Thank you Robert. Pondering how history will look back at our efforts and the choosing what to emphasize (i.e. reproductive liberty, the importance of women, and Republicans voicing their support for Harris) keeps the message clear.
And unambiguous. A great daily dose of realistic hope and joy.
It’s key that we ask hard questions, and that we ask questions few others are asking. For example, regarding Cheney’s support and her appearing with Harris… why now? Why not these appearances 2 months ago? Why are so few former Trump admin folks speaking out consistently and loudly to protect democracy - those who publicly and rightly said that Trump is incompetent and dangerous? Where are they, where is their voice? Where are the masses of women who should be loudly protesting the assault on women’s rights?
These are the questions not being asked enough, it seems to me. Trump, MAGA, Fox, and the current malignant non-reality based GOP (those are facts, not opinion) exist in part because of substantial social apathy and disengagement. They are also symptoms of the Dems not knowing how to street fight - when there’s a bully on the field who won’t stop, you have to stand up forcefully to that bully. The GOP has been a bully assaulting our politics for decades, assaulting truth for decades, assaulting democracy openly now, teaching the public for example to hate our own government (thank you President Reagan). The questions are why this disengagement, this apathy, and how to change that? This group is not representative of the electorate.
Why do we have a a Dem party that has passed important legislation against huge odds but at the same time can’t message consistently, can’t connect to rural voters effectively, a Dem Party that really doesn’t know how to fight when a fight is warranted? We really can’t do anything about the continual lies of Fox and right wing media which pollutes the minds of the susceptible? We really can’t do anything about the toxicity of social media?
If democracy is going to saved, we have to address these questions and the effort, even if Harris wins, will take 10-15 years perhaps. The apathy and disengagement is strangling democracy in front of our eyes and erudite discussions about the election aren’t going to address these fundamental issues.
Charles -- thank you for articulating so well what I have thought for a long time. Why the Democrats don't shout their many accomplishments from the rooftops is perplexing, to say the least.
Charles, you offer many good questions. I, too, have often wondered where the Dems have been, whether they have been naively failed to recognize the Republicans were not playing by the same rules. In fact, they have been making up the rules and ignoring the constitution & voters for some time.
Yet, the Dems are finally pulling it together and I expect the citizen voters are going to vote them forward. So, let’s find ways to answer those questions in our own communities and nationally.
Charles, Absolutely. This is the reason that, as a Dem, I've been watching and donating to the Lincoln Project over the last few years, and then encouraged that the Dems have finally been adopting their strategies this time around.
Thank you Diane (and others, and Robert!)… my goal is to be realistic and strategic (not negative for the sake of being negative). That, as we know, requires intense inquisitiveness.
Why do you think women are so relatively quiet and not much more visibly and vocally engaged (and maybe enraged?)?
I think if, for some ungodly reason, Tr were to win in two weeks, you would see large numbers of women coming out. But in the meantime, it seems the reason for relative quiet is that women are working to get the vote out... and reportedly are already voting in a huge numbers. They're doing what Mr Hubbell has been advocating and happens to be the title of his newsletter yesterday: "focussing on what we can control."
But as I think about it, the delay, the lack of collective outrage by women is still stunning to me because it’s not just Trump, it is the GOP across the country in state houses and otherwise trying to suppress women’s rights. So, if there was a time to protest and to be vocal and to organize, it would’ve been the last six months, not after Trump is potentially elected. Because it’s not just Trump that needs to be rejected but the entire MAGA/GOP platform and way of thinking. So I’m still pondering, why the lack of engagement even if women are organizing it’s not well publicized or reported on. Of all of the women that I know, both friends and professionally within healthcare, almost none of them are particularly angry or speaking out . I know one woman, a retired DA, who is volunteering in Pennsylvania and that’s about it. I will remain puzzled by this for a long time to come. By the way, to be fair, men should be outraged and much more vocal and active as well, on behalf of women and just due to the general toxicity of Trump/MAGA/right wing media.
Charles, nothing wrong with asking hard questions, but I have to ask you who are you listening to and where are you looking for the outrage you perceive to be missing? I am communicating with women every day who are well beyond outrage at the barbarians trying to stuff us back into some 18th century ideal box of their own sick imagining. But, women are not pre-game yick yackers. We’re doers, and we’re in the trenches doing the work to swear Kamala Harris in as President of the United States of America, and deliver her a Congress that can enact our collective agenda protecting our freedoms, our families, and our communities. You are welcome to join us in the trenches. We’d love to have you.
