Ode to Joy

Posted on August 19, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 19, 2024

Today might have been very different if President Joe Biden hadn’t had the class and dignity to step aside. Four weeks ago, the 2024 election was shaping up to look like the 1980 election. Back then, a Democratic president who had been elected because Watergate, Vietnam, and the new energy reality caused by the Arab oil embargo had made America nostalgic for a progressive re-awakening and the youthful exuberance of John F. Kennedy. I was seventeen in 1960, an impressionable age, a year I divided between Brooklyn Tech High School and Columbia University. It was a heady time to be approaching adulthood made more so by the sheer joy Kennedy had brought back to politics.

The Democrats tried to revive that feeling with someone who was a nuclear engineer, peanut farmer, and Governor of Georgia. No more scowling Richard Nixon or body bags, or presidents for whom staying in power was more important than the rule of law and our Constitution. And while Gerald Ford was a genuine Conservative and a decent man who we needed to steer the ship while we recovered from the trauma of a horrible war and a genuine threat to our democracy, in 1976, Jimmy Carter seemed like someone who could get us back on track as the undisputed leader of the free world.

Too bad It didn’t turn out that way. As president, Carter’s first official act was signing the Hyde Amendment. Less than five years after Rowe v. Wade, the amendment assured that no federal funds would ever be used to pay for abortions. With a looming recession, serious drug problems and major cities looking at bankruptcy, and the highest interest rates we’d even known, Carter’s presidency was dealt a fatal blow when our puppet dictator, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by radical Muslim Ayotollahs who attacked and occupied the American embassy in Tehran – all of which resulted in the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and Grover Norquist.

They ushered in the era of supply side economics and the beginning of a backward-looking political philosophy that sought to reverse the progressive gains of the New Deal and create an oligarchy of billionaires. That gave birth to the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus, which masqueraded as attempts to return to fiscal conservatism, but were really ideologies based on racism, misogyny, and greed. That brought us divisiveness, palpable anger and hate, and the realization that America wasn’t the country we thought it was. It couldn’t be if it produced a monster like Donald Trump. It couldn’t be if it revealed that at least a third of us preferred an immoral, power-mad narcissist who threatened to disembowel the institutions and values that America was based on.

America and the world have been in shock for nine years. Friends and families became divided, and the mood in our country went steadily downhill. COVID was part of that, but Trump’s incompetence, the deaths of more than a million Americans and his clear intent to remain in power even at the cost of destroying our democracy elevated Joe Biden to the presidency. Biden saved us from the worst economic consequences of COVID and shepherded the strongest recovery of any major nation, included a three-year struggle to control the inflation that resulted from need to shut down our economy during COVID and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that spiked energy prices.

Biden brought back a sense of cautious optimism, but as the MAGA movement prepared its final assault on democracy and our Constitution, and Biden’s age and apparent loss of cognitive function caused Americans to lose confidence in his ability to serve a second term, the despair we felt in 2016 as Hillary Clinton was brought down by a barrage of hate and unbridled attacks based on Trump’s lies and power-crazy fantasies returned.

That’s where we were four months ago. But while the Republicans fell on their swords for Donald Trump, despite the obvious fact that he has destroyed their party and tarnished its proud history, the Democrats swallowed a bitter bill and did what was necessary. A month ago, I didn’t believe Kamala Harris had what it took to bring us back, but her first public appearance as candidate for president in Atlanta convinced me. She is the Hegelian hero of our time. Fighting the glass ceiling that all women have to fight and struggling against the double-whammy of racism and xenophobia that her biracial heritage arouses in some of us, she transformed the mood of America.

Ms. Harris has brought joy back. Trump used to hold massive rallies, filling stadia with angry people looking for a scapegoat for their own problems. Now it’s Harris who fills stadia, but her crowds are joyous. They rock and roll and sing and dance. She has already inspired enough of us that she now has the edge for November, and her momentum is still growing as her positive presence shines a harsh light on the reality of the nasty old man she’s running against.

I love that the entertainment world is out in force in support of her. Trump mocks her because her convention will likely be a joyous songfest and celebration. Voting for someone because Beyonce and George Clooney love her is absurd, but if they can elevate the mood of the country and re-enable its aspirations, I’m completely on board with it. I have no idea how the Democrats are choreographing the Convention, but for me, the perfect climax would be Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ushered on stage by the Chicgo Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from his triumphant Ninth Symphony.

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Trump in Declension

Posted on August 16, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 16, 2024

Suppose we go back over the first half of 2024 and review the attacks leveled against President Biden’s perceived inability to win a second term as president, much less be able to perform effectively for four more years. Then we’ll apply them to Donald Trump’s attempt to become the second president in history to be re-elected after being defeated as an incumbent, and see what that tells us.

