Of course (most) women over 50 are breaking for Harris: we give a damn about our fellow women, from birth through old age, and will do everything we can to keep them healthy and safe. MAGA men do not. They don't even understand why we do. Right there is reason enough to vote out every single one of them.
Women who lived before Roe (like me) remember the back alley abortions, remember when we couldn't get a credit card in our own name, remember when our spouse or our father had to co-sign everything. No, we won't be getting abortions at this stage of the game, but we ALL remember those women and girls who were so desperate they used coat-hangers. My grandmother, a nurse, helped many young women -- including one who showed up on the doorstep in the '30s with blood running down her legs. At her funeral many of these women came -- complete strangers, but showing up to express their gratitude for her.
THAT is the who, what, where, and why we of a certain age support Harris and Waltz, and why the slogan "we will not go back" is so meaningful.
I was in middle school when the laws to allow women to get credit in their own name were enacted. I vividly recall how happy my mom was about that. Until that point, it had never occurred to me that women weren't allowed to do so. My mom managed day to day financial stuff like paying the bills and my dad would ask her for cash (since he couldn't be trusted to remember to record transactions in the checkbook). I thought that was normal.
Not too many years after that, I got a job ~200 miles from my family, bought a car with financing (without anyone cosigning the loan) and signed a lease on an apartment.
That would have been 1974. Hard for me to believe. My mother was 50 then, and I was in college on the other side of the country, which was probably why I wasn't aware of it. My maternal grandmother had earned a PhD in 1915, before women got the vote, and both my mother and her sister had PhDs long before they could get credit in their own names. Luckily their husbands were on their side.
Your grandmother and aunts paved the way for women like me to walk. No one told me I could not get a Ph.D. in Physics because your Oma and Aunts made it possible. My hats off to them.
My late father was a latter day feminist after living with my mother for many, many years. I was headed off to college in 1974, and I got a call from the president of our local bank. "You father wants you to come in and fill out an application." I made the appointment and went. I was 18. The application was for my first credit card. Ok, so the nudge came from above, but I did it myself. I kept that card for years.
My mom got me a credit card at age 18 in 1984. How I took it all for granted that we had the right to get one, not realizing that it had only been available to women for a decade at that point. I still have that card.
I love how your father was looking after you. My own father (I'm 80, he was born in 1907) did much the same for me - escorting me at age 16 to the Social Security office to sign up, escorting me to the bank when I set up my first bank account (bcz my first, summer job), explaining how to write checks, how to write one for cash, how to endorse a check, how and when to check the oil in a car... He was actively involved in helping me learn about all those basic things necessary for setting up a life. However, he did 'farm out' teaching me to ride a two-wheel bike as a kid, and how to drive a car because, as my mother joked, he was "congenitally impatient.
As to the two wheel bike; when I got one I practiced for weeks in our basement, because I wanted to come out in public RIDING that bike. I will admit I had my quirks as a kid.
My dad was like that, too. Mom managed all the finances in our house. It was especially helpful during Dad's periodic layoffs. (He was middle management; always the first to be let go.)
Because of my father's career, we spent three years in San Antonio. My eighth, ninth, and tenth grade years. In my eighth grade class a girl got pregnant and disappeared one day. In ninth grade another girl got pregnant and was shot-gun married by her family. Every single day in the paper were stories of another girl who died from a botched abortion. Not going back, no, no, not going back.
I have a very similar story - 8th grade, one of our classmates vanished - turned out she'd been raped by her father and they took her to Mexico to get an abortion, which killed her. I've been pro-choice ever since.
We will not go BACK! Restore planned parenthood to is former functioning so we prevent unwanted pregnancy ! The fact that so many clinics couldn't function is horrible. Hoping for the future!
When I was first out of college in the '70s, I used Planned Parenthood in NYC for gynecologic care because it was inexpensive and good. I couldn't afford a private gynecologist. I am so sad at the loss of those services for young women just starting out.
Any man who values the women in his life, as I do, would not think of voting for the former guy. Women's reproductive systems are way more complicated than those of men, and insuring that women have access to reproductive care is absolutely critical, as the sad and upsetting cases due to Dobbs have demonstrated, and I wish the wives and significant others of MAGA men would all go Lysistrata on them.
It's not even the reproductive issue to me, David. When the Access Hollywood tape came out, THAT was the point where, no matter what I already knew about the creep, I would work tirelessly to get everyone to understand just how low-life he truly is. There are a thousand other issues, but that one pushed me over the edge.
Thank you! Fortunately all the men in my immediate family and circle of friends agree with you. I'm glad to see the Access Hollywood tape making a fresh appearance among the youth of TikTok. For me, it was also him mocking a disabled reporter ... I hope that clip also sees new light, because it encapsulates Trump's attitude toward the vulnerable. He has no business being within an ass's roar of the levers of power.
