I’m sorry if this seems cruel to people. But SYFPH if you think that a report from a Trump swamp creature nine months before the election means we’re all doomed. SYFPH if you think that no matter how hard we try, nothing will matter because the GOP will take out their knives and castrate us. SYFPH if you think that the planet is burning anyway and it doesn’t matter what we do because Late Stage Capitalism and the planet going over the 1.5 degree threshold will destroy our broken system anyway. Yes, you have a right to freedom of speech in this country. But I have just as much of a right not to associate with it. It works both ways. You might as well be making animal noises as far as I’m concerned.
I have been around sports for 43 years now. And when you say your side is going to lose, it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. On the flip side, look at what is happening in Ukraine. By all rights, Russia should have overrun them and installed a more compliant government by now. But they have not. Ukraine is holding its own even as US aid is drying up and they are short of ammo. Russia is sustaining losses of 750-1000 soldiers killed daily. Nobody expected Muhammed Ali to beat Sonny Liston, but his prediction of an eighth round knockout turned out to be an understatement. Nobody expected Broadway Joe to beat Baltimore, and the NFC was supposedly invincible, yet they pulled it off. I know, I’ve done it. I’ve sold my favorite teams short over the years. It’s never worked.
First of all, Merrick Garland has to be independent of the White House. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. Perhaps he was trying too hard to be fair. We were attacking Donald Trump throughout his term because his attorney generals were too close to the White House. There has to be a separation of powers from the White House and the Attorney General’s office, as we learned from Watergate.
Secondly of all, there is no time to replace Joe Biden with anyone else. The time to do it was before the primaries started. I would have loved to see Marianne Williamson, who is closer to my views than Joe Biden, catch fire. But it’s not going to happen. I respect the will of the voters. Replacing Joe Biden with someone else will only alienate the very people whose votes we have to earn in November. After all, why is, say, Gavin Newsom on the ballot when he never did the hard work to meet voters and earn their votes?
Thirdly of all, let’s say the report in question is accurate. Let’s say that Joe Biden is a well-meaning but confused old man who forgets and confuses things easily. I’d rather have someone who is well-meaning but confused than someone like Donald Trump who doesn’t believe in the US Constitution and who would become a dictator on day one. Someone who has already said he would not accept the election results if he lost. Someone who has already placed himself above the law. Joe Biden has done none of these things. And the fact that our economy has grown by 14 million jobs means that even if he is a well meaning but confused old man, he has had the sense to surround himself with good people who are able to make our system of government work for all of us.
And by way of mitigation, even if Joe Biden is well-meaning but confused, he was dealing with a lot when he was interviewed for the report on October 7th and 8th. Hamas had just massacred 1,200 Israeli civilians. There was a danger of it turning into a greater Middle Eastern war and taking the focus off Ukraine, which is fighting a war for its existence against Russia. I would probably confuse stuff as well given those circumstances, and I am much younger than Joe Biden.
Fourthly of all, you have to understand who we are dealing with. Let’s say Joe Manchin, FOX News’ favorite Democrat, is running for President. If he had a chance to win, FOX News would attack him just as vociferously as they are Joe Biden and as they did Hillary Clinton. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these attacks are happening.
The fundamentals of this election have not changed. We have to go out into all 50 states and tell people that this is a matter of preserving our democracy. Democrats support our democracy; Republicans want to tell all of us what to do and how to live. The national party and the Biden campaign have to spend resources fighting for battleground states that are necessary for us to win. The rest is up to us. We need to subscribe to our local papers and support our local public radio & TV stations. We have to support our local alternative weeklies. I have a whole list of resources here. We need to get behind the Good News Roundup and get the word out that not everything is bad and there is still a lot of positive news out there. And we have to promote sources like The Nation, Mother Jones, and other such places, not just the mainstream media.
The object is to take stories that the mainstream media overlooks and get them into the mainstream so that they are forced to pay attention. Too many times, voters who might otherwise vote with us stay home because they think that their stories don’t matter. It’s time we sent the message that they do.
It is not good enough just to win by the margin we did in 2020. It took a long time before it was certain that Joe Biden had won. The goal has to be to ensure that Joe Biden’s reelection is called Tuesday night, after the polls close. In 2012, it was clear that Barack Obama was going to win the electoral vote, but not necessarily the popular vote. Donald Trump tried to pull off the same thing then that he did on January 6th. He spouted a series of rage tweets at the prospect of Mitt Romney winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote, and called for a “revolution” of mobs and pitchforks. Later, when it became obvious that Barack Obama would win the popular vote as well, he deleted those tweets. We have to win by a margin that is convincing enough that Donald Trump cannot plausibly claim that the election was rigged.
I’m not saying we have to win Alabama or Alaska, although that would be nice. But if we can convince 1 in 20 people to change their minds, and we get 1 in 20 people who stayed home last time to come out and vote for us because our democracy is at stake, then we can accomplish that goal. Doom and gloom is a good way to depress voter turnout and ensure Donald Trump’s return to power or ensure that he retains a platform to rage that the election was rigged.