For months, those of us who revere and respect Biden, who have followed his career of public service for more than fifty years, struggled to convince ourselves that he could still do the job, until it became clear that that was no longer the issue. The priority was doing whatever was necessary to assure that Donald Trump never got near the White House again. Biden did exactly that, and he showed us yesterday that he is still the man we knew now that the pressure of running a re-election campaign is off the table. His joint appearance with Kamala Harris in Maryland displayed a stronger, healthier-looking Biden who spoke effectively and clearly.

That he was the same man who stumbled so badly during his debate with Trump in June makes the case that serving as president while running for re-election against someone who turned the debate into a full-on assault is too much to expect of someone who will be 82 before Election Day. But Biden showed us something else, yesterday, as well. Having to drop out of the race was a terribly humbling and humiliating experience. He was angry and frustrated, and felt betrayed by people like Nancy Pelosi with whom he’d be allied for decades. Yet, the Biden we saw yesterday had clearly overcome all that and accepted the reality that Harris will likely win where he probably wouldn’t have.

Like the Biden we’ve known all these years, it took him only a few weeks to overcome his fury and disappointment, and once again put his country and party ahead of his own needs. His appearance with Harris was filled with genuine love and palpable optimism which brought the crowd of about 2,500 to its feet cheering, “Thank you, Joe.” He showed the class, integrity, and humility he’s always been known for, and in doing so, unintentionally cast an unforgiving spotlight on Trump.

Trump’s press conference from his New Jersey golf resort, the same day, was a stark, shocking contrast with Biden’s appearance in Maryland. Where Biden was fully engaged and coherent, and showed no signs of the torment he experienced for several months, Trump appeared to have almost completely unraveled. His act was old and tired. There wasn’t a single thing that was new about it, except that he was even more undisciplined and incoherent than usual.

I’m at an age at which I see cognitive and physical decline all around me. We all recognize the symptoms: inability to remain focused, constant repetition, misremembering names, dates, and places, irrational flashes of rage, a complete lack of behavioral filters, and most sadly, the lack of recognition and acceptance of what’s happening by the persons in decline themselves.

That’s what I and millions of other Americans see every day in Trump. I wonder if even his committed base sees it, if they wring their hands hoping he’ll improve the way the rest of us agonized over Biden’s decline last Spring. We accepted reality before it was too late, and in Kamala Harris, we have a candidate we can vigorously support. But Trump’s base is more like a cult of true believers, because that’s what he demands them to be. As Trump declines, they interpret his deranged rants and inability to focus on the things that could still win the election for him as just another act in his unconventional approach to politics. Now they’re stuck with him to the end.

Trump, at 78, walks better than Biden and doesn’t stutter. He doesn’t trip over words the way Biden sometimes does, but his cognitive decline is apparent in other ways. His command of the language is pitiful for a man in his position, and that’s clearly a sign of age, because speeches given by a younger Trump were mostly intelligible and coherent, where today’s Trump seems unable to finish a sentence without veering off into craziness. He lies so routinely that even people close to him question whether he’s even aware that he’s lying or he’s simply losing touch with reality.

In his remarks at his so-called press conference, yesterday, he raved about how unintelligent he thinks Harris is and claimed he had every right to attack her. He admitted that he was angry at her for upsetting his campaign against Biden and turning the tables on him. But he concluded his attack by saying, “and she’ll be a terrible president.” Clearly, he meant she would be if she were elected, but as Trump is wont to do from time to time, his uncontrolled anger allowed his inner truth to show.

Trump knows he’s going to lose and it’s driving him to a very dark place.

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Christian Nationalism – Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on August 13, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 13, 2024

Donald Trump, his MAGA supporters, and the hundred and forty or so current or former Trump staffers who helped write Project 2025 are vocal supporters of Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s governing philosophy of White Christian Nationalism. There is a rapidly growing far-right cult in the United States that touts Christian Nationalism as the way to “make America great again.” As a result, our upcoming presidential election has been framed as a struggle between democracy and our Constitution against Fascism.

I believe that’s true, and it should be the first priority of everyone who casts a vote in November. Trump’s MAGA movement has created a real existential crisis for America, but their obsession with Orban’s Hungary may be their undoing when the rank and file of their base realize exactly what Orban’s version of White Christian Nationalism consists of.

The main points on which Viktor Orban and Donald Trump agree are that immigrants, especially non-Christian, dark-skinned immigrants and free access to information are both dangerous things that need to be controlled by a fascist-like autocracy. Orban’s Christian Nationalism Constitution specifically refers to Christianity’s key role in preserving nationhood and “preserving the intellectual and spiritual unity of our nation.”

Historian Jemar Tisby defines white Christian Nationalism as “an ethnocultural ideology that uses Christian symbolism to create a permission structure for the acquisition of political power and social control.” That definition applied to those excerpts from Hungary’s Constitution makes it sounds chillingly like the Nazis’ attempt to purify the Aryan race.

