Michelle Obama is a National Treasure. Her speech was the best ones if not the best of the night. The speech from the young lady who recently lost her father to COVID-19 was very powerful. Her father believed it was OK to go out, because Donald Trump said it was. The line "Her father's only preexisting condition was believing Donald Trump" brought it home. Looking forward to night two. This week I am participating in Watch Party with a dozen like minded friends. Last night was a blast.
Michelle Obama's speech was eloquent and powerful. It left me a bit misty, I'm not going to lie. (And it wasn't just the complete sentences and proper grammar.)
Let’s Give Women’s Equal Rights the Anniversary Present It Deserves
On August 18th, 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified after Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the Amendment. Passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the capstone of a long and difficult struggle that began in the mid-1800s. Achieving passage and ratification required decades of activism and protest commencing with the first public demand for women’s suffrage at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Even following the Amendment’s first introduction to Congress in 1878, several generations of women supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many considered a radical change to the US Constitution.
Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist and feminist who was one of the main leaders who fought for the 19th Amendment. In 1923 following its ratification she continued the fight for full Constitutional recognition of equal rights for women with the drafting, proposal, and presentation to Congress of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). 100 years after ratification of the 19th Amendment women are still waiting for formal ratification of the ERA.
In the early 1940s, both the Democratic Party and Republican Party added passage of the ERA to their Party Platforms. Yet it failed to pass Congress until its Congressional approval by first the Senate and then the House on March 22, 1972. 22 states quickly ratified the Amendment leaving it short of the required 38 ratifying states needed. 8 ratification followed in 1973, 3 in 1974, and 1 in 1975. In 1977, Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the ERA. As the original 1979 deadline for ratification approached the ERA remained 3 states short of the 38 required. Following an organized march on Washington by over 100,000 women, Congress passed a ratification extension to June 30, 1982, when it remained 3 states shy of ratification.
It has been reintroduced in every Congressional session since 1982. In March of 2017, Nevada became the 36th state to ratify the original ERA. Illinois followed in April 2018. On January 27th, 2020 Virginia became the 38th state necessary to reach the required ratification threshold. Shortly thereafter on February 13, 2020, the House passed HJ Res 79, the joint resolution to remove the original time limit assigned to the ERA. HJ Res 79 now awaits a vote in the US Senate.
On the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, it seems not only time, but way past time to allow full Constitutional recognition of equal rights for women. Let’s finally give women’s rights the Anniversary present it deserves.
Sadly, Maine even with a Dem majority in the State Senate could not ge the 2/3 needed last year. Its so sad that people are so irrational about equality for women.Tragic irony.
The most heartening thing for me about Michelle Obama's speech was her line about bringing picnic baskets and picnic chairs to the in-person voting lines on election day, if, as seems increasingly likely, Trump is at least partially successful at kneecapping the Postal Service. The threat represented by Trump is serious enough that people need to be willing to risk their lives from COVID, if necessary, to prevent his re-election. If soldiers in wartime risk their lives to prevent some extreme danger, then, much as it shouldn't be so, voters need to contemplate taking this smaller risk.
The efforts by Nancy Pelosi to force Republicans to do right by the Postal Service may provide a potent political kick for Democrats, and that's enough reason to do it. But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking the sabotage can be stopped in time for voting by mail everywhere. In some places, it may work, but in others, it won't, and those will probably be the places where it is most critical. It isn't right that Trump has done this, but then, it wasn't right that Hitler invaded Poland either. I have been waiting for someone to point out the stakes involved here, and hats off to Michelle Obama for being the one to do it!
I wish that Ms. Obama had been even more explicit on that point. So long as you are in line before the polls close, they are required to allow you to vote. It doesn't matter if it takes all night to process the mile-long line, they have to let you vote. So take a lunch, supper, chairs, extra oxygen canisters, whatever you need.
Hell, bring some for the others in line. If you voted early (a very smart thing to do), set up a refreshment booth at the poll with your friends. Bring umbrellas for shelter and shade. If someone has to leave the line to pick up their kids, offer to hold their place until they return.
