the majority of Trump supporters detest Putin.  Inasmuch as Mr. Trump has criticized everybody at some point during his political career except Putin, I’m guessing that even Trump supporters think that there’s something … odd there.

“Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine over two years ago.  Millions — millions — of innocent, peaceful Ukrainians have been killed, injured or displaced because Putin is a monster.  Trump called the invasion “smart.”  There are only two reasons why Ukraine is still free:  because of the courage of the Ukrainian people and because of our support of NATO.  Trump has said that he doesn’t care if Putin invades a NATO country.  Trump says he’ll settle the Ukraine war.  You know how he’ll do that?  By selling Ukraine out to Putin.  He’ll bend over and kiss Putin’s butt – if he can even bend over that far.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Last:  Mr. Trump’s refusal to debate Ms. Harris again.  Mr. Trump has waved that away, and so far it hasn’t hurt him.  I’d use his refusal to target the demographic whom polls indicate have the least affinity for Ms. Harris:  young males of all ethnicities.

“You know that I’ve challenged Trump to another debate.  I’d still be happy to do it this close to the election if he would.  He has refused.  You know why?  He’s gutless.  Because I kicked his butt the first time, and he knows I’ll do it again.  He’s afraid to debate a girl.  And you know what else?  Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Some reading this might be a bit offended by my suggestion that the Vice President of the United States, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, might refer to herself as “a girl.”  I would counter that almost all have heard Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional Mr. Dooley’s observation that “politics ain’t bean-bag.”  Such is the kind of usage that those she is wishing to move understand – and it sounds decidedly “unwoke,” a major plus.  It’s time to put niceties aside; democracy is at stake; it’s time to win.  Actually, the fictional Mr. Dooley’s full declaration was:

“Sure, politics ain’t bean-bag. ‘Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists’d do well to keep out iv it.”

Are the suggestions here too strong?  Should the Vice President instead continue the tempered tone she has maintained thus far?  Will maturity bring enough people over to her for her to eke out a victory?  I obviously have significant misgivings, but it’s up to her to decide.  These are the kinds of nuanced calls we expect our president to make; if she is elected it will be up to her to decide whether recalcitrant Congressional Republicans should be cajoled or bullied, how to respond to Putin’s recurring threats to use tactical nuclear weaponry in the Ukraine war, etc., etc., etc.  Either way, it’s time to prove that at the American presidential level, Mr. Dooley had his head up his ass. (I know, I know; let the importance of the struggle by my excuse 😉 ). 

In the meantime, I’ll take solace from the fact that after almost 50 years, my most important audience of one apparently still listens to me — at least once in a while  🙂 .

And There Was No One Left to Speak Out for Me

Last week, I indicated that the manner in which former President Donald Trump was increasing the ferocity of his rhetoric about illegal immigrants to stoke fear to get his low-propensity-voter supporters to the polls was smart strategically if loathsome morally.

I was right on both counts.  Although polls are notoriously inaccurate, it has become commonplace in political punditry to observe that it is the polling trends that matter; currently, the trends are seemingly moving toward Mr. Trump and away from Vice President Kamala Harris.  I am stunned and sickened (simply indicating that I’m appalled isn’t strong enough) to see how successful such hateful and deceitful tactics have been.  It is blatantly apparent to anyone willing to employ the discernment of a rock that the vast, vast majority of those seeking to enter our country aren’t “murderers and rapists” as Mr. Trump claimed at the beginning of his political rise, but rather people with the courage to take incredible risks to seek a safe and better life for themselves and their families, doing what any of us would do if s/he had the guts and was in their place; indeed, doing exactly what virtually all of the forebears of all natural born American citizens, except for those of Native Americans and those brought here in chains, did do.  One can be for a firm and fair immigration policy and strong border security – this is a necessary reality; there are criminal elements exploiting our border — without dehumanizing the overwhelming majority of migrants seeking to enter our country peacefully and add to our national fabric:  talking in malignant absurdity of being “occupied” by migrants as Mr. Trump did over the weekend, calling them vermin as he has in the past, echoing Adolf Hitler from a century ago.  But Mr. Trump has to demonize them, because if Americans see these migrants as people – albeit a significant policy challenge, like many others we face (the stress migrants place on our resources cannot be ignored) — and not as a threat, his argument loses its emotive power, and he loses the election.

