Room for Optimism?
For Democrats, the last three weeks were like the old blues standard – if it wasn’t for bad luck, they had no luck at all. Then Donald Trump opened his mouth. Still a long way to go, though.
Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I offer insight, analysis and context on Texas and national politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
But first, your moment of Zen .. Sunset and nightfall in Marathon, Texas, July 10, 2024.
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Quote of the Week: Dan Hicks of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, describing how he disbanded the band after it had released three successful albums. Asked if he didn’t want to do music any more, he replied,
“I still wanted to do it. I just didn’t want to do that.”
I.
Short of elective office the highest honor an involved citizen in our two-party system may hope for is to be a delegate to a party’s national convention. The selection process begins at the local level, in precinct caucuses and county conventions. The winnowing process continues at the state conventions, which may be attended by 10,000 partisans, of whom only a couple hundred will have the honor of attending the national convention. Mini-campaigns are organized – “Vote Minnie for national delegate!” – buttons and t-shirts are printed, email and social media outreach efforts are organized. For people who have spent years staffing phone banks, mailing postcards, and going door-to-door for their preferred candidates or parties, being a delegate to the national convention is the ultimate reward.
II.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Don’t let anybody tell you the Republican Party has degenerated into a cult.
III.
I went to sleep Thursday night without the benefit of watching Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Milwaukee RNC or reading any of the immediate commentary thereon. Nonethless, I work up Friday morning feeling refreshed and oddly optimistic.
It turned out that my optimism was well-placed, for, after surviving an assassin’s bullet on Saturday and three days of blather about how it had rendered him a new man, deeply committed to heal the nation’s wounds (preferably, without having to acknowledge his role in creating and deepening those wounds), the same old Donald Trump took over this acceptance speech and turned it into same old tired, lie- and grievance-filled vaudeville act he’d been doing for seven years.
(I might have gotten a clue in the fact that he went golfing Sunday, allegedly sans bandage.)
Matt Labash in his wonderful Slack Tide Substack tried to keep track of Trump’s topics, but gave up halfway. Here’s his notes on the first half, though:
Hulk Hogan lifting 350-lb men over his shoulders…..”Crazy Nancy Pelosi” …..beating the Democrats on impeachments and indictments…..country singer Jason Aldean’s wife…….next season’s prospects for the Green Bay Packers……..having the greatest economy in history pre-Covid……..bragging about having the biggest tax cuts ever……bragging about having the biggest regulation cuts ever….bragging about Space Force……why we’re a nation in decline under the current administration……having “less than fierce” people in this administration “except when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple other things, then they’re fierce”….....how Israel and Ukraine would’ve never been attacked if he were president……how the Democrats used Covid to cheat during the election…….how the 10 worst presidents in history put together didn’t do the damage of Joe Biden….. bragging how this was the best-run convention in the history of political conventions…..how he wants us to be excited about the future of our country, which he says “with great humility”……..Hannibal Lecter eating people……
His self-indulgence made me feel better, and brought to mind that there is a significant percentage of the American people – well over 40% – that are tired of the lies and meanness and chaos that follows him like the cloud of dirt followed Pigpen in the old Peanuts comics.
(I’m dating myself, I know … )
IV.
One pundit remarked this week that whichever candidate – Biden or Trump – this election becomes a referendum upon will lose. We now know that there is no “New Trump,” and that should give comfort to Never-Trumpers everywhere.
Unfortunately, there is no “New Biden” either – yet. The behind the scenes, and increasingly public, effort to get President Biden to step aside is still met by strong denials that the candidate is going anywhere. And so it will – until it isn’t.
To be clear, the Trump brain trust desperately wants Biden to stay in the race. As Tim Alberta reported in his excellent piece in The Atlantic, Trump’s advisers have wanted to frame the race this way from the get-go:
Trump, whatever his countless liabilities as a candidate, would be cast as the dauntless and forceful alpha, while Biden would be painted as the pitiable old heel, less a bad guy than the butt of a very bad joke, America’s lovable but lethargic uncle who needed, at long last, to be put to bed.
And it’s worked: “By the end of the primaries, the public’s attitude toward the two nominees had begun to harden: One was a liar, a scoundrel, and a crook—but the other one, the old one, was unfit to be president.”
Biden’s collapse in the June 27 debate, and Trump’s miraculous survival of last Saturday’s assassination attempt, were just proof of concept of the overall framing they’d been working on for a year.
V.
With the RNC over, the ball is now in Biden’s, and the Democrats’, court. The convention, in Chicago, begins in less than a month. Biden, now suffering his third bout of COVID in three years, has pledged to be back on the hustings by next week. Perhaps a new, COVID-free and energized Biden can ease doubts among his own partisans and start making the case for defeating Donald Trump in November.
Frankly, I doubt it.
You temper your nascent optimism with your uncertainty regarding Joe's (and our) future as our leader. Must be that West Texas climate that keeps the heebie jeebies from entering your psyche. Me? I'm freaked out, to use the argot of the 60's. Send me some of that West Texas je ne c'est quoi when you get a chance and before I need a life preserver.
interesting that the convention is in chicago. i remember that vividly. i was living in a commune, the peace and liberation commune, established by the student council of stanford university, way back then, to resist the draft. i learned so much from them. people of privilege with a conscience. think i was at the los altos house by then, having first lived in east palo alto. an ignorant kid who did not go to high school but was a pacifist. i knew that early on…i had a hard time staying in school because my lesson to learn was about the class system. i had moved to california from austin, a lot of texans did back then, i mean it was texas, right? i had worked at the rag newspaper thanks to stephanie chernikowski who thought i needed to be educated, she was teaching english at u.t. then. what is there about changing horses in mid stream? i think that is attributed to abraham lincoln, a republican who defied the democrats at that time…funny how time changes partners, eh? i enjoy and respect your take and i also enjoy and respect moore’s take. having been born in austin, listening to older brothers discuss how or how not the south is going to rise again, as a child at my grandparents cafe on lake travis, had a tremendous impact on how i perceived reality, beyond the fact i was a female who was not considered relevant other than to serve at that time. early 50’s boys. anyway. we have no idea how the next few months will unfold other than the fact that we have to vote the fascists out. period. i marched for equal rights…against the bomb…against the war in viet nam. would do it all again. no one should have to go through all these things twice. just saying.