How to restore our institutions? By using them. By working with them. By supporting them by assisting them. And there is no institution more fundamental to a democracy than voting.
I find it interesting to talk to Trump supporters (when I have the strength to endure the conversations) that when asked about "what," not who but what, they are voting for the answer is invariable simply "Trump."
When I press, "Yes I understand that you support him and are voting for him. But what is it exactly you are voting for? What is it you expect from him? What policies or accomplishments is it you expect him to deliver that will benefit you? What positions does he have that motivate you to vote for him?"
After the typical "build the wall and secure our borders" answers that are often offered the remainder of their answers seem to get lost in the typical Trump "word salad" he offers at his rallies but have little actual policy substance.
Perhaps this is why the Republican Party actually lacks a 2020 Party Platform and has simply reverted to rolling over the 2016 Platform for 2020. Trump actually lacks any real policy positions or vision for a second term agenda. He honestly believes in little more than an ad hoc response to whatever he needs to do in order to remain in the spotlight.
Trump supporters likewise have no real agenda other than returning Trump to the White House. They ask very little from him, expect little of him, and simply want to dominate liberals. They just wish, like Trump, to be the center of attention.
No matter how riveting the speeches and testimonials of the Convention last night, they have done nothing to allay my anxiety about this coming election. I cannot stop recalling how the polls and media were mistaken about the 2016 election; their best tools told them that Clinton would win. Yet, she didn't. (Now, her excellent career has been tragically overshadowed by the fact that she lost to a fool like Trump.)
I sense a large, shadowy mob of American people who don't listen to news, aren't on the internet, and only learn about the world through rumor, exhortations by preachers and local leaders, and alcohol-driven conversations with their peers. They don't trust pollsters. They don't trust government. They don't use or trust higher education, or the people who have it. They don't really trust rich people, although they admire and envy them. They only trust their guns, and assertions of people who look and sound just like themselves. Their presence skews all of the calculations in unknown ways.
Because they vote.
Sometimes I feel like I'm on a long camping trip with friends. At night, even though we are gathered around our campfire, taking comfort in each other and in the warm light, from the darkness around us, invisible, comes the sound of things moving, and the occasional scream.
I agree with your assessment of the people who have been captured by the fear and hate mongers. But their distrust of government can be so deep that they don't and won't vote. Therefore they have been rendered impotent. All three of my siblings feel this way and I'm good with that. My one step forward to their standing still is a positive. I have tried and failed to change their minds through reason, logic, facts. I will resort to asking them to vote for Biden as a personal request for the sakes of the children and to counter their 2016 votes using the " let's see what happens" arguments they made then. Not sure they will do the right thing, so doing nothing will have to be the next best thing I can hope for.
Family is so tough. I've taken to avoiding most of my Alabama and Georgia family because I'm fairly sure they still support Trump and the Republicans, and I don't want to experience the resentment I would feel hearing about it. I think I'll just lay low and hope we can get together again someday (and hope they don't point me out to the death squads.)
I was appalled back in 2016 when I couldn't find a single person under 30 who intended to vote. I'd ask relatives, delivery persons, wait staff, cashiers, young people on the street - none of them voted or wanted to vote. All of them gave the same cluster of reasons, like "it doesn't matter," "I don't feel informed enough," "I don't like any of the candidates," or the most amazing, "I keep forgetting"
But I become confused when I'm confronted with a Trump supporter. Should I encourage them to vote? Tell them that their vote doesn't matter? Take a page from the Republican playbook and try to suppress their vote?
That's why I don't ask people who they intend to vote for, I simply ask them to vote. Voting supports the institution, and I just hope we aren't like those poor Egyptians a few years ago who voted into power a regime that had explicitly said that they were against democracy and voting.
