Finally, Democrats have a good week

The Column: 07.29.24

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I’ve been on a solid high ever since July 21 when I was sitting in a café on South Wabash in Chicago, the El rumbling overhead, and the word came that Joe Biden had stepped out of the race and that Democrats now could find a candidate who demonstrates energy and acuity and passion and is not simply trying to pronounce all his words clearly. I know this sounds cruel but I am Joe’s age and he makes 81 seem like senescence whereas it can be, given good genes and fine pharmaceuticals and some luck, a beautiful chapter of life.

I read the bulletin on my phone and looked around the café packed with people of many shades, and for all I’ve heard about us living in a Third World country, it didn’t look that way to me at all. Chicago is the city of Oprah and Saul Bellow, John Belushi, Mavis Staples, Studs Terkel, where the Rolling Stones made a pilgrimage to see Muddy Waters, which tells me that America is Great and has been for a very long time and people who don’t know that are in need of assistance.

I’d had a bad case of Biden blues imagining that the Con Man might get reelected but Nancy Pelosi took away Joe’s car keys and though it got breathless coverage on the news, to me, an old man who gave up the car keys years ago, it seemed perfectly ordinary. Why punish yourself, trudging through the sludge on the campaign trail? Go home and read French novels and be less miserable.

That was then and since then a miracle has happened: Democrats became a party united in happiness, something we are unaccustomed to. Joe had the presence of mind to declare for his v-p who had remained in the background for three years, as a good v-p should, and in about 48 hours everybody and their cousin fell in love with Kamala Harris and a hundred million bucks flowed in and suddenly Democrats were in the news again. Talk about a fresh face — she looked rather fabulous. A smart woman, well-spoken, ebullient, a person who, unlike the Con, Actually Likes People and who has the flashiest smile in politics today. Mr. Golf Pants has a smirk and a scowl but he couldn’t smile if you turned him upside down and jiggled him. And all week I was getting joyful phone calls from old libs who haven’t been this happy since Barack and Michelle and those two little girls walked out in front of a big Chicago crowd in Grant Park on Election Night, 2008. It was like Baptists having a glass of wine and music is playing and suddenly you’re dancing with your wife. Suddenly Donald Trump’s worst dream comes true: he’s facing a woman prosecutor.

Somewhere, a Republican behavioral consultant has been telling Mr. Trump to be careful insulting a mature woman of color, especially if you’re a convicted felon. Thanks to him, many of his supporters have died from COVID and a new generation has sprung up. If Taylor Swift says the word “Kamala” or a word like it — “comely,” “homily,” “stamina” — this election is over. Young women are going to use GPS to get them to the voting booth and they’ll take selfies in it and maybe do a podcast but they’ll check the boxes marked D for decency and after 250 years we’ll have ourselves a woman in the Oval Office doing the big stuff and her guy can pour tea for visiting dignitaries and celebrate Volunteer Week.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was Kamala who made Brett Kavanaugh choke on his chaw when she asked, “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” She was talking about abortion, but actually there are many such laws, the ones that give the government the right to throw your ass in jail, and that’s why DT is running for office, to make the indictments disappear. Suddenly on July 21st, he felt very much older. And with Sleepy Joe benched, people are going to notice that Mr. Trump loves 130-word sentences with no discernable subject or predicate. Vanity prevents him from wearing glasses so he can’t read the teleprompter and so he keeps giving the same 90-minute rant.

I guess this is what it takes to elect a female president, run an adolescent crook against her. Well, whatever. Taylor, do your duty and wear a Harris button and let’s get this done.

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