Not a single down ballot candidate the LP has supported has won. I would never give to them. I give to the States Project. The money goes a HUGE distance on the ground.
Your questions have certainly occurred to many of us, many times over since Trump won in 2016. It was clear from the beginning that he was completely uncivilized, misogynistic, exploitative, uninformed, unaware of POTUS does and entirely self-serving. As a business man, he knew enough to put his sights on a target audience to sell his brand to. His close friend, Steven Bannon of Cambridge Analytica , most likely helped Trump target populations using algorithms. Trump directed his "advertising" to a slice of the population that included evangelicals, white supremacists, racists and folks who never had a national champion before. He won them over by telling them what they wanted to hear and in their vernacular. It's sad to hear you and so many people be impatient and critical of how long it's been going on and how clueless people have been. Yes, Trump scored big time and for a long time. It's been a cluster F89K because the DEMS didn't have a "Navalny" to lead the way to uncovering Trump's lies. The DOJ under Merritt Garland was slow to respond with putting up appropriate legal guardrails. People were hearing narratives instead of "just the facts" because they get their news from social media. In other words, progress and change has been an uphill battle. Now that the DEMS got it and we are running our butts off to win every vote. Once we win, the work will really begin.
I have taken a quiet pleasure in turning every “probably won’t vote” I have encountered into a spear in Cancun Cruz’s outrageous and singularly self-serving ambitions.
Over the years I've knocked on countless doors in two so-called battleground states as well as my own fairly blue home state. The many rejections and occasional hostility melt away from memory soon enough. What remain are the relatively few "light bulb" moments -- when I got an unregistered person to register, got an apathetic person to agree to vote, convinced a voter that voting for Dems was the way to go. Sometimes the best you can do is just to plant a seed in the other person's mind, a memory of the conversation you had, a recollection of your commitment, a reflection on the face-to-face interaction you took the time to have with that person because you cared enough to do it. I am certain that in many cases, that seed germinates, takes root, and grows into positive action.
The frustrations greatly outnumber the success stories. So it goes; no one said this would be easy. Every success story is a win, and every win uplifts, stays in memory, and outweighs a hundred failures.
Yesterday I spent some time in the early voting line in Little Rock. It was very busy, folks in line were cordial and the poll workers were awesome. They did a great job accommodating the folks who needed physical accessibility assistance.
Day one attracted determined voters in our blue dot.
In addition to the procedural hurdles, just try to imagine what the MAGA faithful would do if they tried to remove their cult leader. Other than death or complete incapacitation, this seems a very dangerous plan.
Second, we all have to show the joy we bring to our work and the excitement for our candidates. That is the campaign's and our job not to get pulled into defeatism. We need to remind each other that we have a great candidate and they have Trump who is turning Independents and soft Republicans away every day.
Simon Rosenberg says "we're winning but we haven't won yet!
I think it was Rick Wilson who said that if tRump were removed by the Cabinet operating under the 25th Amendment, the MAGA base would never forgive the Republicans.
I have been wondering how people thought the 25th Amendment situation would work, since Cabinet members would have to be appointed and confirmed, a wrangling process for sure.
He did. I said it to someone before I heard him say it. I can't imagine anything else happening, but honestly, I see it as way worse than the R's won't forgive.
Robert, thanks for bringing up the felon's threats against CBS again. The dangers of his efforts to muzzle the press can't be overstated. In today's very timely history lesson (a must read) HCR described how American journalist Dorothy Thompson (married to Sinclair Lewis who, in 1935, wrote 'It Can't Happen Here') in 1934 was expelled from Germany as a result of her critical reporting.
Little known fact: in 2020 the felon's administration planned to limit work visas for foreign correspondents to eight months. A possible extension would require that DHS review “the content that the foreign information media representative is covering in the United States,” to determine the eligibility for this extension. More on this here
Just like Schedule F (the precursor of Project 2025) this overt censorship plan came too late and couldn't be implemented as the felon was voted out of office. Should he be voted back in he will lose no time to introduce it again. First they come for the foreign correspondents, then...Perhaps something NYT editors should have in mind.
Stefan, I think it is very evident that The Times simply doesn’t get it. They are too busy defending themselves, continuing to play the election as “normal” and a horse race. They fail to recognize their role as the “Fourth Estate” speaking truth to power.
