The Books of Bokonon

Obviously, after the returns last Tuesday from the Blue Wall states showed a clear trend toward Trump, I was no longer in the mood for late night comedy. Thankfully, Pinku-Sensei from Crazy Eddies Motie Blog was more on the ball than I was. You can find most of the talk show video links here . The link to Jon Stewart's pep talk is here .

I am expecting the next Trump term to be even more of a Pool-Pah (a Bokononist term for a shit show, or God's wrath - whichever you prefer) than the last. That's such a safe bet that there isn't much point discussing it. I continue to read and hear hot takes on what went wrong for the Democratic Party and almost all of them are awful.  If the only lesson Democratic politicians learn from this election is aggressively tamp down on inflation regardless of the consequences, we're truly in trouble. Conventional wisdom among the pundit class that has done well during the neoliberal era is that economic stimulus should be kept to a minimum, much the way the Obama administration did during Obama's first term which was during the Great Recession and its aftermath. There was a recovery of sorts, but it never really felt like a recovery, and we as a party did suffer - maybe not in the sense of losing the White House in 2012, but we lost a lot of ground politically and we are ...

  I want to highlight a recent blog post by Erik Loomis in part because I largely agree with his conclusions, but also because after a few days we are moving past the point of poorly thought-out hot takes. This is no hot take. He makes 20 points that begin with the most obvious: that Harris faced some stiff headwinds into this election simply because of something many of us have observed, which is an anti-incumbent mood in democracies across the globe. Almost without exception, incumbent governments have been replaced. I also think it is helpful that Erik offers a perspective about the union vote that is overlooked: the proportion of labor union members who voted for Harris were really about the same as the proportion of union members who cast a vote for Walter Mondale in 1984. So 40 years and no difference, except that the percentage of union voters is now much smaller than then, so their turnout is valuable but has less impact than it might have in the late 20th century. He also...

I borrowed that title from a band called Brian Jonestown Massacre - a clever name for a band that has been around since the 1990s. Why? I have been processing what happened on election night here in the US. What I have to say won't provide any real comfort, since we still face a uphill battle to prevent this nation from descending into fascism and chaos for the foreseeable future. But perhaps I can help provide some perspective.  A theme I have seen emerge in elections in reasonably well-functioning democracies around the world since 2023 is that the majority or governing party in almost any election we can think of has been voted out of power. Sometimes that is meant that a liberal or social democratic led government gets replaced by a conservative led government. Sometimes the conservative - or in the case of Poland authoritarian government - gets replaced by a coalition of more moderate and liberal parties. See what happened to the Tories in the UK. In France, the centrist party...

The election is over and many of the results are known outside of the composition of the US House of Representatives, which we probably won't completely know for a while longer. We'll have to be patient. The House and Senate flipping were expected, but then again, so was Harris winning the Blue Wall states, and we can see how well that turned out. So, right now, I hold out some faint hope that Hakeem Jeffries will get the Speaker's gavel, and essentially be able to throw a few necessary wrenches into the works whenever necessary (probably often). A few other things I want to put out there. I really like Joe Biden and think he was a good solid President during his term. He was not perfect, but perfection is over-rated and non-existent. He was competent. He did not create chaos. That said, I had expected him to be a transitional President who would serve a term and pass the baton to the Democratic Party's future leaders. That should have happened in the summer of 2023 at ...

When you see this, it will be election day morning here in the US. Hopefully you have made your plan to vote, and ideally did what I normally do which is to take advantage of early voting. I voted in person as usual during the first week of early voting. I tend to make up my mind about elections early on. I'm pretty tuned in to the news cycle, which seems inevitable for anyone who studies authoritarianism as part of their living. Maybe you do things a bit differently. But enough of me. Let's get to some late night talks show hosts:

THE END AT LAST… It’s the final day of campaigning in the US. Both sides are ending here in Pennsylvania. Today we’re all off to the Harris rally. Our job hits overdrive tomorrow when we literally pick people up and drive them to their voting place. In this state every vote counts and everybody knows it. The margins officially are razor thin but that’s not the feeling you get. Maybe my willingness to hope for a Harris victory is skewing my view but my gut instincts are rarely wrong. I was one of those back in 2016 saying Trump would win when everyone else said no way. It wasn’t what I wanted. The tiny political and economic promises, the minutiae of what’s on offer from Harris matters to Americans. As a duel citizen they matter to me a little.   What matters to me is vastly more strategic. My fundamental concern is that a fascist doesn’t take over the United States. Because if it can happen there it can happen in the UK - and anywhere else. America is the fundamental bastion ...

If you are still looking for reasons to cast a vote for Harris, here's yet another.

I believe that The Economist is typically paywalled, but The Moderate Voice offers enough of the outlet's Kamala Harris endorsement to be read by us. The Economist has not changed its editorial slant as far as I know. It's a magazine devoted to capitalist economic policies and its reporting and editorializing are consistent with that mission. Former NYC Mayor and founder of Bloomberg , Michael Bloomberg, also endorsed Kamala Harris for President . It's safe to say that Michael Bloomberg is no commie. Rather, he's someone who wants to make sure that the US is a good place to continue to do business. I'll give The Economist and Bloomberg credit: they are standing and being counted. Plenty of news outlets are doing the opposite of Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , and USA Today and making an explicit endorsement of Harris. Those who are standing up are following the cardinal rule of preventing our nation from descending into dictatorship: they are refusing to...

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 ho...

