THIS IS NOT 1968 THANK GOD

First and foremost, my good friend Robert Hubbell has defined the task before us clearly in his post this evening. I endorse this statement totally:

“Just as President Biden put the interests of America above his own, so must we. Though we may not feel like joining with other Democrats in this moment, we must overcome those feelings—soon.

“Our moral obligation to create a unified movement to defeat Donald Trump transcends our personal feelings of anger, disappointment, and betrayal. How we feel about what happened is important, but what is more important is the reproductive liberty of women, the equal rights of LGBTQ people, the voting rights of Black citizens, the protection of the climate, the financial security of retirees, the health of every American, our collective freedom from gun violence, our national security, and our access to justice under the rule of law protected by a judiciary free from corruption and partisan bias.

“In our lifetimes, we will face no demand from our nation that is more difficult, urgent, and consequential. Unity—for the good of our democracy, for the good of all Americans, for the preservation of our nation.”

I was talking with one of the others at my Swing Left group, and I said the strategy for November is to vote for friends and family.

All of us are threatened by the ideas in Project 2025. Look no farther than right here at TAFM.

Older folks (a majority of the TAFM readership) are threatened by calls to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Women (the overwhelming majority of people here) are threatened with the loss of rights - Trump’s running mate for vice president is where he is because of the support of a billionaire who opposes women’s right to vote! - we thought were “settled” long ago.

LGBTQ people are threatened. Several of the leading contributors to TAFM are married gay people; their marriages are under threat.

People with disabilities are threatened. Two of the most prolific contributors to TAFM are members of that community.

The right of the children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews of all of us in the TAFM community to a quality education in which they are taught how to think, not what to think, is threatened.

The futures of non-white people are threatened as they have not been in a century by the neo-Confederate white supremacist fascists we’re opposed to.

The chance to create a survivable future for all of us is threatened.

And beyond the community that has developed here, every one of us knows many other people we care about and love who are in those categories.

We are all under threat. Vote for your friends and family. Vote for yourselves.

Vote for every Democrat on your ballot, like your life depends on it - because it does.

Fortunately, we have a candidate in Kamala Harris who can pull things together and mount a campaign over the next 100 days that will have Donald Trump ruing the day he ever got on that down escalator nine years ago.

The Prosecutor vs. The Convicted Felon. Trump has no idea what’s about to hit him right between those piggy eyes of his.

So far as Joe Biden is concerned, everyone here knows my feelings about the man. He wasn’t my choice for president in his first two campaigns, but he was my choice in 2020 and I think that in my lifetime, he is right up there with Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson as one of the most consequential presidents to ever occupy the White House. He will be remembered in the same breath as Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the results of things he did in office.

Stepping up and taking on the job before us in these next 100 days and defeating MAGA is the best way we can honor his work.

The Trump campaign will certainly find ways to seize on Kamala Harris’s gaffes, should she become the nominee, and Trump is the front-runner at this moment.

But now Trump is going to find himself forced to do two things he loathes and isn’t very good at: sharing the stage and competing for attention. Wait till Harris turns to him at the next debate (assuming he’s stupid enough to participate) and says “Shut up while I’m talking.”

And there’s one thing he is terrible at: standing up to a solid attack from a woman.

I’m looking forward to the next 100 days. They’re going to be “interesting” and consequential as hell. We will all remember what we choose to do now.

As Henry V said to his troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

This IS our Saint Crispin’s day.

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