If Mr. Trump is elected, the MAGA movement will obviously start with illegal immigrants, but by the former president’s past words and deeds one has every reason to assume … that it won’t stop there.  A couple of years ago, we watched a Ken Burns PBS documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust.”  I was particularly struck by an observation in the first segment:  that the Nazis themselves didn’t actually begin slaughtering Jews in the early years of the Reich; the Final Solution was developed later, after they had driven the Jews further and further into countries they kept conquering, when there was finally no place left to put them.  The documentary indicated that much of the early hatred and ostracization to which Jews were subjected was instead primarily wrought upon them by their former Gentile friends and neighbors, whose minds had been polluted by a constant stream of Nazi propaganda.  Cue the alt-right media.

MAGAs detest the different, the other every bit as much as they abhor illegal immigrants.  While not even the MAGAs can deport or exile everybody, history is littered with example of despotic regimes’ power to subjugate.  The MAGA movement will move from illegal to legal immigrants of color (Mr. Trump and MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J. D. Vance already sometimes fail to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants on the stump), the poorer, less powerful ones at first.  Then, it will reach for the easiest pickings:  legislating against the practices of American citizens of untraditional sexual and gender preferences and of those seeking abortion rights.  Over time, it will reach for non-Christian American citizens.  It will at some point reach for American citizens of color.  (Although I understand the frustration of some of our non-white naturalized citizens, who “stood in line” to obtain citizenship, at the talk of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (the vast majority of whom have almost certainly come across our southern border), I would submit that any of these citizens who vote for Mr. Trump because of his anti-immigration stand, and those African American males reportedly intending to vote for Mr. Trump because of the macho image he presents, are on a fool’s errand; MAGAs will in time come for them.)  Ultimately, MAGAs will seek to silence those white, straight, Christian, tax-paying, law-abiding, American citizens who won’t bow to their fascist impulses, who continue to indicate through word or deed that they believe that the American promise can allow for more than one cultural paradigm.  As all who care are aware, over this past weekend, Mr. Trump declared, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. …  We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and … it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the National Guard or if really necessary by the military. [Emphasis added].”  [Translation:  recall that this is the man who was willing to have peaceful demonstrators in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square gassed in the summer of 2020 to give himself a photo opportunity.  Even if you’re a white, straight, Christian, tax-paying, law-abiding, American citizen who (depending upon your vintage 😉 ) perhaps voted for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney but will if appropriate be willing to publicly express opposition to Trump Administration policies after Mr. Trump is inaugurated (because he obviously won’t have command of the National Guard or the military until then), you are the “radical left lunatic” for whom the National Guard and the military may be placed on watch.]  (Given that I voted for several of the aforementioned Republican presidential nominees, with the benefit of hindsight regret that I didn’t vote for a couple more, and would now prefer a number of them over of Ms. Harris if they appeared today as they were when they ran for president, the notion that Mr. Trump might well consider me a “radical left lunatic” makes me, as Arsenio Hall used to say, go “Hmmm.”   🙂  )    

At some point, some of the citizens who vote for Mr. Trump this November will say, “This is wrong.  This is too much.  I never intended this.”  By that time, it will be too late.  In this context, the shame will be on them, not on him; he has made his designs perfectly plain.

In the same manner as I was reading a lot of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s mid 1930s – early 1940s writings and speeches in the early months after Russia invaded Ukraine – an invasion that Mr. Trump called “smart” – I am currently going back over the writings and speeches of President Abraham Lincoln in the days leading up to the Civil War.  (Fair warning:  I might well be posting a number of Mr. Lincoln’s statements between now and Election Day 😉 ).  On September 11, 1858, during his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, Mr. Lincoln said in Edwardsville, IL:

“Now, when by all these means you have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro; when you have put him down, and made it forever impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul, and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out in darkness like that which broods over the spirit of the damned; are you quite sure that the demon which you have roused will not turn and rend you? … Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where [sic].  Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.  Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.  Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. [Emphasis in Original].”

