21 August

My Thoughts On The Convention (I Don’t Do Takeaways Or Quote From Polls). It’s Simple. I Just Think.

by Jon Katz

It was intriguing to hear three political pundits on cable news today assert that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have overcome the easy part and are now facing the tough stuff. If I’m not mad, they seem to have dealt with the tough stuff and are already moving straight to better stuff.

That is different from what our media says.

It made me shake my head. Our media is not about informing but alarming.

How could the last month possibly have been easier than what is ahead? They can only see doom and argue about light.

Harris has done the impossible in just a few weeks. She has brought some joy back to the country.

The Republicans, filled with dread and fear,  have turned a political party and Presidential election into a completely unanticipated beacon of hope and change. Their influence on the public perception of the future is undeniable.

I also laugh at Donald Trump’s insistence on suggesting that Kamala Harris is a Marxist and Communist (they are not, in fact, the same thing). She looks nothing like Karl Marx and will have no trouble dispelling that. Karl Marx, like Donald Trump, never laughed once in his life.

The public is not just captivated by Harris and enamored with Walz but also in love with them and deeply engaged in their political narrative. Indeed, some of that will pass. But there is now a momentum, and like avalanches, they can go a long way before stopping.

Despite being a minefield of potential disaster last month, Harris and Walz have avoided making a severe mistake. Their resilience is a testament to their leadership, and it’s a story that keeps us all hooked.

I’m not worried about her; I’m more concerned about everyone being eager to worry about her. Are right and left-wing extremists the only people who know how to be confident?

I pay no attention when the pundits say Trump has lost no support.

All I have to do is ask my neighbors, rural men who have mostly taken down their Trump signs and stopped putting them on their lawns. I trust that more than any poll, and there is no way these men will admit not voting this year to strangers on the phone.

Despite the gloomy predictions of the almost irrelevant mainstream media, we, the audience, are witnessing a journey to the top for Camala Harris with very few dark clouds ahead. When I want to understand what is happening, I go to Instagram or TikTok, a first for me. Our engagement is shaping the political narrative.

Yes, the world is unpredictable, and trouble can boil up. A car can also hit me every time I go to the market. That doesn’t take hope or joy away from me. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.

Here’s what I see. Harris has miraculously neutralized Donald Trump’s vicious and successful attacks, making him a subject of ridicule and contempt. His rallies no longer attract nearly as many people as they did in the past, and his efforts to look moderate are just funny and hardly persuasive.

This is a testament to Harris’s strategic prowess and the changing dynamics of the political arena. His attacks need to be fixed.

The old media can’t accept this; they can’t bear losing their pet and profitable monster. What will they obsess on next?

He’s kept them busy and in business for years as their relevance fades steadily and sadly. Like Harris herself, I no longer have a need or use for them, and they rarely know the truth or tell it. But we, the so-called discerning public, can see through their facade.

The challenge is to ignore labels. Nobody ever learned to think by labeling themselves red or blue. No one predicted what was happening, although I did see a women’s revolution coming. I didn’t see it being so powerful and aroused so fast.

This is a dramatic and massive change in American politics. It’s stunning.

In case the media haven’t noticed, no one – absolutely anyone – is upset because Kamala Harris disagrees with having to do those stuffy and useless interviews. Why give herself a chance to stumble when everything is going well?

She has the most important cultural and political change in America at her back—angry women who have had enough, and now, young people hungry for hope and black Americans ready to storm the voting places. It’s a powerful coalition.

They aren’t going back, and she will benefit enormously from that in her campaign. The women’s revolution is here; look at the faces of those women at those rallies. The MAGA hats are not stirring anybody under the age of 60.

That’s the problem with Zealots; they only talk to each other.

The political misfire of the century was dumping Rose vs. Wade after 50 years of existence. The most compelling stories at the Democratic Convention are coming from those young women and mothers who have nearly lost their lives as well as their freedom because religious fanatics have taken over too many state houses.

Nobody wants the government in their beds, bedrooms, or doctor’s offices; Harris is right on the beam.

Let’s see what happens in November. I’ve never seen women so angry or determined to change.

Harris hasn’t done that severe sit-down with a tough reporter I keep hearing about, and the system has remained intact. She doesn’t talk much to reporters; she speaks instead directly to 20,000 people a pop.

The 200 social media Influencers she has invited to her Convention are busier than ever. They are thrilled to be invited to a party that has never let them in. They are having a blast, and so are their millions of readers. We live in an imperfect time; our future is exciting but equally imperfect. That’s life.

