I made my previous post on this blog in mid-July when the political outlook in America was at its bleakest. Joe Biden had had a disastrous debate with Trump and was sinking in the polls. An assassin had attempted to take Donald Trump's life and Trump was suddenly the folk hero who had cheated death, raising his fist in defiance. Trump had a triumphant Republican convention with many in the press touting his vigorous new persona in stark contrast to Biden. It appeared the U.S. was headed toward a Trump coronation in November and the dawn of a new authoritarian dictatorship taking hold.
However there was one sentence in my post that was the most important and remains crucial today: we are at "the beginning of an extremely volatile political season." It's a sentiment I've been expressing for months and it remains true so far. The 2024 election could very well being the most extreme political roller coaster in American history, because just a few days after my post, the political landscape made another unexpected and dramatic flip.
That's when Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the Presidential race. All of the pundits predicted chaos in the Democratic Party, expecting there to be a struggle between competing candidates jockeying to become the nominee. The experts were wrong; that didn't happen. Instead, the entire Democratic Party coalesced around Kamala Harris and she was the unity candidate in a matter of hours. In the first 24 hours after Biden's announcement, Harris raised well over $100 million dollars and over 175,000 people volunteered to be workers for her campaign. The gloom and lack of enthusiasm in Democratic circles evaporated almost immediately and Harris's campaign shot off like a rocket.
Clearly, Trump could not comprehend that Joe Biden would do something unselfish like withdraw from the Presidential race and was left flat-footed--Trump would never relinquish one ounce of power for the good of the country the malignant narcissist that he is and couldn't even imagine anyone else would do such a thing. Even after Biden's withdrawal, Trump was still campaigning against "Sleepy Joe," not comprehending that he had a new opponent to contend with. Even worse, his vice presidential selection, JD Vance appeared to be an unvetted person with extreme views (e.g. single childless women with cats were unhappy and miserable and shouldn't be full participants in the political system, whereas couples with children should be given extra votes to further the interests of their children!) and a weird demeanor.
Meanwhile Harris was reinvigorating the Democratic base with dynamic speeches and a great advertising/social media presence. As a response, Trump resorted to crude racial attacks like "she started out as an Indian now she is saying she's black...when did she become black?" that certainly did little to rouse undecided voters to his cause. The polls are now showing Harris overcoming Biden's deficit in the polls and, in fact, taking the lead in virtually all national polls. The glimmer of hope is here and, in my estimation, as of today, Harris might be the slight favorite. But don't forget my warning: it truly is an extremely volatile political season. It's like we're all sitting under a wildly unpredictable volcano not knowing what sort of eruption will take place next.
The next big event will be the selection of Harris's vice presidential running mate. All the proposed options would be great except one: Josh Shapiro, the extreme Zionist Governor of Pennsylvania. If Harris selects him, the unity the Democrats currently enjoy will be diminished greatly as the Gaza issue will boil to the surface. I know that if Shapiro is selected, I will sit on my hands and do nothing to assist the Harris campaign. I will still hold my nose and vote for Harris as sometimes one must realize that one cannot reject the okay, demanding the perfect. Even with an unfortunate choice of Shapiro, it is still better for everyone on the planet if Harris is elected over Trump, including for the people of Palestine/Gaza. I know from past experience the danger of rejecting the okay. In 2000, many people I knew rejected Al Gore because he wasn't sufficiently liberal for them. They voted for the Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, instead. Nader received over 90,000 votes in Florida, the crucial state that determined the election. Gore lost Florida to George W. Bush by 537 votes. So, instead of the perfect, or even the okay, we got the horrible as President thanks to the "true believers." In other words, don't tell me to vote for the "perfect" Jill Stein, because that will not lead to anything good, or even okay. By the way, for those of you with short memories, Jill Stein met with Vladimir Putin in 2016 and the evidence suggests that her candidacy was propped up by the Russians as another means of insidious meddling in the U.S. election process that year in order to divert votes away from Hillary Clinton. Sorry, I am not voting to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin, even if on the surface Ms, Stein might hold some views closer to mine than Kamala Harris does. And I am certainly not voting to enable the horrible despite how seemingly noble a vote for Stein might seem to the terminally dogmatic.
Today, if nothing else, there is a glimmer of hope that the U.S. might survive this election. The pessimist that I am, I'm still not convinced as we can't see where the roller coaster is headed. But maybe, just maybe, the roller coaster might not be heading off a cliff into the deep abyss. Let's just hope and pray for now that we get someone other than Josh Shapiro as her running mate.
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