Jay Kuo: A great post, as your writing is logical and the passion runs deep.
Your analysis is very encouraging, and I hope to for Hakeem Jeffries to have a solid platform to be elevated to the Third in Succession to the Presidency, Speaker of the House.
Hakeem Jeffries will be one of the great Speakers in American History, and our future Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, has a wonderful, powerful future ahead of him.
I am so very full of Kamala Harris, because she is running the most exciting campaign that we have seen since 1960 -- an election I remember quite well.
The 12-year-old Armando was very excited by JFK and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who promised a New Frontier, a very beautiful, new looking political scene, with rhetoric that reminded the then 12-year-old of Abraham Lincoln in the nobility of the English-language oratory.
How on EARTH can Fascist Trump/Vance garner more than 5% of the vote, with their hate speech.
Trump/Vance-Fascism violate the core principles in the American Polity founded upon "The Federalist Papers".
Kamala Harris must win, and she will be one of the best prepared and most inspirational leader among American Presidents in our history.
An age of Reconciliation must set in, and its only chance is under an Administration of Kamala Harris with House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries!
Ignore Trump, true to form, predicted everywhere today, he is already claiming victory. He is even speaking in a calm voice to try to seem more believable to his people. He cannot fool us.
I had a cab driver today in Germany who asked questions about why I did not want Trump. I said, he lies and is dangerous. He responded and said, don't they both lie. I said, there is a difference. It is the difference between me telling my husband his tie looks good when I don't like it, and me telling him I put 100,000 into our bank account when I really took it out. So, he asked wouldn't I support the US pulling out of NATO and letting other countries pay for their own security. I said, "Yes, if they can, otherwise not." Then, I said, "Trump hates women, so the only women who vote for them are women who hate themselves, and that is not me. " He told me, "no woman should hate herself." I will take that to mean he thinks no woman should vote for Trump. I would agree. No man should either.
Later, my daughter told me a new acquaintance in one of her classes was surprised that she voted for Harris. This young woman thought most Europeans were for Trump. I said, perhaps her family votes for the AfD. My daughter said, I doubt it since they are Iranian/Persian. However, her friend is wrong about most Europeans in the polls I looked at. In Germany only 11 percent supports Trump winning in a DW poll. Here is a The Guardian poll showing how 7 countries feel about the US election.
As a Democrat Abroad I have gotten so much affirmation from people here in Germany where I live. They are so pleased to help us get out the vote by giving materials to friends who can vote in the US and say supportive things. I was pleased that a person in Substack told me his niece in Germany got help voting in the US election based on links I had provided. I also have been going to Quiz bowl in a bar and announcing that I can provide voting help. However, our region felt that most helpful thing was our doing phone banking to Democrats Abroad and then for Swing States. Here are some numbers I got today on that.
"Some amazing stats from the phonebanking crew: even though we’d already called all (? I think even multiple times) active DA members in the last months, in the last week, phone bankers reached an additional 3,300+ inactive DA members which led to some last minute votes!
250,000+ calls in the first round of call campaigns
3,300+ calls in the special last round campaign
30,000+ calls with other DNC partners in the US.
Wow! These numbers can really make a difference. Thank you all!!! 🙏🙏🙏
Here in France most of the people I speak with are incredulous that Trump is even considered a contender. Furthermore they are extremely concerned about the possibility that he could win, fearing that a Trump victory would upset the equilibrium of democratic power worldwide and render Europe much more vulnerable.
It may just be an overreaction after a year of cowering, but I’m feeling that way too. For one thing, as others have said, it’s actually statistically pretty weird for EVERY SINGLE poll to be a point or two apart. There haven’t been ANY outliers, and that’s … an outlier.
And Trump looks like %^*+. I mean, he always does, but the past couple of months he really has. And he’s definitely talking like someone who knows he’s only got the microphone for a couple more days.
That said, it probably won’t be over tonight—America’s Abusive Ex-Husband is probably not going to go away quietly. But it might.
What polls? I am not following them. The NYT taught me that they defy common sense. It was like when the German press was saying that there was 33% had voted for the AfD. While that sounds like a big number, only 15% of the country lives in the 5 states where the AfD has such prominence, and this was in 2 of those 5 states. So, 1?3 of less than 15% of the population is not a roaring mandate for the AfD. That is about the number of grievance people you would expect in any population, especially if they spend a lot of time on line on social media and are fodder for Russian disinformation. It will be a challenge to reclaim our youth from their addiction to social media and vile video games.
I want my granddaughters to feel free to say : “I have two mommies”. I don’t want them to hear the words I often heard as a child, under a dictatorship in Argentina, when my parents warned me, in the dark, “not to repeat in school what I heard at home” - words my parents used repeatedly against the Dictator and his pretty wife, Evita.
