Hope Scrolling

Some Thoughts on the Election

The last month has been bewildering.

Still Think We Could Have Won

Biden has surprised me and has been a better President than I thought we’d get. I was very loyal to him in his re-election campaign. I like what he has done, and what he is still doing. I didn’t like watching him speak, because I didn’t like to be reminded that he was old and not as good at giving speeches as he used to be. But I still think we could have won. I was not part of the “ make him step down” movement. My feelings about Biden’s decision to not run again are very complicated. He’s been a genuinely great President. I thought, if he bowed out, things would only get worse. I thought we could win.

I Was Wrong

For the last year or so (especially), we on the left have often reminded ourselves that we should not talk Trump up and make him sound like some kind of strongman. When we talk about him like he’s Hitler or Mussolini or some other kind of fascist overlord, we’re actually building him up into something to be afraid of, and that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I thought that’s what would happen if Biden yielded to the critics and decided not to run again. Trump would declare victory, brag about how easily he beat Biden and how easily he’d defeat the next candidate. He’s shout “Bring it on!” and his followers would go crazy. Trump is a bully, and if Biden dropped out, the bully would win. We could not let that happen.

I overestimated Trump. In the three weeks since Biden’s decision to not accept the nomination, Trump has, instead of bragging about beating him and boasting of how easily he’ll beat Kamala Harris, whined about how “unfair” it is that Trump no longer has to defeat Biden but must now “start over” and defeat a second opponent. Instead of doing a victory lap, he’s complaining and airing grievance. I did not think this would happen, but I am pleasantly surprised. Because he sounds like a whiny loser, not a strongman and bully.

That’s a huge relief.

Why I Don’t Listen to Pod Save America Anymore

I’ve been a loyal listener to the PSA network for years, and a paying subscriber since the first week that option became available. But I learned something from the PSA guys the night of the Biden/Trump debate: They never actually thought Biden could win.

Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Lovitt have spent the last three years boosting Biden, not because they believed in his Presidency, but because their mission is to support the Democratic Party and get more Democrats elected. I agree with that goal. But the night of the debate, they were suddenly freed to speak their truth, to say in public what they’d been saying in private for three years: that Biden was too old, he could not win, and he should not run. They became the tip of the spear for the effort to get Biden to step down, and they succeeded. They must be riding high.

But it made me mad. It made me mad because I realized they’d been insincere to me for three years (we call this “lying”), and it made me mad because I fell for it. Look, I get it. You are part of the progressive movement and your podcast is designed to tell people what they want to hear. But I can’t trust you people any more. How do I know you’re not lying to me now?

I still listen to Dan Pfeiffer. He’s got the most integrity of everyone on that show. I cancelled my PSA sub and signed up for Message Box instead, and also Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles. You can say what you want about “Hopium,” but Simon adopted a “let’s wait and see what happens” stance throughout the Biden Debate Crisis, and I appreciate that. He’s sincere, and that’s what I want.

I went back and listened to an episode of PSA when Walz got picked for VP and Favreau and Lovitt spent half an hour showcasing how insincere they can be on command, lavishing praise on the VP choice before they even knew who it was gonna be, and I knew I’d made the right choice.

Hope Scrolling

Since the Democratic party rallied around Harris, and especially since she picked Tim Walz for her VP, I have begun to experience a new emotion when I think of politics: hope. I always thought we could win, but the elevation of Kamala Harris to the status of POTUS nominee has transformed the election. Suddenly, we’ve gone from “old guy vs slightly less old guy” to “old guy vs young woman,” which is absolutely bananas because Kamala Harris will be 60 this October. But over the last three years she’s become a better candidate. She speaks better on the stump (I watched all her stump speeches on the 5-state tour). She can play Beyonce at her rallies, something Biden could not do. She can dance on camera. She understands, and capitalizes on, the fact that Americans want someone who is happy to be there. I was just a kid, but I remember Carter being defeated by Reagan, and it was a classic American example of “happy guy defeats downer.” Trump ‘24 is a downer. He will lose, and he will lose big.

I like Walz because he’s not afraid to be a normal dude. I didn’t follow the “weird” memes and I had never heard of Walz before a couple of weeks ago. But he’s a loving father, a dog dad, a teacher, and he’s ready to make sure anyone in American can get an abortion if they need one. It’s like he’s been grown in a lab for my vote. I mean, does he read Tolkien too? Too much to hope for, I expect.

Anyway, there’s a lot going on lately, and I have been thinking about all these things, but the upshot is that things are going well, and I’m excited. I find myself seeking out political news for the good feeling it brings me. And that is a welcome change.