Some personal musings as we stand on the brink

I watched Kamala Harris speak on Tuesday night from the Ellipse, the site of a much different rally speech on January 6, 2021. Unlike the dreadful January 6th rally that preceded an attempted coup stoked by hatred and lies, this rally and speech were hopeful. It was a welcome contrast to Trump's clusterfuck of a rally at Madison Square Garden only a few days prior. Harris offered a vision, a plan for the well-being of all of us who call the US our home, and for good measure offered a stark contrast to Trump's darkest ravings. There were no threats to ban independent media outlets, arrest political opponents for simply disagreeing, mass deportations of whole families, or voodoo economics that would plunge us into an economic depression the likes of which we haven't seen in nearly a century. The crowd was very large - I've heard estimates of 50,000 to 70,000 in attendance - and enthusiastic. And Harris did not waste a word. She was able to make her case in about a half hour. It was inspiring.

We could use some inspiration right now as we are truly in the dreaded eleventh hour. I think back to the first Trump campaign in 2016 and his term in the White House. I often want to refrain from referring to Trump as a President as there was nothing Presidential about his actions during his four years. A lot of folks forget just how insane those years were, and just how exhausting they were. Seriously. We were all there to bear witness, right? Waking up to brew some coffee and catch the news meant the dread of opening up the computer and finding out about about whatever grievance or outrageous statement Trump had tweeted in the wee hours of the morning, when he should have been asleep. There was the anxiety over the nearly-successful effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act that any of us with pre-existing conditions experienced. Infrastructure Week became a running joke as the Trump team did nothing to persuade Congress to approve the funding to improve our nation's creaking infrastructure. There was the infamous Muslim Ban. Oh, and the wall that never really got built (although it did yield the occasional grift by Trump's cronies) that was supposed to be paid for by Mexico. And yes, it seems amusing in some respects. But it sure wasn't funny to anyone who watched even more industrial jobs hemorrhage from our own shores as more of our own plants closed. It sure wasn't funny to anyone who was murdered or injured by neo-Nazis, people who got caught up in QAnon conspiracy theories, or from any of the rest of the violent rhetoric that characterized Trump's behavior. Anyone from any oppressed minority would be far from amused by Trump's antics. Anyone who cared about national security had to be more than a little perturbed by Trump's cozy and at times subservient relationship with some of the world's worst dictators (e.g., Putin, Kim, Xi). Others had the concern that Trump's intemperate tweets could trigger a major world war. And the sad thing was that it was a realistic fear or concern - perhaps not probable but definitely realistically plausible. Environmentalist had to be concerned about Trump's obsession with coal, or Trump's weird idea of nuking hurricanes, or having forest rangers rake the forests to prevent forest fires. Oh, and circumventing the highly trained meteorogists at NOAA by drawing a sharpie on a map of a hurricane's trajectory to include a state that was not plosibly in danger of being hit by the force of the storm. Or Trump's asinine idea to inject bleach to treat COVID and discourage the use of COVID tests as he gifted some of the very testing machines we had to Putin. Oh, and the setting stage for a coup by casting doubt on our election's integrity and inciting angry mobs by tweet to kill his own Vice President. The list goes on.

I was so glad when Biden was sworn in on January 20, 2020, as his term meant a return to a semblance of normality. And Biden really did bring back some much-needed calm. Biden liked to quietly go about his work, without any of the drama that Trump brought. I did not expect perfection, but Biden was a competent leader throughout his term, and I suspect history will treat his single term quite favorably. Unfortunately, as long as Trump has had a a vise-like grip on the GOP, the fascist undercurrents that have defined the past decade or so have only intensified. If nothing else, we'll be able to say that we saw some very transformative legislation signed into law that will benefit us all over the next several years. I am confident that Harris will deliver us a competent Presidency as well, assuming she gets the chance. She has a plan that will be fairly easy to implement assuming the Democratic Party controls both the House (probable) and Senate (that is going to be a much heavier lift, but crazier things have happened), and even with a divided or hostile Congress, Harris can at least buy four to eight years for those of us who care about democracy to be prepared if the GOP remains on its current authoritarian path. On foreign policy, which is important to winning my vote, I am convinced Harris will meet the moment when it comes to dealing with Russia's war against Ukraine as well as Russia's bullying of independent nations that were once part of the USSR. I think she'll be much tougher on Israel's Netanyahu regime (let's just call it what it is) and she'll be tougher on Iran and others who are causing havoc internationally. 

Right now, we don't know how the election will turn out, and we won't until sometime after election day comes and goes. Polls only tell us so much. Historical models can be helpful and potentially predictive, but those too have their limits - especially when faced with a moment that doesn't neatly fit into what we usually think of as American history. I take the betting markets with more than a few grains of salt. There's reason to think that Harris has a much better organized get-out-the-vote effort than does Trump. I've even seen Harris advertising in my state, which has no hope at all of flipping from GOP do Democratic this cycle, and arguably not for a good generation or so. There are some markers that could be favorable, such as early voter turnout being disproportionately female, but again, I would hesitate to make too much hay over that particular fact. 

We are a nation on the brink. Whether it is on the brink of a catastrophic dictatorship or a renewal of our faith in and value of democracy is hard to say. We will soon see. My bit of advice is to continue to speak freely (avoid self-censorship) and stand firm in your beliefs. Dictatorships are not inevitable. With some exceptions duly noted, most of the time, would-be dictators have to win enough votes to get into power. Hitler's party did not have a majority of the votes when he became Germany's leader in 1933. Trump has never had a majority and only held office the first time because of some quirks to our electoral system that need to be drastically reformed. We have a subset of our neighbors who are going to be accepting of fascism. Truth is that we always had that particular subset and we always will. Trump was effective in exploiting these folks. Another bit of truth is that if you look at any of the dictators who have risen to power, probably the first thought most folks had when they first began campaigning for any office was how weird and pathetic they were. The very characteristics that make them unappealing for invites to neighborhood cookouts apparently make them effective tyrants until their regimes crumble - and their regimes do inevitably crumble. Sometimes it's only a matter of years. Sometimes, tragically, we may be talking decades if their henchmen can figure out a way to succeed their leader. But outside of the faithful, support for a dictator tends to be soft. Let's hope we never have to find out. 

To the extent we can, let's put in the work, and let's keep the faith. Hope matters a great deal during an election season, and in the chaos that will likely follow this election, we'll need all the hope we can muster.