In my opinion, the proper role of the so-called Fourth Estate is to report the news and interpret it as fairly as possible. “Speaking truth to power” is an egocentric inflation of the press’s core responsibility.
Yesterday while writing postcards for the Michigan State Supreme Court (lists on postcardstovotrers.org) two friends and I watched the town halls with VP Harris and Liz Cheney. If anyone needs some alleviation of their anxiety, I would recommend especially watching the second town hall Oakland County, Michigan, moderated by Maria Shriver. The questions asked by Maria and audience participants were quite serious and included questions from a school shooting survivor and a teacher with questions on Ukraine and National Security. In addition to reproductive freedom, there were quite serious explanations from VP Harris and Liz Cheney about National Security with the quote from Retired General Mark Miley that trump was fascist to the core. I would also recommend watching the third town hall with Charles Sykes in Brookfield, WI. Again, there were really serious, deep discussions on several issues. YouTube/Kamala channel.
Does anyone really think Merrick Garland has the capability of acting on Elon Musk's payments to voters in Pennsylvania this week?
Very sad about Merrick Garland. He means well but has been too late to the party. Yet, perhaps there is a back story or complexity we don’t know about. For sure, the key has always been getting out the vote so our voices are heard loud, far, and clearly.
This past weekend I made a trip to a very small town in Middle Tennessee (aka, the heart of Trump country) to attend a craft fair with a couple of relatives. We all had on our Harris campaign buttons, US flag pins, and bracelets, and I figured we would be confronted by some Trump supporters, perhaps aggressively. To my great surprise, from the moment I parked the car (with my huge Harris sign in the back window) and throughout the fair, we were stopped and told how much people loved our buttons, etc. Then, as we were leaving, a local police officer stopped me. I thought, "Oh, boy, now I'm in trouble!" As I lowered my window, the officer reached in and grabbed my hand, giving it a good squeeze. He then said, "Thank you so much for your support of Harris! We are going to win this!" We only saw two Trump yard signs and several very large Harris signs as we drove the back roads of Tennessee, and I floated back to Atlanta. I am not saying that Harris will take Tennessee, but we can hope, can't we?!! Wouldn't that be something?!!
The 25th Amendment would not need to be invoked for J. D. Vance to act as President. Trump doesn’t want to take on the responsibilities of President; he’s just interested in the prestige of being President. He appears to be failing, so he could be persuaded that he is in charge, while Vance & others make the actual decisions, & Trump holds a press conference where he writes his signature with a flourish to the applause of his adoring crowd. Meanwhile, his Cabinet makes Project 2025 the law of the land.
And don't forget his real reason for seeking re-election: to shut down federal prosecutions against him and forestall any sentencing or resolution of the state prosecutions. It wouldn't surprise me to see him resign in exchange for a pardon and some sort of continuing insulation against accountability (not sure what that could be, but I'm sure he'd have a team of lawyers on it).
Perhaps if he wins, he will just pardon himself? After all, giving pardons is one of the official acts of a President. Any state cases would be on hold as long as he is President. And it is doubtful that if he is elected President that he will ever allow another election to take place.
You may be right about the self-pardon with the immunity he bought with his Supreme Court, but I don't think he cares about the job as much as the attention and the grift. If he finds a way to have the latter without having to do the job (not that he ever did it anyway), I expect him to pursue it.
Even if he resigns, he'll still be running Congress from Mar-a-Lago as a civilian, (if the GOP maintains a tiny majority,) just like he ran the 118th Congress.
Face it, Trump will affect our gov't till the day he dies.
“When you're dealing with constitutional amendments your default should always be no,” DeSantis said at the event attended by doctors who opposed the abortion amendment. “You can always alter normal policies and legislation. Once it's in the constitution, that's forever. You really have zero chance of ever changing it.”
I have some encouraging news from the ground to report in Mecklenburg county NC. In the first 5 days of early voting, we lag the record-breaking 2020 early vote (EV) totals by around 1.8K votes. (Vote by mail is running far behind which was not unexpected due to being out of the pandemic and the delays in sending out ballots because of RFK Jr.'s shenanigans).
Typically early voting is highest in the first 2 days of EV then drops off somewhat only to close high in the last several days of early voting. It is early days yet, but Saturday's voting was up considerably vs. 2020's and Monday's vote total was actually the highest of the 5 days so far (although Thursday, Friday and Monday totals were within 650 votes of each other). In contrast in 2020, the first Monday was down 13% from the first day of voting.
