President Biden has passed the torch to all of us

July 24, 2024

As Americans adjust to the new reality of “Democratic nominee” Kamala Harris, the news cycle is volatile and scattershot. It will take a few days (or weeks?) for voters, media, and commentators to settle on narratives explaining what happened and what will happen next. We must seize this moment to shape the narratives that will control the next 100 days.

I am not a big fan (or user) of social media, but if you are, I urge you to amplify the positive messages about Kamala Harris and the Democratic vision for America. Most importantly, have conversations with the young voters in your lives! Tell them it is a new day and a new candidate, and invite them to become actively involved in electing Kamala Harris. If they become involved, they will show up on election day—and remain active voters for the rest of their lives. What could be better?

As I have struggled to shape a message about where we stand at this moment in history, a reader (David H.) posted a note in the Comment section of yesterday’s newsletter that spoke to me. He said, “President Biden has passed the torch to all of us.” The reader was making the point that President Biden has charged all of us, collectively, with carrying on the work of his lifetime. Not just Kamala Harris, all of us.

We are the temporary guardians of democracy. The torch is not a gift; rather, delivering it safely to the next generation is a sacred duty, an obligation that is personal to each of us. Many readers of this newsletter have been actively involved in grassroots activism since 2017. If you have not, that’s okay. Our lives are often full to the breaking point, and obligations to family, work, and health can understandably prevent taking on extra duties.

However, the next 100 days will be critical in our battle to defend the rule of law and preserve democratic norms. Each of us must try to make that extra effort, find that extra moment, and give that extra dollar to help ensure that Kamala Harris and Democrats win up and down the ballot across the nation in 2024.

For 100 days, each of us must help carry the torch President Biden passed to us on Sunday. This is the moment for action. Decades in the future, your children and grandchildren will ask, “What did you do when democracy hung in the balance?”

Many readers have asked, “What can I do? Where can I start?” Good questions! Reader Ellie K. included a list in the Comments section yesterday that is a helpful guide. Ellie writes that we should engage in the following:

1. Educating people about the dangers of Project 2025. See also Demcast, The Big List of Resources About Project 2025.

2. Registering new voters, helping people ensure they are still registered, and helping people obtain necessary voter ID. (Field Team 6; League of Women Voters; VoteRiders).

3. Educating new voters to vote up and down the ballot (Blue Voter Guide).

4. Get Out The Vote with reminders to vote up and down the ballot (PostCardsToVoters, SisterDistrict, and others)

5. Donate as we can to organizations that research where our donor dollars for candidates have the most impact (E.g., The States Project, Focus For Democracy).

6. Memorize bullet points about Biden's and Harris's accomplishments so you can converse with friends, family, and neighbors.

There are LOTS of other worthy organizations, and if your organization didn’t make Ellie’s list, I still love your organization and will continue to promote it. (Feel free to promote your grassroots organization in the Comments section of this newsletter.)

Don’t let the array of choices deter you from jumping in! Get started; we have 100 days remaining! If everyone does a little, we will “flood the zone” with small acts of democracy that will save democracy for the next generation!

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Kamala Harris opens strong with first campaign rally

Kamala Harris made her first campaign appearance as the de facto Democratic nominee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Buoyed by a wildly enthusiastic crowd, Kamala Harris delivered a speech described as “energetic,” “electric,” and “fiery.” See ABC News, Harris attacks Trump at energetic 1st presidential rally in Milwaukee.

A full video of V.P. Harris’s speech is here: Campaign Event in Wisconsin with Vice President Kamala Harris. Watch the 17-minute speech in its entirety if you can!

V.P. Harris continues to ride a wave of enthusiasm not seen since Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. The only people trying to throw a wet towel on the stunning consolidation of support by Kamala Harris are journalists at the NYTimes—who are complaining that they were not successful in causing the chaos that would have come with an open convention. I am not going to link to these articles to avoid driving traffic to them, but Bret Stephens published an opinion piece entitled, Democrats Deserved a Contest, Not a Coronation, and Ezra Klein, Are Democrats Right to Unite Around Kamala Harris?