When I quote Mr. Lincoln, I almost always give him the last word.  However, it seems more fitting to conclude here with a poem we first saw in the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum by Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller, who was imprisoned on Hitler’s orders in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1938 until he was liberated in 1945:

“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me”

A Compliment for Mr. Trump; a Warning from Mr. Shakespeare

On October 8th, the panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe went on at length about the fact that former President Donald Trump is seemingly veering out of control on the stump, reporting that Trump insiders indicate that the former President isn’t listening to the advice from his campaign counselors, and chortling that contrary to the advice from such advisors – who believe that effectively exploiting economic issues will bring the former President victory in November — Mr. Trump is instead doubling down on his lies and rhetoric of hate and racism against migrants.

While I’m just an old retired blogger and these are an array of seasoned political analysts, I think that as loathsome as his tactics are, Mr. Trump’s instincts are strategically right and his advisors and the pundits are wrong.  Not long ago, a close friend texted me about an observation that James Carville, formerly President Bill Clinton’s key political strategist, had made about Pennsylvania (seemingly likely to be the pivotal 2024 Electoral College state):  That between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, it’s Alabama.  In what both sides clearly consider a turnout election rather than a persuasion election, Mr. Trump – either cognitively or viscerally – seems to recognize that to win the state he needs to motivate the low-propensity Trump supporters in the small, picturesque but mostly destitute communities in the expanses between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  For Mr. Trump to instead try to convince moderately conservative suburban Philadelphia and Pittsburgh women – who are probably personally repulsed by him, who probably aren’t feeling inflationary pressure, and who have watched their stock portfolios soar during the four years of the Biden Administration – that they should vote for him because of a bad economy, seems a longer stretch.  Better to play on impoverished Trump supporters’ natural fears and biases.  As Adolf Hitler noted in Mein Kampf:  “Faith is harder to shake than knowledge … Hate is more enduring than aversion.”        

That said, if Mr. Trump is defeated – although right now, I fear that the Vice President’s campaign is flagging a bit — my instinct is that it won’t be because of his stands on most substantive issues; I would submit that aside from his clearly unpopular positioning on abortion (which he knows is hurting him, and he keeps trying to run away from), if the former President loses it will be because of his gargantuan and – crucially – blatantly obvious personal moral defects:  the narcissism, the self-aggrandizement, the transparent lying, the sexual predation, the adultery, the pettiness, the instability, the greed, the conniving, the overt racism (as contrasted with subtle racism, which much of America unfortunately seems to accept); in a word, his amorality.  To anyone who retains common sensibilities – even among some who may end up voting for him despite his evident failings — he’s … distasteful.

I think most scholars agree – with all due respect to many others across many forms of endeavor – that English playwright and poet William Shakespeare has been the most effective wielder of the English language in human history.  Mr. Shakespeare built his tragedies around seemingly formidable figures, such as Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear, who were subject to a “tragic flaw” – a trait that ultimately led to the protagonist’s downfall.  (The fictional Hamlet is highly insightful, but his ability to see all sides causes him to be indecisive, to hesitate when he should act.)  I would submit that Mr. Trump’s ability to draw from inside himself to release Americans’ basest instincts – openly declaring and giving license to what millions of others were clearly feeling, but realized that they should repress, and did not theretofore give voice to – fueled his rise and has maintained his prominence; but at the same time I would suggest that if he loses in November, it will have been his own obvious amorality, rather than any substantive policy position (possibly save abortion), to be the “tragic flaw” that will have caused his ruin.  (Note:  in the Shakespearean lexicon, a flaw was considered “tragic” because it led to the downfall of the character.  If Mr. Trump’s amorality does repel a sufficient number of voters that he loses, such will be tragic for him, but constitute salvation – or at least a reprieve — for our republic.)

