It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
I’ve Covered Washington for a Long Time. I’ve Never Heard Anyone in Congress Go This Far.
GOP GOES ON VACATION DURING HURRICANES
Jim Newell Tue, October 8, 2024 a
Two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in the Big Bend region of Florida. From there it carved a path through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, leaving historic wreckage in its path as it flooded the region in 40 trillion gallons of water. The catastrophic damage in mountainous western North Carolina, especially, has garnered some of the most attention. Storms like this aren’t supposed to happen in places like that. Well, at least, they weren’t.
The all-hands-on-deck scramble to survey the extent of the damage, save lives and livelihoods, and restore power, water, and roads understandably still hasn’t been fast enough for those most affected. And just as understandably, the shock and the trauma of the storm have given way to conspiracy theories as a way to make sense of it all. Among those that have circulated either by word of mouth or through social media are the false theories that the government is razing property for lithium mining, that FEMA is bulldozing structures to cover up dead bodies, or that Democratic officials and the federal and state level are purposely ignoring the most Republican areas of the country.
There was also grumbling, especially in the early aftermath of the storm, that the media refused to cover what was happening in western North Carolina, or that the government had no money to help Americans suffering from the storm because it had spent it all on munitions for Ukraine and Israel. Another far-right theory for why the government supposedly hasn’t been devoting resources to disaster relief—which, to be clear, it has—is because it’s spending its budget on housing migrants.
The grandaddy of all the conspiracy theories going around, though, would have to be one most eagerly promoted by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. According to Greene, an undefined “they”—who, if we’re being generous, is meant to be the Democrats, the deep state, or the “establishment”—“can control the weather.” In other words, “they” are actively working to crush communities with historic storms.
Despite backlash from basically every possible corner, she continues,still, to push this idea that the government can enhance and steer hurricanes on a path that does the most destruction to red America, ostensibly to create a mess in swing states that can’t be restored in time for voting. I’ve covered Congress for a while, so I don’t say this lightly: I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a member say something this disassociated with reality. But there are people who will believe it.
Officials at the federal, state, and local levels trying to manage recovery efforts, Democrat and Republican, are at their wits’ end with the overwhelming amount of misinformation that’s impeding their recovery work. They have emphasized that, actually, they’re impressed with the assistance the federal government has offered so far. Unfortunately, that sobriety—from officials actually on the ground—doesn’t extend to certain commanding heights of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump—as of now—hasn’t gone so far as to claim that Democrats control the hurricanes. But he’s given fuel to plenty of other outrageous and dangerous theories. Last week ahead of a visit to North Carolina, he posted on social media that he was getting “reports” about “the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” At a rally in Michigan this week, Trump said that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country,” and that “they stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.” He said there had been “no helicopters” to relieve people, and that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had been unable to get in touch with President Joe Biden.
All of this is blatantly false. It’s also pretty horrifying with another dangerous hurricane moving through the Gulf of Mexico, poised to wreak even more havoc on the region.
Worse yet is that one of the central pillars of social media is owned by an credulous doofus who’s positioned himself as sometimes consigliere, sometimes rally clown, to the Trump campaign. Elon Musk has used his platform seemingly to spread any rumor that’s come his way. Late last week, he posted a note that said that “FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!”
This has been a recurring theme of his, that FEMA is, effectively,working to worsen the situation. Fortunately, he was able to get in touch with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg eventually, which calmed him down. That would have been a good first step, of course, before posting rumors about how the federal government opposes helping people.
The unfortunate question here, as we barrel toward Election Day, is: Does this pattern sound at all familiar?
Much of the country is in widespread discontent. Along comes Trump to either offer his own stories or inflame those floating around on the fringes, to give people someone to blame. Local and state administrators of both parties insist there’s nothing to these stories, but Trump and his sycophants push them anyway.
In other words, no: The pattern and spread of misinformation that’s emerged following Hurricane Helene does not give me confidence that the aftermath of the 2024 election, in the event of a narrow Kamala Harris victory, will go more smoothly than that of 2020. It almost feels like a dry run ahead of the election to test that the systems of deceit are still operable. They sure seem to be—only this time, Elon Musk owns the social media platform that dictates the pace of “news.”
What’s most disconcerting about the idea that the government can control and direct hurricanes to maximize wreckage, or that FEMA is actively working to block Republican areas from rebuilding, is the assumption of malevolence at the root of it. Most of the fact checks of Greene’s theory focus on how it’s obviously not scientifically possible for “them” to do what she describes. What’s equally important to stress—and it’s a shame it needs stressing—is that “they” wouldn’t want to do that. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party do not want hurricanes to kill, displace, and destroy the lives of American citizens. FEMA does not want Republicans to have trouble getting water. If you’re willing to believe these things, though, you’re more than willing to believe that an election can be stolen—again.
Russia is set to lose over 1,000 troops a day through the winter as it fights a war on three fronts: UK MOD
Matthew Loh Tue, October 8, 2024 Ukraine is set for another fierce winter as Russia is expected to keep up the pressure.
It'll come at a cost for Moscow: Over 1,000 wounded or dead troops per day, the UK MOD said on Monday.
British officials said Russia has likely suffered over 648,000 casualties since the war began.
The UK Defense Ministry expects Russia to lose 1,000 or more troops per day in the coming winter, saying Moscow will likely keep trying to overwhelm Ukraine in the next months despite difficult conditions.
"Russia's casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day for the rest of 2024 despite the onset of winter," the ministry said in an update posted on Monday, referring to soldiers who are wounded or killed in battle.
"To date, winter conditions have not resulted in a reduction of offensive operations or attrition rates due to Russia's reliance on dismounted tactics and a lack of maneuver warfare, which requires better conditions," it added.
The ministry has for several months flagged that Russia is suffering a far higher casualty rate compared to previous years as it relies on mass to grind its way to victory in Ukraine.
Ukraine had also reported that May was one of Russia's worst months, saying the Kremlin suffered over 1,200 casualties per day.
In a separate note on its Monday update, the UK defense ministry cited this data and said Ukrainian forces now estimate that Russian losses in September were even higher, at 1,271 killed or wounded per day.
"Since the start of the conflict Russia has likely suffered over 648,000 casualties," the ministry wrote.
Officials posted a chart of Russia's monthly daily average losses since the war began, indicating a progressive increase year on year.
They wrote that the sharp jump in losses is likely due to Russia and Ukraine opening new fronts in Kharkiv and Kursk, along with intensified fighting on the eastern front, where Russia has been pushing hard to take the key towns of Pokrovsk and Vuhledar in Donetsk.
"Russian forces highly likely continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by utilizing mass to overwhelm defensive positions and achieve tactical gains," the ministry added.
Russian troops took Vuhledar in early October after two years of fighting. Some of the war's bloodiest clashes unfolded at the Ukrainian stronghold, including a failed assault by elite Russian marines who were nearly wiped out and an ill-fated tank column rush that ended with Moscow losing over 130 armored vehicles. An aerial view of the battered Vuhledar in December.Libkos/Getty Images)
But Russian troops managed to seize nearby towns and surround Vuhledar in June, in a sign of heightened pressure against the Ukrainian forces this year as Russian leader Vladimir Putin focuses his country's economy on the war.
