Everyone’s nervous; just keep working!
October 25, 2024
Opening thoughts
Everyone I talk to says the same thing: “I’m nervous.” Our collective nervousness is understandable; the presidential election should be a landslide for Kamala Harris. The fact that it remains a close race is puzzling, frustrating, and anxiety-producing. But the antidote to anxiety is action! The more nervous you are, the more active you should be!
We are close enough to see the finish line. We cannot waste precious time on imagined fears or “What ifs?” Drive votes to the polls. That is the only thing that will make a difference at this point. Worry will not; handwringing will not; trying to deconstruct the motivations of MAGA voters will not. Drive voters to the polls every way we can. That is the only thing that matters.
Kamala Harris’s massive rally in Georgia
Kamala Harris campaigned today in Georgia with an undercard that included Barack Obama, Senator Raphael Warnock, Bruce Springsteen, Tyler Perry, and other A-list Hollywood stars. Video of some of the speakers with a brief quote from each is set forth below. I urge you to spend a few minutes watching Kamala Harris and her surrogates to get a sense of the enthusiasm that continues to follow Harris everywhere she goes. It is heartening that the initial enthusiasm has not waned.
Imagine the Oval Office in three months. It's either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies list, or me working for you, checking off my to-do list.
Joe Biden sent you a check during the pandemic, just like I gave people relief during the great recession. The thing is, we didn’t put our names on it, because it wasn’t about feeding our egos.
We already know who Donald Trump is; that isn’t what this election is about. It is about, “Who are we?” . . . Our individual location isn’t as important as our collective destination. We are one people. Let’s rise together. Let’s win the moment together!
I'm Bruce Springsteen and I'm here today to support Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz for president and vice president. And to oppose Donald Trump and JD Vance. Here's why -- I want a president who reveres the constitution, who believes in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, and who will fight for a woman’s right to choose. There is only one candidate who holds those principles dear: Kamala Harris. Donald Trump is running to be an American tyrant.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump was in a simultaneous rally in Arizona, where he said that America was a “garbage can” because of immigrants. At last, Donald Trump has said something that is not a lie: He believes America is a garbage can. And yet, he wants to be president. Why?
Trump doesn’t want to govern a country he believes is a “garbage can.” He wants to be president so he can avoid going to prison. Trump told Hugh Hewitt in a Thursday interview that he would “fire [special counsel] Jack Smith . . . in two seconds” after becoming president. Video here: YouTube, Trump tells Hugh Hewitt he would fire Jack Smith in "two seconds"
Before the rally, Trump pretended not to hear a question about the latest allegation that he groped a former model while Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were together with the model in Trump Tower. See WaPo, Trump accused of groping by former model Stacey Williams - The Washington Post. The story related by the model conforms precisely to Trump's description of his predatory behavior in the infamous “access Hollywood” tape.
Trump's spokesperson said the model was biased because she had contributed $25 to Joe Biden. Per WaPo, the model has taken a polygraph exam, which indicated “no evidence of deception” in her statement. Perhaps Trump should take a lie-detector test, too. Wouldn’t that be interesting!
As Kamala Harris’s campaign is bolstered by Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and (tomorrow in Texas) Beyonce, Trump's top surrogates are people like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.
Tucker Carlson gave a speech on Wednesday at a Trump rally that set the record for the creepiest MAGA endorsement of Trump ever. After attacking Democrats, Carlson compared Trump's possible presidency to an “angry dad” who comes home to see that his disobedient teenagers still awake.
See YouTube video, where Tucker Carlson says, “Dad comes home and says, “You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking.” When Trump took the stage a few minutes later, the crowd chanted, “Daddy Don.” Sick, creepy, and weird. No wonder Carlson was fired by Fox and why Trump can’t get a job at McDonalds.
Trump's other surrogate, Elon Musk, has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin. See WSJ, Elon Musk’s Secret Conversations With Vladimir Putin. Although it might seem normal for a wealthy businessperson to speak with foreign leaders, the conversations drifted into requests to help America’s enemies.
Per the WSJ,
At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.
Got that? Putin is asking Musk to do a favor for Xi to make an attack on Taiwan harder to defend against. It would be one thing if Musk immediately reported that conversation to the US government; but Musk did not (per the WSJ, which says the White House was unaware of the conversations).
Here’s the takeaway: You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. The dueling campaign appearances on Thursday spoke volumes about the respective candidates before they even said a word.