Klein, in particular, is disappointed that Democrats are not taking political advice from him. (“I’ve been arguing for an open convention since February. I still believe it would have been a good idea. The right idea.”)

For their part, the headline writers at the NYTimes have settled on a (false) narrative that “Kamala Harris may not be popular with Black voters.” On Monday, the NYTimes greeted Kamala Harris’s candidacy with this headline: Some Black Voters Say They Wonder if a Black Woman Can Win.

Of course, a headline qualified with “some Black voters wonder” means that the NYTimes found a few Black voters who worried that white Americans are not ready to elect a Black female president. Quotes from Black voters in the article include, ““As much as I would love to see Kamala become president, I just don’t think it’s going to happen,” and “I think she’s a pretty good politician but overall it boils down to race and gender. And America is going to hold that against her.”

In other words, the Times turned relatively positive quotes about Kamala that expressed doubts about white Americans into a headline suggesting that Black voters lack confidence in Kamala Harris. For those of you who haven’t canceled your subscriptions to the NYTimes, we should expect more biased reporting against Kamala Harris in the future.

 Ellie Mystal destroys the NYTimes’s shoddy reporting in The Nation, Beware the People Who Claim “America Isn’t Ready for a Black Woman President”. Mystal lays waste to the Times’s biased reporting. Most importantly, he adopts the attitude that all Democrats should embrace: Don’t give into the doubters. Kamala can win. And we should be confident in that fact. Confident, not complacent.

Mystal writes:

But I am not afraid. I am not afraid of these people who will tell us to be afraid. I am not afraid of supporting a Black, South Asian, first-generation woman for president, and I’m certainly not afraid of supporting her because she’s a Black, South Asian daughter of immigrants. I reject the programming that’s designed to make me think a woman of color can’t win, and I embrace the fact that she can.

Kamala can win! She will win—so long as we do not allow the purveyors of doubt and racism convince us otherwise.

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GOP stumbles, inflicts self-injury in trying to articulate a non-racist, non—misogynistic attack on Kamala Harris

Republican operatives fooled the NYTimes into reporting that the GOP was ready for a Kamala Harris candidacy. The GOP clearly was not. See Talking Points Memo,

The Times clearly got suckered by that big article over the weekend, with top Trump campaign officials bragging that they had the whole rollout gamed out and were prepared to destroy Harris on the launchpad with a fusillade of messaging and campaign ad attacks.

Instead of a “fusillade of messaging,” Republican officials immediately raced to the bottom to advance the racist trope that Kamala Harris is a “DEI” candidate—suggesting that she is the de facto nominee only because she is a Black woman. See USA Today, Why Republicans are branding Kamala Harris a 'DEI' candidate.

The attack is offensive not only to the highly qualified Harris, but to all Black Americans. As a reminder, Kamala Harris spent 14 years as a county prosecutor, 8 years as Attorney General of California, two years as a US Senator, and 3.5. years as Vice President. It is hard to imagine a more qualified presidential candidate.

Republicans immediately recognized that the racist attack would backfire, so Speaker Mike Johnson called on House Republicans to cease the racist attacks. See Politico, House GOP leaders urge members: Stop making race comments about Harris.

But Donald Trump didn’t get the memo and right-wing commentators ignored it. The leader of Pastors for Trump called Kalama Harris a “wh*re” and Megyn Kelly claimed that the Vice President “sle[pt] her way into and upward in California politics.” On Tuesday, Trump called Kamala Harris “dumb as a rock.”

I apologize for reprinting those slurs, but we must prepare ourselves for what is coming. More importantly, we must be prepared to call out those attacks for what they are—not just attacks on Kamala Harris, but attacks on all Blacks and women who are doubted, demeaned, and dismissed when they achieve success through hard work, intelligence, and perseverance.

