Some perspective from the farm.
Please take it or leave it, and either way, thanks for reading it. I have no apologies for my beliefs, and I don’t qualify my opinions with “what ifs,” “maybe’s,” and “hope so,” just as I never embrace Old Talk, a killer of older people and a breaker of their spirit. I accept my limits; I don’t permit them to take over my life. And I am never afraid to be wrong. It happens often. That is the end of thought.
Some weekend thoughts on the looming and historic confrontation between the past and the future.
Kamala Harris, a figure of stark contrast, is a lot for Donald Trump and his allegedly white Christian Crusaders to swallow. She is young, half-African American, half-Indian, and liberal. She smiles, laughs, and presents as a Prosecutor against her opponent, a Felon. She seems to love being something they hate: a woman in power.
For many white men, this is as close to a declaration of war as war itself. Trump was prepared to destroy the increasingly inarticulate Joe Biden. He built a whole campaign around it.
Instead, he got something quite alien, both to Trumpism and the hide-bund and constipated American media and political system. His response is to put Biden’s head on Harris and run against that. It looks freakish, creepy, and uncomfortable. Harris may be many things, but she is no Biden. She is a Harris. Biology works that way.
It feels like a campaign for two other people, at least on one side. It is out of sync with reality for Trump, desperate and flailing.
Trump is not a political leader, not in conventional terms. He is and has always been a Cult Leader, with a following that will never abandon him but which is not appealing or friendly, and is aging and unable to grow.
Harris has seized on an idea that both Trump and the Media have failed to see—an idea that is much bigger than a political campaign.
Women have drawn an extensive line in the send. There is no going back. They are not going back. It’s catchy and powerful. Contrary to Trump, let’s save the country and go as far back as possible.
This idea of not going back has, in effect, become Kamala Harris’s campaign theme, which is lifting hearts and stirring the spirits of millions of discouraged and frustrated women who could care less how she fumbled things a few years ago. She’s not fumbling anything at the moment.
Not going back is a big idea, a lot bigger than Trump’s dark, depressing, cruel, and empty world.
His followers seem ready to drink the Kool-Aid, as cult followers do, but he can’t seem to fight the truth. There needs to be more of them to win, and more non-members are willing to sign up again. His campaign is about nothing more than going back at all costs. He is the frightened white man’s last hope. Like Bide, like Trump, their time is up. They are not going back.
Since Biden was even farther back than Trump in some ways, he was the perfect opponent. He could sail on Biden’s unpopularity and mix it with his rabid following. The math might work on that one. He might have had a landslide if he wasn’t so hateful. Trump’s ego is Kamala Harris’s best friend.
The smart ones – and there are many smart Trumpists – will find a way to get out or hide. His boot-licking allies will eat him alive when the time comes and nibble on his remains. They are politicians, after all.
In the past weeks, Trump has tried every cruel and demeaning thing he can think of to undercut her shockingly exciting and popular new campaign. She may be as “dumb as a rock,” as she suggested, or an “extreme leftist radical Marxist,” as he called her, or a “bum,” as he called her last night, or “pathetic” a week ago.
But so far, that isn’t sticking. He needs more names.
People are paying attention, thanks in no small measure to Trump. They can judge for themselves.
For a Dumb Marxist Blockhead, Harris has been dancing rings around Trump all week, raising millions of dollars, signing up thousands of people, and taking over one social media site after another. She looks happy, vital, and ready. She’s even had a good voice coach.
I was surprised. I didn’t realize she was what millions of women and young people have been waiting for.
Many young people seemed thrilled, too; her social media sites have drawn millions. They seemed desperate for something new and young.
Trump and his handlers have finally settled on a more focused assault on Harris: she is too liberal for America, an extremist “woke-ist” who will protect the right to abortions and stuff the courts with Marxist radicals, as opposed to far-right Christian nationalists and extremists and anxious white men.
Nothing rattles them more than a strong woman. It’s a shame they don’t know what they are missing.
Her campaign will almost certainly settle down and miss some of the thrill and excitement, although it depends on her and the people around her.
If she can keep it going for just a few more weeks, then she will be Trump’s worst nightmare come true and will become President of the United States. So far, she is more deft, fast-moving, charismatic, and savvy than anyone expected. I believe she will win. There, I’ve said it with no hesitation and qualifications.
No matter how many names they call her, this is a Presidential campaign, and it’s coming to life under their shocked noses; people will see her for themselves, something that was no longer possible or rewarding for Joe Biden.
I believe Trump Fever is about to break.
He looks and sounds awful and can’t quite grasp that what surprised the country and worked for him eight years ago will not work for him again. His challenge was to be new, not old, strange, and depressing. He and Joe Biden have switched places in our politics and national history.
The irony of ironies: he is the new Joe Biden. He cannot make it through another four-year term or even a debate with someone whose cognitive functions are still working. They have traded places. Biden is still a wily fox, even if he can’t catch the rabbits. Sometimes, you win by losing.
Biden is gone, and Trump is old, fading, and increasingly confused and isolated. He always gets ugly when threatened and undercuts himself. There is no way that a swollen ego can withstand this.
He is up against an energized, trained criminal lawyer who is in the best possible position—exceeding all low expectations. Her popularity can only go up.
Trump is lowering his by the hour. He is not likely to ever debate this young and radical Marxist black and yellow woman. He might be nuts, but he isn’t dumb.
No felon ever wants to get onstage with a prosecutor, not a felon with a swollen ego, faltering memory, and addiction to lying in public.
Stay tuned.
