I am finally emerging from the black cloud I inhabited during the early days of this Presidential contest. There are a number of reasons–most of them centered on the enthusiasm generated by the Harris/Walz ticket and Trump’s ever-more-frequent mental meltdowns–but also grounded in my belief that most Americans are good people.
The emergence of Donald Trump didn’t really test that belief. (Well, okay, sort of…) After all, he’s lost the popular vote by millions every time he’s run; if it weren’t for the Electoral College, he would never have gotten close to the Oval Office. That said, millions of people did vote for him–and in the years since 2016, scholars and pundits have wrestled with the question: why? Why would anyone cast a vote for a childish ignorant buffoon clearly unfit for any responsible position?
I have previously shared my conclusion that the answer to that question is racism. Trump’s rhetoric (when it’s comprehensible) gives Americans permission to express hatreds they had hidden when the dominant culture still privileged civility and decency.
Speaking of decency…Watching the Democratic convention reminded me of that famous question posed to Joe McCarthy–“have you no decency, sir?” Speaker after speaker reminded us that America once prized–and mostly practiced–decency, and most people saw their fellow Americans (even the ones who didn’t look like them) as neighbors, not “others.”
After the 2016 election, a lot of Trump voters crawled out from under their rocks. (In Howell, Michigan last month, white supremacists rallied, chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump.” Last week, Trump held a rally there.)
As the polls show Kamala Harris surging, those nativist haters are doing what such people do. They are “coming out” to where the rest of us can see them for what they are–indecent–and they’re turning on each other.
A recent article from the Washington Post was headlined: “Far-right influencers turn against Trump campaign.”
Some of the internet’s most influential far-right figures are turning against former president Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening a digital “war” against the Republican candidate’s aides and allies that could complicate the party’s calls for unity in the final weeks of the presidential race.
Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and podcaster who dined with Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in 2022, said on X that Trump’s campaign was “blowing it” by not positioning itself more to the right and was “headed for a catastrophic loss,” in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist whom Trump last year called “very special,” said his “weak” surrogates had unraveled his momentum and that his approach “needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another 4 years,” in an X post that was “liked” more than 8,000 times.
Obviously, any discord in the Trump campaign is good news. But more important, in my opinion, is the emergence of these “influencers” from under their rocks, because we can see them more clearly.
With millions of followers, the far-right provocateurs have long been one of the most reliable engines for winning Trump attention online, helping to build the viral energy that boosted his political career and his strong lead among predominantly White male voters.
These far-right activists want the campaign to adopt harder-right positions on race and immigration. They are especially frustrated by the campaign’s disavowal of Project 2025. Meanwhile, MAGA campaign workers recognize that Trump can’t win without expanding beyond his hard-Right hater base.
In an interview, Fuentes said he intends to push his followers to adopt “guerrilla” tactics and “escalate pressure in the real world,” including through mass appearances at Trump rallies in battleground states such as Michigan, until the campaign meets their demands to stop “pandering to independents.” He has urged followers to withhold their votes for Trump, saying it is the only way to awaken a campaign that has “no energy … [and] no enthusiasm.”
On the Harris/Walz trail, energy and enthusiasm are abundant.
I remain highly skeptical of poll numbers, but they do accurately reflect momentum–which way the wind is blowing. The major reason for my polling skepticism is also the reason for my current hopefulness: I don’t trust the polls’ “likely voter” screens. In the wake of Dobbs and Biden’s withdrawal, we’ve seen registrations mushroom (one headline said by 700 percent!). Those previously “unlikely” voters aren’t going to the polls to support Donald Trump–they are responding to hope and the welcome decency of the Harris/Walz campaign.
It’s been disheartening to discover that millions of Americans respond positively to Trump’s racism and childish insults, but I stand by my belief that–depressingly numerous though they are–they are a minority.
If the majority votes, we’ll be okay.
(Paraphrased) “I believe that with it all, people are good at heart.” Anne Frank
I recently reread “The Diary of a Young Girl”; she was a child when they went into hiding, she was protected from life’s realities by parents and those who kept them safe for a time. She faced the cruel realities and died a few months after their capture and her father later published her diary; her message above was meant to be an inspiration for others. Today, in America, I view it as a warning to remain alert to the truths of how easily one man can garner followers to put his racism, bigotry and hatred into action on our streets and in our government.
I, too, feel a glimmer of hope after the past 8-9 years of Trump’s MAGA, White Nationalist and Freedom Caucus control with their minority numbers within our government. But I will not loosen my clenched fist fear of the fact that we cannot relax our vigil; we must keep them in our cross-hairs because we are now the targets of their hatred more than ever after this week of hope and enlightenment of possibilities from the Democratic National Convention.
“If the majority votes, we’ll be okay.”
IF THEY HAD VOTED IN 2016 WE WOULDN’T BE HERE TODAY REACHING FOR THE SAME LEVEL OF TRUST IN THE CANDIDATES AND THE PARTY AS SHOWN BY GUS WALZ. “AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM.” LET’S JOIN GUS AND GET OUT THE VOTE TO PUT HIS DAD IN THE WHITE HOUSE WITH KAMALA!!!
VOTE BLUE…WE NOW KNOW WHO!
It was good to see good kind hopeful people in a joyful 4 day convention. Hope indeed.
Today’s post describes one of the reasons that I am hopeful for that mythical “Blue Wave” that has seemed to elude us. The discouragement that many of my R friends have, coupled with the enthusiasm that I share with my D friends, is why I can imagine victory in Indiana for Kamala Harris, Dr. Val McCray, Jennifer McCormick, Destiny Wells, Kiley Adolph (running to replace Banks in the 3rd District), and the candidates of the Indiana rural Summit. GOTV!
if you remember in the primaries Trump always polled 10+% higher among likely voters than what really happened. I can’t imagine things being too much different now.
