Last night was the end of the Democratic National Convention, with Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech as nominee for president, and it’s been well-covered in all the news media. Most of us thought Harris did quite well, as she bridged from her personal history to issues of the day and finally took on Trump directly. The MAGA media took issue, of course; whatever she could have said would have been bad. Trump, reflexively, calls her a disaster and a bringer of death to the United States — but he would say that whatever Harris said, or whomever else was the Democratic nominee giving any kind of speech. He’s a joke.
A sidebar issue was the predictable right-wing attacks against what they initially saw as an unmanly expression of emotion by Tim Walz’ son Gus. “That’s my dad!” Later it emerged that Gus is neurodivergent is some way — the applicable terms vary from generation to generation — but that’s almost beside the point. Conservatives are so certain about how people should behave.
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There’s no easy way to link to Connie Willis’ thorough roundups of daily, mostly political, news. So let’s see what John Scalzi, who is perhaps more thoughtful and less strident than Willis, has to say.
John Scalzi, 23 Aug 2024: Political Thoughts, 8/23/24
Opening:
After one of the most effective party conventions I’ve seen, which itself followed up on a nearly flawless three weeks of upending the 2024 presidential race as we understood it to be, I’m pretty sure this is now Kamala Harris’ election to lose. Normally, this would be the place I point out that one should never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — I do remember 2016, y’all — but this year, it doesn’t seem to me that this particular set of Democrats are interested in doing the stupid and predictable things the Democrats do to undermine their own chances, which usually comprise of tacking to a now non-existent US political center (which is usually actually to the right of center), and being overly cautious with their messaging because they’re worried about how the right will pile on at Fox News and on social media.
The Harris (and now the Harris/Walz) camp has no interest in doing either. The first is because thanks to Project 2025, the new conservative blueprint for punishing people who are not white, male, rich and “Christian,” they don’t have to. The right has so openly monologued its intent to make the United States poor, dirty, dangerous and segregated that now the Trump campaign has felt obliged to lie about the fact that Project 2025 is absolutely the playbook for a second Trump administration, if for no other reason than Trump himself isn’t smart or attentive enough to come up with anything else on his own.
Ending:
The 2024 election cycle is — finally! — suggesting that the Democrats may have finally had enough of that bullshit. Harris is not here for Trump’s nonsense, not as a woman, or as black American, or as a former prosecutor. Nor is she afraid to bash a bully right back. It could be that Harris is exactly the sort of person who needed to go up against Trump, as a person who is all the things Trump is not — including being “self-made” in a way Trump is not and could never be — and as a person who would never, ever, be, in his person or his policies, someone Trump would make room for. There are more people that Trump would not make room for, than people he would. Harris reminds people of that fact. While bashing Trump in the teeth as she does so.
Which is why I’m cautiously optimistic. There is much to be done and many places to fall. But I have hope that at the end of this, Harris will be president, and Trump… well, honestly, I don’t really give a shit what happens to him, I just want him gone. Prison or Venezuela! Either would work for me. Let’s hope we’re going to get there. I think we’re on our way.
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Today: crackpot RFK Jr. dropped out of the presidential race, and endorsed Trump, and betrayed his family. Note the subtitle of this piece.
Washington Post, Karen Tumulty, 23 Aug 2024: Opinion | By endorsing Trump, RFK Jr. betrays the Kennedy legacy, subtitled “Anti-Irish discrimination taught the Kennedys to be welcoming and inclusive.”
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After a month of backing and forthing between CA DMV (California Department of Motor Vehicles), TX DMV (Texas), and AAA (the Auto Club in America that I belong to), I have finally gotten Larry’s car retitled and reregistered in my name. It was left as part of his estate that I inherited after his death almost a year ago. I had the car shipped on a truck to California a month ago, and since then I’ve bounced back and through a bureacy of forms and competing information about which forms to fill out. I’ll restrain from providing details. Finally today, I got California plates, a registration card, and — literally moments ago — confirmation that my insurance agent has added the car to our policy. A big relief.
The car today has new California plates.
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And I’m working on a revision to the essay for Gary Westfahl that was accepted some 10 months ago. More details later; gotta go.