Draft documents reported by Russian media in September indicate that authorities plan to spend up to 40% of the nation's overall budget on its military and national security.
Deadliest month for Russian army as ‘meat wave’ assaults take their toll
James Kilner
TELEGRAM Mon, October 7, 2024 at 11:52 AM MDT·2 min read 519
Ukrainian servicemen fire a cannon towards Russian positions last month - GENYA SAVILOV
September was the deadliest month for Russia’s army since the start of the war in Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Monday.
The average casualty rate for the Russian army rose to 1,271 soldiers killed or badly injured per day.
Previously, the highest daily casualty rate for Russian soldiers had been in May, with an average of 1,262 soldiers killed or injured.
“The increase in the casualty rate since May 2024 is almost certainly due to the extension of the combat zone to include both Kharkiv and Kursk military operations, and increased intensity along the frontline,” the Ministry of Defence said.
Russian soldiers carry an ammunition to their Pion self-propelled cannon to fire towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location - Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
Russia launched a surprise invasion of the Kharkiv region from its Belgorod region in May, while its forces suffered high casualties attempting to repel Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into the Kursk region.
September was also the fifth consecutive month that Russian casualties averaged more than 1,000 soldiers per day.
Analysts said that the high casualty rate was linked to Russian mass infantry tactics, often involving “meat wave” assaults where large numbers of troops are sent to storm Ukrainian defensive positions.
“I expect Russia to continue to grind forward, probing for weakness. Very grim. We can’t expect a Russia pause over the winter,” said John Foreman, Britain’s former defence attache in Moscow.
The MoD said that Russia had now lost nearly 650,000 soldiers since its invasion in February 2022. Its casualties averaged between 172 and 559 per day in 2022, then peaked at 967 in 2023.
“Russian forces will highly likely continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by utilising mass to overwhelm defensive positions,” it said.
Over the past 14 months, Russia has been making steady gains in eastern Ukraine, but at a high cost.
The town, once considered a “fortress”, had never before been captured and it marked the most significant battlefield victory since Kremlin troops took control of Avdiivka in February.
In the Kharkiv region, a pro-Ukrainian Russian activist-turned-soldier was killed fighting for Kyiv’s forces on Saturday.
Ildar Dadin was well-known in anti-Kremlin circles for being the first person sent to prison under tightened 2014 laws against anti-government protests in Russia. He had been fighting for a volunteer battalion since 2023.
Democrats hope the latest court rulings restricting abortion energize voters as election nears
CHRISTINE FERNANDO Tue, October 8, 2024 FILE - Abortion rights protesters rally near the Georgia state Capitol in Atlanta, on May 14, (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
CHICAGO (AP) — Two court rulings this week have delivered major blows to reproductive rights in Texas and Georgia but, during a crucial time in the election cycle, Democrats are seizing on them in an attempt to energize voters who support abortion access.
Advocates hope the rulings will serve as reminders about what’s at stake in a post-Roe America just weeks before a presidential election that has been partly defined by competing visions of abortion rights and the sometimes harrowing consequences for women living in states with abortion bans.
“Every time our opponents say the policies we have in place are fine and not as extreme as you think, this continual drumbeat of headlines illustrates the reality and galvanizes voters,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which is providing money and other support for several ballot measure campaigns hoping to preserve or strengthen abortion rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court decision that bans emergency abortions that violate Texas law. The same day, the Georgia Supreme Court halted a ruling that had struck down the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, took the opportunity to remind voters of the threats her campaign says a second Trump presidency poses to reproductive rights and his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, which once granted a federal right to abortion. Trump has repeatedly taken credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion that had stood for 50 years.
“Because of extreme Trump Abortion Bans in states across the country, including Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia, women are facing horrific consequences to their health and lives — even death,” Harris posted on X. “Let me be clear: Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis.”
Monday's rulings are just the latest court decisions around reproductive rights to ripple through this year's races for president and Congress. In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos can be considered children, a decision that temporarily halted in vitro fertilization treatments and threw the lives of couples seeking fertility treatments into chaos.
In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a near total abortion ban from 1864 — when the state was only a U.S. territory. The Legislature repealed it months later, but not until after the issue had galvanized abortion rights supporters in a state that will help determine the presidency and control of the Senate.
Kristi Hamrick, spokesperson for the national anti-abortion group Students for Life Action, accused Democrats of “latching onto anything and blaming losses on anyone but themselves in a desperate attempt to get votes.” She celebrated the two rulings Monday and expressed hopes the anti-abortion wins will instead energize voters against abortion.
“We’re grateful for these wins and hopeful they may add some wind in our sails,” she said.
In Texas, the state’s abortion ban – one of the strictest in the country – is playing a role in the Senate race between the Republican incumbent, Sen. Ted Cuz, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. The weekend before Monday’s ruling, Allred vowed to restore Roe v. Wade at a campaign event in Fort Worth.
Other Democrats in the statehouse, including Texas Rep. Donna Howard, also expressed outrage at the rulings. She accused the courts of "willfully ignoring the dangerous reality many pregnant Texans are forced to endure if they experience severe pregnancy complications.”
In Georgia, one of the seven presidential battleground states, the state supreme court’s ruling comes on the heels of outrage over the deaths of Georgia women Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who died after being denied immediate care that was attributed to the state’s restrictive laws.
Georgia voters are watching these stories about the impact of the state’s abortion restrictions and “they will bring that to the polls” during the presidential election, said Jessica Arons, a director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU. But these headlines might also energize voters in contests up and down the ballot, including citizen-led ballot measures in nine states aiming to protect abortion rights, she said.
Support for legal abortion has risen since the Supreme Court eliminated protections two years ago, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Around 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion for any reason if they don’t want to be pregnant. That represents an increase from June 2021, a year before the Supreme Court decision, when about half of Americans thought legal abortion should be possible under these circumstances.
Many experts and advocates have credited this shift to Americans’ reactions to the abortion restrictions affecting a wide swath of the country since Roe was overturned. Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy while another four ban it after six weeks — before many women know they’re pregnant.
“It’s hard to say how much voters are following each development, but it’s clear abortion is still an incredibly salient issue, and these are reminders of why as we head closer to November,” Arons said. “As courts and politicians continue to play ping-pong with women’s lives, ballot measures will be especially important.”
Only about half the states allow citizen-led ballot initiatives. Georgia and Texas, states where Republicans control the Legislature and governor's office, are not among them.
Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for a coalition aiming to enshrine abortion rights into the Florida Constitution, said the Georgia Supreme Court ruling only adds to a “public health crisis in the Southeast.”
Florida is the only state in the Southeast that allows citizen-led ballot initiatives, Brenzel said. If Floridians vote in favor of abortion rights, the state may become a major access point for Georgians seeking abortions. The Florida amendment needs at least 60% support to pass.
“It raises the stakes for us here in Florida,” Brenzel said.
After the Arizona Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions, a coalition organizing around a statewide ballot measure to protect abortion rights reported a surge in donations, volunteers and interest. Laura Dent, the coalition’s political director, said it's evidence that voters are paying attention and taking action.
“Arizonans are seeing these headlines,” she said. “This and all the whiplash we’ve seen since the Dobbs decision really brought into focus for Arizona voters how we need to protect this right, and I think that will be reflected in November.”