That doesn’t seem to bother the MAGA extremists, because, as Tisby said, all they care about is acquiring the power to control everyone else. But do they really understand what they’ve bought into? Let’s compare their implied platform with the way Hungary actually functions. Trump’s base may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Hungary’s and Orban’s approach to gun ownership is the complete opposite of what MAGA supporters demand. Hungary has the strictest gun ownership laws in Europe, which include most of the proposals that the majority of Americans support but the National Rifle Association and right-wing politicians hate. Anyone wishing to own a firearm must undergo both physical and psychological exams every four years, and demonstrate gun safety and use proficiency before being licensed. Because of its rigorous gun laws, only 3% of Hungarians are permitted to own weapons, and those must be frequently inspected. Hungary has virtually no illegal gun ownership. By comparison, about a third of American adults legally own guns, while the number of illegal weapons is in the tens of millions. Good luck selling Christian Nationalism gun policy, Donald.

Although Hungary is largely Roman Catholic, abortion has been legal throughout the country since 1953, within the first twelve to twenty-four weeks of a pregnancy depending on the woman’s specific circumstances. Anyone wishing to terminate a pregnancy must first undergo counseling and a three-day waiting period, and obtain a certificate verifying the pregnancy from a midwife or gynecologist. Hungary’s Christian Nationalism is not concerned with questions like the rights of a fetus. Do you think all those evangelists you duped would buy into that, Donald?

Hungary has a universal health care system that is free to all citizens, and the government subsidizes procedures not fully paid for by the national system. Hungary provides free education through university to all citizens, but Donald Trump doesn’t support free lunches for school kids. And Hungary provides retirement salaries for all citizens.

When we look at the “Hungarian model” for MAGA and Project 2025 carefully, we see a mixture of political extremes. On one hand, the government functions like a fascist autocracy set up to benefit an elite oligarchy of powerful people. But it’s also a socialist welfare state that Bernie Sanders would be proud to support.

The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that Project 2025 and Trump’s worship of Viktor Orban are as phoney as everything else Trump says. For Trump, Christian Nationalism is nothing more than an excuse to grab and hold power. All of the noise and bluster about Kamala Harris being a Communist aside, Viktor Orban’s government is simply the same socialist template employed by most of Europe. Like everything else Trump touches, the philosophy he’s touting is a fraud. All he cares about is power and staying out of prison for his previous crimes.

I’m not an expert in political science, but I understand human nature. Orban has figured out what many dictators before him learned. If he keeps his citizens fed, housed, and cared for when they’re sick, they’re less concerned when rights like free speech and the right to vote are compromised. But the United States isn’t Hungary, and White Christian Nationalism won’t work here. Trump doesn’t understand the subtle dynamics that keep a ruler in power. It’s all just a power play for him.

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Donald Trump and the Press

Posted on August 9, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 9, 2024

When Donald Trump was asked by a reporter why he wasn’t campaigning in battleground states, he did two things a politician should never do. First, he attacked the reporter, calling the question stupid in his uniquely hateful way. It was an entirely reasonable question, but one Trump didn’t like, as his second answer clearly showed. He claimed he didn’t need to campaign because he’s way ahead, and he was waiting until the Democratic Convention was over.

One thing we all know about Donald Trump is that he can’t stand being out of the limelight. If we count from Trump’s rally in Atlanta, waiting until after the Democratic Convention ends would mean that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will have the media to themselves for a full month. That doesn’t compute, but maybe it will when we consider the first part of what Trump said. I looked at 538.com, the generally accepted, nonpartisan gold standard for polling data. What I found surprised me.

Polls in June and July had shown Trump up nationally by two to six points. Between July 30th and August 8th, sixteen respected polls across the political spectrum showed that Harris has reversed that completely. Trump was ahead in only one, by 2 points and two had them even. In the other thirteen, Harris was ahead by 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 3, 1, 2, 5, 1, and 2 points. That’s stunning, and it makes his answer to the reporter he insulted a lie.

Trump’s not out campaigning for several reasons. One is that his narcissistic bubble of confidence has been punctured by Harris’ meteoric rise in popularity. Many who know him well, including most recently, Vincent Scaramucci, report Trump is scared. He has never been able to face a strong, competent woman, and the idea of having to compete with a biracial woman whose parents were nonwhite immigrants has him unhinged.

Harris has taken the age issue away from him – he’s nineteen years older than she is, and as his rants are becoming more detached from reality, his age is showing. It’s the same Trump we’ve seen for nine years, but his act is stale, and few outside his base are buying it. Calling Harris incompetent, claiming she’s not smart enough to be interviewed by the press, and referring to her as stupid is as counterproductive as it is offensive. He also warned that America is on the precipice of both a second 1929-style Great Depression and nuclear war. The first assertion is too absurd to merit a response; the second might contain a grain of truth, but the blame belongs to Iran and Russia, not Harris or Joe Biden.

Trump lost any perceived advantage on the southern border issue thru his own action when he forced House Speaker Mike Johnson to scuttle the bipartisan Senate bill that satisfied almost every Republican demand. With Mark Kelly, whose stance on the border is popular in Arizona, behind her and strong positive statements by both Harris and Walz, Trump’s talking points are vapid. Everyone who tracks border happenings has reported that illegal crossings and the number of asylum seekers have dropped dramatically since President Biden’s Executive Order on the border. Phoenix’s mayor, Kate Gallego told CNN that it’s safer in Arizona than it’s been in years, and she loves the idea of a former prosecutor and State Attorney General who has prosecuted illegal border crossers running for president against someone who talks about it but has no record of accomplishment.