But what if the next MAGA messiah – and there will be one – isn’t so obviously personally flawed?  While those who wish to protect our democracy need to focus today on beating Mr. Trump and MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance, the very fact that Mr. Trump, despite all of his personal baggage, currently retains at least an even chance to win the presidency means we cannot delude ourselves that even an unassailable Harris victory next month – although it may mean the end of Mr. Trump’s political career – will be the end of the MAGA movement or quench the dark passions within our citizenry which Mr. Trump has unleashed. 

I fear that even if Mr. Trump loses, what comes next may be every bit as toxic but harder to contest.  By all accounts, Mr. Vance won the recent Vice Presidential Candidate Debate.  He didn’t do so because of sterling reasoning or better policy positions [he certainly continued his lies about the Springfield, OH Haitian immigrants being illegal (they’re legal) and claimed that during his presidency, Mr. Trump tried to save the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act (a whopper that anyone with the sense of a goose could see through)], but because the television camera loves style.  Mr. Vance, notwithstanding his lies, appeared smooth and of pleasant demeanor throughout.  He didn’t look crazy; he didn’t look “weird”; he didn’t look threatening; he came across as normal and sane while espousing the same positions and spewing the same lies that Mr. Trump does.  This is terribly dangerous.

I read Hillbilly Elegy in 2016.  Mr. Vance is without doubt an intelligent and insightful man who sometime over the last eight years decided that he was willing to sacrifice principle in return for power and prominence.  (Recall Mr. Trump himself noted in September, 2022, “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad.”)  If Ms. Harris defeats Mr. Trump, the day after the inauguration Mr. Vance will be the leading candidate for the 2028 MAGA Presidential nomination.

So what happens perhaps four years from now, when the hypothetically incumbent President Harris seeks reelection while being lambasted daily by alt-right propaganda, facing latent and overt sexism and racism, and carrying the weight of eight years of Democratic incumbency?  When she faces a MAGA – we can now picture him – perhaps a white Christian married family man who appears stable, intelligent, reasonable, not self-aggrandizing and seemingly committed to positions larger than himself, a slyer liar than Mr. Trump and not greedy, not an adjudged sexual assaulter, not an adulterer, not a convicted felon, who will if elected set out to enact (more efficiently than Mr. Trump ever could) the policies set forth in Mandate for Leadership:  The Conservative Promise (Project 2025)?

If that time comes – although right now, those who believe in democracy need to be focused on winning this election – let’s refer again to The Bard to sum up the challenge we will then face: 

“[M]eet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain …”

  • William Shakespeare:  Hamlet; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

As We Move into the Late Innings

At the time this is typed Project 538 poll averages find Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly ahead of former President Donald Trump in the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10) – enough [with the Nebraska Second District (Omaha; 1)] to provide her with 270 Electoral College votes if the polls are accurate (she also leads in Nevada, 7; nice to have but not enough by itself to compensate for a loss of any Blue Wall state) – but trailing MAGA Presidential Nominee former President Donald Trump by similar narrow margins in Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and North Carolina (16).  (As I have obsessively observed in these pages, if the Vice President wins Michigan and Wisconsin but loses Pennsylvania, she loses the presidency unless she can win either North Carolina or Georgia and pair it with a Nevada win.)  I have the same twin gut reactions now as I had the day after the Democratic Convention:  that if the election was held today, Mr. Trump would win (he has entrenched, implacable support, and a record of scoring better on Election Day than polls indicate); and that there is still time for Ms. Harris to eke it out if she’s savvy – although we’re now into the late innings.

The Vice President and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee MN Gov. Tim Walz face a conundrum:  “Joy” took them as far as it could – it brought them essentially even with the Trump-Vance ticket – but it hasn’t put them notably ahead, and their progress has stalled.  In clips of her recent appearances I have seen, Ms. Harris looks visibly tired – no longer on the emotional high she felt through her debate with Mr. Trump.  At the same time, while Mr. Trump and MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. JD Vance can be and are unscrupulous spewers of lies and hate – it’s their campaign brand — Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz cannot afford to get into a mud wrestling match without damaging their brand.