I want my granddaughters to be proud of their family, an inclusive, loving, typical family, with an open door policy, filled with love, forgiveness, and understating. A family that wakes up early to make breakfast, prepare lunch boxes, and one mom runs off to work while putting some make up at red lights, and a “stay at home” mom who dashes back and forth to drive the kids to school, do the shopping, plan dinner, and keep the house in order.
I want my granddaughters to be who they want to be, not who society decides they should be. I want them to reach for the sky when it comes to their careers, to be fire people or nurses, or doctors or vets, to fly to the moon and back, and yes, to run for President, not as an exception but as a regular old thing.
I want them to be free and marry for love, not for convention. To be openly whatever they choose to be. To make mistakes. To be EQUAL in all ways to the boys they play with. To wear whatever clothing they want to wear. To not being exposed to being called “names”, which I won’t even mention here, because I want to eradicate name calling.
I want their freedom to marry or not to marry. To be with whomever they choose, without hiding behind darkened shutters in a dark room. To be proud of WHO they are, and not WHAT they are.
I want my granddaughters to be proud that their grandmother is an immigrant. A PROUD immigrant. Someone who came to this country with nothing, and who majored in French but went on to have a pretty impressive career in business. I want them to know of the courage of immigrants, how hard it is to leave the place with which you are comfortable. I want them to be protected from that, and to be free to spend the rest of their lives in the USA, where so much was sacrificed by their grandma and their great grandparents to get us to this point.
I hope this election means your children will grow up in a country where Trump and his effects are history, not reality.
I think about my own children, who cannot remember an election in which Trump was not a candidate, and I hope we close this chapter and move on to brighter days ahead.
Cast my vote for Kamala and Dems all down the ticket here in upstate NY this morning! And I am 69. I can't abide the idea of relegating women to the status of livestock and forcing them into second class citizenship!
I have a friend who has advertised that she voted red.
She has daughters, grand daughters.
Of course she also believes in the likes of chem trails , 9 month abortion etc.
A “highly educated “ woman.
I just cringe.
I also like her and we do not overly talk politics.
I get people blocking or losing family and friends over politics, however, I know that although I think that they are totally wrong, they are still my friends. I also believe that they have the right to their opinions.
I am grateful for your writings, Jay. And I am thankful for this community.
As for the pollsters, I do not care what their personal issues are. Times are changing. They are the typewriters loosing out to personal computers, the film cameras extinguished by digital, the landlines replaced by cell phones.
Ever since the Great Polling Debacle of 2016, I have ignored the polls. All of the polls, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
There are lies, damn lies, statistics, polls, and then there are the Republican trash-polls.
I agree in principle, but you know that a republican-controlled Senate would do everything it could to stymie her agenda and make her a one-term president. They would have no interest in working with her. Recent events and polling in MT suggest she may not have to worry about it, and Allred and Osborn are real possibilities.
Tremendous writeup, Jay...all the - as you put it - commonsense arguments for a Harris win, even a big win. However- yes, always with the "however" - allow me to yet again quote from the great curmudgeon and scorner of "the people", HL Mencken:
"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
Love to prove Mencken wrong, but 74,000,000 MAGA votes in 2020 shows some merit in his assessment.
Thank You. Perfectly laid out. Makes total sense. Just in my experience American voting habits make so little sense and defy ligic over and over. I am still holding my breath and hope you are right. We are not going back!
Bravo for spelling this out for us! I have high hopes after doing lots of canvassing, phone banking, writing postcards, doing Honk & Waves, & marching or attending meetings & rallies almost every day for the past couple of months so I could sleep at night. Long live Kamala Harris & our democracy!
Jay Kuo: A great post, as your writing is logical and the passion runs deep.
Your analysis is very encouraging, and I hope to for Hakeem Jeffries to have a solid platform to be elevated to the Third in Succession to the Presidency, Speaker of the House.
Hakeem Jeffries will be one of the great Speakers in American History, and our future Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, has a wonderful, powerful future ahead of him.
I am so very full of Kamala Harris, because she is running the most exciting campaign that we have seen since 1960 -- an election I remember quite well.
The 12-year-old Armando was very excited by JFK and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who promised a New Frontier, a very beautiful, new looking political scene, with rhetoric that reminded the then 12-year-old of Abraham Lincoln in the nobility of the English-language oratory.
How on EARTH can Fascist Trump/Vance garner more than 5% of the vote, with their hate speech.
Trump/Vance-Fascism violate the core principles in the American Polity founded upon "The Federalist Papers".
Kamala Harris must win, and she will be one of the best prepared and most inspirational leader among American Presidents in our history.