About those poll numbers, I have previously suggested that polls cannot be trusted to be accurate in 2024 because there is no evidence that their sampling universes are representative of registered voters. That’s still true, but whatever bias exists in the sampled populations has far less impact on month-to-month trends in the data. Even a skewed, unrepresentative sample that shows a massive swing in momentum like what Harris has generated in less than three weeks has credibility, as was proven in the final weeks of the 2016 election when Trump overcame Hillary Clinton’s lead and shocked the country.

Trump had his press conference, and the result was that his handlers and supporters are in complete disarray because he can’t or won’t control what comes out of his mouth. They’re terrified of putting him out in public – what might he say next? Mr. Scaramucci made an interesting comment about that during his interview. He said he doesn’t believe Trump is intentionally lying most of the time. Rather, the problem is that he’s mentally ill, and he distorts the truth in his own mind. I’d ask which is worse, a president who has no respect for truth or one who invents his own truth and isn’t even aware he’s doing it?

Kamala Harris must love watching Trump self-destruct and salivate over debating him.

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Trump’s One-Trick Act is Getting Old

Posted on August 6, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 6, 2024

“Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history.” That’s what Donald Trump posted when pre-opening stock movements augured a bad trading day on August 5th. Sounds pretty apocalyptic, but then, he’s been telling us the sky was falling for nine years, though he’s unclear about why and when.

First it was immigrants’ fault. Then it was China’s unfair trade policies, Biden’s infrastructure spending, inflation, and NATO’s unwillingness to cede Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Savvy investors know markets are on hair triggers, a condition that’s exaggerated by program trading – computer-driven buy and sell orders that react to certain triggers, often incorrectly. Things like program trading feed fears of an AI revolution. Markets tend to overreact to unexpected stimuli and most often correct themselves when their panic responses turn out to be baseless.

Japan’s markets crashed first, for reasons unrelated to Friday’s disappointing jobs numbers in the U. S. Today, the markets quickly regained more than half of what they lost, and Japan’s markets gained back 80% of their losses. So, Donald, the world will not end this week, and it has nothing to do with you. June’s job numbers were unexpectedly high, and they were very good throughout the Spring quarter. These things tend to average out. By September, we’ll be looking at better than average monthly job growth for all of 2024.

Trump’s knee-jerk reaction to the one-day crash was typical. He baselessly lashed out at Kamala Harris. He’s gotten away with hyperbole and outright lies since he entered the political spotlight, but everyone except his angry base is tiring of it. If yesterday had really been the start of a global economic collapse, it’s far more likely it would have been other major world economies dragging ours down, than, as Republicans suggested, the rest of the world panicking because America’s economy was crashing.

Candidates who lash out impulsively without facts to support them inevitably self-destruct. The record of the Biden-Harris administration speaks for itself in hard numbers and in new roads, bridges, factories, and internet lines all over the country. When red Ohioans and Kentuckians see the new Ohio River bridge connecting Cinncinnati, OH and Covington, KY being built with their tax dollars, they don’t see red or blue. They see their government meeting their needs.

Trump has made a number of missteps. His selection of J. D. Vance as a running mate backfired, as most of the country joined in labeling him weird. Having Goofy the mini-Trump on his ticket makes Trump feel good, but it’s more likely to cost him votes in moderate states than buy him votes that help him win, and being labeled weird is not good for being taken seriously.

Trump’s gut instincts aren’t working, either. Going off script at rallies and whining about personal grievances instead of offering solutions to problems has many Republicans pulling their hair out. Crazy stuff like challenging Harris’ racial identity, so reminiscent of Trump’s fake birther conspiracy which did nothing to damage Barrack Obama’s career, evoked only ridicule. His remarks at the Black Journalist conference probably reversed any inroads his campaign may have previously made in the black community, and they made him no friends among journalists. And childishly attacking popular Republican Governor Brian Kemp could cost him Gerorgia.

Trump’s base cheered when he backed out of the ABC debate with Vice President Harris and proposed moving it to a Fox News venue with cheering crowds, but everyone else saw it for what it was: fear and desperation. He’s terrified of facing off one-on-one with Harris without gimmicks, tricks, or a friendly network’s fingers on the scale. If you don’t believe that, watch this You Tube video of Senator Harris eviscerating Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017. I was wrong when I called Trump Donald Duck. From now on, it’ll be Chicken Donald.

Trump’s biggest problem is that his only political skills are shamelessness and intimidation. The former had both parties back on their heels in 2016, somewhat less so in 2020. This year, with help from the Supreme Court and President Biden’s apparent decline, a Trump victory was starting to look inevitable. But with Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz running against him, neither of those will be effective, except to get his base to cheer and wave their guns around.