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GREEN PARTY CEASEFIRE ALTERNATIVE
Abandon Harris campaign endorses Jill Stein
If elected, Stein vowed to end the war in Gaza on day one.
Julia Mueller Mon, October 7, 2024
The “Abandon Harris” group pushing for voters to protest Vice President Harris over the conflict in Gaza is endorsing the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the presidential race.
The group, formerly known as “Abandon Biden,” is calling on Muslim Americans and others frustrated with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war to cast their ballots for the long-shot third-party bid.
“Our movement remains dedicated to ensuring that the American people, especially the Muslim-American community, recognize the responsibility we share in standing up against oppression and using all our power to stop genocide — wherever it may arise. On the precipice of the election, we endorse Jill Stein,” the group said in a release.
Stein, who also ran for the White House in 2012 and 2016, has little chance of being truly competitive this fall. She’s not on the ballot or lodging a write-in campaign in a dozen states, according to a tracker from her campaign, and a recent New York Times/Siena College survey of a handful of key battlegrounds had her polling at just 1 percent.
But her candidacy could act as a potential spoiler to Harris’s fast-tracked bid amid a tight race between the vice president and former President Trump, drawing votes in vital swing states where the two major party candidates are separated by a hair.
Democrats have long been frustrated by the Green Party, and Stein was seen as something of a spoiler to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Trump.
A similar protest group, the Uncommitted National Movement, said last month that it wouldn’t endorse either Harris or Trump, but recommended against a third-party vote, noting that third-party votes in critical swing states could “inadvertently” boost Trump.
Trump has the edge over Harris among Arab Americans, according to recent data from the Arab American Institute, and the vice president faces growing signs that the demographic is souring on her in critical battlegrounds.
The Abandon Harris endorsement of Stein comes on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, which kick-started the ongoing conflict. The group initially sought to protest President Biden in the Democratic presidential primaries and has since shifted to urge voters against Harris.
In the race between Trump and Harris, the group said it’s “confronting two destructive forces: one currently overseeing a genocide and another equally committed to continuing it.”
Stein has said she would end all military support to Israel if elected. Harris and Biden have both offered unwavering support for Israel but underscored the suffering in Gaza.
“It is far past time for a hostage and ceasefire deal to end the suffering of innocent people,” Harris said in a statement marking the anniversary. “And I will always fight for the Palestinian people to be able to realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self-determination.”
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Michigan and Georgia Arab American voters sour on Harris
Yash Roy Mon, October 7, 2024
Vice President Harris is facing growing signs that Arab American and Muslim voters are souring on her in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Georgia as anger rises over the expanding conflict in the Middle East.
A poll from the Arab American Institute showed former President Trump leading Harris with those voters by 4 points nationally, amid criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s wars against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and in Gaza.
The survey comes as Trump and third-party candidates such as Jill Stein have stepped up outreach to the more than 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, one of seven key battlegrounds that could determine who wins the White House.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, leaders have begun sounding the alarm that the more than 150,000 Arab American and Muslim voters there might not turn out in a state President Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.
“There’s double trouble that has to be addressed, both the ongoing situation in Gaza but also the now new circumstance created in Lebanon,” said Jim Zogby, the founding director of the Arab American Institute and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “I don’t know where Harris’s majority comes from if you’re losing a percentage of nonwhite voters, a percentage of young voters and a significant percentage of Arab American voters. I don’t know where you get the rest from.”
According to David Dulio, a political science professor at Michigan’s Oakland University, Arab Americans and Muslims have been “critical” to the Democratic coalition built in the state.
“Even a small shift in the support in the community could have an incredibly large impact on the final outcome,” Dulio said. “It’s a small portion of the coalition, but it’s a critical one.”
As Israel expands the conflict into Lebanon, Democrats in Michigan are sounding the alarm bell.
“I’m not sure people realize how much of an added dimension this brings here,” former House Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said, referring to Israel’s new war front. “Lebanese Americans are like the grandaddies of the Arab American community in Michigan.”
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Arab American support for Democrats has cratered. In the first survey by the Arab American Institute after Hamas’s incursion, Biden registered 17 percent support with the community.
The National Uncommitted Movement launched a campaign for voters to cast uncommitted ballots during the primary, and close to 1 million Democrats did so.
The National Uncommitted Movement recently declined to endorse Harris, but many of its leaders have come together with other Arab American leaders to form Arab Americans for Harris-Walz.
While Harris has more than doubled Democratic support among Arab Americans and Muslims, she is still far behind the 60 percent of the community that voted for Biden in 2020. Democrats have historically enjoyed a 2-to-1 advantage among Arab American and Muslim voters.
Harris has worked to regain the Democrats’ footing within the community, creating the first Arab American outreach position in a presidential campaign.
But members of the party campaigning alongside Harris’s Arab outreach liaison say they have had a difficult time connecting with voters.
“She’s very good, but she’s been having a hell of a time,” Zogby said. “I’ve been going to a couple of things with her, and it’s not been pretty.”
Harris also spoke with leaders of the National Uncommitted Movement in August. That same month, her campaign manager also met with Arab and Muslim leaders.
This week, Walz spoke at the Emgage Action “Million Muslim Votes” event, while Harris met with Arab leaders before speaking in Detroit.
“The Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans,” a Harris spokesperson told The Hill in a statement. “Throughout her career, Vice President Harris has been steadfast in her support of our country’s diverse Muslim community, ensuring first and foremost that they can live free from the hateful policies of the Trump administration.”
However, some members of the community have dismissed her efforts, saying they are not genuine.
“They have a role for Arab American outreach director for the campaign, but they don’t have a role like that for the actual administration,” Soujoud Hamade, president of the Michigan chapter of the Arab American Bar Association, told The Hill.
“Most of us know better at this point than to believe their lies anymore, because they’ll come and feed us a bunch of lies so that we vote for them,” added Hamade, who plans on voting for Stein.
Others have taken a more moderate tone, recognizing the efforts of Harris but adding that it is not enough to win over Arab American and Muslim voters angry with the U.S. support for the Israeli government.
“The liaisons are doing their best, but they are not decisionmakers. But the concern right now is that decisionmakers are not engaging with the community directly,” said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D), who is supporting Harris.
“Her team has been doing the outreach, and it’s been night and day compared to the Biden campaign,” Romman added. “But, if you’re a person who wants the bombs to stop and the candidate says, ‘Yes, I intend to stop the bombs,’ and that doesn’t happen, it makes you lose hope.”
The National Uncommitted Movement floated Romman as a potential Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention. In the end, the event did not feature a Palestinian speaker on the main stage.
While Harris tries to rebuild her party’s relationship with the community, Trump and Stein have capitalized on their anger in an effort to make inroads.
Trump has been airing ads in Arab American communities in Michigan, and his former director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, and Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman, have been leading his outreach to the community.
Their efforts appear to be succeeding with at least a part of the community.
“His level of outreach has been constant and recurring, and the fact that there’s been this outreach placing value and worth in our community and saying that we deserve a seat at the table, which hasn’t happened from the other side,” Samraa Luqman, a Michigan activist who wrote in Bernie Sanders for president in 2020 but has now endorsed Trump, told The Hill.
Luqman added that Trump had personally committed to resolving the conflict in meetings with her and other Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan. Luqman also believes Trump’s “personality quirks” might lead to a quicker resolution of the conflict compared to the current efforts led by Biden.
