2024 – Bearings (of Burkhardt)

Liz Cheney Changed My Mind

After listening to yesterday’s speech by Liz Cheney—a dyed in the wool Republican all her life—I’ve decided to vote for Kamala Harris. I’d like to contribute to the message that we don’t like, believe, trust, or endure Donald Trump.

Until today, I was going to vote for a third party, probably Jill Stein, because I like to protest the two-party system in the United States.

Cheney’s speech, though, reminded me that a vote for a leading candidate can be a protest vote. Protesting the end of democracy (Donald Trump’s trajectory) addresses a problem that is even more dire than the duopoly itself. My message to those who find themselves with divided allegiances: vote for Harris in 2024 if for no other reason than so you can vote for someone else in 2028.

Here’s Cheney’s entire October 3 speech in Wisconsin (cued up, however, to skip her prefatory remarks):

Here’s an infamous response that Donald Trump made, following Cheney’s support of Harris (1 minute):

Lamentation for the 2024 Presidential Election

Listen to the May 2024 version of this post in the author’s voice (3 minutes)

On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?

Psalm 137:2-4, RSV

Whatever my aversion to partisan politics has been in the past, it’s stronger than ever. Putting age aside, as well as a highly forgettable VP, I find little encouraging in the Democratic ticket. The Democrats no longer promote the view that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare, but that they should be affordable and accessible (making them common). If I didn’t think the unborn were human beings, I wouldn’t object. But I cannot see the difference. After conception, it’s all shades of gray, lines drawn in the sand.

Meanwhile the Republicans—the majority of them—celebrate a man who lies profusely, who is a known sexual predator, who seldom speaks factually, who relentlessly spews superlatives, and who promoted the ruin of the democratic process in the 2020 presidential election.
Continue reading “Lamentation for the 2024 Presidential Election”

The Irony of Mr. Trump’s Rhetoric

An entire book could be (and perhaps has been) written on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, something like Trump’s Towering Rhetoric.

I agree with Jim Gaffigan in a rant he posted when Mr. Trump was President: “Trump is a great salesman. Possibly the best salesman I’ve seen in my lifetime.” I agree. Although many people critical of Trump describe him as an idiot, dumb, or stupid, I believe he knows what he is about and succeeds very well in convincing about half the American population that he is what he says he is. Continue reading “The Irony of Mr. Trump’s Rhetoric”