I just read that Obama and Pelosi have privately told Joe Biden that they are concerned that he won’t beat Trump. I can barely sit with this information. What are we gonna do? I’ve been writing little notes about project 2025 to my local towns online newspaper. Many people here in Vermont don’t even know what it is.how can we get this together? I need to be talked off the ledge here.
I hear you about being on the ledge. To get back from the ledge I need to remember that I don't have control of what happens. Biden will either put the country first and step aside or he won't. He will either continue to listen to Hunter!! and Jill or he won't. You and I have no control over that. You are doing the right thing: spreading the word on P 2025 as best you can. I am focusing my energies on House and Senate candidates. I think we can make a difference there. Connect with a postcard writing group and write write write. It's good to be with others.
Put the country first? I can not express how much It disappoints me to see the lack of support for our candidate by Dems. Lack of faith in the American people. I trust Biden and the people.
I am so disappointed to see the lack of support for our appointed leader of the Democratic Party by his constituent. I disagree with your sentiment and only hope that those of us in our party will trust that the American people are smarter than you give them credit and that Joe Bidenknows very well. What to do at this time. There is a small minority asking him to step down. I am disappointed in them as well.
I am a Biden supporter. There is a lot of confusion at the top and it’s not helping us or our cause. It’s not me personally that’s doing the negativity. I’m just reading about Pelosi and Obama and if they think there’s something up, that is a huge signal. Whatever they’re gonna do they better get together and do and let us support whoever is going to be our candidate.
The ledge seems to be holding a lot of people - I am one of them too. That morning mantra of what can I do and what I don't control can be helpful. It is good to know that there is a groundswell of like minded people who are working for the same goal.
I have 300 postcards going to Georgia and 300 postcard stamps sitting by my chair. I am writing letters to the local newspapers. I am feeling positive and negative. Nasty emails about them, but I continue. I’m not giving up.
To a degree you have some say in local events.. if you haven't used that leverage of who you are, what you want, what you dream about now is the time! Create unity in community. Meet ups, picnics, pot lucks...
Kathleen and anyone else who feels the need "to be talked off the ledge", activism helps! Writing postcards, phone banking, knocking on doors. Please look up "Indivisible" and see where your local chapters are so you could volunteer.
I also recommend listening to #resistancelive by Elizabeth Cronise Mclaughlin on YouTube 5 days/week. She explains news from a lawyer's perspective, is a hard-core activist, suggests how to help the upcoming election and often is thanked for "talking people off the ledge ".
Indivisible will target the left. We need to target the people who lean conservative but vote Dem when they vote but can’t be counted on the vote this time. That’s who America Votes will target in the major swing states. They are very very effective because they coordinate hundreds of local groups in each state so that no one is knocking on the same doors. Look them up. They are one of our last hopes to win!
To those on the ledge - I did Marketing Research - polling so to speak - as a profession for Ford Motor decades ago. I am highly suspicious of the polls. I don’t answer any of them. I don’t answer unknown calls or supposed “pollsters”. How do I know they aren’t hackers? How do I know they aren’t foreign? Many time - most times when I trace these numbers they track out of the country to Turkey etc.
Polls are not to be trusted in this environment which is hostile to Democrats, women, elderly and anyone receiving any kind of government assistance like Social Security or Medicare. Do Not trust the Polls!!!! This is a fight for Democracy and we are keeping ourselves hidden if we are vulnerable until Election Day. We voted in the primary - Democratic elites. Go with that. Kamala Harris IS your Constitutional backup. The Republicans are ready with lawsuits if the Democrats attempt to change candidates. We the people are voting for a successful President with successful POLICIES!!! It’s the POLICIES vs Project 2025 that matter - not who is at the masthead. Take advice from corporate America. The CEO of a company may be interchangeable - as long as the policies that bring the best return continue.
Kathleen, do not despair … we have a convention in a few weeks; let’s see what happens before, during and immediately thereafter … stay safe and try to be optimistic!
I am on the ledge also, hopefully after The RNC convention. More things will be decided. I would like to know if there is a central resource place to get information of what they Democratic National Committee is doing nationally. Seems like there’s an information or maybe we’re just not updated. I get all kinds of request for money. But I don’t know really what’s happening.
Hi Kristin, about donating to candidates, I spent a bunch of money in 2018 midterms, watching various polls and hoping for the "blue wave". Very few of my candidates across the US won and instead we got a "red wave". Since then, I've determined to only give to organizations I trust and admire. Two organizations that might be of interest are Emily's List and Voters of Tomorrow. Emily's supports Dem women who are pro-choice and Voters of Tomorrow is a group of young activists. Check out their websites. There are lots of local activist organizations deserving of your hard earned dollars.