Does not "Radical Left" elementally mean the "collective" over the individual? Therefore Inclusion could also mean compulsion? Climate action might also mean imposing "a guaranteed living-wage job for anyone who needs one" as suggested in the GND? Does "Love of all life" include those who are Pro Choice? Does a "collective" society promote excellence, fortitude and tolerance? Radical to me implies an overthrow or complete change in the structure and behavior of society and its government. How might that "restore America's decency" and for whom? Sometimes the road to perdition might just be filled with good intentions. Is America really just at a natural crossroad and for all its flaws elementally a decent country and society? I am trying to be kind, I think a "Radical" change in our society and government, that has never been perfect, would be likely reckless and dangerous to what America's goodness and exceptionalism is...All of the goals are laudable. Running towards a "Radical Left" is a dangerous way to get there.
Steve could probably answer this best, but my take is that his use of "radical left" is an attempt to thumb noses at the president and his supporters who think any idea that isn't based in their own radical extremism is "radical left." History, after all, is full of groups appropriating to themselves labels that others originally put on them as put-downs.
The fact is, and you can read Dr. Richardson's columns about this as she articulates it better than I can, true leftist ideology has never attracted more than a marginal minority of Americans and has for most of the past half century or so been quite impotent politically. I don't think anyone has to worry about "collectivism" coming from the current Democratic party.
I suspect that your use of questions is a rhetorical technique that has had the unfortunate effect of confusing your message. The answers to all of your questions are, "Yes, no, and sometimes." Can you be more explicit about what you are contending?
I do suggest that we not take the terms "left" and "right" too seriously; those labels have lost much of their meaning over the past few decades. They seem to have become social markers more than anything else.
Again, thank you for the concise overview of a pivotal day in both politics and history. Michelle Obama hit it out of the park and I couldn't possibly be happier.
"Trump made clear his message for the election. He repeatedly insisted that Biden “is the puppet of leftwing extremists,” who will “replace American freedom with leftwing fascism.”
Just turn that inside out, and we have Trump, puppet of Vladimir Putin, who will replace American freedom with Soviet style dictatorship and ruin.
Trump is the master of projection (as are the GOP), so I've learned to reverse whatever they say their goal, etc. is, and that will be the truth. If they say, "Look up!", look down. If they say we're for deficit reduction, look for more tax breaks for the rich. You get the idea..........
Thank you for a great summary of the day's events. The contrast between the voices of the people on the Democratic side vs. OOO-45 could not have been more clear than they were today, could they?
It may be a while before I can comment here again. trump was in my state yesterday. So all of Minnesota in general (and Mankato, MN in particular) is now waist deep and rising in disinfectant. As he boarded his plane before soaring away to plague other states, the buzz among the onlookers was this: "Who was that unmasked man?!?"
I love it that Michelle Obama only mentioned tRump once by name, but clearly referred to his inadequacies throughout her "speech". (I put speech in quotes because it felt more like a fireside chat.) I believe this week will help us feel a very little bit more together as a party, and it will be a very different convention than what the repubs will put on next week. I imagine that will be full of hate and division....just like the party itself.
Nick Sandman and the McCloskeys as featured persons at the Republican convention. If that isn't a clear statement of who and what the RNC and the Republican Party hold dear I don't know what is. Trump's disdain for the American people is palpable. It's like hot tar, toxic and burning. After all the speechifying, civil, reasonable people need to make sure that we face this election as a unified front against Trump's poisonous plan for the nation. Hideous and frightening.
Michelle Obama is a National Treasure. Her speech was the best ones if not the best of the night. The speech from the young lady who recently lost her father to COVID-19 was very powerful. Her father believed it was OK to go out, because Donald Trump said it was. The line "Her father's only preexisting condition was believing Donald Trump" brought it home. Looking forward to night two. This week I am participating in Watch Party with a dozen like minded friends. Last night was a blast.
Michelle Obama's speech was eloquent and powerful. It left me a bit misty, I'm not going to lie. (And it wasn't just the complete sentences and proper grammar.)
Heart. Authenticity. Compassion. In stark contrast to Republican-elected trump, Moscow Mitch, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, etc., etc., etc.