“My aim is to punish Democrats for their support of genocide,” she added. “You cannot expect any change in policies or in the Democrats unless you actually punish them.”
According to Luqman, many members of her community are “afraid to voice their support publicly right now.”
Romman said Harris’s “inability to distinguish herself from Biden on this issue” has also made it easier for third-party candidates such as Stein to make “headway into the community.”
Polls have shown Stein registering anywhere from 12 percent to more than 30 percent of Arab American support.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison dismissed some of these polls, saying “it’s hard for [him] to believe” the latest numbers.
“We know that Kamala Harris sees Arab Americans and understands that they need to have a seat at the table, that they need to be respected,” he added.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein praises Maine voting system as means to oppose genocide
Emma Davis Mon, October 7, 2024
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus on Oct. 7, 2024. She is accompanied by Kwame Che Shakur (left) and Faisal Khan with Carolina Peace Center (right). (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said the days of voting against one’s conscience are numbered because states like Maine are adopting ranked choice voting.
“If you also want to cast a lesser evil vote — if you can figure out who the lesser evil is — you can have whatever kind of vote you want,” Stein said, “but just ensure that your number one vote is to stop genocide.”
Stein described a vote for either of the major party candidates — Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump — as a vote for genocide during a panel discussion at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on Monday, which marked one year since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel, murdering more than 1,000 civilians, taking hundreds prisoner and igniting an all-but-declared regional war and a deadly Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that the U.S. has failed to halt despite months of ceasefire negotiations.
In addition to condemning Israel’s actions, Stein used the event to underscore how Maine’s voting system offers a pathway for an alternative future, on the issue of the war in Gaza, among others.
Ranked choice voting
Stein, a doctor, also previously ran for president as Green Party nominee in 2012 and 2016, finishing fourth in both elections. Some Democrats partially blamed Stein for the outcome of the 2016 election, when Trump won, arguing that she spoiled the race by garnering votes in key swing states that might have otherwise gone to Hillary Clinton — a claim that Stein has disputed.
In Maine, the so-called spoiler effect is mitigated by ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to indicate which candidate is their first choice, second choice, and so on. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes on election night, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes get reassigned to whomever their voters ranked second. This process is repeated until one candidate wins a majority of votes.
Maine was the first state to adopt ranked-choice voting in 2016, but it has gained popularity in recent years as more states and municipalities have adopted the practice. Maine voters will be using ranked-choice voting up and down the ballot this November to rank their preferred candidates for office.
Maine Coalition for Palestine has cited ranked choice voting in assuaging concerns about a vote for their preferred write-in candidate for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, Surrey resident Diana Merenda.
Merenda, an unenrolled write-in candidate, is running as an anti-war alternative to the major party candidates, much like Stein. Merenda told the Ellsworth American that her opposition to Israel’s actions, which she also called genocidal, is a main part of her platform.
The coalition is urging people to write in Merenda instead of the two candidates who will appear on the ballot for CD-2, incumbent U.S Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, and Republican Austin Theriault, who is a current state legislator.
In a statement released on Monday, the coalition criticized Theriault for parroting the typical Republican talking point that Israel has a right to defend itself, as well as Golden for not speaking out against Israel’s actions, including his vote in favor of a resolution condemning President Joe Biden’s decision to pause weapons shipments to Israel. The latter had also been the focus of a protest organized by Maine-based pro-Palestinian groups during Golden’s remarks at the Maine Democratic Party Convention in June.
Stein said on Monday that she also sees the political actions modeled by Mainers as key for breaking down current power structures.
“The days of the political elites are numbered because cities like Portland, Maine here adopted a divestment structure,” Stein said, referring to the Portland City Council passing a resolution in September urging the city to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
Stein applauded the efforts of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, an organization of about 17 Maine-based groups, some of whom joined her in discussion on Monday. The Maine Students for Palestine, one of the coalition members, announced at the event the latest of their efforts — a petition calling on the University of Maine’s Board of Trustees to divest from Israel and companies doing business with Israel.
While Stein emphasized that Maine’s electorate is currently ripe for making cracks in the two-party system, the state has been an incubator for Green Party politics from the start.
The late John Rensenbrink, former professor at Bowdoin College, is credited with co-founding the Maine Green Party, which was the first state party in the country, and later the U.S. Green Party. Today the party boasts roughly 37,000 registered members in Maine.
Stein’s day one promises
If elected, Stein vowed to end the war in Gaza on day one.
“On day one, we will end this conflict once and for all because Israel is a proxy,” Stein said. “They are a proxy of the United States. The U.S. is in firm control. We can shut this down with a single phone call.”
Also on day one, the Green Party candidate said she would instruct the U.S. Department of Justice to take the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to court for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which the U.S. established in 1938 to reduce the influence of foreign propaganda.
Among her other priorities are banning nuclear weapons and creating a global Green New Deal, the need for which she said has been underscored by Hurricane Helene, which devastated the Southeast states and killed at least 231 people.
“We can’t simply try to pick up the pieces after the fact,” Stein said. “We have to start heeding the warnings and stop ginning up more and more fossil fuels.”
Stein said the U.S. should be spending its money — and that which it continues to send Israel — on pressing matters such as addressing climate change instead.
“We’re told to think that we’re powerless and that we are a nuisance, that we should shut up and sit down and go away because we are far too small and insignificant to impact our political future,” Stein said. “Well, hello, democracy is about everyone standing up with the right to vote for who we want, not to take marching orders from the economic and political elites.” Elected officials in Maine speak out on Oct. 7 anniversary
Maine’s elected officials marked the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel with a range of statements. While many broadly condemned the violence, several took the opportunity to call for specific policy action.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, a Democrat, urged the safe return of the remaining hostages but also called for a ceasefire.
“For the hostages that remain in Gaza, for the humanitarian aid that’s so desperately needed, we *must* achieve a ceasefire, and take the first, meaningful steps towards deescalating this horrific conflict,” Pingree wrote on social media. “Today, we look back in mourning on the brutal and tragic events of October 7 — while calling on all parties to do what’s necessary to achieve a real, lasting peace.”
Pingree is the only member of Maine’s Congressional delegation that has publicly called for a ceasefire. She is also the only to mention the deaths of Palestinian’s in her statement on the Oct. 7 anniversary.
“Tragically, the violence we saw on October 7 has only escalated,” Pingree wrote. “To date, 40,000 Gazans have lost their lives—most of them women and children. Now, a new war has erupted in Lebanon.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, called for the U.S. to continue to support Israel on Monday.
“We must continue to support the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, in its quest to eliminate Hamas and secure its borders from all terrorist threats,” Collins wrote in a statement. “It’s not only in the interest of the surrounding region, but also in the interest of America and the world.”
Collins also drew attention to more recent violence from Hamas, pointing to Israel’s confirmation in September of the deaths of six more hostages.
“Today, let us come together as we remember and honor the lives lost and pray for the safe return of those still held hostage by the Hamas terrorists,” Collins wrote.
Collins also called out a need to combat rising antisemitism, also a focus of the statement released by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Monday. Describing it as a deeply troubling trend, Mills wrote there is no place in Maine for harassment, intimidation, or hatred of any kind.