An age of Reconciliation must set in, and its only chance is under an Administration of Kamala Harris with House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries!
I too am looking forward to Hakeem Jeffries being the speaker of the house. Also 3rd in line for the presidency.
Vote 💙 today
It isn't tight....it will be a landslide for Harris
From yours (and my) lips…
Hans, I am hoping for a BLUE TSUNAMI!
Ignore Trump, true to form, predicted everywhere today, he is already claiming victory. He is even speaking in a calm voice to try to seem more believable to his people. He cannot fool us.
I had a cab driver today in Germany who asked questions about why I did not want Trump. I said, he lies and is dangerous. He responded and said, don't they both lie. I said, there is a difference. It is the difference between me telling my husband his tie looks good when I don't like it, and me telling him I put 100,000 into our bank account when I really took it out. So, he asked wouldn't I support the US pulling out of NATO and letting other countries pay for their own security. I said, "Yes, if they can, otherwise not." Then, I said, "Trump hates women, so the only women who vote for them are women who hate themselves, and that is not me. " He told me, "no woman should hate herself." I will take that to mean he thinks no woman should vote for Trump. I would agree. No man should either.
Later, my daughter told me a new acquaintance in one of her classes was surprised that she voted for Harris. This young woman thought most Europeans were for Trump. I said, perhaps her family votes for the AfD. My daughter said, I doubt it since they are Iranian/Persian. However, her friend is wrong about most Europeans in the polls I looked at. In Germany only 11 percent supports Trump winning in a DW poll. Here is a The Guardian poll showing how 7 countries feel about the US election.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/01/western-europeans-even-some-on-far-right-want-harris-victory-poll-finds
As a Democrat Abroad I have gotten so much affirmation from people here in Germany where I live. They are so pleased to help us get out the vote by giving materials to friends who can vote in the US and say supportive things. I was pleased that a person in Substack told me his niece in Germany got help voting in the US election based on links I had provided. I also have been going to Quiz bowl in a bar and announcing that I can provide voting help. However, our region felt that most helpful thing was our doing phone banking to Democrats Abroad and then for Swing States. Here are some numbers I got today on that.
"Some amazing stats from the phonebanking crew: even though we’d already called all (? I think even multiple times) active DA members in the last months, in the last week, phone bankers reached an additional 3,300+ inactive DA members which led to some last minute votes!
250,000+ calls in the first round of call campaigns
3,300+ calls in the special last round campaign
30,000+ calls with other DNC partners in the US.
Wow! These numbers can really make a difference. Thank you all!!! 🙏🙏🙏
Here in France most of the people I speak with are incredulous that Trump is even considered a contender. Furthermore they are extremely concerned about the possibility that he could win, fearing that a Trump victory would upset the equilibrium of democratic power worldwide and render Europe much more vulnerable.
Great work! Thanks for the link! Interesting. Europeans must think we’re all a bunch gun crazy nuts in the US. We’ll see if they’re half right.
🌊💙🇺🇲🌊💙🇺🇲
lol. Silly comment.
It may just be an overreaction after a year of cowering, but I’m feeling that way too. For one thing, as others have said, it’s actually statistically pretty weird for EVERY SINGLE poll to be a point or two apart. There haven’t been ANY outliers, and that’s … an outlier.
And Trump looks like %^*+. I mean, he always does, but the past couple of months he really has. And he’s definitely talking like someone who knows he’s only got the microphone for a couple more days.
That said, it probably won’t be over tonight—America’s Abusive Ex-Husband is probably not going to go away quietly. But it might.
What polls? I am not following them. The NYT taught me that they defy common sense. It was like when the German press was saying that there was 33% had voted for the AfD. While that sounds like a big number, only 15% of the country lives in the 5 states where the AfD has such prominence, and this was in 2 of those 5 states. So, 1?3 of less than 15% of the population is not a roaring mandate for the AfD. That is about the number of grievance people you would expect in any population, especially if they spend a lot of time on line on social media and are fodder for Russian disinformation. It will be a challenge to reclaim our youth from their addiction to social media and vile video games.
I agree!
I want my granddaughters to feel free to say : “I have two mommies”. I don’t want them to hear the words I often heard as a child, under a dictatorship in Argentina, when my parents warned me, in the dark, “not to repeat in school what I heard at home” - words my parents used repeatedly against the Dictator and his pretty wife, Evita.
I want my granddaughters to be proud of their family, an inclusive, loving, typical family, with an open door policy, filled with love, forgiveness, and understating. A family that wakes up early to make breakfast, prepare lunch boxes, and one mom runs off to work while putting some make up at red lights, and a “stay at home” mom who dashes back and forth to drive the kids to school, do the shopping, plan dinner, and keep the house in order.