Let’s Give Women’s Equal Rights the Anniversary Present It Deserves
On August 18th, 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified after Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the Amendment. Passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the capstone of a long and difficult struggle that began in the mid-1800s. Achieving passage and ratification required decades of activism and protest commencing with the first public demand for women’s suffrage at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Even following the Amendment’s first introduction to Congress in 1878, several generations of women supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many considered a radical change to the US Constitution.
Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist and feminist who was one of the main leaders who fought for the 19th Amendment. In 1923 following its ratification she continued the fight for full Constitutional recognition of equal rights for women with the drafting, proposal, and presentation to Congress of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). 100 years after ratification of the 19th Amendment women are still waiting for formal ratification of the ERA.
In the early 1940s, both the Democratic Party and Republican Party added passage of the ERA to their Party Platforms. Yet it failed to pass Congress until its Congressional approval by first the Senate and then the House on March 22, 1972. 22 states quickly ratified the Amendment leaving it short of the required 38 ratifying states needed. 8 ratification followed in 1973, 3 in 1974, and 1 in 1975. In 1977, Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the ERA. As the original 1979 deadline for ratification approached the ERA remained 3 states short of the 38 required. Following an organized march on Washington by over 100,000 women, Congress passed a ratification extension to June 30, 1982, when it remained 3 states shy of ratification.
It has been reintroduced in every Congressional session since 1982. In March of 2017, Nevada became the 36th state to ratify the original ERA. Illinois followed in April 2018. On January 27th, 2020 Virginia became the 38th state necessary to reach the required ratification threshold. Shortly thereafter on February 13, 2020, the House passed HJ Res 79, the joint resolution to remove the original time limit assigned to the ERA. HJ Res 79 now awaits a vote in the US Senate.
On the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, it seems not only time, but way past time to allow full Constitutional recognition of equal rights for women. Let’s finally give women’s rights the Anniversary present it deserves.
Sadly, Maine even with a Dem majority in the State Senate could not ge the 2/3 needed last year. Its so sad that people are so irrational about equality for women.Tragic irony.
The most heartening thing for me about Michelle Obama's speech was her line about bringing picnic baskets and picnic chairs to the in-person voting lines on election day, if, as seems increasingly likely, Trump is at least partially successful at kneecapping the Postal Service. The threat represented by Trump is serious enough that people need to be willing to risk their lives from COVID, if necessary, to prevent his re-election. If soldiers in wartime risk their lives to prevent some extreme danger, then, much as it shouldn't be so, voters need to contemplate taking this smaller risk.
The efforts by Nancy Pelosi to force Republicans to do right by the Postal Service may provide a potent political kick for Democrats, and that's enough reason to do it. But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking the sabotage can be stopped in time for voting by mail everywhere. In some places, it may work, but in others, it won't, and those will probably be the places where it is most critical. It isn't right that Trump has done this, but then, it wasn't right that Hitler invaded Poland either. I have been waiting for someone to point out the stakes involved here, and hats off to Michelle Obama for being the one to do it!
I wish that Ms. Obama had been even more explicit on that point. So long as you are in line before the polls close, they are required to allow you to vote. It doesn't matter if it takes all night to process the mile-long line, they have to let you vote. So take a lunch, supper, chairs, extra oxygen canisters, whatever you need.
Hell, bring some for the others in line. If you voted early (a very smart thing to do), set up a refreshment booth at the poll with your friends. Bring umbrellas for shelter and shade. If someone has to leave the line to pick up their kids, offer to hold their place until they return.
How to restore our institutions? By using them. By working with them. By supporting them by assisting them. And there is no institution more fundamental to a democracy than voting.
Applauding
"Leftwing fascism" is an oxymoron. "President Trump" is as well.
I find it interesting to talk to Trump supporters (when I have the strength to endure the conversations) that when asked about "what," not who but what, they are voting for the answer is invariable simply "Trump."
When I press, "Yes I understand that you support him and are voting for him. But what is it exactly you are voting for? What is it you expect from him? What policies or accomplishments is it you expect him to deliver that will benefit you? What positions does he have that motivate you to vote for him?"