“No matter how you feel about the conflict in the Middle East — and Maine people hold strong and differing views — let us express those views respectfully and remember that we are one state, one community where our neighbors deserve to feel safe and respected,” Mills wrote. “Today, and every day, let us all recommit to building a state where hatred has no safe harbor.”
Golden did not call for specific policy action in a statement he issued about the anniversary. Rather, he focused on remembrance and hope for the return of remaining hostages.
“Today, we remember the innocent men, women and children killed in the Hamas terrorist attack one year ago today — the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Golden wrote. “We also offer our strength to those still reeling from such senseless loss, and prayers and resolve for the safe return of the remaining hostages.”
Meanwhile, Golden’s challenger, Theriault, called for the U.S. to stand by Israel in a social media post on Monday.
“America must always stand strong with Israel, our great ally, in the face of terror and evil,” Theriault wrote.
U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent, did not release a statement on the Oct. 7 anniversary.
Trump has long blasted China's trade practices. His 'God Bless the USA' Bibles were printed there
The front cover of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump's "God Bless the USA" Bible in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
RICHARD LARDNER and DAKE KANG
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices — China.
Global trade records reviewed by The Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States between early February and late March.
The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that use customs data to track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.
The Trump Bible’s connection to China, which has not been previously reported, reveals a deep divide between the former president’s harsh anti-China rhetoric and his rush to cash in while campaigning.
The Trump campaign did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment.
Trump says his Bibles would help America
The largest and most recent load of 70,000 copies of Trump’s Bible arrived by container vessel at the Port of Los Angeles on March 28, two days after Trump announced in a video posted on his Truth Social platform that he’d partnered with country singer Lee Greenwood to hawk the Bibles.
In the video, Trump blended religion with his campaign message as he urged viewers to buy the Bible, inspired by Greenwood’s ballad, “God Bless the USA.” The Bible includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Pledge of Allegiance.
“This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back in America, and to make America great again, is our religion, Trump said. Judeo-Christian values, he added, are “under attack, perhaps as never before.”
Trump didn’t say where the “God Bless the USA” Bibles are printed, or what they cost; a copy hand-signed by the former president sells for $1,000. Trump also didn't disclose how much he earns per sale.
A version of the $59.99 Bible memorializes the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania. Trump’s name is on the cover above the phrase, “The Day God Intervened.” The wording appears to have been stamped on after the Bible was produced. Trump said Saturday his would-be assassin did not succeed “by the hand of providence and the grace of God.”
The Bibles are sold exclusively through a website that states it is not affiliated with any political campaign nor is it owned or controlled by Trump.
A photo posted on the website shows Trump sitting at his desk in the Oval Office with Greenwood standing beside him. In another photo, the former president smiles broadly while holding a copy of the Bible.
Trump's name and image are licensed
The website states that Trump’s name and image are used under a paid license from CIC Ventures, a company Trump reported owning in his most recent financial disclosure. CIC Ventures earned $300,000 in Bible sales royalties, according to the disclosure. It’s unclear what period that covers or how much Trump received in additional payments since the disclosure was released in August.
AP received no response to questions sent to an email on the Bible website and to a publicist for Greenwood.
For years, Trump has castigated Beijing as an obstacle to America’s economic success, slapping hefty tariffs on Chinese imports while president and threatening even more stringent measures if he’s elected again. He blamed China for the COVID-19 outbreak and recently suggested, without evidence, that thousands of Chinese immigrants are flooding the U.S. to build an “army” and attack America.
But Trump also has an eye on his personal finances. Pitching Bibles is one of a dizzying number of for-profit ventures he’s launched or promoted, including diamond-encrusted watches, sneakers, photo books, cryptocurrency and digital trading cards.
The web of enterprises has stoked conflict of interest concerns. Selling products at prices that exceed their value may be considered a campaign contribution, said Claire Finkelstein, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
“You have to assume that everything that the individual does is being done as a candidate and so that any money that flows through to him benefits him as a candidate,” Finkelstein said. “Suppose Vladimir Putin were to buy a Trump watch. Is that a campaign finance violation? I would think so.”
Selling Bibles, she added, “strikes me as a profoundly problematic mixing of religion and state.”
Potential conflicts of interest
As president, Trump would be in a position to influence policies and markets to benefit businesses in which he and his family have financial stakes. While president, his administration exempted Bibles and other religious texts from tariffs imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods.
There’s a potentially lucrative opportunity for Trump to sell 55,000 of the “God Bless the USA” Bibles to Oklahoma after the state’s top education official ordered public schools to incorporate Scripture into lessons for grades 5 through 12. Oklahoma plans to spend $3 million on Bibles that initially matched Trump’s edition: a King James Version that contains the U.S. founding documents. The request was revised Monday to allow the U.S. historical documents to be bound with the Bible or provided separately.
Oklahoma’s Department of Education did not answer AP’s questions about whether the Bibles must be printed in the United States or if any department officials have discussed the proposal with Trump or his representatives.
“There are hundreds of Bible publishers and we expect a robust competition for this proposal,” said department spokesman Dan Isett.
Chinese printing company confirms shipments
China is one of the world’s leading producers of Bibles, so it’s not unusual for the Trump-endorsed version to be printed there.
The first delivery of Trump Bibles was labeled “God Bless USA,” according to the information from the Panjiva and Import Genius databases. The other two were described as “Bibles.” All the books were shipped by New Ade Cultural Media, a printing company in Hangzhou that describes itself as a “custom Bible book manufacturer.” They were sent to Freedom Park Design, a company in Alabama that databases identified as the importer of the Bibles.
Tammy Tang, a sales representative for New Ade, told AP all three shipments were “God Bless the USA” Bibles. She said New Ade received the orders via the WhatsApp messaging service and confirmed they were from Freedom Park Design. The books were printed on presses near the company’s Hangzhou office, she said. Tang did not disclose the sales price or other details, citing customer confidentiality.
“They didn’t come to meet us,” Tang said by telephone. “We just do the production.”
She declined further comment and referred interview requests to Freedom Park Design.
Freedom Park Design was incorporated in Florida on March 1, according to business registration records. An aspiring country singer named Jared Ashley is the company’s president. He also co-founded 16 Creative, a digital marketing firm that uses the same Gulf Shores address and processes online orders for branded merchandise sold by entertainers and authors.
Ashley hung up on a reporter who called to ask about the Bibles.
Greenwood is a client of 16 Creative, according to the firm’s website. He launched the American-flag emblazoned Bible in 2021. His song, “God Bless the USA,” was released 40 years ago and is a staple at Trump rallies. Greenwood has also appeared at the former president’s campaign events.
Critics call Trump Bible a ‘toxic mix’
The King James Version used in the Trump Bible is in the public domain. Greenwood had initially planned to use the best-selling New International Version licensed in North America by HarperCollins Christian Publishing. But the publisher abandoned the arrangement amid pressure from religious scholars and authors who denounced the merger of Scripture and government documents as a “toxic mix” that would fuel Christian nationalism sentiments in evangelical churches.
Christian nationalism is a movement that fuses American and Christian values, symbols and identity and seeks to privilege Christianity in public life. Christian nationalists are likely to believe the U.S. Constitution was inspired by God and that the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation.
Other critics called the Trump Bible blasphemous.