Before you get too exuberant, EV is popular with everyone in Meck County so we can't assume that Dems are beating the pants off the GOP. But I am encouraged by the fact that there have been so many first time voters in the 2 poll observing shifts I have done. The poll workers make a big deal when there is a first time time voter and everybody claps and woohoos. This is at least triple what I observed in 2022 when I was also an inside poll observer.
I have also taken a couple of shifts as a poll greeter and I have to say that at the polling location there hasn't been much of a GOP presence - they stay for 30 minutes to an hour and then leave which makes me think they are rotating between polling locations. Dems, on the other hand, have sign-up slots for 2 greeters at all the polling locations the entire time the poll is open - in other word 4 shifts on weekdays, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. And there are 33 EV sites in the county! FYI, I am in a fairly red area in a district with one of the 2 GOP city council members, so I would expect it to have a strong GOP presence here, if anywhere.
Reproductive rights - the single most important issue, yet ignored by male writers. I hope this election is the last one where we see this kind of arrogance. If not, we will have a different America...
I've been ignoring them by doing something concrete to help democracy: Finishing up the last of my Vote Forward letters, acting as a poll observer, and handing out blue ballots as a poll greeter. I don't have enough time to pay attention to that nonsense!
Living in MAGA country. (near Arnold Palmer Airport) It's hard to stay positive. I continue to write my postcards and hope larger populations vote b!ue
I agree. I live in MAGA country and it is depressing but early voting is up. I still find pockets of sanity and pray the swing states can come through.
Expect Nate Cohn at the NYT to continue running his curated "polling" horror story right down to the wire at which point Harris v Trump will be a tie or maybe Trump will be proclaimed up by a point. Cohn will continue to manipulate the daily results by including Trump biased polls and ignoring polls that show Kamala up by 3-5 points.........
While terrifying Liberals, Cohn and his polling staff are publishing self doubting articles explaining that polls can frequently be wrong, sometimes beyond the margin of error. WOW! Who knew???.......
Please, please, ignore the daily polls. Pollsters simply can't reach too many voting groups that will decide the election. Cohn is just fabricating results to sell newspapers.....
Meanwhile, the Times adheres to it's "centrist" political view, regardless of the threat from Trump. The paper has so lost its soul, my recommendation to the Times would be....
Stop trying to publish the news and change your moniker to "All the recipes and word games fit to print". The paper would have a better shot at the truth.
I have seen pundits pointing out that GOP voters can make it up on election day. BUT these pundits are ignoring the fact that with such a strong ground game for Dems in the swing states, this clears out a huge swath of voters to be contacted so the phonebankers and canvassers can concentrate on lower propensity voters and drive up turnout.
The irony, of course, is that the "old" GOP used to encourage vote by mail and early in-person voting for their voters for this very same reason.
I have a question for Mr. Hubbell: Do you think it's possible or even likely that when he loses he will simply seize power? His adorers will go along with it, but I'm not sure about others, even paramilitary folks like the police. And can someone please stuff Elon Musk into a hollow tree?
Elon Musk is a plague upon our land. But he's, unfortunately, not alone. But three of the most dangerous to us are, ironically, immigrants themselves: Musk, Thiel, and Murdoch.
Thank you Robert. Pondering how history will look back at our efforts and the choosing what to emphasize (i.e. reproductive liberty, the importance of women, and Republicans voicing their support for Harris) keeps the message clear.
And unambiguous. A great daily dose of realistic hope and joy.
It’s key that we ask hard questions, and that we ask questions few others are asking. For example, regarding Cheney’s support and her appearing with Harris… why now? Why not these appearances 2 months ago? Why are so few former Trump admin folks speaking out consistently and loudly to protect democracy - those who publicly and rightly said that Trump is incompetent and dangerous? Where are they, where is their voice? Where are the masses of women who should be loudly protesting the assault on women’s rights?
These are the questions not being asked enough, it seems to me. Trump, MAGA, Fox, and the current malignant non-reality based GOP (those are facts, not opinion) exist in part because of substantial social apathy and disengagement. They are also symptoms of the Dems not knowing how to street fight - when there’s a bully on the field who won’t stop, you have to stand up forcefully to that bully. The GOP has been a bully assaulting our politics for decades, assaulting truth for decades, assaulting democracy openly now, teaching the public for example to hate our own government (thank you President Reagan). The questions are why this disengagement, this apathy, and how to change that? This group is not representative of the electorate.