After the typical "build the wall and secure our borders" answers that are often offered the remainder of their answers seem to get lost in the typical Trump "word salad" he offers at his rallies but have little actual policy substance.
Perhaps this is why the Republican Party actually lacks a 2020 Party Platform and has simply reverted to rolling over the 2016 Platform for 2020. Trump actually lacks any real policy positions or vision for a second term agenda. He honestly believes in little more than an ad hoc response to whatever he needs to do in order to remain in the spotlight.
Trump supporters likewise have no real agenda other than returning Trump to the White House. They ask very little from him, expect little of him, and simply want to dominate liberals. They just wish, like Trump, to be the center of attention.
All in all that is a pretty vacuous aspiration.
Vacuous, but was sufficient to gain power over the rest of us more substantive types.
No matter how riveting the speeches and testimonials of the Convention last night, they have done nothing to allay my anxiety about this coming election. I cannot stop recalling how the polls and media were mistaken about the 2016 election; their best tools told them that Clinton would win. Yet, she didn't. (Now, her excellent career has been tragically overshadowed by the fact that she lost to a fool like Trump.)
I sense a large, shadowy mob of American people who don't listen to news, aren't on the internet, and only learn about the world through rumor, exhortations by preachers and local leaders, and alcohol-driven conversations with their peers. They don't trust pollsters. They don't trust government. They don't use or trust higher education, or the people who have it. They don't really trust rich people, although they admire and envy them. They only trust their guns, and assertions of people who look and sound just like themselves. Their presence skews all of the calculations in unknown ways.
Because they vote.
Sometimes I feel like I'm on a long camping trip with friends. At night, even though we are gathered around our campfire, taking comfort in each other and in the warm light, from the darkness around us, invisible, comes the sound of things moving, and the occasional scream.
(Ooo! I think I gave myself goosebumps!)
I agree with your assessment of the people who have been captured by the fear and hate mongers. But their distrust of government can be so deep that they don't and won't vote. Therefore they have been rendered impotent. All three of my siblings feel this way and I'm good with that. My one step forward to their standing still is a positive. I have tried and failed to change their minds through reason, logic, facts. I will resort to asking them to vote for Biden as a personal request for the sakes of the children and to counter their 2016 votes using the " let's see what happens" arguments they made then. Not sure they will do the right thing, so doing nothing will have to be the next best thing I can hope for.
Family is so tough. I've taken to avoiding most of my Alabama and Georgia family because I'm fairly sure they still support Trump and the Republicans, and I don't want to experience the resentment I would feel hearing about it. I think I'll just lay low and hope we can get together again someday (and hope they don't point me out to the death squads.)
I was appalled back in 2016 when I couldn't find a single person under 30 who intended to vote. I'd ask relatives, delivery persons, wait staff, cashiers, young people on the street - none of them voted or wanted to vote. All of them gave the same cluster of reasons, like "it doesn't matter," "I don't feel informed enough," "I don't like any of the candidates," or the most amazing, "I keep forgetting"
But I become confused when I'm confronted with a Trump supporter. Should I encourage them to vote? Tell them that their vote doesn't matter? Take a page from the Republican playbook and try to suppress their vote?
That's why I don't ask people who they intend to vote for, I simply ask them to vote. Voting supports the institution, and I just hope we aren't like those poor Egyptians a few years ago who voted into power a regime that had explicitly said that they were against democracy and voting.
It's a beginning....and they're getting it right!
Embrace "RADICAL LEFT"
Restore America's Decency:
Inclusion
Climate Action
Love all Life
Excellence
Fortitude
Tolerance
I welcome anyone's thoughts on making this list stronger.
Be Kind
I think that's crucial, but I'm trying to spell RADICAL LEFT with the initials.
OK, how about:
Restore the Soul of America
Activism
Diversity
Inclusion
Climate Action
Advocacy
Lift Our Voices
Love All Life
Excellence
Fortitude
Tolerance
I like it.