He's one of the worst H. sapiens who's ever walked the planet. Probably as evil as Hitler. The sooner he's in prison, dead, or totally demented, the better.
I live in a neighborhood with 3 asses, of the donkey kind, and I can easily tell you how far their roar, also known as a bray, travels, even thru closed windows! And that is still too close for me.
The thing that convinced me that Trump is a true scumball was when I realized--long before Access Hollywood--that the business plan of "Trump University" was to get people to pay the tuition by maxing out their credit cards, by convincing them that they'd make large amounts of money using the knowledge gained. It was easy for me to understand that this was bullshit, having all the knowledge that I did from growing up with two professor parents, and going to good private schools for most of my primary and secondary eduction, but understanding that Trump's marks had not had the advantages that I had had.
I agree with you about what the access hollywood tape signifies, but it absolutely IS a reproductive health issue as well. Many women have died, and many more have had their bodies irreparably harmed due to the lack of availability of abortion in around half of the states in the Union. One can blame that on the SCOTUS Justices who voted for Dobbs, and of course, Trump is ultimately to blame, and I will be glad when he is in prison, and I will glad when he is dead.
Wholeheartedly agree, David!! But the tape came first, at least for me, and the thousand of so other atrocities followed. Truth be told, I've known what a scumbag he is since the early 80's. Being a Clevelander, and a Browns fan, I was outraged when our quarterback, Brian Sipe, signed with a team in the upstart USFL from New Jersey. The team's owner was a bluster-f*ck named Trump, and I wanted to know more about how he was able to coerce MY QB out of town to a dead-end league and franchise. What I found was a carpet-bagger, who was absolutely HATED in NYC. I've been aware of him since, and am appalled that so many of our neighbors have been hood-winked by him, just like my QB was way back when. A standard death would be too kind for the likes of him, and it can't come soon enough for me, too!
Surely, even to “the Nates”, it’s indisputable that the heretofore understated female voter cohort is in fact showing up in record amounts vs the male counterpart, and breaking strongly for Harris. The dumb-ass polling consistently fails to account for the Dobbs effect, perhaps even worse than in 2022, when the SC decision came only a few months before the mid-terms.
But the consequences of Dobbs have now been keenly felt, tRump and Hillbilly have doubled down on archaic patriarchy - if not outright misogyny - and it’s curtains for MAGA and the vulgar, wretched GOP ticket.
I’m 77, and my 2 daughters are in their late 40’s, so past the age where they could possibly get pregnant. However, my 9 yr old granddaughter will soon be entering puberty, and the thought of her going thru the next 35 yrs of her life without the option of healthy reproductive care is not something I am willing to tolerate in any way. So get out of my way MAGA voters and any of you men who think this is not a big deal. Let’s try permanently taking away your Viagra, condoms, and testicular cancer treatments and then you might begin to understand why this really is a very big deal for women.
The women of the 50+ generation do NOT want to hand off a country where their children and grandchildren have fewer rights than they did. It's, frankly, shocking to hear how many republican men think issues ONLY matter when they affect them personally, and are flummoxed that women give a damn about other people, too. That's a reflection on the shallowness of those men. But like Jon Snow, they know nothing.
Unfortunately, there are several women who are still under Trump's spell. I know of at least two, unfortunately. They believe all of the misinformation about Trump's economy being great, border security, and Afghanistan, to name a few.
I was poll observing during EV last week and a women came in wearing a bubblegum pink ball cap with MAGA embroidered on it, a Trump t-shirt and a jeans jacket. She had brought her grade school daughter wearing the same Trump t-shirt. UGH!! Indoctrination starts young with those people.
Here in Los Angeles County, where I am currently working as a Vote Center Clerk, “electioneering” is not allowed within 100 feet of the polling place, and it is clearly marked *everywhere*! Wearing clothing that supports a candidate, as you’ve described, is against the law and we have been trained to ask the person to please remove the clothing before they can enter. Period. We have been trained that if there are “problems” with that person becoming belligerent or threatening, the Lead will call the police to assist with their removal.
I can’t imagine that being allowed in ANY state, but I don’t know election laws outside of California.
I was poll greeting during the 2022 primaries in Durham and could not vote while wearing a t-shirt with the name of a school board candidate. I went to my car, scrunched down in the sear, took off the shirt, turned it inside out and went back in and voted. And no spring chicken either.
In the day before we make history, I want to thank Jay and everyone here! You all have helped me get through this crazy time with humor and solid information with no spin, even if the information was bad.
My feeling is that Harris is poised to win BIG tomorrow!