After spending years labeling Barack Obama a foreigner and worse, Trump told a reporter last night with a straight face that he liked the Obamas; they were good people (much what he said of the Nazis storming through Virginia waving their Nazy flags.) The reporter was speechless; she could hardly absorb another colossal lie.

They are getting worse and, yes, more ridiculous. The other night, Trump’s adolescent demon got him to say he was better-looking than Harris. TikTok went mad. Another million women hate Trump.

The pundits keep saying the contest will be close and intense, but the evidence that that is necessarily true is receding. Harris has the wind at her back, and Trump is no longer a tornado but an increasingly ridiculous and mentally troubled person, more and more something of a joke. As one TV regular said, Trump is losing his “taste.

The recently paralyzed Democratic party is now competing all over the place; she had many ways to win in November.

Momentum is everything in politics; it even trumps arrogant billionaires who still hope to buy the country.

Don’t expect the old and musty press to say much about that; old and musty billionaires are their bread and butter.

Trump is a goldmine for them; the crazier and more insulting he is, the more people want to see the circus and pay. The corporations who own just about all of the mainstream American media don’t want it ever to end.

He seems to finally grasp that he is in trouble and needs to be more sociable. Good luck with that. If you are a sociopath, you will testify that sociopaths can’t change, admit being wrong,  or contemplate defeat. We’ll see what happens.

The most challenging days are ahead for him. Harris is picking her shots and forums brilliantly, and the long, frustrated women in power politics are delivering some of the most powerful speeches and arguments since Abraham Lincoln.

Hundreds of thousands of people are signing up to work for her campaign. The passion and enthusiasm around them are stunning and unprecedented in my life. Trump’s rallies are looking more and more like planned picnics in assisted care.

The Republican Party is stuck with the role of poor Joe Biden when time caught up with him. They look petty, angry, corrupt, and pathetic. And almost all of them are old.

Kamala Harris has many opportunities and forums to make her policies clear enough. People are paying attention.

She’ll do it when it feels right, and she has become Trump’s worst fear, a young and charismatic woman up against a pathetic and ridiculous – and slimy –  old man.  He seems unable to change. Harris doesn’t need to change. She’ll do it in her way, not the media’s, not Trump’s.

Trump could live a long time if he retires to those plush gold courses, his real homes, and sells his golden shoes and bibles. He won’t last too long this way; look at him when he tries to talk in public. Joe Biden, you are not alone. I suspect that you will outlive him.

Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have set the stage.

This is a country that can’t even bear to speak about aging; nobody wants to see an old and angry white man fall apart in full view. Biden finally learned that lesson, and so have the rest of us.

The man who campaigned like a fearsome tiger looks like he can’t find his walker or wheelchair. It worked then, but it’s too much for him now, and the strong women of American politics—a breed that barely existed until a few years ago—are eating him alive.

Things are happening. Change is here.

The other stroke of luck or genius (or both) for Camala Harris is Governor Lawz. The camera loves him, his back story is perfect, and his humor and generosity are almost irresistible. He is the ideal politician, lovable and generous, with a two-foot machete hidden in his pants leg.

He’s the Yellow Lab of politics, with a nasty and surprising bite when he needs it.

Here’s another way to look at it.

Despite his arrogance and dreadful political instincts, Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate, perhaps the least likable political figure in modern times.

Harris picked Timothy Walz, the most likable teacher, coach,  sergeant, friend of the oppressed, and one of the most popular vice president candidates ever. Who is stumbling, and who isn’t?

Everyone wants to have a cup of coffee with Walz. Only spiders wish to sit with Trump or Vance and chat about the weather and women’s evilness.

That tells you almost everything you need to know about politics and who can care for themselves and who can’t.

 

4 Comments

  1. I live in the 1st Congressional District in Minnesota. We elected Tim Walz to Congress in 2006 as a Democrat in a super red district. He represented us until he decided to run for governor. He is serving his second term as governor. Now we get to share him with the rest of the country.

  2. 76 year old hippie living in the red state of Indiana. I marched in the 60s. I have been very disenchanted the last several years. I have watched every night of the DNC and have become completely inspired and motivated. I am signed up for a video class on how to speak & listen to family and friends who are uncertain or are choosing not to vote at all. I have also signed up to be a poll worker, something I never considered doing before.
    I love your comments and am also almost convinced to download Tik Tok. Keep up your excellent work — from another gardener who is loving those begonias today. Give Maria a hug from me, a total fan of hers.

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