Racism, Sexism and . . . Jealousy?
Donald can’t buy what Kamala has
My uncle is panicking.
He’s running against a strong Black woman—and a former prosecutor—who isn’t afraid to call him out or mock him. His whole campaign strategy was based around attacking Joe Biden—his age, his infirmity, his cognitive decline. It was all projection, of course, but because Pres. Biden is old and has slowed down in the last four years, and because he doesn’t shout or bully, Donald was able to make the attacks stick thanks, in large part, to his foot soldiers in the corporate media.
Now that he’s up against a much younger candidate with a history of prosecuting criminals like him, he’s painted himself into a corner. How do you escape from your own narrative about how bad it would be for the oldest candidate in the history of this country to win the election if that candidate is now you?
But knowing him as I do, I can tell you that the thing that’s probably bothering Donald the most is that he’s not the biggest story in politics anymore. Vice President Kamala Harris is. And the excitement she’s generating puts the response to Donald’s tawdry rallies to shame.
There are many, many reasons Donald should be worried about a Harris candidacy, but it’s the palpable excitement surrounding Harris since Biden announced he was stepping aside this weekend that should worry him the most.
We know that Harris has already raised an astronomical amount of money since Sunday, bringing in $126 million in only 48 hours. The really striking part, thought, is that almost 900,000 of those donors were giving for the first time.
And the excitement goes well beyond the breathtaking, record-shattering fundraising numbers. According to USA Today, the campaign “had 58,000 people sign up to volunteer, more than 100 times the average number of volunteers per day.”
Vote.org has seen a 700 percent increase in daily voter registrations, according to MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin, who reported Wednesday that the increase of “more than 38,500 new registrations” came in the 48 hours after Biden withdrew.
“This figure marks the single largest number of voter registrations over a 48-hour period during the 2024 cycle,” Griffin wrote on Twitter. “Younger voters between 18 and 34 accounted for 83% of new registrations.”
It took less than 24 hours for Harris to win the endorsements of every one of her potential challengers. She even scared Joe Manchin away after he sent up a concrete trial balloon about challenging her for the nomination—even though her isn’t even a Democrat anymore.
After the RSVPs started to roll in for first campaign event in Milwaukee on Tuesday, her team had to change venues in order to accommodate the more than 3,000 supporters who wanted to attend. When she took the stage, the crowd cheered for almost a full minute.
There is also the anecdotal evidence. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard from so many friends in the last few days who have traded in fear and despair for hope and enthusiasm. There’s a lightness in Democrats that just hasn’t been there in the weeks since the debate, as we squabbled with each other, stood by as the corporate media undermined Pres. Biden at every turn, and contemplated the unthinkable possibility of a second Trump term. We were scared—now we’re excited. Some of us are even jubilant.
We still have a long road ahead of us—and because the Republicans are a party of racists and misogynists, the fight will get vicious and dirty. But for right now, it’s comforting to know that Democratic voters are fired up and Republicans are demoralized.
In the past few days, when Republicans haven’t been blowing their dog whistles about “DEI” or throwing other thinly-veiled racist and sexist attacks at Vice President Harris, they’ve been blustering about lawsuits and coup attempts.
Donald’s campaign is even trying to get the FEC to force the campaign to return the $91 million Biden just transferred to Harris. Donald has obviously forgotten that it was the Biden-Harris campaign and the funds also belonged to her as a candidate. This is just another bit of projection, because one of Donald’s favorite hobbies is misusing campaign funds—particularly to help him pay his huge army of defense attorneys.
Donald is so panicked that he’s already floated the possibility that he’s going to skip the next debate. There are also reports that he regrets picking JD Vance as his running mate. Sad.
We are very much in uncharted territory, but our candidate is generating tremendous enthusiasm and support, while theirs seems only to generate grievance and bigotry—in between his many, many rounds of golf and interminable Truth Social posting.
They’re right to be worried. And we, finally, have every right to be excited.
It’s been such an amazing week. Watching him flail has been pure joy.
Maybe God did spare Trump from the assassination attempt so he could not only lose to a woman but a woman of color 😁