I am hard of hearing…I have enjoyed Letters from an American for some time now but I MUCH preferred reading them. However, now the Letters seem to require that I listen to them…I can no longer find your wonderful comments in reader from…Please let me know how I can read daily….and not have to listen. Thank you
If you are on a desktop, I see a button that says "Transcript" - if you click, it should pull up text to read. I'm sure this is available on mobile too, I just haven't confirmed yet.
I enjoyed this replay of a small part of Civil War history. This same unit and action is depicted in the film “Glory” with Matthew Broderick playing the role of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. Not that Hollywood is the place you should go to learn history, but I enjoyed the film and I think it is worth the time viewing.
I have become a great admirer of Heather Cox Richardson and her Politics Chat on YouTube, as well as this substack channel (if “channel” is the correct word - I’m new to substack and this is my first comment). I mainly get my news from the New York Times, PBS, and NPR. From the articles and opinions on these sources, one would conclude that the election is all but lost for Biden and the Dems, and anyone favoring Biden and dreading Trump should just start planning their suicide right now. Prof. Richardson walks me back from the feeling of despair caused by my ingestion of this news. She sticks to facts and objectively puts them in context. I really don’t care whether or not Biden stays in the race, and if not, which Democratic candidate replaces him. The old joke: “If Trump were running against a ham sandwich, I’d vote for the ham sandwich” applies for me.
I would be surprised if the republicans in the old Republican Party wouldn’t have their hair raising from the union speaker. Republicans have never supported unions. My head was spinning after watching the convention. The number untrue statements about the Biden administration and the denial of not knowing about project 2025 was so disturbing! They were trying to align themselves with principles they have been repelled with my entire life. Hoping we are not too far off the rails to hop back on.
I had somebody locally tell me last night that I was totally in the wrong and that Trump didn’t know anything about project 2025 and that the Republicans hadn’t signed onto it and I have to say that that is the biggest bunch of horse hockey. I’ve heard in a long time.
This story was so wonderful and encouraging, I listened to it twice. The last sentence practically echoed- across the years, across the miles? Maybe both.....
From across the pond, my heart aches for the USA that I have always loved. With the appointment of J D Vance as the VP running mate of Mr Trump my heart sank. The very idea, that someone with his views and callow youth in political terms is sobering. Not to mention his being in the pocket of Tech Billionaires whose agendas are very far from those of everyday Americans it seems to me over here.
sounds like they are being extremely cautious with Biden, which is understandable considerin the years they've all known each other. It also sounds like haven't found an alternative candidate. When they do, they could ask Joe to help train and prepare him or her. That would give Joe dignity and perhaps a feeling of excitement. He would be playingi role of the eminence GRis!
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American
Wed, Jul 17, 8:29 PM
On July 18, 1863, at dusk, the Black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry of the U.S. Army charged the walls of Fort Wagner, a fortification on Morris Island off Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. Because Fort Wagner covered the southern entrance to the harbor, it was key to enabling the U.S. government to take the city.
The 600 soldiers of the 54th made up one of the first Black regiments for the Union, organized after the Emancipation Proclamation called for the enlistment of Black American soldiers. The 54th's leader was a Boston abolitionist from a leading family: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.
Shaw and his men had shipped out of Boston at the end of May 1863 for Beaufort, South Carolina, where the Union had gained an early foothold in its war to prevent the Confederates from dismembering the country. The men of the 54th knew they were not like other soldiers: they were symbols of how well Black men would fight for their country. This, in turn, would be a statement of whether Black men could truly be equal to white men under the country’s laws, once and for all, for in this era, fighting for the country gave men a key claim to citizenship.
The whole country was watching… and the soldiers knew it.
In the dark at Fort Wagner, the Massachusetts 54th proved that Black men were equal to any white men in the field. They fought with the determination that made Black American regiments during the Civil War sustain higher losses than those of white regiments. The assault on the fort killed, wounded, or lost more than 250 of the 600 men and made the formerly enslaved Sergeant William Harvey Carney the first Black American to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Badly wounded, Carney nonetheless defended the United States flag and carried it back to Union lines. United States soldiers did not take the fort that night, but no one could miss that Black men had proved themselves equal to their white comrades.
The Battle of Fort Wagner left 30 men of the 54th dead on the field—including Colonel Shaw—and hurt 24 more so badly they would later die from their wounds. Fifteen were captured; 52 were missing and presumed dead. Another 149 were wounded. Confederates intended to dishonor Colonel Shaw when they buried him in a mass grave with his men; instead, his family found it fitting.