Why do we have a a Dem party that has passed important legislation against huge odds but at the same time can’t message consistently, can’t connect to rural voters effectively, a Dem Party that really doesn’t know how to fight when a fight is warranted? We really can’t do anything about the continual lies of Fox and right wing media which pollutes the minds of the susceptible? We really can’t do anything about the toxicity of social media?
If democracy is going to saved, we have to address these questions and the effort, even if Harris wins, will take 10-15 years perhaps. The apathy and disengagement is strangling democracy in front of our eyes and erudite discussions about the election aren’t going to address these fundamental issues.
Charles -- thank you for articulating so well what I have thought for a long time. Why the Democrats don't shout their many accomplishments from the rooftops is perplexing, to say the least.
Charles, you offer many good questions. I, too, have often wondered where the Dems have been, whether they have been naively failed to recognize the Republicans were not playing by the same rules. In fact, they have been making up the rules and ignoring the constitution & voters for some time.
Yet, the Dems are finally pulling it together and I expect the citizen voters are going to vote them forward. So, let’s find ways to answer those questions in our own communities and nationally.
Charles, Absolutely. This is the reason that, as a Dem, I've been watching and donating to the Lincoln Project over the last few years, and then encouraged that the Dems have finally been adopting their strategies this time around.
Thank you Diane (and others, and Robert!)… my goal is to be realistic and strategic (not negative for the sake of being negative). That, as we know, requires intense inquisitiveness.
Why do you think women are so relatively quiet and not much more visibly and vocally engaged (and maybe enraged?)?
I think if, for some ungodly reason, Tr were to win in two weeks, you would see large numbers of women coming out. But in the meantime, it seems the reason for relative quiet is that women are working to get the vote out... and reportedly are already voting in a huge numbers. They're doing what Mr Hubbell has been advocating and happens to be the title of his newsletter yesterday: "focussing on what we can control."
But as I think about it, the delay, the lack of collective outrage by women is still stunning to me because it’s not just Trump, it is the GOP across the country in state houses and otherwise trying to suppress women’s rights. So, if there was a time to protest and to be vocal and to organize, it would’ve been the last six months, not after Trump is potentially elected. Because it’s not just Trump that needs to be rejected but the entire MAGA/GOP platform and way of thinking. So I’m still pondering, why the lack of engagement even if women are organizing it’s not well publicized or reported on. Of all of the women that I know, both friends and professionally within healthcare, almost none of them are particularly angry or speaking out . I know one woman, a retired DA, who is volunteering in Pennsylvania and that’s about it. I will remain puzzled by this for a long time to come. By the way, to be fair, men should be outraged and much more vocal and active as well, on behalf of women and just due to the general toxicity of Trump/MAGA/right wing media.
Charles, nothing wrong with asking hard questions, but I have to ask you who are you listening to and where are you looking for the outrage you perceive to be missing? I am communicating with women every day who are well beyond outrage at the barbarians trying to stuff us back into some 18th century ideal box of their own sick imagining. But, women are not pre-game yick yackers. We’re doers, and we’re in the trenches doing the work to swear Kamala Harris in as President of the United States of America, and deliver her a Congress that can enact our collective agenda protecting our freedoms, our families, and our communities. You are welcome to join us in the trenches. We’d love to have you.
Not a single down ballot candidate the LP has supported has won. I would never give to them. I give to the States Project. The money goes a HUGE distance on the ground.
Your questions have certainly occurred to many of us, many times over since Trump won in 2016. It was clear from the beginning that he was completely uncivilized, misogynistic, exploitative, uninformed, unaware of POTUS does and entirely self-serving. As a business man, he knew enough to put his sights on a target audience to sell his brand to. His close friend, Steven Bannon of Cambridge Analytica , most likely helped Trump target populations using algorithms. Trump directed his "advertising" to a slice of the population that included evangelicals, white supremacists, racists and folks who never had a national champion before. He won them over by telling them what they wanted to hear and in their vernacular. It's sad to hear you and so many people be impatient and critical of how long it's been going on and how clueless people have been. Yes, Trump scored big time and for a long time. It's been a cluster F89K because the DEMS didn't have a "Navalny" to lead the way to uncovering Trump's lies. The DOJ under Merritt Garland was slow to respond with putting up appropriate legal guardrails. People were hearing narratives instead of "just the facts" because they get their news from social media. In other words, progress and change has been an uphill battle. Now that the DEMS got it and we are running our butts off to win every vote. Once we win, the work will really begin.