Harris and Walz are unfazed by Donald Trump. They mock his attacks and otherwise command the attention of the media at his expense. Today’s polls have them tied nationally, and that’s before the Democratic Convention begins. If you believe in trends and momentum shifts, we will inaugurate our first female/black/Asian (take your pick) president on January 20th.

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Donald Duck and Goofy

Posted on August 2, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 2, 2024

We’ve watched Donald Trump’s antics long enough to know that he thinks he’s wonderfully subtle. The master wordsmith who can barely put an English sentence together does have one talent in that area. He has decades of experience, thanks to his disgraced former attorney and mentor, Roy Cohn, who taught him how to say things without quite saying them. The idea was to always leave the door open for another possible interpretation so he could avoid being sued. How many times have we heard Trump say something outrageously crass and slanderous and then disavow it like a kid who just pulled his hand out of the cookie jar?

Another of his disgraced former attorneys, Michael Cohen, explained how that works during his testimony when he was on trial and ultimately convicted of fraud. Trump would give him benign-sounding instructions like, “fix this,” and Cohen would be expected to read between the lines and understand that that meant, “destroy so-and-so,” or “make sure the books are fixed.” A rhetorical wink.

These days, Trump dispenses with the wink. He has become so desperate, he no longer masks his intentions. When his handlers and the Republicans who remain true to their basic principles begged Trump to tone down his lies and slanders, he did so for about thirty minutes during his nomination acceptance speech. Then, he told the delirious crowd, “they want me to be nice, but if you don’t mind, I don’t want to be,” and he launched into flinging insults, childish taunts, and of course, more lies and invented nonsense.

Trump touted his hand-picked running mate, J. D. Vance, as a great boon to his ticket, a true MAGA Koolaid drinker. But since then, most of America has decided that Vance is too weird to take seriously. Yesterday, Trump told reporters that Vance is insignificant because vice presidential candidates historically have no effect on the outcome of presidential elections. It was one of those moments when I couldn’t decide whether Trump was purposefully lying or so ignorant he didn’t know he was lying.

2008 wasn’t that long ago, Donald. Is your memory slipping? That summer, Barrack Obama was in a horse race with John McCain. The polls had them virtually tied. McCain was a centrist Conservative who was highly respected by most Americans, including me. Obama was a wonderfully charismatic campaigner, but we knew very little else about him; that is, he was the kind of candidate who scared me, not because he was black, but because charisma in the hands of a skilled unscrupulous politician is dangerous.

I gradually warmed to Obama, largely because of America’s love affair with his wife, Michelle, but I was still on the fence…until McCain was forced to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate. That sealed my vote for Obama, and many strategists believe Palin put Obama over the top. Think about it. If Trump had a stroke the day after he was inaugurated, how would you feel about having Vance as president for four years?

When Kamala Harris labeled Vance “just plain weird,” her audience laughed. She hadn’t intended to be funny, but her description was so apt it stuck. Vance was instantly nullified as a positive force for Trump. It must be driving those remaining principled Republicans crazy. Not only has Trump gotten worse, but Vance doubles down on the worst things Trump says, and where Trump lies and flings insults, most of us shake our heads in wonder when Vance speaks.

Take yesterday, when the multi-nation prisoner exchange was announced. President Biden and Kamala Harris had been working the delicate diplomacy of getting all the countries involved in the deal on the same page for more than three years. Harris was tasked with the trickiest part, convincing Germany to release an assassin they were dead set on keeping in prison. Yet, Goofy Vance claimed the deal happened because Putin was preparing for a second Trump presidency. That’s so far-fetched it defies the imagination. I can’t see how millions of voters laughing at Vance will have no effect on the election.

Picking a running mate like Vance was pure Trump, whose massive ego has him convinced he knows more about everything than anyone else, including generals, physicians, economists, and scientists. All Trump cares about is personal loyalty. There’s no doubt Vance passed that test, but all he brings to the ticket is ridicule and the impossibility of ever calming Trump’s rhetoric.

The difference between 2016, when Trump’s outrageous style worked against both his own party and his Democratic opponent, and 2020, when he angered enough people to lose the election by eight million votes, is that in 2024, Trump might as well be Donald Duck, quacking away incoherently. Wait a couple of weeks, and you’ll see the numbers show Trump starting his long slide into oblivion.

Quack, quack.

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Meltdown

Posted on August 1, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, August 1, 2024

Earth’s polar icecaps are melting. The best-known glacier in North America, the Athabasca, in Alberta’s Columbia Icefield, is only half of what it used to be. Standing on a pile of gravel, knowing that very spot was under tons of ice a few decades ago is aptly chilling. Even more so, however, will be the meltdown that has already begun closer to home.

The recession and melting of our ice fields occur over extremely long time spans. The meltdown of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement will not occur at glacial speed, however. It will happen live on our television screens over the next three months. The idea of a three-mile deep mass of ice disappearing is shocking, but more so will be the meteoric collapse of Trump’s political future. We failed to address the fact that our planet is getting hotter, but we can act decisively in November to eliminate the most immediate threat to our future.