Ironically, in one sense the campaign has turned out to be a contest between President Joe Biden and former SC Gov. Nikki Haley after all:  Mr. Trump is seeking to capture swing state men (black and white) who had been leaning toward Mr. Biden before he withdrew but polls indicate are less enthusiastic about Ms. Harris, while Ms. Harris is seeking to capture those Republican primary participants sufficiently disenchanted with Mr. Trump to have still been voting for Ms. Haley, another woman of Indian ancestry, weeks after Ms. Haley suspended her campaign and Mr. Trump had become the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion among pundits in the media we follow about Republican voters claiming to be torn about the upcoming presidential election, who allegedly maintain deep reservations about Mr. Trump (perhaps:  “I know that he’s a fascist fantasizing about a return to the 1950s, and he’s lying about the 2020 election, and he’s a convicted felon, and he incited the Capitol riot, and I wouldn’t want him around my daughter, but geez, I’ve voted Republican all my life …” 😉 ).  These voters are supposedly still looking for what has been described as a “permission structure” to vote for Ms. Harris and against Mr. Trump.

In a way, these “Permission Seekers” are the most exasperating of the Trump adherents to me; unlike the racist nationalists supporting Mr. Trump (who make clear who Their Guy is), or those supporting him out of religious fervor (whether or not misplaced), or the willingly credulous (who support him because they trust alt-right propaganda outlets), or those understandably stressed by price increases [who unfortunately have not made allowances for the fact that the (albeit now-receding) inflationary surge they confront was arguably an unavoidable consequence of Democratic COVID relief that kept them afloat in the pandemic’s wake], the Permission Seekers know better.  They know Mr. Trump is unfit to be President of the United States.  While some may cite party loyalty to cloak uglier motives, some are seemingly genuinely paralyzed by the notion of abandoning a lifetime’s political paradigm.

(An aside:  these Permission Seekers have naturally caused me to research the behavior of … lemmings.  Apparently, lemmings don’t mindlessly follow each other over cliffs; such is a myth attributed to a 1950s documentary.  It thus appears that the average lemming has a greater sense of independence and discernment than these conflicted Republicans.)

If the reporting and polling I’ve seen are accurate, Ms. Harris needs to make inroads with three currently reluctant voter segments to win:  Republican Permission Seekers; White Male Biden Leaners; and Black Male Biden Leaners.

To woo the Republican Permission Seekers, I would like to see the Harris Campaign cut a number of 30-second spots highlighting each of Mr. Trump’s most glaring weaknesses, in which Mr. Trump does the talking (with Ms. Harris to provide a voice-over conclusion; see below), and run them staccato, such as: (1) January 6th:  “If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore,” followed by scenes from the Capitol riot; (2) Abortion:  the clips in which Mr. Trump pledged to nominate anti-Roe v. Wade Justices, and his bragging about the result; (3) NATO:  the clips of Mr. Trump praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and declaring the he wouldn’t care if Russia invaded a NATO country; (4) Display Mr. Trump’s social media post calling for termination of the Constitution to overturn an election he clearly lost; (5) Social Security and Medicare:  the clip in which Mr. Trump states they need to be modified; (6) COVID:  note the 1 million American deaths, and the respective clips in which Mr. Trump first suggested that the virus would just go away and later that it could be cured though an injection of bleach; and (7) Immigration (I think Ms. Harris needs to address it):  use Republicans to describe how conservative the border bill was, followed by the clip in which Mr. Trump says to “blame me” for its failure.

I would end each spot with Ms. Harris voicing, in a truly neutral, even tone – not ironic, pejorative, or in any way confrontational:  “Do you want to go back to that?”  Such ads would, if well done, hit hard and align with Ms. Harris’ oft-repeated declaration, “We won’t go back,” while allowing the Permission Seeker to come to his/her own conclusion.

The Democrats’ reportedly have the war chest; they’d better use it.