Excellent follow-up and analysis. Thank you Charles!
I have taken a quiet pleasure in turning every “probably won’t vote” I have encountered into a spear in Cancun Cruz’s outrageous and singularly self-serving ambitions.
That fills me with joy.
Good work Susan O'Brien!
Way to go, Susan! My "like" button doesn't work, but I like your approach!
Over the years I've knocked on countless doors in two so-called battleground states as well as my own fairly blue home state. The many rejections and occasional hostility melt away from memory soon enough. What remain are the relatively few "light bulb" moments -- when I got an unregistered person to register, got an apathetic person to agree to vote, convinced a voter that voting for Dems was the way to go. Sometimes the best you can do is just to plant a seed in the other person's mind, a memory of the conversation you had, a recollection of your commitment, a reflection on the face-to-face interaction you took the time to have with that person because you cared enough to do it. I am certain that in many cases, that seed germinates, takes root, and grows into positive action.
The frustrations greatly outnumber the success stories. So it goes; no one said this would be easy. Every success story is a win, and every win uplifts, stays in memory, and outweighs a hundred failures.
Really lovely.
You definitely should.
🎯
Yesterday I spent some time in the early voting line in Little Rock. It was very busy, folks in line were cordial and the poll workers were awesome. They did a great job accommodating the folks who needed physical accessibility assistance.
Day one attracted determined voters in our blue dot.
In addition to the procedural hurdles, just try to imagine what the MAGA faithful would do if they tried to remove their cult leader. Other than death or complete incapacitation, this seems a very dangerous plan.
Second, we all have to show the joy we bring to our work and the excitement for our candidates. That is the campaign's and our job not to get pulled into defeatism. We need to remind each other that we have a great candidate and they have Trump who is turning Independents and soft Republicans away every day.
Simon Rosenberg says "we're winning but we haven't won yet!
I think it was Rick Wilson who said that if tRump were removed by the Cabinet operating under the 25th Amendment, the MAGA base would never forgive the Republicans.
I have been wondering how people thought the 25th Amendment situation would work, since Cabinet members would have to be appointed and confirmed, a wrangling process for sure.
He did. I said it to someone before I heard him say it. I can't imagine anything else happening, but honestly, I see it as way worse than the R's won't forgive.
Robert, thanks for bringing up the felon's threats against CBS again. The dangers of his efforts to muzzle the press can't be overstated. In today's very timely history lesson (a must read) HCR described how American journalist Dorothy Thompson (married to Sinclair Lewis who, in 1935, wrote 'It Can't Happen Here') in 1934 was expelled from Germany as a result of her critical reporting.
Little known fact: in 2020 the felon's administration planned to limit work visas for foreign correspondents to eight months. A possible extension would require that DHS review “the content that the foreign information media representative is covering in the United States,” to determine the eligibility for this extension. More on this here
https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/trump-administrations-proposal-to-limit-foreign-journalist-visas-is-a-violation-of-press-freedom/
Just like Schedule F (the precursor of Project 2025) this overt censorship plan came too late and couldn't be implemented as the felon was voted out of office. Should he be voted back in he will lose no time to introduce it again. First they come for the foreign correspondents, then...Perhaps something NYT editors should have in mind.
Stefan, I think it is very evident that The Times simply doesn’t get it. They are too busy defending themselves, continuing to play the election as “normal” and a horse race. They fail to recognize their role as the “Fourth Estate” speaking truth to power.
Smith unsealed the case and NYT placed article on page A16.
Outrageous. But we need to put our energy to better use.
In my opinion, the proper role of the so-called Fourth Estate is to report the news and interpret it as fairly as possible. “Speaking truth to power” is an egocentric inflation of the press’s core responsibility.
Yikes
Yesterday while writing postcards for the Michigan State Supreme Court (lists on postcardstovotrers.org) two friends and I watched the town halls with VP Harris and Liz Cheney. If anyone needs some alleviation of their anxiety, I would recommend especially watching the second town hall Oakland County, Michigan, moderated by Maria Shriver. The questions asked by Maria and audience participants were quite serious and included questions from a school shooting survivor and a teacher with questions on Ukraine and National Security. In addition to reproductive freedom, there were quite serious explanations from VP Harris and Liz Cheney about National Security with the quote from Retired General Mark Miley that trump was fascist to the core. I would also recommend watching the third town hall with Charles Sykes in Brookfield, WI. Again, there were really serious, deep discussions on several issues. YouTube/Kamala channel.