“Taking what has long been understood as a global message religiously and stamping it with the flag of one nation is the type of thing that for centuries theologians would call heresy,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist minister and president of the Christian media company Word&Way.
‘Love of money’
Tim Wildsmith, a Baptist minister who reviews Bibles on his YouTube channel, said he quickly noticed the signs of a cheaply made book when his “God Bless the USA” Bible arrived wrapped in plastic inside a padded mailer.
It had a faux leather cover, and words were jammed together on the pages, making it hard to read. He also found sticky pages that ripped when pulled apart, and there was no copyright page or information about who printed the Bible, or where.
“I was shocked by how poor the quality of it was,” Wildsmith said. “It says to me that it’s more about the love of money than it is the love of our country.”
___
Kang reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, California, contributed.
“The rules dictated a lot. What they did not understand was the rules,’’ Moore told me. “First of all, she campaigned for two years with Joe Biden. She raised money for Joe Biden. She took no shortcuts. What they were trying to do was put in place a process that did not exist…. Those 4,000 delegates literally voted for Joe Biden—but they also voted for his ticket. And she was a part of that ticket.”
When Biden, a record-breaking 107 days before the election, finally left the race and endorsed Harris, the act unexpectedly unleashed an outpouring of enthusiasm and joy, emotions rarely associated with politics in recent years. The mood shift not only proved Harris’s naysayers wrong but also revealed how Biden’s frailty and Trump’s darkness had drained the party to sepia tones. Harris’s run, quite unexpectedly, infused it with color and light again. If the left had the same sanctification tendencies as the Trumpian right, the improbable events leading to Harris’s nomination might have been cast as divine intervention—Jesus taking the wheel, only to hand the keys to Harris, so she might steer America away from Trumpism and back onto a righteous road.
But the Democratic Party is not a cult of personality, a fact proved by Biden’s withdrawal. Harris’s run produced a jubilance incomparable to anything seen since at least Barack Obama’s first run, and it may even have eclipsed that. Within hours of becoming the presumptive nominee, Harris was buoyed by organizers who had begun laying the groundwork for her run years before. A Zoom organized by Win With Black Women drew 44,000 participants, an unprecedented number that required the site’s engineers to increase capacity. The call ultimately raised $1.5 million in just three hours. At least a dozen other calls followed—South Asian Women for Harris, Win With Black Men, White Women: Answer the Call—each enlisting volunteers and strategizing for a Harris win. In mid-September, Voto Latino reported a 200 percent surge in its voter registrations since the day Harris replaced Biden. A senior analyst at TargetSmart, a data research firm, reported that registrations are up more than 85 percent among Black voters overall and a staggering 98 percent among Black women. Potential youth voters increased most impressively. In 13 states, registrations have gone up nearly 176 percent and 150 percent among 18- to 29-year-old Black and Hispanic women, respectively. Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated endorsement of Harris, which came moments after Harris thrashed Trump in the debate, drove “a 400 or 500 percent increase” in people going to vote.gov to register, according to a TargetSmart analyst. What’s more, young Democrats are 14 percent more enthusiastic about voting than their Republican counterparts. While party killjoys such as David Axelrod suggested Democrats were feeling “irrational exuberance,” and James Carville chastised their “giddy elation,” organizers were getting down to work and galvanizing people to get Harris elected. Those on the ground, doing the real heavy lifting, helped consolidate support for Harris, building a campaign powered not from the top down, but from the grassroots up.
How Harris Seized Her Moment
Of course, none of this would have happened if Harris hadn’t proved herself so ready to meet the moment. First and foremost, she and her team did a masterful job of staying out of the way while Biden deliberated. Even as rumors swirled around her, Harris kept her head down and remained “completely loyal to this administration,” to quote Moore. There were no leaks that suggested she was secretly angling for the boss’s job, no little hints that she wanted to push the old guy down the stairs. And then, on Sunday, July 21, after Biden’s announcement, Harris hunkered down with her team, working her way through a who’s who list of Democratic bigwigs. Within the first 10 hours, she had made roughly 100 calls, per The New York Times, nailing down endorsements and support from former presidents, members of Congress, and labor union and civil rights players from the Democratic coalition. Some of those relationships had likely been forged over the last year, during which Harris led administration outreach efforts on LGBTQ rights, gun reform, and Black civil and voting rights, and as she engaged with young voters on college campuses. Even before Roe v. Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, Harris had become recognized as a forceful defender of reproductive freedom, attending abortion rights rallies and even becoming the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic.
On Sunday, July 21, after Biden’s announcement, Harris hunkered down with her team, working her way through a who’s who list of Democratic bigwigs. Within the first 10 hours, she had made roughly 100 phone calls, nailing down endorsements and support from former presidents, members of Congress, and labor union and civil rights players from the Democratic coalition.
Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, an organization dedicated to helping elect women of color, emphasized Harris’s role as a liaison to those marginalized communities. “Her presence in the White House has been critical for constituencies who, frankly, didn’t have much access during Trump’s years. She made sure to play a very important convening role, welcoming groups who now are coming forward as part of the Kamala Harris coalition, organizing themselves,” Allison told me. “The respect that she’s shown to many, many groups—and she’s now seeing the results of this kind of politicking.”
It would be absurd to ignore the all-hands-on-deck efforts of a massive, dedicated Democratic machine working at full capacity to ensure a flawless transition. But Harris, during what one veteran strategist labeled “a perfect 48 hours,” deserves credit for stewarding the ship and keeping the operation steady. “The seamlessness of Ms. Harris’s ascent,” the Times reported, “impressed a range of party leaders after years of private sniping and second-guessing of her political skills.” Not for the first time, an underestimated Harris demonstrated a level of agility, skill, and savvy in keeping the campaign running with nary a misstep. Choosing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was yet another canny move.
Just as the inside game was expertly played, the outside game, the part visible to the electorate, may have been even stronger. Much has been made of Harris’s rallies—the lines forming hours before start time and snaking for blocks, the exuberant multiracial crowds dancing to music from the last decade (for which Harris-Walz campaign will not be sued), the supporters who appear rapt instead of driven to “exhaustion and boredom.” Yes, size matters, but not in the way Trump thinks. It’s a sign that momentum is on Harris’s side. But it’s also a testament to how her candidacy has brought together a diverse swath of voters who share an eagerness to get beyond the toxic divisions that have plagued the country since the rise of MAGA. For nearly a decade, Trump’s rallies have been hate contagions, their poisonous us-versus-them serum infecting the entire body politic. It’s been such a relief to witness the palpable joy of Harris’s audiences, a reflection of the campaign’s tone—a kind of uplifting feedback loop between the candidate and her supporters. A Harris presidency offers the opportunity to step out of the darkness of Trumpism into a sunny, expansive future that welcomes all. It’s the difference between staring mournfully backward and looking hopefully ahead, a task anathema to an embittered Trump, and one that a well-meaning but aged Biden could not quite muster the energy to pull off.
The very idea of patriotism is transformed when advanced by a Black, biracial daughter of immigrants. There is a sense that what is actually being invoked is the progressive idea that this country belongs to all of us. The right-wingers don’t own patriotism. The flag, the chant, and the ideals they represent were never theirs alone to define.
