Sunday, August 17, 2024
The Glass Ceiling of a Hundred Million Votes for Harris
The results of the most recent national poll will undoubtedly bolster the outlook of those attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. I don’t want to be too much of a “downer” at the party, but I am old enough to remember how Michael Dukakis was leading in the polls after the Democratic convention in 1988, and that didn’t turn out too well, did it? The campaigns by Harris and Trump to become the next president will reach hurricane force in the next nine weeks, and it is impossible to predict the outcome of this “perfect storm” of mediated technology and kitchen table conversations. How many eligible voters will register for the first time, and how many will exercise their franchise? The answers to those questions sketch the trajectory of this nation’s fate.
*****
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/18/harris-trump-post-abc-ipsos-poll/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert
“As Democrats gather this weekend in Chicago for their upcoming national convention, Harris stands at 49 percent to Trump’s 45 percent among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. When third-party candidates are included in the survey, Harris is at 47 percent and Trump at 44 percent, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 5 percent. In early July, Trump stood at 43 percent, Biden at 42 percent and Kennedy at 9 percent.”
******
The problem with this kind of poll is that it doesn’t account for the “stealth” third party candidate who has twice in the past quarter-century changed the course of American politics: the presidential nominee of the Green Party. In both 2000 and 2016, Ralph Nader and Jill Stein siphoned off enough votes in “battleground” states of the Electroral College to allow George W. Bush and Donald Trump to be inauguaated. Do the consequances of these elections weigh heavily on te conscience of Jill Stein, as she prepares to mount yet another campaign that might forestall the election of the first woman (as well as the first womn of color) to the presidency? Not at all. If Jill Stein can attract just enough voters to give Donald Trump an electoral college victory, she will pour herself a glass of champagne and congratulate herself on a job well done.
Given the impact of the Green Party on the Electoral College, it’s still very featsible that Trump will emerge once again triumphant. Peraps, though, the buzzer-beater election I predict will conclude with an upset win by Kamala Harris. The election of 2024 is the culminating confrontation between the ghost of Roy Cohn and the neo-liberal faction of American capitalism. If Trump loses, consider the consequences. He is already scheduled to go on trial for election interference in the 2000 election. At age 78, what does he have to lose from leading an all-out assault on the electoral process? I predict that he will double down, though that may prove to be the “Captain Queeg” moment I predicted many years ago in this blog.
I repeat: what would Trump have to lose, if he opts for an even more extreme reaction to losing the popular vote three elections in a row? It is not too early, therefore, for those in charge of civil order in major American cities to begin to plan for Trump’s attempts to hold rallies on his behalf in the ten weeks following Election Day. People have the right to assemble and protest, and this right must not be abridged. If 80,000,000 people vote for Trump, they have a right to vent their disappointment that 88,000,000 of their fellow citizens voted for a woman of color. I am quite certain that they will feel that those who will vote for Trump in November will believe that the election was once again “stolen.” Can anything convince them otherwise? Very unlikely. Trump will claim that A.I was put to use to manipulate the vote, and what evidence would convince his supporters otherwise.
In the period in which Kamala Harris is madame president elect, Trump’s desperation will no doubt be the subject of scathing quips by such commentators as Stephen Colbert. Unfortunately, Project 2025 is not a joke, though the recent cartoon of Trump as “Hannibal Lecter 2024: accompanied by DJT’s comment that “I never should have published the menu” was very funny. The economic and social despotism that Project 2025 has in mind goes far beyond anything ever imagined by Barry Goldwater. The blueprint of the Foaming at the Mouth Radical Right is clearly articulated in Project 2025 and it should be taken at face value.
All of us, therefore, who believe that we are stakeholders in a system of checks and balances must urge as many people to vote as possible for Kamala Harris. The glass ceiling she confronts can only be shattered convincingly if, in fact, 100,000,000 people were to vote for her. There are more than enough eligible voters to have that happen. As improbable as such a turnout might seem, it may be the only way for this country to avoid another civil war. A definitive turnout that is beyond any conspiratorial reproach is imperative. Let those who support the Constitution of the United States of America and the flag for which it stands commit themselves to this unprecedented effort.
About Bill Mohr