Trump, the ultimate narcissist, sees himself as an irrepressible force much the way we used to view mountains of ice as everlasting. Both impressions are false. The change in Donald Trump’s prospects in November since the Republican Convention are stunning, and that shouldn’t be a surprise. Trump has always been a one-trick pony who succeeded to the extent he has through sheer brazenness and spending millions of dollars on lawyers.

He is an empty shell who knows only one way to function – through lies, fraud, and intimidation. Demagogues like Trump have a run of early success because they crash onto the scene which so much violence and malevolence, our system is unprepared to deal with them. When that happens, they invariably overreach, and ultimately self-destruct. Sheer luck and timing enabled Trump to do serious damage by packing the Supreme Court with extremists, but even that is repairable if Americans wake up to the threat they pose and act.

Trump is not a racist or misogynist in the classical sense, but his disdain for people he dismisses as beneath him – non-whites, women, and hard-working Americans struggling to pay their bills – blinds him to the power these people possess. Piss them off long and often enough, and collectively, they will bring him down. But he can’t behave any other way because he is seriously mentally ill, and that will do him in as surely as meeting an alligator on his Florida golf course and poking it in the eye with a putter.

It’s already happening. When attacks on Biden’s age and apparent frailty resulted in Kamala Harris emerging as an unlikely unifier, Trump’s entire election strategy fell apart. She stole Trump’s limelight and made it clear that she’s not the least bit intimidated by him. Her rally in Atlanta was as loud and raucous as Trump’s was in Pennsylvania before some idiot took a shot at him. But there was a palpable difference: the energy at Trump’s rally was fueled by hate and bigotry; the energy at Harris’ rally in Atlanta was a celebration of love and unity.

While Trump blusters and rants incoherently, throwing insults and lies around indiscriminately, Harris smiles and mocks him. Her self-assured confidence and competence, and her ability to read and work a crowd have Trump panicked. She has already taken from him the thing he craves most – the attention of the media. He is raging with frustration, because even he senses he can’t win against an opponent who has burst on the scene with as much impact as Harris.

It’s no secret that Trump’s most loyal supporters are racists, haters, and losers, who Hillary Clinton characterized as a “basket of deplorables.” She was right, but in 2016, Americans weren’t yet ready to hear her. It’s also no secret that many people who vote for Trump despise him, but despise progressive Democrats even more. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu made that clear, when he said he would hold his nose and vote for Trump because he still believed the Republican Party would return to its basic principles.

As a professional politician, Sununu has neither the courage nor the vision to abandon his party even though it’s been taken over by thugs and criminals. Contrast that with Geoff Duncan, the former Georgia Lieutenant Governor who personally faced down Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election results in his state. Duncan has endorsed Harris and speaks out regularly about the threat Trump poses.

We saw a Trump meltdown, yesterday, during an interview with three black, female journalists. To Trump, they were surrogates for everyone he has viciously attacked who are now aligning against him. He is so enraged by the reality that Kamala Harris, a black/Asian woman, is ready and able to take him on, that he came off petulant and pathetic. His performance was so awful, his handlers cut the hour-long interview off after thirty-six minutes.

If Trump had any real substance, if he were anything like the man he pretends to be, he might recover and regain his momentum. But he is neither. He will self-destruct because he has only one talent, spreading hate and discord. Reasonable Americans have had enough of him and are ready to send him packing.

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Kamala Harris’ First Campaign Rally

Posted on July 31, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 31, 2024

Last evening, Kamala Harris held her first campaign rally. She selected Atlanta, a great choice. Atlanta is where the bulk of Georgia’s Democrats live. It’s also where a large concentration of non-white voters live, both critical to keeping Georgia in play in November.

She was brilliant! There’s no other way to describe her performance. She can work a crowd as well as Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, although she adds a woman’s touch, which in a campaign against Donald Trump will make her even more effective. Her rapport with the crowd was seamless. The rhythm and flow in the hall were palpable.

She is damn good at this, so good that she vindicates Joe Biden’s decision to leave the race. Even those of us who love Joe could feel the difference and relish it. Harris is twenty-two years younger than Biden, and last night she was clearly representing an entirely different generation. It should be interesting to see if Trump, at 78 and not in the best of health, can match her energy for three months. Her mood and demeanor were infectious, and she not only grabbed the attention of her audience, but quickly had them responding in a back-and-forth interaction like an old-time preacher.

The contrast with Biden was stark and immediate. Where Biden had much of his audiences on edge, hoping he wouldn’t stumble or appear flustered, Harris seemed to be enjoying herself. She smiled constantly and never missed a beat. It was only one sixteen-minute speech, but it set the tone for the campaign. She is in her element in front of a crowd, and while Donald Trump can work a crowd masterfully as well, he does it by riffing and rambling and sounding incoherent much of the time, and there is rarely anything of substance in his rants. He’s just there to stoke up his base.

