“The Only Patriotic Choice for President.”

October 1, 2024

“Kamala Harris is the only choice.”

September 30, 2024, New York Times Editorial Board, Opinion | The Only Patriotic Choice for President.

Although I do not agree with everything the NYTimes Editorial Board writes in the opinion piece linked above, I recommend the entire article. It commends Kamala Harris and condemns Donald Trump as the most unfit person to run for the presidency.

It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

As to Kamala Harris, the Editorial Board writes,

As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.

Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general. [¶¶]

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.

The Editorial Board concludes, “Kamala Harris is the only choice.”

While the Times has been inconsistent and frequently negligent in its coverage of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, it remains the most influential news organization in the world. When the Times’ Editorial Board gets it right, we should shamelessly promote the Board’s opinion. Read it and share it widely! The link above opens the article to everyone!

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We should refuse to politicize the damage caused by Hurricane Helene

On Monday, Donald Trump lied about the response of the federal government and Joe Biden to the disaster caused by Hurricane Helene and its aftermath. We should refuse to politicize the disaster response to Hurricane Helene, but we must also be in a position to refute the lies spread by Donald Trump.

Here are the facts you need to know:

On Monday, Trump visited an area of Valdosta, Georgia damaged by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. While there, Trump said that the Georgia governor Brian Kemp had been “calling the [President Biden] and hasn’t been able to get him” because Biden as “sleeping.”

Trump's statement is a lie.

Per The Guardian,

Kemp refuted the allegation earlier in the day. He said he had been playing phone tag with vice-president Kamala Harris, but also said: “The president just called me yesterday afternoon and he just said: ‘Hey, what do you need?’ … He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which, I appreciate that.”

Later in the day, President Biden directly refuted Trump's claim, saying

“[Trump is] lying and the governor [Kemp] told him he was lying. The governor told him he’s lying. I’ve spoken to the governor, spent time with him, and he told [Trump] he’s lying. I don’t know why he does it … that’s simply not true, and it’s irresponsible.”

Vice President Kamala Harris visited FEMA in Washington on Monday—both to coordinate the disaster relief efforts and to avoid diverting emergency personnel from search and recovery efforts. See her remarks, here: CSPAN, Vice President Harris Remarks at FEMA Headquarters on Federal Response to Hurricane Helene | C-SPAN.org.

President Biden will visit the storm-damaged area on Wednesday. See The Hill, Biden rips Trump for lying, plans to visit North Carolina on Wednesday.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are acting as responsible leaders. Trump is lying during a disaster. You have the receipts; don’t let anyone you know spread disinformation unchallenged.

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Positive developments in Georgia

The 2024 election is unfolding against efforts by Republicans to deny reproductive liberty to women and suppress the votes of Democrats—especially Black voters in urban areas. Those anti-democratic efforts will likely backfire by reminding Democrats, Independents, and persuadable Republicans what is at stake in November.

Three developments in Georgia serve as sharp reminders of how the Georgia GOP is working against the interests of its citizens.

First, a state court judge in Georgia ruled that the state’s six-week abortion ban was unconstitutional under state law. WaPo, Georgia judge says state can’t enforce 6-week abortion ban (Accessible to allow.)

The ruling was described by WaPo as follows,

In the ruling Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote: “Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy (or even equal protection), this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body.”

“The baseline rule is clear: a legally competent person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does — and does not do — in terms of health, hygiene, and the like,” McBurney wrote.

The state attorney general’s office has announced it will appeal the ruling—which will likely be overruled by Georgia’s supreme court. But the trial court judge’s ruling is a timely and stark reminder to all Georgians that the state legislature took away the right of women in Georgia to control their reproductive choices.

The Georgia attorney general will be trying to re-instate a six-week abortion ban (with criminal penalties) at a time when strong majorities of Georgians oppose the law. See Jennifer Gerson in The 19th, Abortion is quietly driving the voting conversation in Georgia — even if it isn’t on the ballot And the Harris campaign knows it.

According to Jennifer Gerson,

Nearly 75 percent of Georgians — including 62 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats — do not want to see abortion criminalized before the point of fetal viability, according to respondents in a University of Maryland poll released on September 4.

So, during the middle of a hotly contested election, the state attorney general will be attempting to re-impose a highly unpopular criminal abortion statute. That will likely drive Democrats and Republicans to the polls in record numbers.

In addition to the abortion ruling, Democrats and voting rights advocates have filed two suits to invalidate new rules passed by the Georgia election board and /or force Governor Kemp to replace the board members for conflict of interest. See Talking Points Memo, Georgia Dems Sue Kemp To Compel Him To Hold Hearing On Rogue Election Board and CNN, Democrats sue to block new Georgia rule requiring hand-count of Election Day ballots.

