Friday, August 23, 2024

The Lucky and the Doomed

 Back in the Reagan era, trying to make sense of political realities that made no earthly sense to me, I came up with a theory of politics I called The Lucky and the Doomed. My theory was that for many or most people voting was a superstitious act; that people wanted to associate themselves with the lucky, and voted accordingly, in the hope that some of that luck would rub off on them; and that conversely, they shunned the unlucky--the Carters, the Mondales, the Dukakises--to avoid being tainted by misfortune.

It's glib, sure, but it fit the facts at the time. 

I thought about that theory when I saw the clip of J.D. Vance visiting a donut shop.

W. Kamau Bell has an extended critique of this ("Fire your whole team. They clearly hate you. This is TV production 101, and they failed it."), with which I largely agree except that I'm not sure Vance even has a team. I feel like Trump just said "do we have any interns who aren't doing anything? Good, they can babysit Vance", partly to make sure Vance doesn't upstage him, partly as passive-aggressive revenge for Vance making him look bad, and partly because he's too damn cheap to hire anybody who knows what they're doing.

This comes on top of a bunch of sad JD events, from sparsely attended rallies to his inability to answer the world's most softball question.

Meanwhile, Trump called in to Fox last night and came off as a cross between Norma Desmond and Rupert Pupkin.

I'm not sure who's more desperate here: Trump, or the Fox hosts trying to get him to shut the fuck up with the delusional ranting so they can ask some softball questions that will make him look good. 

And on the other side? A largely glitch-free convention (yes, everything went late, but that always happens) with a staggering lineup of talented speakers and a feeling of overwhelming joy (best illustrated by the celebratory roll call, especially when contrasted with its RNC counterpart). I'm a sucker for Democratic Conventions, and I'm always excited whether the nominee is Obama or Kerry, but still: I can't remember a convention as happy and successful and (I think) effective as this one. And by the way, it got higher ratings than the RNC. 

And Harris's speech? Despite attempts to raise the bar by the drama-loving press corps--to make the standard of success an "Obama 2004 moment"--the consensus is that she nailed it. The sheer depravity of the Trumpists set up a huge and difficult task for the Democrats in general, and Harris in particular: they had to articulate a whole ethos in opposition to the moral inversion on the other side. They had to start from zero and make the case for kindness, empathy, decency, and all the democratic values like rule of law and the consent of the governed. And they in general and she in particular pulled it off. 

VP Harris came into the race with a vast amount of goodwill based on relief at a new candidate and President Biden's swift endorsement. But sustaining and building on that goodwill? That's her. In her rallies, in her interactions with regular people, in her big speech last night, we're seeing the talent some of us saw back in 2019 but in a much more fluent and confident form. 

I think she's going to win. 

She might even win big. Obama big, conceivably--certainly not Reagan big--but big enough, ideally, to make all the Republicans' scheming and infiltration of the system futile and irrelevant. And yes, it's a margin of error race right now, but still: I'm getting a distinct feeling of the Lucky and the Doomed.

Nothing is a foregone conclusion. We need to fight like hell until election day, and maybe after. Trump still has powerful allies, some of whom have the resources of a nation-state at their disposal. So, no complacency. But I feel good about this.

As Doc Cochran says, I'd rather be lucky than smart. So far VP Harris is both. 

ETA: Here's a concurring view from the right.

Posted by Tom Hilton at 12:01 PM

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