Does anyone really think Merrick Garland has the capability of acting on Elon Musk's payments to voters in Pennsylvania this week?
Based on his past performance , I do not feel hopeful that he will , but hopefully he will surprise us!
No movement before the election unfortunately
You mean I shouldn't expect AG Garland to respond to and act on my written request to him yesterday that he should immediately investigate Musk?
Very sad about Merrick Garland. He means well but has been too late to the party. Yet, perhaps there is a back story or complexity we don’t know about. For sure, the key has always been getting out the vote so our voices are heard loud, far, and clearly.
Robert I have decided that I will llimit myself to reading only your words daily until the election is over.
PS A huge Thank you to Liz Cheney who will go down in history as a hero
This past weekend I made a trip to a very small town in Middle Tennessee (aka, the heart of Trump country) to attend a craft fair with a couple of relatives. We all had on our Harris campaign buttons, US flag pins, and bracelets, and I figured we would be confronted by some Trump supporters, perhaps aggressively. To my great surprise, from the moment I parked the car (with my huge Harris sign in the back window) and throughout the fair, we were stopped and told how much people loved our buttons, etc. Then, as we were leaving, a local police officer stopped me. I thought, "Oh, boy, now I'm in trouble!" As I lowered my window, the officer reached in and grabbed my hand, giving it a good squeeze. He then said, "Thank you so much for your support of Harris! We are going to win this!" We only saw two Trump yard signs and several very large Harris signs as we drove the back roads of Tennessee, and I floated back to Atlanta. I am not saying that Harris will take Tennessee, but we can hope, can't we?!! Wouldn't that be something?!!
Wow. A great (and surprising!) story. Thank you.
The 25th Amendment would not need to be invoked for J. D. Vance to act as President. Trump doesn’t want to take on the responsibilities of President; he’s just interested in the prestige of being President. He appears to be failing, so he could be persuaded that he is in charge, while Vance & others make the actual decisions, & Trump holds a press conference where he writes his signature with a flourish to the applause of his adoring crowd. Meanwhile, his Cabinet makes Project 2025 the law of the land.
That would require a large criminal conspiracy. It is possible but highly unlikely.
And don't forget his real reason for seeking re-election: to shut down federal prosecutions against him and forestall any sentencing or resolution of the state prosecutions. It wouldn't surprise me to see him resign in exchange for a pardon and some sort of continuing insulation against accountability (not sure what that could be, but I'm sure he'd have a team of lawyers on it).
Perhaps if he wins, he will just pardon himself? After all, giving pardons is one of the official acts of a President. Any state cases would be on hold as long as he is President. And it is doubtful that if he is elected President that he will ever allow another election to take place.
You may be right about the self-pardon with the immunity he bought with his Supreme Court, but I don't think he cares about the job as much as the attention and the grift. If he finds a way to have the latter without having to do the job (not that he ever did it anyway), I expect him to pursue it.
True.
Even if he resigns, he'll still be running Congress from Mar-a-Lago as a civilian, (if the GOP maintains a tiny majority,) just like he ran the 118th Congress.
Face it, Trump will affect our gov't till the day he dies.
Kinda like Cheney (the Dick)and his sidekick W.
DeSantis saying the silent part out loud…
“When you're dealing with constitutional amendments your default should always be no,” DeSantis said at the event attended by doctors who opposed the abortion amendment. “You can always alter normal policies and legislation. Once it's in the constitution, that's forever. You really have zero chance of ever changing it.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/desantis-state-money-time-power-fight-abortion-rights-115005759
Phonebanking opportunities with Yes On 4 Florida:📲
https://www.mobilize.us/yes4florida/
Text banking opportunities for Debbie Mucarasel-Powell:
https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/645766/
I have some encouraging news from the ground to report in Mecklenburg county NC. In the first 5 days of early voting, we lag the record-breaking 2020 early vote (EV) totals by around 1.8K votes. (Vote by mail is running far behind which was not unexpected due to being out of the pandemic and the delays in sending out ballots because of RFK Jr.'s shenanigans).
Typically early voting is highest in the first 2 days of EV then drops off somewhat only to close high in the last several days of early voting. It is early days yet, but Saturday's voting was up considerably vs. 2020's and Monday's vote total was actually the highest of the 5 days so far (although Thursday, Friday and Monday totals were within 650 votes of each other). In contrast in 2020, the first Monday was down 13% from the first day of voting.