My Madam President lawn sign is waiting to go! I second your thanks to Jay and everyone here for helping each other get through these anxious times. I'd also like to thank Joyce Vance's emotional support chickens.
A somewhat disengaged older man (about my own age) asked me what difference it would make voting for Harris instead of Trump.
I told him that if Harris were elected the country would continue to be a democracy and function in accordance with the constitution. Since that is the way we have functioned for 248 years, that makes it a conservative vote. It would also mean that if he was dissatisfied in four years, he would have the opportunity to vote again and change the results.
If Donald Trump is elected, both his plans and the plans of the people backing him are to overturn Democracy and replace it with an autocratically led oligarchy with unchecked power. That is neither liberal nor conservative, but revolutionary. As it is currently planned, it would be the last free election in this country.
The things that Trump's team have said they will do are bad enough. However a fascist revolution also evolves in some entirely unpredictable ways, because the government becomes an extension of the individual personality of the dictator. Donald Trump's personality, such as it is, has no moral or philosophical principles guiding it; only personal gratification. It is also unraveling at an alarming rate due to obvious prefrontal dementia. (Donald Trump's father developed Alzheimer's.)
A vote for Donald Trump thus becomes a vote for a big black box. You have only the vaguest idea of what might be inside it, but if you use history as a guide the chances of it being anything good approaches zero. There has NEVER been a single example in history where overturning a democracy in favor of a dictatorship turned out well for the average citizen. Not one.
I am not a Christian myself, but I have used the Old Testament story about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a "mess of pottage" to describe any voter willing to sell their right to vote for lower grocery prices. Of course, they don't really understand WHY their grocery prices are higher either.
I truly appreciate folks like you who are able to have a conversation like the one you wrote about in your first post. Even imagining it, my blood boils and I become ineffective in my cause. Maybe it’s my response to the adrenaline? I dunno. But I thank you for doing what I so far have been unable to do.
There are people whose lives are quite small and focused only on their own day-to-day problems. It is often difficult for such a person to comprehend how large scale events affect them. I am not talking about a rabid MAGA convert, but someone who truly does not know or understand what is at stake. Such a person is almost by definition a "low information voter." Those are the people that the two campaigns have been trying to reach in the final weeks of the campaign.
Polls, schmolls, what is indisputably and objectively CORRECT and patently OBVIOUS has been the yuuge female-voter cohort as reflected in virtually all early-vote compilations, and significantly out-distancing the male-voter cohort.. And not only that, but Democratic turnout has been anchored by women voters, and what suggests a small but significant GOP anti-tRump/ex-Haley voters going to Harris.
If that early-vote enthusiasm is maintained during same-day voting tomorrow, and tRump's low-propensity "bro-vote" continues its disengagement, this election will be a walkover. This is THE women's election to win, by. a large or even narrow margin, but they will defeat tRump, full stop.
I wanted to share this article from the editorial staff of the Minnesota Star Tribune. The company decided not to endorse this year, and that staff is not happy, so they are publishing their endorsements via social media.
Of course older women are voting for Harris, they remember the days when their rights didn't exist!
I'm still in awe of how much Kamala's gotten done in just 100 days. She hit the ground running and hasn't missed a step since; picking Walz as her running mate was a genuine masterstroke. The combination of the pair of them shows future leaders who are strong, intelligent, kind, determined to get things done and fearless in the face of fascism.
Some older women have daughters, or sons who marry other's daughters.
The short-sightedness of their pandering to the Nationalist "Christians" is breathtaking, as is the outright lying the Extreme Court's politicians in robes lies at each of their confirmation hearings.
Anita Hill TOLD US about Thomas, but nOOoooooo.
MAGAts are the dog that caught the car. And now the car is coming back around, fast.
The GOP have badly underestimated women! And they always have, but now they will finally pay the price for it. Here is an interesting quote:
“I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” ~Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams, 1776
The Harris/Walz ground game has been simply outstanding, while Dipshit Musk has literally thrown money but little else other than rhetoric (and, apparently, his mommy) at the problem.
We are within a time in history the likes of which we could never, ever, ever have predicted, but in a very real way the divisiveness and bid for domination has aroused a fierce patriotism in the majority, a fellowship that will play well in the immediate and long-term future.
If I had to sum the campaign up here at the end, I would say it came down to the mean, mendacious patriarchy against literally everyone else. I don't think there are many outside the MAGA sphere they have not offended. They even have older white women up against him and their Project 2025. They had better be ready to sedate the Orange One tomorrow night.
I would add that I remember in 2016, Trump actually shut up for the last couple of weeks to let the Comey investigation dominate the news. It has been the opposite this time around.