In 2017 I had the opportunity to spend an evening in the house where the wounded soldiers of the 54th were taken after the battle.
It was a humbling thing to stand in that house that still looks so much as it did in 1863 and to realize that the men, carried hot and exhausted and bleeding and scared into it a century and a half before were just people like you and me, who did what they felt they had to in front of Fort Wagner, and then endured the boat ride back to Beaufort, and got carried up a flight of steps, and then lay on cots in small, crowded rooms and hoped that what they had done was worth the horrific cost.
I am not one for ghosts, but I swear you could feel the blood in the floors.
A few people decide who are nominee is for president. Please somebody explain this to me. I feel like I don’t get it choice of who my representative is going to be at this point anybody else feeling the same?
Wow - yea, this is an interesting piece of history.
But the damn country is on fire.
Right now!!!!!
We need your insights on the dumpster fire of the RNC. You give us amazing talking points to use with others. SO IMPORTANT right now. Especially when NPR uses an 81 y/o frail volunteer as their subject for their story about what Dems are doing?
Is NPR suicidal? The GOP will shut down NPR if they gain power. And all the piece did is make us Dems look like tragically weak people who are clueless about what most people care about. (Not gun violence- sorry- but the ECONOMY. Hellooo?)
PLEASE continue to stay with our current political crisis! We neeeed your clarity and fact-based rebuttals!!!
I just read that Obama and Pelosi have privately told Joe Biden that they are concerned that he won’t beat Trump. I can barely sit with this information. What are we gonna do? I’ve been writing little notes about project 2025 to my local towns online newspaper. Many people here in Vermont don’t even know what it is.how can we get this together? I need to be talked off the ledge here.
I hear you about being on the ledge. To get back from the ledge I need to remember that I don't have control of what happens. Biden will either put the country first and step aside or he won't. He will either continue to listen to Hunter!! and Jill or he won't. You and I have no control over that. You are doing the right thing: spreading the word on P 2025 as best you can. I am focusing my energies on House and Senate candidates. I think we can make a difference there. Connect with a postcard writing group and write write write. It's good to be with others.
Put the country first? I can not express how much It disappoints me to see the lack of support for our candidate by Dems. Lack of faith in the American people. I trust Biden and the people.
I am so disappointed to see the lack of support for our appointed leader of the Democratic Party by his constituent. I disagree with your sentiment and only hope that those of us in our party will trust that the American people are smarter than you give them credit and that Joe Bidenknows very well. What to do at this time. There is a small minority asking him to step down. I am disappointed in them as well.
I am a Biden supporter. There is a lot of confusion at the top and it’s not helping us or our cause. It’s not me personally that’s doing the negativity. I’m just reading about Pelosi and Obama and if they think there’s something up, that is a huge signal. Whatever they’re gonna do they better get together and do and let us support whoever is going to be our candidate.
"Appointed leader"? I believe he was elected.
Your right. Elected. Appointed by the American people was my thought.
Okie-dokie!
The ledge seems to be holding a lot of people - I am one of them too. That morning mantra of what can I do and what I don't control can be helpful. It is good to know that there is a groundswell of like minded people who are working for the same goal.
I have 300 postcards going to Georgia and 300 postcard stamps sitting by my chair. I am writing letters to the local newspapers. I am feeling positive and negative. Nasty emails about them, but I continue. I’m not giving up.
300 postcards! That's impressive and it's still early in the game.
I agree with Indre about Indivisible. Great organization. Originally made up of Obama White House staffers after T's election.
To a degree you have some say in local events.. if you haven't used that leverage of who you are, what you want, what you dream about now is the time! Create unity in community. Meet ups, picnics, pot lucks...
Remember the media was so sure that Dewey was going to beat Truman that some already had the headlines written. How did that turn out? Keep the faith!
The ledge gives you the best view. Just stay upright on that ledge. Hold on tight.
He will if everyone would stop
sabotaging the effort! They do not speak for the majority as far As I can gather.
Kathleen and anyone else who feels the need "to be talked off the ledge", activism helps! Writing postcards, phone banking, knocking on doors. Please look up "Indivisible" and see where your local chapters are so you could volunteer.
I also recommend listening to #resistancelive by Elizabeth Cronise Mclaughlin on YouTube 5 days/week. She explains news from a lawyer's perspective, is a hard-core activist, suggests how to help the upcoming election and often is thanked for "talking people off the ledge ".