Before you get too exuberant, EV is popular with everyone in Meck County so we can't assume that Dems are beating the pants off the GOP. But I am encouraged by the fact that there have been so many first time voters in the 2 poll observing shifts I have done. The poll workers make a big deal when there is a first time time voter and everybody claps and woohoos. This is at least triple what I observed in 2022 when I was also an inside poll observer.
I have also taken a couple of shifts as a poll greeter and I have to say that at the polling location there hasn't been much of a GOP presence - they stay for 30 minutes to an hour and then leave which makes me think they are rotating between polling locations. Dems, on the other hand, have sign-up slots for 2 greeters at all the polling locations the entire time the poll is open - in other word 4 shifts on weekdays, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. And there are 33 EV sites in the county! FYI, I am in a fairly red area in a district with one of the 2 GOP city council members, so I would expect it to have a strong GOP presence here, if anywhere.
Methodical, detailed, measured, and...dare I say it, joyful, reporting. Thanks for taking the time to share and en-courage.
Reproductive rights - the single most important issue, yet ignored by male writers. I hope this election is the last one where we see this kind of arrogance. If not, we will have a different America...
https://barrygander.substack.com/p/trump-would-create-a-fragile-merciless
Thank you for the clarification about the 25th amendment. I guess i am seeing boogey men around every corner. And it is exhausting.
I've been ignoring them by doing something concrete to help democracy: Finishing up the last of my Vote Forward letters, acting as a poll observer, and handing out blue ballots as a poll greeter. I don't have enough time to pay attention to that nonsense!
Living in MAGA country. (near Arnold Palmer Airport) It's hard to stay positive. I continue to write my postcards and hope larger populations vote b!ue
Stay strong!
I agree. I live in MAGA country and it is depressing but early voting is up. I still find pockets of sanity and pray the swing states can come through.
Keep the faith, Michal and Lisanne! You are doing the hardest work with the least support. Fingers crossed that America is with you.
Expect Nate Cohn at the NYT to continue running his curated "polling" horror story right down to the wire at which point Harris v Trump will be a tie or maybe Trump will be proclaimed up by a point. Cohn will continue to manipulate the daily results by including Trump biased polls and ignoring polls that show Kamala up by 3-5 points.........
While terrifying Liberals, Cohn and his polling staff are publishing self doubting articles explaining that polls can frequently be wrong, sometimes beyond the margin of error. WOW! Who knew???.......
Please, please, ignore the daily polls. Pollsters simply can't reach too many voting groups that will decide the election. Cohn is just fabricating results to sell newspapers.....
Meanwhile, the Times adheres to it's "centrist" political view, regardless of the threat from Trump. The paper has so lost its soul, my recommendation to the Times would be....
Stop trying to publish the news and change your moniker to "All the recipes and word games fit to print". The paper would have a better shot at the truth.
Any one who has gone to a polling place and seen the lines and enthusiasm knows something is a miss with the polls
YES! Reports are that early voting is running about 65% in favor of likely Dems.
I have seen pundits pointing out that GOP voters can make it up on election day. BUT these pundits are ignoring the fact that with such a strong ground game for Dems in the swing states, this clears out a huge swath of voters to be contacted so the phonebankers and canvassers can concentrate on lower propensity voters and drive up turnout.
The irony, of course, is that the "old" GOP used to encourage vote by mail and early in-person voting for their voters for this very same reason.
We're certainly all hoping that our historic grassroots activities will with this election.
There is only ONE enemy among us in the US and it's Donald Trump.
Good for Liz Cheney! Let's hope some of the formerly rock ribbed Republicans decide to put country over party, sanity over insanity. For any who don't read Heather Cox Richardson on a daily basis, please take a moment to read the attached and then to pass it on as far and wide as you feel comfortable: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-21-2024?r=f38fk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
That scared me to death.
I have a question for Mr. Hubbell: Do you think it's possible or even likely that when he loses he will simply seize power? His adorers will go along with it, but I'm not sure about others, even paramilitary folks like the police. And can someone please stuff Elon Musk into a hollow tree?
Elon Musk is a plague upon our land. But he's, unfortunately, not alone. But three of the most dangerous to us are, ironically, immigrants themselves: Musk, Thiel, and Murdoch.