June 27, 2020 - Rant-astic (From A Friend)
Where to begin? Your rants are spot on, as usual, with the flourishes of wit one can appreciate only if laughing through the tears. Some additional thoughts on your thoughts…
- There couldn’t be a more apt description of the Republican response to police brutality, delivered by the single black senator in this benighted group, than “milk toast”. I so so so want Charles Booker to defeat Mitch McConnell in a landslide, burying him and his scared-turtle, Kentucky face under a mountain of ballots demanding he go home and shut up forever. How richly deserved that would be.
- I think that Fauci has already proved to be right, unfortunately, and if the simple facts are laid bare - more than 40 million Americans unemployed, over 2 million Americans sickened in a pandemic the Trump did absolutely nothing proactive to address, any other president would be OUT OF A JOB already. In fact Trump’s continuing failure was a self-fulfilling prophecy from the beginning, when he waved off the threat with an airy dismissal of the gravity of the situation and continues to reinforce his venality by refusing to wear a mask or exhibit any type of human compassion. This will hopefully prove to be his undoing, FINALLY. Because the constant stream of political scandals, corruption, lies, malevolence and an actual impeachment were not enough for these people to turn away from their Dear Leader… it had to get personal before they would admit their mistake.
- Anyone who remains willing to vote for Trump at this point is pretty much advertising themselves as an unprepentent bigot and all-around despicable human being. We have to hope that enough folks in the battleground states are decent, caring people who will sit out the election and NOT VOTE AT ALL if they can’t bear to vote for a Democrat. Or that there will be enough people who can ‘hold their nose’ (I despise that phrase) and vote for G’pa Joe. - I am intrigued with this Lincoln Project - do you think they’re for real? And are they making any headway? It’s incredible that these are conservatives who are actively attempting to get Biden elected as a strategy for removing the cancer of Trumpism from the Republican Party. TOO LATE! But I’ll take it.
- The hypocrisy surrounding the opioid situation is too much for me to bear. I used to rail against drug use by friends in college and early 90s NYC with no idea how their white privilege allowed them the luxury of enjoying a bump now and again with nary a thought to the consequences (addiction, jail time, death) or the price paid by entire populations of Latin American countries to supply their desire.
- I found Buttigieg to be smart bordering on precocious and not seasoned enough yet, but he definitely should have a bright future ahead. I vacillated on Elizabeth Warren, coming back from a place of absolute mistrust after she fell for Trump’s bait and took that DNA test… in the end, I voted for her in the primary as a salute to a fellow ‘Woman with a Plan’, She Who Persisted, One Smart Cookie. I was an early adopter on Kamala Harris, I must say. In fact, I really thought she had the ‘it’ factor and could have made it all the way to the White House except for the unfortunate choice of her sister as her campaign manager (unforced error!) and well, there was her record as a prosecutor, which has been revealed to be more than problematic.
- I think Susan Rice would be a fantastic choice for VP. It would be somewhat unexpected for anyone except us Politics Nerds, and that is always a good way to jolt interest in a campaign, albeit temporarily. Although she doesn’t have the name recognition the other women mostly do, she also doesn’t possess a lot of baggage (that we know of… I don’t think anyone but a few ex-Senators give a shit about Benghazi at this point, if they ever did). Her idea for mandatory national service would be hugely popular, I think, given the feeling of powerlessness so many people have had during the Trump years. AND her international expertise and leadership as the NSA is an excellent qualification - I think people are interested in getting America back on track with the outside world, our standing so badly diminished by Trump over the last three and a half long years. But as you point out in your analysis, there’s really not a bad choice amongst the lot… though I think choosing anyone affiliated with law enforcement (i.e., police-adjacent) even if she is black would be a misstep. Sorry, Val Demings.
- Side note, the 'Pod Save America’ podcast had an interesting show on the VP selection process the other day, and though I find the guys who run that show a bit snarky and annoying, I also appreciate their liberal use of the F-bomb to get a point across and their continued idolatry of Barack Obama, their former boss. I used to hate podcasts (I felt like I was overhearing a conversation instead of participating in one) but now that I have two hours a day of walking my precious beagle Vlad who spends a lot of time sniffing everything in sight, I have discovered the charms of podcasts!
- Also, does Melanie know that Susan Rice is your ‘hall pass’? Love it! She’s very pretty and smart, so I think you’ve made a solid choice for a 'celebrity crush'. Prescient too, if she ends up President Rice (has a nice ring to it). I felt the same way about Obama and continue to think Michelle is one lucky lady.
Yours in (hopeful) Pessimism, and many blessings on RBG -