As with the abortion ruling, the lawsuits will stand as a reminder that Republicans are doing everything they can to suppress the votes of Georgia citizens. Let’s use the ruling and the lawsuits to urge Georgians to turn out on November 5th to reclaim their democracy in the state!

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Democrats pivot to Texas and Florida.

Democrats are beginning to treat the Senate races in Texas (Colin Allred v Ted Cruz) and Florida (Debbie Mucarsel-Powell v. Rick Scott) as winnable! See Talking Points Memo, Dems’ Pivot to Texas and Florida.

While we have no guarantee of success, the fact that Democrats are treating the races as contestable is a good sign—and a reversal of the doom and gloom that has been peddled by pundits. We have reason to hope but no reason to be complacent! Let’s pull out all the stops!

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Rachel Maddow’s Monday report on JD Vance

Rachel Maddow devoted twenty minutes of her Monday evening program to describing statements made by JD Vance on a right-wing talk show. (I believe the comments were made in 2018-ish.) During the segment, Rachel played a video of some wild statements made by JD Vance that could have been ripped from the pages of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”—an adolescent fantasy about all of the brilliant, tough, rich people abandoning society to the “less intelligent, lazier” people so that society could collapse, and the “smart people” could start over as the overlords of the new society.

Within minutes of the Maddow segment, I received a panicked phone call from a friend. Then, I began receiving links to the program and emails from readers who were rightfully terrified that JD Vance might become vice president.

To be clear, we should be terrified that a habitual liar and racist with no moral compass might become Vice President. But we should not ascribe to him superpowers that would allow him to achieve the dictatorial goals he outlined in the right-wing podcast. Below is my response to one reader’s panicked email, which also summarizes JD Vance’s dictatorial aspirations:

JD Vance is a dangerous man, no doubt. But let’s not ascribe superpowers to him. Per the Maddow piece, he wants to close American universities and turn their campuses over to real estate developers. He wants to seize college endowments. He wants to turn the presidency into a CEO-style dictatorship. And he wants to fire all federal government employees and return government functions to the states.

If Vance tried to do any of those things he would fail--spectacularly. He was fantasizing as a cosplay white supremacist on a podcast that featured two white dudes beating their chests to see who could be the most outrageous. Just because JD Vance says he would do those things doesn’t mean he would succeed (if he tried) or that he is serious about attempting to achieve any of those goals.

Yes, we should hold JD Vance accountable for his lunatic statements because doing so will help defeat him. But I hope no one is freaking out because they believe he will be able to accomplish anything he said on the podcast. It had all the seriousness of two insecure teen boys boasting in a locker room to see which one was tougher.

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Concluding Thoughts

It has been a long and grueling campaign. It is easy to lose the through-line. Here it is: This will be the first presidential election after Trump's hand-curated reactionary majority extinguished the reproductive liberty of women that is plainly protected by the Constitution. Abortion rights are on the ballots everywhere because of the threat of a national abortion ban (via enforcement of the Comstock Act).

Pollsters and white male pundits routinely dismiss the notion that women will show up at the polls in 2024 to protect and reclaim their reproductive liberty. I believe those pollsters and pundits are in for a rude awakening.

A recent poll on abortion rights showed that strong majorities of Americans support abortion rights—and that majorities or near majorities of Republicans do so as well. See WaPo, Polls show big increase in Republicans planning to vote for abortion rights. (Accessible to all.)

Read the WaPo article for details, but there has been a strong upsurge in Republican support for reproductive rights since 2022. If true—and it feels like it is consistent with everything we are seeing on the ground—that GOP support could provide the margin of victory in a number of close races. In an “evenly divided electorate,” marginal increases in support can lead to a wave. Let’s hope that it will do so in 2024.

But, as always, we cannot assume our way to victory. We must do the work necessary to drive voters to the polls. The good news is that the WaPo article confirms that reproductive freedom is a motivating issue—despite the dismissive views of male pundits. Let’s move ahead with renewed confidence in light of the confirmation that our sense of the importance of reproductive liberty is right!

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

The image below is my first attempt at capturing the California Nebula. The image shows only a portion of the nebula, which spans 145 arcminutes in the night sky—exceeds the field of view of my telescope. (For comparison, our moon is 31 arcminutes in diameter.)

The nebula is located 1,800 light-years from Earth and is 74 light-years in length. It is a faint emission nebula that is difficult to see with a telescope. I took this photo with a relatively short exposure (one hour). A longer imaging session would likely reveal additional portions and details of the nebula.