I want my granddaughters to be who they want to be, not who society decides they should be. I want them to reach for the sky when it comes to their careers, to be fire people or nurses, or doctors or vets, to fly to the moon and back, and yes, to run for President, not as an exception but as a regular old thing.
I want them to be free and marry for love, not for convention. To be openly whatever they choose to be. To make mistakes. To be EQUAL in all ways to the boys they play with. To wear whatever clothing they want to wear. To not being exposed to being called “names”, which I won’t even mention here, because I want to eradicate name calling.
I want their freedom to marry or not to marry. To be with whomever they choose, without hiding behind darkened shutters in a dark room. To be proud of WHO they are, and not WHAT they are.
I want my granddaughters to be proud that their grandmother is an immigrant. A PROUD immigrant. Someone who came to this country with nothing, and who majored in French but went on to have a pretty impressive career in business. I want them to know of the courage of immigrants, how hard it is to leave the place with which you are comfortable. I want them to be protected from that, and to be free to spend the rest of their lives in the USA, where so much was sacrificed by their grandma and their great grandparents to get us to this point.
Is it too much to ask?
It is not too much. It is precisely what we must demand.
thank you with tears in my eyes, love, grandma
Jay,
I hope this election means your children will grow up in a country where Trump and his effects are history, not reality.
I think about my own children, who cannot remember an election in which Trump was not a candidate, and I hope we close this chapter and move on to brighter days ahead.
We do this for them.
Thank you for all the work you do!!!
As one of those "older women" voting for Kamala,
I say time to Rise!!!!!
Cast my vote for Kamala and Dems all down the ticket here in upstate NY this morning! And I am 69. I can't abide the idea of relegating women to the status of livestock and forcing them into second class citizenship!
Agreed! 51F and voted Blue all the way!
I have a friend who has advertised that she voted red.
She has daughters, grand daughters.
Of course she also believes in the likes of chem trails , 9 month abortion etc.
A “highly educated “ woman.
I just cringe.
I also like her and we do not overly talk politics.
I get people blocking or losing family and friends over politics, however, I know that although I think that they are totally wrong, they are still my friends. I also believe that they have the right to their opinions.
Vote 💙 today
That is the hope of all good people everywhere!
❤️Thank you! Enjoy you holiday. The work will begin soon enough!
❤️Happy Holidays! Have peace while we may.
I am grateful for your writings, Jay. And I am thankful for this community.
As for the pollsters, I do not care what their personal issues are. Times are changing. They are the typewriters loosing out to personal computers, the film cameras extinguished by digital, the landlines replaced by cell phones.
Ever since the Great Polling Debacle of 2016, I have ignored the polls. All of the polls, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
There are lies, damn lies, statistics, polls, and then there are the Republican trash-polls.
Optimism is good for the soul:
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY Trump appears in any comment I make - here on social media and in any other form.
VOTE !
Godspeed 💛💙
Had to stop doom scrolling about the ‘walking pestilence’ of Trump’s campaign.
Here’s hoping you are right 🙏🏻
You have help me preserve (what passes for) my sanity this election (century).
Thanks Jay! I'm crossing my fingers for the Trifecta!
I will accept just the White House, or the White House and the House. With the WH we can staunch the worst of the bleed toward fascism.
I agree in principle, but you know that a republican-controlled Senate would do everything it could to stymie her agenda and make her a one-term president. They would have no interest in working with her. Recent events and polling in MT suggest she may not have to worry about it, and Allred and Osborn are real possibilities.
Feeling energized this morning and grateful for Jay and Heather and Kamala!
Tremendous writeup, Jay...all the - as you put it - commonsense arguments for a Harris win, even a big win. However- yes, always with the "however" - allow me to yet again quote from the great curmudgeon and scorner of "the people", HL Mencken:
"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
Love to prove Mencken wrong, but 74,000,000 MAGA votes in 2020 shows some merit in his assessment.
Let’s hope those folks show up in fewer numbers this time around!
Either less show up, or more change their vote!
And yet we still won in a year with comparatively no GOTV. Maybe there are 74M idiots in America, but 81M said “no thank you” unprompted.
Thank You. Perfectly laid out. Makes total sense. Just in my experience American voting habits make so little sense and defy ligic over and over. I am still holding my breath and hope you are right. We are not going back!
Bravo for spelling this out for us! I have high hopes after doing lots of canvassing, phone banking, writing postcards, doing Honk & Waves, & marching or attending meetings & rallies almost every day for the past couple of months so I could sleep at night. Long live Kamala Harris & our democracy!
You've been a god-send this entire election cycle, Jay! Thank you--I pray that you're right, and I truly believe you are!