Well done!
Perhaps that's just silly.
There needs to be something in there about welcoming refugees and treating immigrants with decency.
I would add true equal opportunity, not some libertarian free-market mumbo jumbo.
Does not "Radical Left" elementally mean the "collective" over the individual? Therefore Inclusion could also mean compulsion? Climate action might also mean imposing "a guaranteed living-wage job for anyone who needs one" as suggested in the GND? Does "Love of all life" include those who are Pro Choice? Does a "collective" society promote excellence, fortitude and tolerance? Radical to me implies an overthrow or complete change in the structure and behavior of society and its government. How might that "restore America's decency" and for whom? Sometimes the road to perdition might just be filled with good intentions. Is America really just at a natural crossroad and for all its flaws elementally a decent country and society? I am trying to be kind, I think a "Radical" change in our society and government, that has never been perfect, would be likely reckless and dangerous to what America's goodness and exceptionalism is...All of the goals are laudable. Running towards a "Radical Left" is a dangerous way to get there.
Steve could probably answer this best, but my take is that his use of "radical left" is an attempt to thumb noses at the president and his supporters who think any idea that isn't based in their own radical extremism is "radical left." History, after all, is full of groups appropriating to themselves labels that others originally put on them as put-downs.
The fact is, and you can read Dr. Richardson's columns about this as she articulates it better than I can, true leftist ideology has never attracted more than a marginal minority of Americans and has for most of the past half century or so been quite impotent politically. I don't think anyone has to worry about "collectivism" coming from the current Democratic party.
Yes. Exactly. And well said.
I suspect that your use of questions is a rhetorical technique that has had the unfortunate effect of confusing your message. The answers to all of your questions are, "Yes, no, and sometimes." Can you be more explicit about what you are contending?
I do suggest that we not take the terms "left" and "right" too seriously; those labels have lost much of their meaning over the past few decades. They seem to have become social markers more than anything else.
Priorities. Focus. Act to get out the vote. Then there will be space for rhetorical debate.
Again, thank you for the concise overview of a pivotal day in both politics and history. Michelle Obama hit it out of the park and I couldn't possibly be happier.
"Trump made clear his message for the election. He repeatedly insisted that Biden “is the puppet of leftwing extremists,” who will “replace American freedom with leftwing fascism.”
Just turn that inside out, and we have Trump, puppet of Vladimir Putin, who will replace American freedom with Soviet style dictatorship and ruin.
Trump is the master of projection (as are the GOP), so I've learned to reverse whatever they say their goal, etc. is, and that will be the truth. If they say, "Look up!", look down. If they say we're for deficit reduction, look for more tax breaks for the rich. You get the idea..........
Thank you for a great summary of the day's events. The contrast between the voices of the people on the Democratic side vs. OOO-45 could not have been more clear than they were today, could they?
"He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.” I loved how Michelle turned his words around on him. Beautifully, artfully done.
It may be a while before I can comment here again. trump was in my state yesterday. So all of Minnesota in general (and Mankato, MN in particular) is now waist deep and rising in disinfectant. As he boarded his plane before soaring away to plague other states, the buzz among the onlookers was this: "Who was that unmasked man?!?"
I love it that Michelle Obama only mentioned tRump once by name, but clearly referred to his inadequacies throughout her "speech". (I put speech in quotes because it felt more like a fireside chat.) I believe this week will help us feel a very little bit more together as a party, and it will be a very different convention than what the repubs will put on next week. I imagine that will be full of hate and division....just like the party itself.
Nick Sandman and the McCloskeys as featured persons at the Republican convention. If that isn't a clear statement of who and what the RNC and the Republican Party hold dear I don't know what is. Trump's disdain for the American people is palpable. It's like hot tar, toxic and burning. After all the speechifying, civil, reasonable people need to make sure that we face this election as a unified front against Trump's poisonous plan for the nation. Hideous and frightening.
Aren't the McCloskeys under indictment for their gun-waving stunt?
Yes.