Generally, I don't get very excited about polls, but when some of the data counter a prevailing media narrative, I become interested. That might not necessarily mean that the polling data are correct, but the data can require us to question the narrative. For example, the prevailing media "wisdom" is that Harris is losing Black men and Hispanic men to Trump this election cycle when compared to Biden's performance with these two demographic groups in 2020. So, is that a narrative to fatalistically accept? Let's take a look: It appears that at minimum, Harris is holding her own with Black and Hispanic men this cycle, contrary to the prevailing narrative. The narrative that Trump has made inroads with young adult men seems to be real, and the gender gap is especially noticeable with this particular age demographic. Harris is also faring a bit more poorly with self-identified independents compared to Biden in 2020. There are some real unknowns with that group - includ...

I have had a very eventful last few days, making blogging more or less the lowest priority item on list of things to do. Tonight I am going to take a bit of a breather. Any Monday Jon Stewart hosts The Daily Show, I am going to watch it, one way or another. Most of the time I simply stream it later. Tonight I wanted to catch it when it aired, and it worked out. We are a couple weeks out from a very consequential election in the US and Jon Stewart has plenty of sharp words for the campaigns. Jon Stewart has plenty of things to say about media coverage of the campaigns, and as he sees it (correctly I might add) the media is largely failing. So too are Trump's political allies at calling him out for his very deranged attempt at campaigning. Jon Stewart sees this and he roasts the spineless SOBs who dissemble whenever Trump's darker, more dictatorial words are presented to them to comment and critique. The absurdity of Trump "working" at a McDonald's is what it is. Tr...

I just can't make this stuff up, y'all.  Elon Musk has been setting up fake Kamala Harris websites and has been sending texts to people directing them to those fake sites . The latter may well put Musk in some legal hot water.   This is an actual Associated Press headline, and one I never expected to read: Trump kicks off a Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia . Otherwise it was the usual boilerplate Trump appearance featuring profanity and deranged grievances. That's all he has to offer. Montana GOP Senate Hopeful Accused Firefighters Of 'Milking' Infernos For Extra Pay and Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat wound . This Tim Sheehy fellow is a piece of work. Montanans would be better off sticking with their incumbent Senator, Jon Tester, who seems like a decent guy who has worked to deliver for his state since he first became a Senator in the mid aughts.  I'm sure there is something I have missed.

Hilarity ensued. The scene where a gentleman who asked Trump about the January 6th insurrection was priceless. Like Desi Lydic, I know that look. I got that same look from my dad when I tried something stupid. My now adult kids say that is the look I give them whenever I am just not buying what they tell me. Turns out nonverbal behavior can tell us a lot. We also are reminded of a valuable life lesson: in politics, we use the term "lion's den" figuratively and not literally. That might be important.

One of The Daily Show's recurring guests, Lewis Black, has a few words for the undecideds:

It looks like even Geraldo Rivera is endorsing Kamala Harris instead of his buddy Donald Trump. I'll just go head and share the full text simply because it lays out a reasoning for unenthusiastic potential Trump voters to step off from that ledge and bring some sanity back to our nation. Sore Loser With three weeks to go until Election Day, Donald J. Trump stands a reasonable chance of becoming the 47th President of the United States. Despite assassination attempts, impeachments, special counsels, felony convictions and hundreds of millions in civil penalties, most polls show his race against V.P. Kamala Harris is too close to call. The first time he ran for president in 2016, he was coming off the last season of Celebrity Apprentice. I had a front row seat as a finalist on that final season and marveled at his audacity with his checkered past to seek the highest office in the land. Then, in the blink of an eye, he went from novice to formidable challenger to victorious over Secre...

There is a channel I follow on Telegram called Military & Strategic, and is typically signed by a blogger who refers to himself or herself as The Analyst. The primary topic is the on-going Russo-Ukraine war, but US politics gets mentioned from time to time, which is very pertinent to the Ukrainian cause. Here is one of The Analyst's most recent posts , which deals with the prospects for the Harris/Walz campaign's success in November: GROWING CONFIDENCE IN A DEMOCRATIC VICTORY We all know how important the coming election is in the US. We are quite literally faced with a fork in the road - one side takes us down a dark and dangerous path towards a semi-fascist autocracy and the other is the real America that despite its many flaws is a decent and honest democrat at its core. It’s a truly shocking difference in possible futures. However I am ever more certain that Kamala Harris will win the presidency. I am growing more certain that the Democrats will regain the House, and ju...

Let's start with The Daily Show, since Monday is Jon Stewart's day to host: Seth Meyers has a new Closer Look feature for us: And let's finish with Jimmy Kimmel: Their segments overlap, but each host has his unique take on the events of the weekend. We can all agree that Elon Musk's appearance at a Trump rally was very unfortunate. Seriously, old Elon, as he jumped around the stage like an idiot, looked like he was expecting the Rocky theme song to start any second, only to realize that it never would. So consensus there. And really a lot to be fair. One host spends some time noting the bad old days of eugenics (which NAZIs and MAGATs alike espouse). Another might spend more time on Marjory Taylor Green. We have some enlightened laughs about why Trump really attracts flies at rallies. You get the idea. I'll have more for you all soon.

Professor Allan Lichtman and his son, Sam, did a live stream this evening, focused mostly on Jack Smith's court filing yesterday. If you have an hour, it's worth your while to listen. As he sees it, what Judge Chutkan responds will be potentially huge, especially if she orders hearings. That's a distinct possibility.  If you want a sort of big picture analysis that places all of this in context, check it out.