I believe Trump’s hardcore base can be summed up in the three Rs: Rich, Rednecks, and Racists.
The hard-right Nazis have to appease their listeners and followers, while Trump has to appeal to voters and his donor base, which is more Libertarian Technocrats from Silicon Valley. As I’ve posted several times here, those two groups are feuding because they perceive the world differently. And yes, if Trump sticks with the hard-right Nazis, he will not gain enough votes to win.
Not only is Trump trying to listen to Silicon Valley donors like Musk and Thiel, but he’s also trying to get Nikki Haley voters. That’s a pretty big swath to gain, and while Trump has really good con man skills, I don’t think he can cater to those subsets of Republicans, not to mention the Christian Right/Evangelicals.
Meanwhile, Harris has momentum, but she’s catering mostly to her base and Independents in the Middle. She should be careful not to lose the Left, which comprises young people and progressives.
This country cannot maintain the status quo for another four years. While the Democratic Convention was underway, Biden ordered enhancement to the nuclear arsenal very quietly. The media has been manufacturing consent for war with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. If Harris and the Democrats want to have a solid win, they will need to stand up to the Military-Industrial Complex by committing to drop the weapons and use diplomacy. We also need to start dropping the sanctions, which are killing Europe and the US.
From Responsible Statecraft: “Support for diplomatic solutions has the majority backing of Americans from across the political spectrum, so it is remarkable how little support for those same solutions can be found among our elected representatives and policymakers in Washington.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/american-public-opinion-on-ukraine/
During last night’s MSNBC’s Michael Steele said he got a text from a Republican “friend” who said (about the speech) that was how you get elected to be President. No kidding. Kamala looked and sounded every bit the person any rational person would want as their national leader.
My first President (I was just an infant) was FDR. I’ve somehow managed to live long enough to see our first African-American President and now will see our first woman President. So, in spite of the under-the-rock dwellers, we ARE making progress toward a more perfect union.
I agree with the premise that there will be a blue wave this time too. Watch for the complete implosion of the Trump campaign as his psychopathy creates more horrific performances and his audiences dwindle to even smaller sizes (Thank you, President Obama, for illustrating smaller sizes). That all said, don’t be surprised if idiots like Fuentes and Trump call out these rock dwellers to not just show up, but to bring guns and violence to gatherings of both parties. Trump may yet get his bloodbath, and if that does happen, he and his movement will be toast forever.
No, JoAnn, it’s not “his” racism, it’s “their” racism. He just feeds and energizes it.
Harris was great last night, apparently has been great all along.
An important difference in the situation regarding transfer of power, to Kamela, this time, is that the current president is not a selfish dirtbag, and if Fuentes, etc., try to pull some harebrained shenanigans at the capitol, or wherever, Biden will take appropriate steps to deal with them.
Regarding Project 2025 and one of the Heritage foundation’s main goals of returning American women to subservience:
I just read this morning that Afghanistan’s Taliban and their supreme leader just issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public. The goal is to combat vice and promote virtue. They are holding women personally responsible for male misbehavior. If their goal is to control the behavior of men then they should probably rule that men cover their faces and refrain from public speaking.
The Taliban’s new laws on vice and virtue contains 114 pages and Project 2025’s document contains over 900 pages. We MUST defeat the American Taliban in November!
Joy in Chicago…meanwhile Bannon and crew are installing loyalists in state and county election offices to deny certification to the Harris-Walz ticket and other Democrats down the ballot.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/4-pieces-of-terrible-news-for-kamala-and-one-more-thing
Carry on.
Gail, you might want to fact check your sources.
The Daily Wire,”skews right in terms of bias and mixed reliability in terms of reliability.”…Ad Fontes Media
That reliability part is significant.
Do Something! Even the smallest drops of water, joining with each other can form a Tsunami. jf
It’s not just racism, it’s modernity. Many rural folks have had little exposure the shifts in culture that have been many and happened quickly. In the mid eighties Harvey Milk was fighting in San Francisco to get some respect for LGBT(IQ) people – just 40 years ago. Reagan was in office and the Republicans continued to hold back progressive progress. Many folks were still uncomfortable with mixed race relationships. It has been in the cities that people were directly exposed to the LGBTIQ community, to blacks moving into the middle and upper middle classes, and into the suburbs. In many rural areas, and suburbs too, there were few if any people of color, except maybe some Hispanic farm workers. The changes, the opening of minds, in our culture took place almost entirely in cities. Kamala say they’re out of their minds. The look at what has happened to the country, not as a change in the country, but as a change in the cities, and they don’t understand it and don’t want to accept it. Racism? Yes, but also so many other shifts that have happened, leaving them behind. And they don’t understand our present, and they don’t want it for their children.
Diplomacy is great especially if you have the strong hand. Biden needs to tell BiBi that he’ll cut off the weapon supplies if he doesn’t stop the bombing immediately!
Thanks for the hit of optimism. I tend to be a catastrophizer and a trouble-borrower. I want to relax in the joy, but that little voice just behind my ear keeps saying things like “gerrymandering for electoral votes.” And my stomach is feeling the angst.
I keep hearing it’s going to be a razor-thin margin, and I can’t even believe that’s a possibility.
Rule # 1 of the Taliban, whatever their nationality: If a man gets an erection, it is the womans fault!
RFK
Humor cuts deep..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4MnY_ZP0Cc