Harris for President: Some Thoughts at this Time
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
"A vote for ABBH (Any Body But) Harris, is a vote for Trump"
Kamala Harris Vice Presidential Portrait. Get used to it, folks. She is going to win (and in the process save the nation from TrumpFascism)(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org) Details Source DMCA
A) Back on June 30 (2024), in a Tweet at my Twitter site, thepoliticaljunkies @tpjmagazine, I said this: "One person, with the initials J. B., will be making the decision about whether the President will the Democratic candidate for the position in the next election. That person's first name is not 'Joe.' " In my view, the President absolutely did the right thing. How much influence Jill had on the final decision we will likely never know. But her brief "Note to the Nation," issued after the end of her husband's address, in my view said much,:
"And when the evening was over, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden posted an image of a handwritten note on social media. It read: 'To those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed, my heart is full of gratitude. Thank you for the trust you put in Joe-- now it's time to put that trust in Kamala.' "
As is widely agreed on the liberal/(some) progressives' side, this country faces an existential threat of fascism-being-voted-in-via Trump/Vance/Project2025. (For a good summary of the latter see: Click Here. And for "Schedule F," which, without the benefit of legislation, would destroy the Federal Civil Service, see: Click Here[And oh yes, the original Civil Service Act, the Pendelton Act, was passed back in 1883 (Click Here)].)
B) Joe Biden, as is well-known, had a very long career in politics. I certainly have had strong differences with him, as on the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, when he stopped the hearings before witnesses who could have appeared, to support Anita Hill's testimony (Click Here), just like further testimony on the alleged sexual predator Brett Kavanaugh was prevented from being introduced. (BTW, what a Republican Supreme Court majority, eh? Not one, but two alleged sexual predators. And they vote to criminalize abortion[!]) I have also, for example, disagreed with him, strongly, when he was very active on the issue of national recreational drug, maintaining its criminalization which has continued down to this very day. (See my book, "End the Drug War; solve the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach [Click Here].)
BUT, he has unequivocally opposed TrumpFascism, and, as it happened, issued some very strong remarks against it in his retirement address to the nation. Nobody's perfect. Not even those of us who post on OpEdNews.com!
C) Kamala Harris has quickly and strongly picked up this theme. And man, has that gotten the RepubloFascists riled up. Vance and the "cat lady" comment (which, by the way, according to Andy Borowitz, stimulated the organization of the "Million Meow March" [Click Here]. Some other RepubloFascist characterized this winner of multiple elections as a "DEI appointment." (Oh, and by the way, she never was the "Border Czar," [or even the "Border Tzarina"].)
D) In early polling, Harris is apparently bringing back to the Democratic side, the "young," Black, and Latino vote.
E) During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump talked about vote-rigging-and-challenging if he did not win fair and square. So to those of us who have followed Trump for quite some time (see: Click Here), this came as no surprise. His post-election legal efforts in 2020 came as no surprise either, although even to me, the violence that he and his colleagues-in-crime perpetrated on "Jan. 6" was totally shocking. "It Can't Happen Here" (the title of Sinclair Lewis' 1936 book on a then-future fascist U.S), but it did happen. And Trump is threatening the same, up-to-and, by insinuation, including violence. It appears as if the anti-fascist/Harris-candidacy side is getting ready to counter this in the courts and gearing up for that battle. As for potential violence, at least this time around it is the Biden/Harris Administration that will be in charge of dealing with it. (And of course when Trump himself is charged this time around, he won't be able to hide behind the Supreme Court's amendment to the Constitution which established the "immunity" exception for Presidents [Click Here].)
F) Harris, as she has already made very clear, given her time as a prosecutor in California "knows the Trump type:" fraudster (the New York false real estate evaluation case), sexual predator (the E. Jean Carroll case), campaign-law violator/cover-upper (the "Stormy Daniels" case).
G) Consider for a moment the foreign leaders whom Trump proudly counts as friends: Vladimir ("Make the World Safe for Plutocracy) Putin (Click Here); Tucker Carlson's favorite central European dictator, Viktor Orban (Click Here); and of course, who can forget Kim Jong Un.
H) Trump's built-in racism, from the days of his youth, is well-known (e.g., see "The Central Park Five" and the Obama "Birther Conspiracy"). This column, Click Here, deals with that issue, and suggests some strategies and tactics for dealing with it.
I) On Biden's Israel policy, I am long-time critic of the policy that has dominated Israeli politics since the end of "The Oslo Process." I totally condemn what Israel has done in Gaza. Do any of the critics (and I am one, and have been for a long time) have any ideas for how Israel gets out of this and what a better US policy should be? Tom Friedman has a very good suggestion (New York Times, July 24, 2024).
J) The RepubloFascists, led by Kevin "We are in the process of a Second American Revolution" Roberts of the Heritage Foundation are threatening a Second Civil War if the nation does not just acquiesce to their proposed destruction of Constitutional Government (as in the destruction of the Federal civil service without the benefit of legislation). Hmm. P2025 totally reorganizes the form and function of the Federal government. Why wouldn't not only "the left" but lots of folks in the middle, and on the Right too, just let you folks walk over our many-sided side that believes in the current U.S. Constitution's prescription for a government founded on bourgeois democracy. George Lang, a Republican Ohio state senator has said (Charles Blow, NYT, July 25, 2024) "I'm afraid if we lose this one, it's going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved." That's what we are facing folks
K) On Israel further (and here's my most recent column on the topic: Click Here), I certainly think that it would be really helpful, both to the remaining people of Gaza and her Presidential campaign, if the V-P continues to edge away from the current Biden-we-can't-do-too-much-about-this position.
L) Trump is totally scared. He's already making fun of the V.P.'s name, using it as a major campaign slogan. Trump does poorly with powerful women, and of course it is useful to remember that he likely would have lost to Hillary had it not been for Jim Comey's intervention (Click Here).
M) "The TILY (Trump-I-Love-You) candidate," JD Vance, with no govt. administrative experience, was picked solely on the basis of just how much of a Trump-acolyte he is.
N) Click Here. Trump demands his money back for funds spent campaigning against Joe Biden. What? Has the political humorist Andy Borowitz (https://borowitzreport.com) suddenly changed his politics, to become a master politics writer for Trump? OMG. What's this world coming to?
O) Getting back to Project 2025, Hitler did not announce what he would do if he became Chancellor of Germany (click here). The Trumpists have told us. It is important to listen to them.
P) Briefly on Jill Stein. Previously, on her candidacy I wrote: Click Here (and I will be coming back to the "Jill Stein" issue shortly). But for now, it can be said that she goes from being the third youngest significant (significant in that she likely swung the election to Trump in 2016 [see the reference above]) candidate to being the second oldest.
Q) As far as the "Party of Law and Order" is concerned, one must be concerned with the fact that a convicted felon is running President, but also this from the party of "law and order" (Click Here): JD Vance says that Pres. Trump could ignore the Supreme Court, on any issue, and go ahead and do what he wanted to do. Why do that JD, when he's got the Supreme Court in his pocket? Oh, I see. That's for if and when they slip out of it.
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The definition of fascism that I use:
"There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of a capitalist ruling class that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."