Harris, on the other hand, intends to broaden her base, and showed that she has no need for a teleprompter. She speaks as coherently as a law professor. She speaks in whole, grammatical, English sentences, something we rarely hear from Trump. And instead of constantly throwing out random barbs and insults, she faced her opponent, speaking directly to him. She taunted him for backing out of the September debate and challenged him directly, woman to man. “He and his running mate seem to have a lot to say about me….Well, Donald, [crowd erupts and cheers] I do hope you’ll reconsider and meet me on the debate stage. And as the saying goes, if you have something to say, SAY IT TO MY FACE.”

It wasn’t just what she said, though. The expression on her face was joyful. She was laughing as she said it, and the message was, “I’m not afraid of you. I’ll go head-to-head with you on any stage any time.” That message of strength and confidence, and the response of almost everyone who watched her speech, has to have Trump quaking today. We know how desperate he is to always appear strong, but Harris made a mockery of that idea, essentially laughing in Trump’s face on national television. And she was kind of laughing at herself, too. What she said was deadly serious, but the image of a dark-skinned, eloquent woman thoroughly enjoying herself at Trump’s expense was priceless.

Harris also demonstrated her prosecutorial skills. She addressed Trump the same way she used to talk to convicted criminals in her courtroom. She held him accountable for every bad act he has committed, from sexual assault to business fraud, from attacking voting rights, to staging an insurrection. Her voice was strong and resonated throughout the hall in a way that Hillary Clinton’s never could during her campaign. Harris showed that she’s ready to take on Trump and the world, not to mention making history as our first female president.

But Harris wasn’t only about taking on Trump, last night. In a relatively brief speech she talked policy, too. She addressed the border bill that met almost all the Republicans’ demands, but was scuttled by Trump’s allies in Congress because they thought that would give him a edge in the election. She pledged to sign it as soon as Congress passed it, acknowledging that Presidents are not all-powerful in our system. She talked about the economy in terms average people could relate to, noting the Biden administration’s accomplishments, while acknowledging that prices are still much too high and saying exactly what she intends to do to lower them. And she reiterated the Biden message that the country is only as strong and prosperous as its middle class.

In less than two weeks, Harris showed the world that she’s ready and able to step up to serve as the President of the United States. This is her moment, and more important, this is our moment and the country’s moment.

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Why Kamala Harris Will Defeat Trump

Posted on July 27, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 27, 2024

Despite knowing that you can’t believe a word Donald Trump says, it’s relatively easy to tell when he’s desperate, and Kamala Harris’ meteoric rise in just one week has made him so. How do we know? He told the crowd hosted by the Christian conservative group Turning Point Action, “You won’t have to vote anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians.”

That’s sickening on one level and horrifying on another. Trump got evangelists to vote for him by promising to overturn Roe v Wade and pack the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists. It was quintessential Trump pandering. He couldn’t care less about abortion or women’s health, and he cares even less about Christian values. He thinks he can use bigotry against LGBTQ individuals to pull off the same trick again, but not so fast, Donald. You’re a convicted felon, now, and most Christians don’t approve of that. They also don’t approve of sexually assaulting women, and a court has also found you guilty of that. They don’t like being defrauded, either, and that’s kind of your calling card, as another court found.

When Donald Trump, circa 2016 screamed “witchhunt,” “lies,” and “deep state conspiracy,” Christians and other people with positive values and moral consciences might have been taken in. But in 2024, the entire country has watched Trump flaunt laws, be indicted for more than ninety felonies and convicted, so far, of thirty-four, and stage an insurrection at the Capitol. Kamala Harris will remind everyone of every despicable thing Trump has done at every opportunity. She rarely says Trump’s name without preceding it with “criminal.”

If you believe what Trump told those “beautiful Christians” he privately disdains as losers, you should be motivated to do everything in your power to stop him short of violence. However he backtracks and rewords his statements, they’re unambiguous. He says Christians will never have to vote again in four years because he intends to have undermined our Constitution by then. Not that he’d ever be able to pull that off, but he could catastrophically damage the country trying.

Even with the bar at Trump’s low level, those words smack of desperation. The polls show that Harris has completely erased Trump’s former lead over Biden in just a week, and that’s before half the country has a chance to get to know her. And she doesn’t slur her words or forget the names of foreign leaders. She can speak off the cuff without rambling incoherently. And she’s a healthy, fit woman whose energy on the campaign trail will exhaust him.

When Harris stands before a microphone and reads off Trump’s crimes, she is America’s prosecutor, and she’s very good at it. Ronald Reagan was a successful campaigner because he used his acting skills to endear himself to voters, which made him seem natural at politics. That works for Harris even more so, because this presidential campaign will be a metaphor for prosecuting Trump. She won’t be acting, she’ll be in her element. She need not resort to slander or hyperbole, because the facts speak for themselves.