Here's my point: The GOP’s natural instincts to attack Kamala Harris for being a Black woman will alienate constituencies that will decide this election. While it will be painful and ugly, Kamala Harris and Democrats must be prepared to turn those attacks into vulnerabilities for the GOP. Speaker Mike Johnson’s plea to his colleagues today to “Knock it off” evinces self-awareness that racist, misogynistic attacks are a losing strategy, but Republicans can’t help themselves. It is their brand. And we must turn that brand of hate and ugliness against them.

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Claims that the GOP will block Kamala Harris from the ballot are baseless

Republicans have claimed to gullible right-wing media hosts that the GOP will block Democrats from “switching the ticket” at the last moment. The threat is idle, desperate, and silly. There is no “ticket” until the delegates at the Democratic National Convention elect one. The “virtual roll call” of delegates will take place on August 7, 2024—at which point the Democratic ticket will have Kamala Harris as the presidential candidate.

If you don’t believe me, listen to Marc Elias, the election law specialist who beat Trump's 60 legal challenges to the 2020 election. Elias posted the following on Twitter:

There is a zero point zero, zero, zero percent chance that Mike Johnson and his fever dream of somehow there being legal action to prevent Kamala Harris . . . to keep [her] off the ballot, there is no chance that will happen.

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Opportunities for Reader Engagement

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Downtown Nasty Women and The Wednesday Group Giving Circles Zoom Event with Ben Wikler, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party

Please join us on Wednesday, July 24 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern! RSVP HERE to receive the Zoom link.

Watch this compelling, fantastic short tape of Ben Wikler telling about all that’s at stake and possible in November.

Ben has led the WisDems to a string of victories, including Wisconsin's defeat of Trump in 2020 through innovation, inclusion and partnerships. Drawing on Wikler's credo of Fight, Include, Respect, and Empower, the party has built a year-round professional team of diversity and talent, and mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

DNW is a States Project founding giving circle and has been raising money for Michigan for our 7th year and are excited to begin work in Wisconsin. If you can’t make it, and you would like to support Wisconsin, you can contribute to the DNWGC for Wisconsin here. It’s free to join the Zoom, but THERE’S A MATCH RIGHT NOW!! Any contribution from $1 to $5,000 for Wisconsin through that DNW link will be matched 1 to 1.

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Focus for Democracy on Sunday, July 28 at 8:00 pm Eastern

What messages resonate with young people and undecided voters about Kamala Harris? 

Join Focus for Democracy's next event on Sunday night to hear from leading experts in the field as they share insights from the latest data.

Sunday, July 28th 5:00 pm Pacific / 8:00 pm Eastern

Registration link: https://bit.ly/F4D28July

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Concluding Thoughts

I heard from a few readers today who were upset with my unqualified support for Kamala Harris after I argued strenuously that Joe Biden should remain the nominee. As I hope you have come to understand, I tell you how I feel, even when some (most?) readers disagree with me. So, when I say that I support Kamala Harris because she is eminently qualified for the job and the right candidate at this moment, I mean it—literally, sincerely, and in good faith.

I wrote several days ago that it was okay to take a few days to absorb the rapid change in the situation. That is still valid advice. But sooner or later—and hopefully sooner—all Democrats must rally around Kamala Harris. We have 100 days remaining to stop the election of Donald Trump and must do everything within our political power to defeat him at the ballot box. That leaves no time for regrets or lingering arguments over the right path. We are on the right path; we must take it, without hesitation or qualification.

I also wrote two days ago that there was no room for grudges or payback against Democratic officials who spoke their minds about the issue. None. It is self-defeating, it helps Trump, and will imperil the liberties, safety, and security of all Americans.

We must look forward, not backward. Victory lies ahead; division lies in the past. So, join me and millions of Democrats who have enthusiastically embraced the candidacy of Kamala Harris to help her defeat Trump.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Pictured below: Sunflower Galaxy (M63). Taken on July 22, 2024, in Los Angeles, CA. The galaxy is 29 million light-years from Earth and contains 400 billion stars. Astrophysicists believe it is surrounded by a halo of “dark matter,” a hypothesis based on anomalies in the gas cloud that surrounds the galaxy.