Indivisible will target the left. We need to target the people who lean conservative but vote Dem when they vote but can’t be counted on the vote this time. That’s who America Votes will target in the major swing states. They are very very effective because they coordinate hundreds of local groups in each state so that no one is knocking on the same doors. Look them up. They are one of our last hopes to win!
Frightened people. They are scared. Sad. Have faith I say b
To those on the ledge - I did Marketing Research - polling so to speak - as a profession for Ford Motor decades ago. I am highly suspicious of the polls. I don’t answer any of them. I don’t answer unknown calls or supposed “pollsters”. How do I know they aren’t hackers? How do I know they aren’t foreign? Many time - most times when I trace these numbers they track out of the country to Turkey etc.
Polls are not to be trusted in this environment which is hostile to Democrats, women, elderly and anyone receiving any kind of government assistance like Social Security or Medicare. Do Not trust the Polls!!!! This is a fight for Democracy and we are keeping ourselves hidden if we are vulnerable until Election Day. We voted in the primary - Democratic elites. Go with that. Kamala Harris IS your Constitutional backup. The Republicans are ready with lawsuits if the Democrats attempt to change candidates. We the people are voting for a successful President with successful POLICIES!!! It’s the POLICIES vs Project 2025 that matter - not who is at the masthead. Take advice from corporate America. The CEO of a company may be interchangeable - as long as the policies that bring the best return continue.
Kathleen, do not despair … we have a convention in a few weeks; let’s see what happens before, during and immediately thereafter … stay safe and try to be optimistic!
I am sometimes I just need a lie down to collect myself. In all my years which are considerable, I do not think I’ve ever felt this afraid in my life.
Fear is the enemy of progress. Channel the energy into something helpful, either for yourself or others. It's going to be okay.
I agree with almost everything that you have said - just not sure that it’s going to be okay?
I am on the ledge also, hopefully after The RNC convention. More things will be decided. I would like to know if there is a central resource place to get information of what they Democratic National Committee is doing nationally. Seems like there’s an information or maybe we’re just not updated. I get all kinds of request for money. But I don’t know really what’s happening.
Kristin. Polling is not reliable. Biden and the American people are. Don’t buy in to media manipulation!
Hi Kristin, about donating to candidates, I spent a bunch of money in 2018 midterms, watching various polls and hoping for the "blue wave". Very few of my candidates across the US won and instead we got a "red wave". Since then, I've determined to only give to organizations I trust and admire. Two organizations that might be of interest are Emily's List and Voters of Tomorrow. Emily's supports Dem women who are pro-choice and Voters of Tomorrow is a group of young activists. Check out their websites. There are lots of local activist organizations deserving of your hard earned dollars.
And America Votes!
I am hard of hearing…I have enjoyed Letters from an American for some time now but I MUCH preferred reading them. However, now the Letters seem to require that I listen to them…I can no longer find your wonderful comments in reader from…Please let me know how I can read daily….and not have to listen. Thank you
If you are on a desktop, I see a button that says "Transcript" - if you click, it should pull up text to read. I'm sure this is available on mobile too, I just haven't confirmed yet.
I get an email daily, one with audio and one for reading.
I enjoyed this replay of a small part of Civil War history. This same unit and action is depicted in the film “Glory” with Matthew Broderick playing the role of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. Not that Hollywood is the place you should go to learn history, but I enjoyed the film and I think it is worth the time viewing.
I have become a great admirer of Heather Cox Richardson and her Politics Chat on YouTube, as well as this substack channel (if “channel” is the correct word - I’m new to substack and this is my first comment). I mainly get my news from the New York Times, PBS, and NPR. From the articles and opinions on these sources, one would conclude that the election is all but lost for Biden and the Dems, and anyone favoring Biden and dreading Trump should just start planning their suicide right now. Prof. Richardson walks me back from the feeling of despair caused by my ingestion of this news. She sticks to facts and objectively puts them in context. I really don’t care whether or not Biden stays in the race, and if not, which Democratic candidate replaces him. The old joke: “If Trump were running against a ham sandwich, I’d vote for the ham sandwich” applies for me.
I would be surprised if the republicans in the old Republican Party wouldn’t have their hair raising from the union speaker. Republicans have never supported unions. My head was spinning after watching the convention. The number untrue statements about the Biden administration and the denial of not knowing about project 2025 was so disturbing! They were trying to align themselves with principles they have been repelled with my entire life. Hoping we are not too far off the rails to hop back on.
