Woodstock Redux

“I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road, and I asked him where are you going and this he told me. I'm going down to Yasgur's farm, I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band. I'm going to camp out on the land and get my soul free…” Woodstock…Joni Mitchell… Welcome to the 2024 election, the reboot of 1968—a deeply divided country, action in the streets, two unpopular candidates, noisy fringe elements on the left and right, and to complicate matters even further, we don’t have the concert at Woodstock next summer to look forward to. Even without the Vietnam War to divide the country, we’re doing a pretty good job of turning this into a shit show of epic proportions. Campaign 2024 is going to be an interesting and particularly nasty affair- a friend of mine, a Texan, referred to it as “…a goddamn, Del Rio dog fight…” Already, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) have called Harris a “DEI hire” and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said, “a lot of Democrats feel they have to stick with her because of her ethnic background.” A democrat, who chose to remain nameless, referred to Donald Trump as, “…as a threat to our democracy and no smarter than a sack of hammers…” It’s good to see we’re not bogged down with issues; we’ve already played the “race card” and the name calling is in full swing. If you notice, the one thing missing from both camps is any meaningful conversation about issues, legislation, compromise, working across the aisle, or problem solving. Instead, Trump is saving America and Harris is saving America from Trump. I guess the governing part will come after they get bored with the junior high-school name calling or run out of synonyms for asshole. Kamala Harris has yet to choose her running mate, but Donald Trump has chosen his, and is probably having second thoughts about it. Republican campaign officials told The Atlantic Monthly that Trump's team chose Sen. JD Vance to try to capitalize on early success, saying the aim was to run up the margins of MAGA support in a "blowout" election rather than persuade swing voters. Thomas Gift, Director of University College London's Centre on US Politics, wrote that Trump's selection of Vance was "a confident, some might say a too confident," decision. Doubling down on mobilizing the MAGA base for a candidate who already has the base eating out of the palm of his hand never seemed like the best tactical play…” JD Vance in the debate over reproductive rights, told a podcast in 2022 that he wanted to see abortion be made "illegal nationally." Along with writing a forward to The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a churchy, dictatorial, position paper that even Trump was smart enough to step back from, Vance called Harris and other Democrats “…a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too…” Trump already has dismal support among women, and with Vance’s help, he might just be able to get those last 15 or 20 female supporters to hold their nose and vote for Kamala Harris. Trump is in a tough position here, he can either do a “slap down” of his chosen running mate, or just spin it (lie about it) his way and hope for the best. The female vote is the key to this election and abortion is the third rail for the republican party. Generally, the economy, not social issues tip a presidential election, but this time around it will be a clash of cultures reverberating all the way to the down ballot races. Realistically, you can throw away 44 states and 60% of the population, this race will be decided by six purple states- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and that 40% of swing voters in the middle that everybody has trouble getting a read on because they don’t respond to pollsters like MAGA or Progressive voters. The only given about that 40% is they’re not enamored with either Trump or Harris. Doyle McManus recently wrote in the L.A. Times, “…it’s clear that the old business-dominated, “country club” Republican Party of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes is long gone. Trump has realigned the parties in a way that wasn’t there before…” Geoffrey Kabaservice, noted, “…almost every white working-class voter is going to be a Republican. Almost every college-educated voter is going to be a Democrat” - a reversal of the norm for more than half a century. That realignment appears likely to last several decades at least.” The only sure bets in this election are, it will be close, nasty, we may not know who won before we go to bed, and the surprises may not be done, yet….