In articulating their vision for the country, Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have moved rally and conventiongoers to wave U.S. flags and chant “U-S-A, U-S-A,” normally a rarity at Democratic events. Republicans have long taken a proprietary approach to the ideas of freedom, liberty, and patriotism, treating them as property rather than principles, wielding them like empty slogans with brand value (when you use the word “freedom” so promiscuously that you rename french fries “freedom fries” in congressional cafeterias, as GOP lawmakers did briefly after 9/11, you’ve cheapened a valuable word). Those chants and flags carry a completely different resonance at Harris’s rallies than when they are invoked, and weaponized, by MAGA throngs. The very idea of patriotism is transformed when advanced by a Black, biracial daughter of immigrants. There is the sense that what is actually being invoked is the progressive idea that this country belongs to all of us. The right-wingers don’t own patriotism; in fact, they have presented a corrupt and exclusionary version of it. The flag, the chant, and the ideals they represent were never theirs alone to define. There’s something deeply powerful in reclaiming these symbols—in showing they can represent a diverse, forward-looking vision of the country rather than just a nostalgic one. This is a genuine show of patriotism—neither jingoistic nor nationalistic, but rooted in a deep love for the country and the belief that there is still work to be done.
“I’m of the notion that you can love something, critique it, and help to make it better, all at the same time. I think that has often been Black America’s relationship with America. We love our country just as much as anybody else, but we’ve often had to ask the question, does our country love us the same?” Jotaka Eaddy, founder of Win With Black Women, told me. “In this moment, we feel that, at least as it relates to breaking and shattering the barriers related to our representation, I think we’re continuing to see those barriers broken.”
She cited Langston Hughes’s famous poem I, Too,published in 1926—during the Harlem Renaissance, but long before Black Americans, even in New York City, enjoyed anything close to equality:
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.
“I think we, too, sing America,” Eaddy told me.
Generational Change and the Politics of Boomerism
Perhaps a factor in the excitement accompanying Harris’s rise is the sense that her candidacy may usher in a long-awaited generational shift in Democratic politics. Loosening the viselike grip of gerontocratic boomerism has also proved that there is an updated way campaigns can be run. If the 2016 election was all about how the “left can’t meme”—the mantra of alt-right shit-posters and 4chan edgelords who helped elect Trump—the 2024 election so far has been about Harris dominating the internet. From the outset, the campaign has made smart decisions, embracing the coconut memes and lime-green Brat color schemes. Its Taylor Swift–inspired friendship bracelets, made available shortly after the singer’s endorsement, quickly sold out. It’s funny to think that, should Harris win the election, Republicans will deserve just the teeniest nano-bit of credit for helping her get elected. It was the Republican National Convention, after all, that repackaged old clips of Harris in an effort to embarrass her. Instead, those images of Harris laughing and quoting her mother humanized her, before Trump’s racist and sexist attacks could begin to corrupt her image.
It goes beyond coconut memes. Consider how videos of Harris and Walz chatting about beloved albums and taco recipes did more to provide a portrait of the candidates on their own terms than so many Republican talking points disguised as gotcha interview questions. In the early days of the shortest U.S. presidential campaign in modern history, the pair’s ability to present themselves directly to voters was an incredible asset. That’s not to say Harris can ride social media alone to a win, but it’s certainly better than passively leaving the task to the media. Perhaps it took a campaign headed by a woman who was born after the invention of color television and Hula-Hoops, and who first won elective office in 2003, as the internet age was bursting into full flower, to understand the true direct-to-voter value of social media. Obama, also born after rock and roll was invented, is often called “the first social media president,” a label that fits to a certain degree. But during his inaugural and incumbent runs in 2008 and 2012, no social media sites had the audience or influence enjoyed by platforms today. Roughly 170 million Americans are currently on TikTok, which is used by almost two-thirds of Americans younger than 30, Pew Research reports, and nearly 40 percent of Americans under age 50. Both there and on the platform formerly known as Twitter—which since Elon Musk’s takeover has become a cesspool of right-wing misinformation, bots, and talking points too vile to dignify here—the KamalaHQ account trolls Trump, slices up humiliating Trump and JD Vance clips to repurpose as campaign ads on the fly, fact-checks Trump’s debate lies, boosts its favorable news content, and does a far better job than the mainstream media does of highlighting the madness of Trump and his MAGA acolytes in real time.
Illustration of Kamala Harris
It’s inspiring to see a Democratic Party that’s finally stopped volunteering its lunch money to bad-faith actors and insecure clowns. Likewise, the Harris team’s trolling of Trump online, and her face-to-face IRL baiting of his insecurities—demonstrated with such aplomb at the debate—have been delightful to watch. Calling Trump “dangerous,” “a bully,” or “a strongman” only emboldens him. He’s been curating an image as a tough guy since the 1980s, and he thrives, above all else, on being feared. But Trump isn’t powerful or strong. He’s a trust fund kid from Queens who weaponized his daddy issues into everyone else’s problem. Elevating him to strongman status only played into MAGA’s Trump-aggrandizing game. Perhaps a generation of Democrats from another era remain obsessed with civility, but sometimes you have to meet your opponents where they are—on the low road, where they’ve built a detour to electoral wins. Get on that road, knock them off it, and make sure you snap a pic of them falling so you can caption it and share it on your socials.
Harris seems to get this; hence the green light she’s given to a crack team of Gen Z staffers, who have approached attention-grabbing so differently than Biden did. Her campaign knows, for better or worse, that this election is about playing the attention game—a game Trump essentially created in his own image. Beating him at it is critical. Harris can’t meme her way to victory, but we’ve reached a point where capturing the American public’s attention is, in itself, a key part of winning. Part of that is knowing how to navigate online culture—and, more importantly, knowing how to push back hard when necessary, and using the digital town square to your advantage. For the first time, this year’s DNC credentialed more than 200 digital content creators. Among these was Brandy Star Merriweather, founder of BStarPR and a social media influencer who has used her platform to help engage fellow Gen Zers with Harris’s campaign.
“I love that the memes have been able to reach a demographic who may not be involved in politics or care to read it, but then they can look at a meme and kind of understand.... It’s beneficial to people who may not be in that world all the time hearing about policy,” Merriweather told me. “They are breaking down solutions in a way that anyone can consume. And I think doing it on social media, we’re quick—we love things quick, we love things that are pretty funny and witty. I’ve not seen a candidate do that before.”
Finally, the campaign’s approach on all these fronts is different from its predecessors because the electorate—the important question of who now constitutes “the people”—is different. In some ways, quite literally. An estimated 20 million baby boomers have died over the last eight years. In the same period, around 32 million young people have come of voting age, with nearly half of Gen Z voters identifying as people of color. This is a country that has grown Blacker, browner, and gayer than it was in 2016, the last time a woman appeared at the top of the ticket. The white backlash that has defined the era since Trump arrived has been challenged by progressive activism including #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and the kind of women-led political organizing that helped elevate Harris’s candidacy.
All this is to say that while the country may not be as far along as many of us would hope, it is in a different place than it was eight years ago. If Harris has not touted her “firstness” as much as Hillary Clinton did, it is perhaps because she does not have to. The convention-breaking nature of her candidacy is apparent both in who she is as an embodied person and in what she stands for in terms of politics, morals, and outlook. Harris is able to personalize messaging about abortion, civil rights, gender equality, and more far better than Biden ever could. She represents so much more accurately who this country is today. We don’t need to yearn for a fictional yesteryear—to make America great again—because this is a better America we live in NOW.
