Undecided (and It Feels So Good?)
So here we are, four weeks away from learning what we collectively decided as to whether we should turn into a Christofascist dictatorship. While also pondering whether it’s worth stretching or even (heaven forfend!) revising our arbitrary, self-imposed rules of engagement enough to enable Ukraine to win a war on behalf of all democracies, including ours.
Based on current information, in the best-case scenario the Harris-Walz team wins both the popular vote and the electoral college in a landslide of historic proportions, and has long enough coattails that the Democrats gain a clear majority in both the House and Senate. In which case the Trumpist forces will still unleash the shitstorm of election-denial attacks, voter-fraud claims, and ballot-count tampering that they have already put in place, throwing the results into at least temporary turmoil amid countless court cases up and down the judiciary ladder. It could take months of litigation to legitimize the Harris-Walz administration.
With anything less than a massive, crushing turnout for Harris-Walz, the situation gets steadily worse as the margins of victory in either the popular vote or the electoral college shrink. Our oligarchs and theocrats increase their power, as does a judiciary corrupted on every level from the state courts to the Supremes, and the combination of those courts and the MAGA Republicans in office on the national level gets incrementally closer to simply endorsing Trump’s inevitable election-night claim of victory.
Of course ongoing support for Ukraine hangs in the balance, just as the rise of Trumpian Putin-worship and isolationism have permeated the GOP and hamstrung the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine win this war, forcing Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back. So the future of Europe hinges on this election as well.
I find it appalling that it’s come to this. Gives me some inkling of what it felt like to the citizens of the Weimar Republic when it was right on the cusp. Which doesn’t mean that I’m either despairing or resigned to loss. But it also doesn’t mean that I’m confident, though I’m both hopeful and, perhaps irrationally, optimistic.
Harris-Trump debate, 9-10-24, screenshot
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Which leads me to my mounting incredulity that anyone — and I mean anyone — can legitimately consider themselves “undecided” at this historic moment. I can more easily accept the fact that someone finds Trump and Trumpism and MAGA and the Republican Party appealing and persuasive than the idea that someone still can’t choose between a future under Trump, Vance, and Project 2025 and a future under Harris, Walz, and the Democrats.
What exactly do the remaining “undeciders” want? More “details” on what Harris plans to do, a mere two months after she got thrust into leadership of her party? Well, here’s Harris on immigration. Here’s Harris on the economy. Here’s Harris on healthcare. Here’s Harris on Ukraine.
In the face of all this, I have to conclude that maintaining “undecided” status at this moment can mean only one (or more) of the following: You’re in desperate need of attention, you’re planning to vote for Trump, or you don’t intend to vote at all.
When we have so many potential voters willing to vote who simply need to get encouraged and enabled to do so, why fret about a stubborn minority that refuses to vote on the basis of what they consider principle? Ignorance is a condition; dumbness is a commitment. And these are very committed people.
Wheedling the indecisive wastes time, money, and energy. Instead, put the full force of this last push into voter registration (and removing obstacles thereto), outreach to BIPOC / LGBTQ+ / students & young people, women, etc. — the segments of the voting public most threatened by the policies and practices of the MAGA-dominated right. They have something to lose — and, from all recent indications, they know it. Focus on empowering them, and enabling them to vote. Leave those terminally disappointed in the Biden-Harris administration to wallow in the self-righteousness of their abstention, and the dithering fence-sitters to their coy game of hard-to-get.
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Veeps on Parade
I watched chunks of the Vance-Walz debate live, then other excerpts after it ended. My overall impression: JD Vance came across as a slick weasel trying his best to duck out of answering forthrightly even the most obvious and straightforward questions, whereas Tim Walz wore his heart on his sleeve while feeling genuinely uneasy in that setting.
JD Vance-Tim Walz CBS, Debate, 10-1-24, screenshot
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What I found most interesting, from an imagistic point of view, was this:
- In videos of unscripted events — such as his bizarro campaign moment in a donut shop — Vance seems uncomfortable in everyday interactions with people. Yet, for all his dodging and weaving during this debate, he appeared right at home in that artificial context and on that stage.
- By contrast, Walz — clearly at ease in coffee shops, diners, and other informal meet-and-greet situations with everyday people — came across as a fish out of water in that theatricalized environment. Like someone from middle management suddenly roped into addressing a corporate stockholder’s meeting.
This has nothing to do with the content of their statements. Instead, it concerns what the video of the event revealed about these candidates when I muted the sound and attended to what the late sociologist Erving Goffman called “the presentation of self”: facial expression, gestures, other aspects of body language.
To put it another way: I’d describe the Vance character in this drama as inauthentic but confident in his devious hypocrisy, and the Walz character as sincere but anxious and uncertain in his truthfulness.
I don’t think Walz did the Harris-Walz campaign any harm with his debate performance. And I don’t think Vance did the Trump-Vance ticket any good with his. Walz got in several telling blows that have gone viral; Vance landed none. Even Walz’s disclosure that he’d exaggerated his teaching career in China to include presence there during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre didn’t move the needle to his detriment.
His explanation for that gaffe: “I’m a knucklehead at times.” Which I find endearing while, at the same time, insufficient and even a bit unnerving, coming from someone who could end up in the Oval Office. If Harris and Walz win, Walz will find himself suddenly thrust onto the national and international stage, so we’ll all get to see how he grows into that role (or doesn’t).
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They’re Laughing at Us Him
Not only did The Kiffness use Trump’s lies about Haitians to make a viral music video, They’re Eating the Dogs, but he’s performing it live on tour — and getting his audiences to sing along, as here in Cologne, Germany. Beware: It’s an earworm. I find myself humming it, and even singing it out loud. Sometimes in public …
The Kiffnesss, They’re Eating The Cats (Donald Trump), screenshot
Shortly after this video went global, France 24 posted an interview (in English) with South African musician/composer David Scott (who uses “The Kiffness” as his stage name). Not unexpectedly, it turns out he’s a thoughtful and empathetic guy who’s donating all the streaming revenues from the song to the Springfield, Ohio SPCA and has a wry take on his unexpected success with this particular song.
However, he’s “collaborated” with domestic animals — mostly cats — for quite a while, producing music videos based on Afrobeat syncopation. Here’s a selection of his top 10 YouTube videos.
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IANAD (I Am Not A Dictator), But …
… if Trump loses this election, there’s no chance that he’ll get nominated and run again in 2028. So whatever blackmail material Putin and the Kremlin have on him becomes worthless as leverage after November 5.
The one thing they can do with it is to create chaos by releasing it, thereby punishing Trump for losing and sending a warning message to any others on whom they have kompromat. Were I planning the release thereof, I’d drop it on or about the January 2025 date of the Harris inauguration. It would dominate the news for days, minimizing the impact of the Harris win, and embarrass the U.S. in front of the whole world. (This was your President!)
Yes, of course I’m referring to the legendary “Pee-pee Tapes,” about which I wrote back in 2018. (See “Kremlingate: The Visuals (2).”) Plus whatever further compromising materials Putin has on Trump. Look for a major dump shortly after Trump loses this election. You read it here first.
Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin with “Pee Pee” tape, Saturday Night Live, January 14, 2017
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