I had somebody locally tell me last night that I was totally in the wrong and that Trump didn’t know anything about project 2025 and that the Republicans hadn’t signed onto it and I have to say that that is the biggest bunch of horse hockey. I’ve heard in a long time.
This story was so wonderful and encouraging, I listened to it twice. The last sentence practically echoed- across the years, across the miles? Maybe both.....
I love when you read your letters Professor! Thank you.
From across the pond, my heart aches for the USA that I have always loved. With the appointment of J D Vance as the VP running mate of Mr Trump my heart sank. The very idea, that someone with his views and callow youth in political terms is sobering. Not to mention his being in the pocket of Tech Billionaires whose agendas are very far from those of everyday Americans it seems to me over here.
sounds like they are being extremely cautious with Biden, which is understandable considerin the years they've all known each other. It also sounds like haven't found an alternative candidate. When they do, they could ask Joe to help train and prepare him or her. That would give Joe dignity and perhaps a feeling of excitement. He would be playingi role of the eminence GRis!
It should be Kamala Harris
I absolutely agree!
The link you provided sent me right to the “listen”. PLEASE may I have the written post.
20 of 54
Here's the printed text, J.:
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American
Wed, Jul 17, 8:29 PM
On July 18, 1863, at dusk, the Black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry of the U.S. Army charged the walls of Fort Wagner, a fortification on Morris Island off Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. Because Fort Wagner covered the southern entrance to the harbor, it was key to enabling the U.S. government to take the city.
The 600 soldiers of the 54th made up one of the first Black regiments for the Union, organized after the Emancipation Proclamation called for the enlistment of Black American soldiers. The 54th's leader was a Boston abolitionist from a leading family: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.
Shaw and his men had shipped out of Boston at the end of May 1863 for Beaufort, South Carolina, where the Union had gained an early foothold in its war to prevent the Confederates from dismembering the country. The men of the 54th knew they were not like other soldiers: they were symbols of how well Black men would fight for their country. This, in turn, would be a statement of whether Black men could truly be equal to white men under the country’s laws, once and for all, for in this era, fighting for the country gave men a key claim to citizenship.
The whole country was watching… and the soldiers knew it.
In the dark at Fort Wagner, the Massachusetts 54th proved that Black men were equal to any white men in the field. They fought with the determination that made Black American regiments during the Civil War sustain higher losses than those of white regiments. The assault on the fort killed, wounded, or lost more than 250 of the 600 men and made the formerly enslaved Sergeant William Harvey Carney the first Black American to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Badly wounded, Carney nonetheless defended the United States flag and carried it back to Union lines. United States soldiers did not take the fort that night, but no one could miss that Black men had proved themselves equal to their white comrades.
The Battle of Fort Wagner left 30 men of the 54th dead on the field—including Colonel Shaw—and hurt 24 more so badly they would later die from their wounds. Fifteen were captured; 52 were missing and presumed dead. Another 149 were wounded. Confederates intended to dishonor Colonel Shaw when they buried him in a mass grave with his men; instead, his family found it fitting.
In 2017 I had the opportunity to spend an evening in the house where the wounded soldiers of the 54th were taken after the battle.
It was a humbling thing to stand in that house that still looks so much as it did in 1863 and to realize that the men, carried hot and exhausted and bleeding and scared into it a century and a half before were just people like you and me, who did what they felt they had to in front of Fort Wagner, and then endured the boat ride back to Beaufort, and got carried up a flight of steps, and then lay on cots in small, crowded rooms and hoped that what they had done was worth the horrific cost.
I am not one for ghosts, but I swear you could feel the blood in the floors.
I am so confused how can
A few people decide who are nominee is for president. Please somebody explain this to me. I feel like I don’t get it choice of who my representative is going to be at this point anybody else feeling the same?
One of my favorite movies
Wow - yea, this is an interesting piece of history.
But the damn country is on fire.
Right now!!!!!
We need your insights on the dumpster fire of the RNC. You give us amazing talking points to use with others. SO IMPORTANT right now. Especially when NPR uses an 81 y/o frail volunteer as their subject for their story about what Dems are doing?
Is NPR suicidal? The GOP will shut down NPR if they gain power. And all the piece did is make us Dems look like tragically weak people who are clueless about what most people care about. (Not gun violence- sorry- but the ECONOMY. Hellooo?)
PLEASE continue to stay with our current political crisis! We neeeed your clarity and fact-based rebuttals!!!
Obama has now spoken publicly. There are groups on the ground working for GOTV. America Votes can make all the difference.
I think VP Harris with the governor of NC as her running mate can get people excited about the Dem tickets. Take care!