Hey there, Nerve-Racked Voters:
What are we doing the next two weeks to stop a MAGA steal? It’s more than Getting Out the Vote.
This time, we must foil a putsch.
In the podcast above, myself and my partner Jon Bailiff argue our election predictions and perhaps, a bit of personal advice to survive the days ahead.
Below, an op-ed by from my pen:
Blue/Red Trestle, © SBright, 2024
History Lessons
I’ve never had a front row seat in congressional elections. Instead, I’ve been in the thick of Union leadership fights: the UAW, Teamsters, UFW, Hotel Workers. I learned my lessons in election antagonists from the snubnose of a revolver. Or, a lead pipe. The people who want to stop you, when the stakes are high, will stop at nothing.
I got off light in my campaign confrontations— but I also had back-up.
And that’s what we need today: BACK-UP.
Union elections are rehearsals for “bigger things.” They are not demure. If rank and filers wait out a corrupt steal by thugs, hoping that The Higher Good will prevail, they lose.
The progressive wing must have a far-reaching plan, and that means knowing what we want next. This is the trickier question. The “Never Trump” popular front will collapse like a paper bag once this temporary condition passes.
A progressive coalition needs a bigger mission— what we stand FOR, and how will we hold a Harris administration to account.
What does the map look like at the moment?
GOP Ratfuck Strategy - Take 3
As the WSJ reported last week, the Trump family and their GOP marionettes are not interested in GOTV, but rather putting their eggs into this order of baskets:
Staving off Trump debt
Subverting the election results
Physical thuggery, (surprisingly inexpensive!)
Poll worker intimidation
Kompromat threats
Bribes
Elon Musk is leading the charge on the last item. (AOC has a great speech today on that bit).
It’s a mistake to think Trump has genuine political ambitions. Nope, he wants to stay out of prison. These are uncharted waters, the reason why you can say “unprecedented” and it’s not hyperbole!
Trump is only running to quash his indictments and punish all who broke his beak.
Bibi and Putin are playing from the same deck. They don’t have a grand plan for capitalist prosperity— or even a design for totalitarian dictatorship! They want a gold-plated escape hatch.
Harris is running for President, in the old-fashioned sense of the term. Except that she’s not battling a comparative candidate. She’s a straight man in a farce.
The Harris/Walz ticket leads a popular coalition that will pop like a blister when she wins. Progressives need to be ready.
Reality Check
Pinch yourself every day:
Trump ought to be on the guillotine for the lives he took during Covid through his inaction, denial, and calls for . . . drinking bleach.
His international alliances are criminal and imperial murder mobs.
He should face life in prison for his legal assaults on women’s bodies, his family-separation border stunts, his pernicious racism, and thuggery against labor.
Few critics have investigated the lives he snuffed out through cutouts, surrogates, and the stochastic stoking of public violence and ignorance.
Trump’s “regime” not only destroyed the public good; he put a bow on it.
Homage to Spain Rodriguez in Buffalo NY, Trashman Speaks!
The Day After
First we vanquish MAGA, yes. Then, we confront the “Day After” this election. No one is going quietly back to their room.
We aren’t facing a rerun of 2020. Things changed.
Yes, Trump will try to deny Harris the 270 votes in the Electoral College. He has to try new maneuvers this round. The state and county hacks he counted on last time— that carpet was rolled up. They’re in jail, disbarred, in hiding.
This is a moment when you have to focus on billionaire Elon Musk, and what’s left of the Supreme Court.
Trump has promised Musk everything. In reality, they are two vipers who’d just as soon devour each other.
Yes, their ancient partners in crime hold a slender majority in the House, but those characters are not courageous, they’re sycophants. The GOP House-tremblers will want a lower court decision on their side, if the election is challenged. If they could get a lower court win on what they call “election integrity,” (Paging Orwell!)— AND, if Elon can flood the zone with Goebbels’-level shit-slinging — maybe they could push this to SCOTUS, the MAGA Comfort Zone. We have to shut that option down.
Before the Storm
MAGA stooges will also incite civil insurrection, the “wild” factor. It’s already in play.
The only way to prevent worse violence is to win decisively on the streets, on the down-ballot, and in public opinion BEFORE election night. We must box the opposition in, demoralize their dream. Keep punching reality holes in their delusions.
Because of the sacrifices we’ll be making, the risks we’re taking, a Harris win must be accompanied by a new coalition— not a Liz and Kamala dream date, but a progressive coalition for 2025.
We have a list, don’t we?
Impeach the corruption of the courts. Throw out the bastards who instigated the Jan 5 riots. Garland is dangerous.
Women’s unilateral abortion and healthcare rights— no more waiting. No excuses.
The White House can’t keep saying they have compassion for the Gaza genocide— what a despicable sop! — and then refill Bibi’s weapons order. The War Machine all over the world is our enemy.
No more empty rhetoric about racist brutality and inequity, and the carceral state. No more “more time and study” to do anything about it. Time’s up.
Forget faux celebrations for “Earth Day”— we already screwed the pooch. There is no room to hide, no sane exoposure for further exploitation. There are no “both sides.” The very idea that we are the World’s Greatest Arms Dealer while our planet is at doomsday’s floodgate — ENOUGH.
I think of election night as foreplay.
November 5 will set a new table. Not the final one. We will not have the answer in one night. We will not have relief at the end of a count.
We WILL have a new terrain, and we might as well start talking about what we’re going to do with it.
Susie Bright’s Journal is a progressive-supported publication. To make news media count again, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
14 Days to Go? —You Haven’t Seen How Crazy This Will Get