One more commentary on the election
It’s by Rebecca Solnit: “Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do.”
It’s by Rebecca Solnit: “Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do”
Final hours
Today would be a good day to read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.
FORWARD
I don’t want to look like The Washington Post in not endorsing a candidate. So here’s an official endorsement: the Orange Crate Art editorial board — and owner — urge readers to vote for Kamala Harris for president.
Cleanup on aisle 45
Kamala Harris: “What we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.”
“Red flags for scholars of fascism”
Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump has always invented his stories from whole cloth, but there used to be some way to tie them to reality. Today that seemed to be gone. He was in a fantasy world, and his rhetoric was apocalyptic. It was also bloody in ways that raise huge red flags for scholars of fascism.”
“I accept”
“On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination for President of the United States”: Kamala Harris, a few minutes ago at the DNC.
It’s Tim Walz
An excellent choice, making a ticket very much like Obama–Biden in affect.
HCR on July 21
Heather Cox Richardson on yesterday’s big news.
Shrinking Trump
Cognitive decline + personality disorder = Shrinking Trump, a new podcast, available from the usual purveyors.
Nihilism in disguise
Aaron Rupar warns of nihilism masquerading as leftism.
Paying attention
From yesterday’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American .
Supreme count
(6 - 2) + (3 + 2) = 9.
About last night
In Illinois: we have a Democratic governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, &c. Voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing workers the right to organize and bargain collectively.
Past and future
From President Biden’s speech last night: “We must vote knowing who we have been, what we’re at risk of becoming.”
Shining star, or dim bulb?
“She’s one of the shining stars representing Illinois because of her leadership, intelligence and courage”: thus an Illinois congressional candidate touts his endorsement from Mary Miller.
No more weeks
President Joe Biden, a few minutes ago in his State of the Union address: “We’re done talking about infrastructure weeks.”
Mary Miller again
For a third time, Representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) appears in The New Yorker (January 31). She’s mentioned in Jane Mayer’s long, revealing article about Virginia Thomas, the hard-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
NPR interviews a former president
The defeated one just cannot update, as they say, his priors.
Yikes
Our own Mary Miller ((R, Illinois-15) made the PBS NewsHour tonight. An unmasked Marjorie Taylor Greene sat behind her.
Mary Miller, troublemaker
In office for nearly one year, Miller hasn’t done a damn thing for the people of her district — except make us look like idiots to the world beyond “east-central Illinois.”
Useful reading
A ten-point checklist from Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma: How can we spot #ChristianNationalism in the wild? My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), hits on at least eight of ten.
Some of Mary Miller’s votes
My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), votes with the worst of the worst.
Walter Mondale (1928–2021)
I remember riding in an elevator in 1984 with a clean-cut collegian wearing an orange button on his jacket. In black letters on an orange background: FRITZ IS A WIMP. I think that moment must have been my first awareness of toxic masculinity at work in politics.
Recently updated
Chris Miller, censured by the Illinois House.
Insurrection
A chilling episode of the podcast Criminal : an account of an 1898 coup in Wilmington, North Carolina. Draw your own parallels.
Signed today
Heather Cox Richardson: “The bill, which President Biden is expected to sign Friday, is a landmark piece of legislation, reversing the trend of American government since Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut.”
Beep, beep
Heather Cox Richardson: “While Republican lawmakers continue to grab headlines with outrageous behavior and obstructionism, President Biden has been derailing them in the only way no one has tried yet: ignoring them and governing. Only two weeks into his administration, this approach appears to be enormously effective.”
Joe and Kamala
After the psychopathy and sycophancy of the past four years, the sight of well-adjusted, apparently authentic humans prepared to assume positions of leadership is nothing less than giddying. They’re just like us, sort of, but with a great deal more courage.
Edged in black
“Mistah Trump* — he lost.”
To read today
Heather Cox Richardson’s latest Letter from an American might be just the thing you, too, need to read today.