Next, if the polls are accurately reflecting that Ms. Harris has lost some of the support Mr. Biden had among swing state white males before his withdrawal, one can infer – no matter how good or able a man Mr. Walz is, or how fine a Vice President he will be if elected – that if Ms. Harris picked Mr. Walz to hold this demographic segment, the pick probably hasn’t brought the returns she hoped for.  [Before all you Walz supporters go back on the warpath against the Noise 🙂 ,  let me add that a close friend with a child living in Michigan recently told me that her child has indicated that the pivotal progressive Michigan Muslim voter segment is sufficiently motivated by the Israeli-Hamas conflict that if Ms. Harris had picked PA Gov. Josh Shapiro (whom I preferred) – a staunch defender of Israel – instead of Mr. Walz, Ms. Harris would have lost Michigan, which instead now appears to be her safest swing state.]  However, the answer to the White Male Biden Leaner challenge seems straightforward:  to the extent finances allow, get Mr. Biden on the road to encourage these voters.  (The campaign cost of having a President of the United States barnstorm must be daunting.)  I wouldn’t have Mr. Biden campaign in the big cities; I’d have him land (Air Force One, all the trappings of the presidency) in all the areas of swing states where Mr. Trump is campaigning – the middle of Pennsylvania, the center of Wisconsin, etc. – to reassure his white male supporters about Ms. Harris, and attempt to blunt Mr. Trump’s electoral advantage.

(A continuing lament about former President George W. Bush:  if, as widely understood, he detests Mr. Trump and all Mr. Trump stands for, if he would stop cowering in his abode, endorse Ms. Harris and join Mr. Biden in the campaign stops described above – as former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney has recently joined Ms. Harris in Ripon, WI — my gut again tells me that the duo would effectively limit Mr. Trump’s advantage among white males in those areas.  Alas, Mr. Bush stays mum.)

Finally, I’ve seen reported that a recent NAACP poll has found that Ms. Harris isn’t faring relatively as well among black males as previous Democratic presidential nominees.  She clearly needs to shore up this constituency, but it’s obviously one with which I have little familiarity.  I expect that the campaign will look to former President Barack Obama to shore up Democratic support among older black males.  I’m absolutely confident that the campaign is working hard in trying to determine how to attract younger men of color.  Ms. Harris’ current apparent weakness with black males relative to her Democratic presidential nominee predecessors is perplexing to me, but made me reflect upon a point of interest that I think I remember from the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest between Mr. Obama and former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (but haven’t been able to confirm via Internet research, so I welcome correction if I’m experiencing yet another senior moment).  In that nomination contest, I recall that Mr. Obama consistently took about 90% of the black vote, which arguably indicated – since his and Ms. Clinton’s substantive policy positions weren’t very different – that at least in 2008, most black women identified more by race than by gender.  Since Ms. Harris has reportedly lost some of Mr. Biden’s black male (but not black female) supporters to Mr. Trump, one might infer that given the unabashedly race-baiting nature of the Trump Campaign, at least in 2024, a relatively larger percentage of black men (as contrasted with black women in 2008) identify more by gender than by race.

One thing that Democrats can’t do:  cede the airways on highly-rated events.  Many who read these notes are aware that I tape Packer games rather than watch them live, and generally only watch replays of victories (TLOML’S decades-old suggestion; it’s easier on my viscera and less wearing on those around me 😉 ).  I naturally fast-forward through commercials.  I can’t vouch for the political ads in the first half of yesterday’s Green Bay – Los Angeles Rams game – it only occurred to me to slow down for political ads during the second half — but during the second half the only presidential election ads were Trump ads attacking Ms. Harris.  Packer games are the only media event I can think of that is sure to simultaneously capture a large statewide share of the eyes of Wisconsin Republican Permission Seekers, White Male Biden Leaners, and Black Male Biden Leaners.  Unless the Democrats ran their ads in the first half, an opportunity wasted.   

The intelligence behind political target marketing has obviously become unnervingly good.  TLOML and I are inundated with Democratic pleas for contributions and assurances that we will vote.  We receive nothing from Republicans.

In a contest this close, there are still innings to play; either side can still prevail (just ask the New York Mets or Milwaukee Brewers about the possibility for late comebacks).  Let us hope that Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz, with the help of both liberal and conservative surrogates and the Democratic party “ground game,” effectively address their electoral shortcomings during the next couple of weeks (as early voting begins in earnest).  Our democracy depends on it.