Why it would be difficult for Trump to overturn a Harris victory
Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and senior adviser at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law has published a detailed analysis in Time Magazine explaining why it would be difficult for Trump to overturn a Democratic victory in 2024. See Time Magazine, Your Vote is Safe: How the U.S. Elections Will Be Protected From Interference.
Gellman covers the electoral process from start to finish in a comprehensive analysis of the safeguards against interference by Trump and local officials. If you are still worried about the security of the election, I highly recommend the article.
Why “Voter ID” laws are “voter suppression laws” in disguise
The wave of voter ID laws that followed Trump's claims of non-existent voter fraud in 2016 and 2020 are voter suppression laws in disguise. Many of those laws were enacted in 2018—after 200 years without such laws. VoteRiders has collaborated with the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (at the University of Maryland) on two reports about the effects of voter ID laws in Texas and Georgia.
The reports are linked below. The bottom line is this: In Georgia, 76,000 eligible voters do not have an accepted form of ID to vote—a number that exceeds Biden’s 2020 margin of victory. See Who Lacks ID in Georgia Today? In Texas, 252,000 eligible voters do not have any of the documents they need to vote a regular ballot. See Who Lacks ID in Texas Today?
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that 98%+ of the voters in Georgia and Texas have no idea what ID is required to vote! Republican legislatures know exactly what they are doing when the impose or change ID requirements: they drive down voter participation—which is the only strategy that a shrinking Republican Party can use to avoid its eventual demise.
VoteRiders is a great resource for questions about acceptable forms of voter ID in all 50 states. Check it out!
A last-minute push for independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska
To everyone’s surprise, the independent candidate Dan Osborn is on the verge of defeating GOP Senator Deb Fischer in Nebraska. (Democrats did not run a candidate in the race.) See Lincoln Journal Star, Osborn leads Nebraska Sen. Fischer in latest poll. (Unfortunately, this article is behind a paywall.)
An Osborn defeat of GOP Deb Fischer could deny Republicans a majority in the Senate. Mitch McConnell has woken up to this fact in the last few weeks and is pouring millions in dark money to defeat Osborn.
Two weeks ago, readers of this newsletter joined together with 31st Street Swing Left and Senate Circle to raise over $100,000 for Dan Osborn. That funding has helped Osborn remain competitive. But he is falling behind the fundraising battle to defend himself against the media onslaught unleashed by Mitch McConnell.
I received simultaneous requests from the Osborn campaign and 31st Street Swing Left to renew efforts to raise funds for Dan Osborn. Although it might be possible to put together another Zoom fundraiser, it would be difficult and distracting for Osborn in the final days of the campaign.
So . . . I am asking readers who are looking for opportunities to make late contributions to consider Dan Osborn. You can give through the 31st Street Swing Left / Act Blue fund that will go directly to Dan Osborn, here: DONATION LINK: Dan Osborn.
For those of you who are not familiar with Dan Osborn, see this link of the fundraiser I co-hosted with 31st Street and Senate Circle: 31st Street Fundraiser - Nebraska - Dan Osborn
My remarks at the fundraiser are at this link. (If you are feeling anxious and need a pep talk, I recommend that you view my remarks.)
Drey Samuelson and James Shelton give their analyses of Dan Osborn’s prospects at this link.
And Dan Osborn introduces himself and answers questions at this link.
In this topsy turvy world, Dan Osborn—an independent—may hold the key to allowing Democrats to control judicial confirmations in the Senate. Dan has a credible shot at defeating an entrenched Trump-supporting MAGA Senator.
Again, if you are able to do so, please view the video and consider supporting Dan Osborn in his effort to defeat GOP Senator Deb Fischer in Nebraska. :DONATION LINK: Dan Osborn.
Opportunities for Reader Engagement
Please join BigTentUSA Monday, October 28th at 7:00PM ET for a special discussion on election protection and certification. With November 5 around the corner and millions of Americans already casting their ballots, the stakes for our democracy couldn’t be higher.
Joanna Lydgate and the States United Democracy Center are at the forefront of a national effort to safeguard our free and fair elections, working to support election officials in the most critical states. Joining her are Steve Bullock, former Governor and Attorney General of Montana, and Cisco Aguilar, the Nevada Secretary of State. They will discuss what to expect during an election season that may be long and contentious, how state officials are preparing, and explore solutions to the democracy crisis we are facing in this country.