In 2016 and 2020, Democrats told voters that Trump was exactly what he seemed to be, a power-obsessed narcissistic sociopath. Listen to what he says he intends to do, and take him literally. When the uproar hits, he’ll claim he meant “you won’t have to vote because after I fix everything, it’ll all be okay.” But that’s not what he meant. He meant that if he’s elected, he will spend four years dismantling everything that has made America great. He’s insane, and he’s dangerous; he treats the government like an organized crime family, with equal ruthlessness. He meant that after more years of Trump, there will be no more voting.

The Trump campaign keeps changing their message about debating Harris. Biden’s staff never figured out that presidential debates have nothing to do with issues, and they only have value if both sides abide by the rules. Trump will probably back out in the end, because he’s quails at the thought of standing up to a strong, competent woman. It doesn’t matter to Harris. If she debates him, she’ll eat his lunch, and if he won’t play, she’ll simply dress cartoon Trump in a chicken suit.

Given her brilliant start, I would remind voters that in 1992, most of America had never heard of Bill Clinton, and in 2008, most voters had no idea who Barrack Obama was except (oh no!) that he was a black man running for president. Kamala Harris is in a stronger position today than either of them were. She has a groundswell of support that can only grow through the Democratic convention. And she has an opponent who disqualifies himself every time he opens his mouth.

If that’s not enough, let me introduce you to J. D. Vance.

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Prosecutor Versus Felon

Posted on July 23, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 23, 2024

For all the hand-wringing and angst that preceded President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2020 election, for all the times we’ve heard “woe-is-me” and “what-will-we-do now,” the Democrats and the country may have found a real diamond in the rough. The very things that worried some of us about Vice President Harris may now be exactly what we need to defeat Trump.

As politicians go, Ms. Harris has always been a little rough around the edges. In the past, she was tough and demanding and not always easy to work for. But that was the past, and with the opportunities President Biden gave her to prove her mettle, she has grown into a far more polished politician and campaigner. There is suddenly so much energy among Democrats who felt everything slipping away two weeks ago.

The mood is almost euphoric, and it should be. Ms. Harris had a record-breaking first day, raising more than any candidate in history. Even more significant, the New York Times reported that 62% of the people donating to her campaign were first-timers. That must have Donald Trump’s people wetting themselves. Right out of the box, Harris is widening the Democratic base. The hope was that she would re-energize younger voters who hated the idea of two octogenarians running for President, and that she would catalyze women’s anger at Trump and firm up Democratic support among nonwhite voters. The initial indication is that she may already be doing just that.

As to her alleged roughness, I love her new image; her likability is infectious. And in light of who her opponent is and the threat he poses to our future, this time around her tough exterior is an asset the entire country will come to love. Joe Biden’s gentle, man-of-the-people style was exactly what the country needed in 2020. But in 2024, Trump has changed. He is the same amoral sociopath he was then, but now he’s gone feral, almost rabid. In 2020, he had a narcissistic need for power and adulation. In 2024, he’s added a desperate need to stay out of prison to his motivation, and the Supreme Court has already assured that if he wins re-election, he will never face any consequences for his crimes.

The old Trump was profane, bullying, misogynistic, and racist. The new, unhinged Trump is all those things, only more so. He has never been shy about lying, insulting, and slandering his opponents, but this year, there will be no gloves, and Trump has no filters at all. His acceptance speech at the Republican Convention showed us what the campaign will be like. His staff desperately wanted him to project a softer image and pull back on some of the extreme rhetoric of Project 2025. But after thirty minutes of reading from a teleprompter, Trump couldn’t control himself. The next hour was a litany of largely incoherent rants about everything he hates. He was completely off the rails, much scarier than Biden looked in his disastrous debate performance.

Biden was unprepared for Trump’s calculated assault. Harris won’t be. Harris won’t make the mistake of trying to campaign on issues, because since 2016, Trump has proved that campaigning on issues and past accomplishments doesn’t work. In 2016, he showed that lies, false accusations, and appealing to the fears and prejudices of his base was enough to win. In 2020, that didn’t work as well, and Trump’s campaign knew it from the outset. That’s why they said the election was rigged before it started.

Harris will remind African Americans that their employment and income numbers have never been better, assure young people that she hears them, and remind immigrants that America knows what it owes them. She will not sit back and let Trump attack her. Nor will she waste time defending herself against lies and nonsense. She knows that the way to take down a bully is to confront him face-to-face. She has made it clear that she intends to prosecute Trump in the only court that really matters in light of the Supreme Court shielding him from justice. Her court will be in session every time she holds a microphone or stands in front of a television camera, and she will recite every vile or criminal thing Trump has done every chance she gets.

Trump will not be able to withstand that kind of campaigning. He will erupt, and she will keep hitting him until it’s clear to everyone who can still think clearly that he is nothing more than an empty shell, albeit, one with the power to destroy our democracy if he isn’t stopped. It’s becoming clearer every hour that Kamala Harris is the one to stop him. It took her only one day to capture enough delegates to win the nomination. Imagine what she can do in a hundred days of campaigning.

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