Black Women Make History
America may very well be “the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” as Harris declared at the convention, but our democracy has also been terribly flawed by a legacy of exclusion and, often, plain old cruelty and sadism. The Founding Fathers’ so-called democratic vision was myopically limited by both white supremacy and patriarchy. And while we have made slow, painful steps toward inclusive democracy, each advance has been met by violent opposition and retrenchment. In nearly 250 years of American history, only one white woman has clinched a major party’s nomination, and the procession of white males into the Oval Office was disrupted by a Black man only once. Trump, in fact, was elected president by those seeking reassurance that Obama’s presidency neither heralded a turn to multiracial democracy nor diminished the enduring privileges of white mediocrity. In the split screen that was so often on display during the September 10 debate, Harris’s assured competence, in contrast to the sputtering incompetence of Trump—a man who after nine years could only hold up the “concepts of a plan” like so much sand running through his fingers—was a perfect encapsulation of a Black woman being twice as good as a white guy to get the same job.
Harris is no stranger to these presumptions. Amid the veepstakes of 2020, she was criticized as “too ambitious” for the role, which is another way of saying she “didn’t seem to know her place.” A mere six months into her vice presidency, outlets including Business Insider, The Washington Post, and Politico began publishing articles depicting the vice president as “a bully” who wasn’t diligent enough “to do the prep and the work”—but also—an “over-prepared” perfectionist who “berated” staff who didn’t meet her lofty standards. (One Biden staffer called it “a whisper campaign designed to sabotage her.”) An op-ed from The Hill written way back in November 2021 claimed she’d be “a 2024 problem for Biden and the Democrats,” calling her “an unpopular sharp-tongued incumbent female vice president.” And just recently, The Washington Post ran a piece suggesting that a potential shortcoming for Harris was her “demanding management style,” including her prosecutorial habit of “asking pointed questions” of staff. This included a former staffer’s lament that it was “stressful to brief her, because she’s read all the materials, has annotated it, and is prepared to talk through it.” You cannot imagine these criticisms lodged against a man because that is not a thing that happens. Make America Competent Again, I say.
Harris’s candidacy and her effort are in keeping with the persistent resolve of Black Americans—particularly Black women—to push America toward fulfilling its democratic ideals. It was Win With Black Women, a collective of prominent Black women formed in 2020 to elevate the image of Black women and support their pursuit of political office, that got the fundraising ball rolling, encouraging the parade of affinity groups that followed. Some moments have even seemed imbued with historical resonance. The night of August 22, when Harris appeared at the Democratic National Convention to accept the presidential nomination, marked 60 years to the day that civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a blistering and rule-changing speech at the 1964 convention in Atlantic City.
Hamer, co-founder of the interracial Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, led the delegation to that convention to contest the seating of her home state’s all-white, segregationist delegation. In her searing testimony before the DNC’s Credentials Committee, Hamer detailed the horrific violence and abuses inflicted upon her by state-backed white aggressors for daring to vote. Hamer had been fired from her job and evicted from her home, and the Ku Klux Klan fired 16 bullets into the home where she sought refuge from the violence. (“The only thing they could do to me was to kill me,” she would tell a later interviewer, “and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.”) After attending a workshop to learn how to register other Black Mississippians, she was arrested and thrown in the county jail, where she was beaten with billy clubs and sexually assaulted. She suffered permanent bodily damage, including the worsening of a limp resulting from a childhood bout with polio, a blood clot behind her eye that eventually left her nearly blind, and severe kidney damage. “All of this is on account we want to register,” Hamer noted in her speech, “to become first-class citizens.
”President Lyndon B. Johnson had already tried to muzzle Hamer through various advisers. In the middle of her testimony, he called an impromptu press conference to divert television cameras. But network news shows broadcast Hamer’s speech in full during prime time, effectively giving her a far bigger audience than if it had aired live. “I question America,” Hamer concluded. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?”
An illustration showing the mountain of influences that led to Kamala Harris's run for the presidency. Includes images of Coretta Scott King, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Shirley Chisholm, Kamala Harris, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ida B. Wells
Hamer would be elected as a delegate to the 1972 convention in Miami, the same year that Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to seek a major party’s nomination. Chisholm, who like Harris was both of West Indian descent and was the child of immigrants, had been the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968. Four years later, without waiting for backing from a Democratic Party machine she knew would never come, Chisholm launched a campaign that was both truly independent and disruptive. “I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special interests,” she stated in her announcement speech, delivered at one of the oldest Black churches in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York. Though she had expected to run up against the commingled toxicity of anti-Black racism and misogyny, or misogynoir, Chisholm was nonetheless disappointed by the lack of support she received from the overwhelmingly white, mainstream feminist movement, or Black civil rights figures. Neither the National Women’s Political Caucus nor the Congressional Black Caucus, bothgroups that Chisholm had co-founded, endorsed her, essentially citing pragmatism over principles, and a desperate need to beat Richard Nixon. Notably, Hamer boasted of voting for Chisholm on the first ballot, stating, “Men couldn’t have talked about the real issues in this country the way she did. They bow to political pressure, but Chisholm didn’t bow to anyone. She’s a great person, a Black person, and a great woman, and she’s working for the kinds of change that the National Women’s Political Caucus is working for. With the woman’s vote and the youth vote—far more than 50 percent—we can have a candidate like Chisholm in the White House one day.”
Chisholm would later write in her memoir, The Good Fight: “I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo…. The next time a woman runs, or a Black, or a Jew or anyone from a group that the country is ‘not ready’ to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start…. I ran because someone had to do it first. In this country everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that’s never really been true.”
Harris has nodded to that lineage. In her 2020 vice presidential victory speech, she paid tribute to the “women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, and liberty, and justice for all,” paying specific homage to Black women, “who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.” She has embraced this debt throughout her life, and it is imbued in her biography. Alpha Kappa Alphas like Coretta Scott King and Toni Morrison. Divine Nine icon Barbara Jordan. Howard alums from Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison to Thurgood Marshall. Her citation of these figures, all liberatory leaders who have made this union slightly less imperfect, is recognition of the shoulders on which she, and so many of us, stand.
What Comes Next
Three weeks out from voting day, if there’s anything that this campaign should have taught us, it’s that it’s impossible to predict what the final stretch will look like. Trump is desperate, and thus capable of anything, a prospect that is terrifying but in keeping with who he has always been. Perhaps there will be missteps from Harris, who needs to strengthen her support among noncollege voters. And some major external event could derail things at the last minute.
But we know this already: America, just as Shirley Chisholm hoped, is more than ready for Kamala Harris. From its inception, Harris’s campaign has been powered by the people. The surge in voter registrations, the grassroots organizers hitting the pavement, the supporters who have filled her rallies to capacity—all of these are a testament to the movement behind her campaign, which is driven from the ground up.
This is no ordinary campaign, but it’s exactly the campaign that we needed at this extraordinary moment. In it, there is the potential for an America brought a little closer to giving everyone a place at the table. Most Americans, I truly believe, would love to see an end to MAGA. Harris, along with millions of energized supporters, has the potential to shape a more promising future. Within that, a rejection of revanchist politics, a renewed push toward progress, and full-throated assertion—yet again—that we are not going back.