Moderated by Samantha Bee, this timely conversation will address the evolving threats to democracy and the crucial role we all play in protecting our democracy for future generations of goblins and ghosts.
Please use this link to register.
BigTentUSA is a moderate, inclusive, and collaborative community empowering citizens to take action to protect democracy, defend women’s rights, and protect our children. Join our free educational series of events and our calls to action detailed and updated regularly on our website.
Concluding Thoughts
I saw a half-dozen articles (at least) on Thursday with the premise, “If Trump wins, then [XYZ] is to blame” and “Here is why so many Americans support Trump.” I think the best strategy is to ignore such articles. Many authors are attempting to hedge their bets against a Trump victory. If he wins, they can claim to be clairvoyants or political geniuses who predicted and/or explained an event that is possible but not probable (in my view). If Trump loses, no one will care about or remember their prognostications.
It would be foolish to give any guarantees about the election, but there is one guarantee that I feel confident in making: Kamala Harris will win the popular vote by a margin of millions of votes—possibly tens of millions. Whether and how that popular vote margin translates into an electoral college victory is the question at the root of our anxiety about “who will win” the election.
The real question of “who will win the election” is more accurately stated as, “Given the antiquated and anti-democratic compromise made by the Framers to induce agrarian, slave-owning states to ratify the new Constitution, which party can win votes that are geographically dispersed in a manner that will result in a majority in the electoral college given the “winner take all” allocation scheme adopted by 48 states?”
[Note: to fully explain the electoral college compromise requires discussion of the “three-fifths” rule for counting enslaved persons. That part of the electoral college compromise was reversed by the Civil War amendments to the Constitution.]
Our elections are not “democratic”— but are instead exercises in game theory. They are not reflective of the views of the majority of Americans in a precise sense. Instead, one major party must win by a margin of 54% of the popular vote to have confidence that it will win in the electoral college. That may have made sense in 1789. It is lunacy today. But here we are.
My point is not to gripe about the electoral college, but to recognize that, in fact, the majority of Americans do believe in liberty, tolerance, inclusiveness, science, education, decency, and fairness. Those Americans will constitute a strong majority in the 2024 election, no matter the outcome of the electoral college votes.
That should give us some comfort about the future prospects of our nation. Take heart from that fact as we fight to map our majority onto the patchwork of electoral votes that the Framers accepted as the cost of creating our union in 1789.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
I am fortunate to live near the Mount Wilson Observatory, home to the 100” Hooker Telescope—the instrument that Edwin Hubble employed to determine that the universe extends beyond our galaxy and that everything in the universe is receding from our galaxy. Those two facts underlie all of cosmology and astrophysics.
My wife and I have visited Mount Wilson on several occasions and have “rented” the Hooker Telescope—which is now “decommissioned” due to light pollution in the Los Angeles Basin. The photos below are two of my favorites of the Hooker Telescope. I took the photos on a tripod with ten-second exposures.
Thank you again for featuring the deplorable strategy of vote suppression to keep mostly older people of color from voting by the grotesque proof of citizenship requirement. Your readers may not know that in the segregated south, pre the 1960s Civil Rights Acts, hospitals were oftentimes white only, so home births were the norm, often without the resulting correct papers sent to register the birth. In addition, to obtain certified copies of your birth certificates takes money and time: in short supply amongst people living below the median income and the delays at State offices often months long. And many vote suppressing states have very limited. hours for voters to obtain state IDs with pictures for the many especially elderly who don't drive. VoteRiders.org is a superb organization doing the best it can; and many voters don't even know they need these special IDs to vote. We the people were whipped by Citizens United that put corporations into power in too many of these repressive states. Sorry to rant... but vote suppression is very much alive and well. John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would have remedied this but Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema thought the filibuster was more important than a federal standard for voting rights in January 2021.
Yesterday, a car flying a large Biden/Harris flag down a major roadway in my MAGA,Fl community brought a smile to my face.Thinking of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss driving Giuliani’s vintage Mercedes….priceless!
“Rudy Giuliani must turn over sports memorabilia and other prized possessions to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him, including his New York City apartment, more than two dozen luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, a judge ruled Tuesday.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/22/nx-s1-5161612/rudy-giuliani-defamation-lawsuit-watches-apartment