Thanks for your hard work over the past several months providing principled analyses of both the legal and election scenarios we've been facing. Congratulations on your daughter, your effective work in the lbgt community and your general decency.
We, those thinking people, know how horrible he would be for this country and the world, and yet there are so many people who ignore the obvious. They believe the rhetoric about how Kamala did thus and so, even though she was a VICE President and had no authority to actually do anything.
Women over 50 are the very people who understand what has been lost to their children's and grandchildren's generations with the godawful Dobbs decision. OF COURSE, they're the ones motivated to correct it. The republican notion that people only care about things which affect them personally is a reflection of their ethos, not ours. Republicans have only ever given a damn about something after it hits home for THEM. But they are not us.
Of course (most) women over 50 are breaking for Harris: we give a damn about our fellow women, from birth through old age, and will do everything we can to keep them healthy and safe. MAGA men do not. They don't even understand why we do. Right there is reason enough to vote out every single one of them.
Women who lived before Roe (like me) remember the back alley abortions, remember when we couldn't get a credit card in our own name, remember when our spouse or our father had to co-sign everything. No, we won't be getting abortions at this stage of the game, but we ALL remember those women and girls who were so desperate they used coat-hangers. My grandmother, a nurse, helped many young women -- including one who showed up on the doorstep in the '30s with blood running down her legs. At her funeral many of these women came -- complete strangers, but showing up to express their gratitude for her.
THAT is the who, what, where, and why we of a certain age support Harris and Waltz, and why the slogan "we will not go back" is so meaningful.
I was in middle school when the laws to allow women to get credit in their own name were enacted. I vividly recall how happy my mom was about that. Until that point, it had never occurred to me that women weren't allowed to do so. My mom managed day to day financial stuff like paying the bills and my dad would ask her for cash (since he couldn't be trusted to remember to record transactions in the checkbook). I thought that was normal.
Not too many years after that, I got a job ~200 miles from my family, bought a car with financing (without anyone cosigning the loan) and signed a lease on an apartment.
That would have been 1974. Hard for me to believe. My mother was 50 then, and I was in college on the other side of the country, which was probably why I wasn't aware of it. My maternal grandmother had earned a PhD in 1915, before women got the vote, and both my mother and her sister had PhDs long before they could get credit in their own names. Luckily their husbands were on their side.
Your grandmother and aunts paved the way for women like me to walk. No one told me I could not get a Ph.D. in Physics because your Oma and Aunts made it possible. My hats off to them.
My late father was a latter day feminist after living with my mother for many, many years. I was headed off to college in 1974, and I got a call from the president of our local bank. "You father wants you to come in and fill out an application." I made the appointment and went. I was 18. The application was for my first credit card. Ok, so the nudge came from above, but I did it myself. I kept that card for years.
My mom got me a credit card at age 18 in 1984. How I took it all for granted that we had the right to get one, not realizing that it had only been available to women for a decade at that point. I still have that card.
I love how your father was looking after you. My own father (I'm 80, he was born in 1907) did much the same for me - escorting me at age 16 to the Social Security office to sign up, escorting me to the bank when I set up my first bank account (bcz my first, summer job), explaining how to write checks, how to write one for cash, how to endorse a check, how and when to check the oil in a car... He was actively involved in helping me learn about all those basic things necessary for setting up a life. However, he did 'farm out' teaching me to ride a two-wheel bike as a kid, and how to drive a car because, as my mother joked, he was "congenitally impatient.
As to the two wheel bike; when I got one I practiced for weeks in our basement, because I wanted to come out in public RIDING that bike. I will admit I had my quirks as a kid.
My dad was like that, too. Mom managed all the finances in our house. It was especially helpful during Dad's periodic layoffs. (He was middle management; always the first to be let go.)
Absolutely. I am one of those women who can remember the horror of abortions before Roe v Wade.
Because of my father's career, we spent three years in San Antonio. My eighth, ninth, and tenth grade years. In my eighth grade class a girl got pregnant and disappeared one day. In ninth grade another girl got pregnant and was shot-gun married by her family. Every single day in the paper were stories of another girl who died from a botched abortion. Not going back, no, no, not going back.
How awful!
I have a very similar story - 8th grade, one of our classmates vanished - turned out she'd been raped by her father and they took her to Mexico to get an abortion, which killed her. I've been pro-choice ever since.
I remember those days, too.
Three cheers for the Silver Surge. We remember and we won’t go back!
Shout it, Sister! We won't go back!!!
We will not go BACK! Restore planned parenthood to is former functioning so we prevent unwanted pregnancy ! The fact that so many clinics couldn't function is horrible. Hoping for the future!
When I was first out of college in the '70s, I used Planned Parenthood in NYC for gynecologic care because it was inexpensive and good. I couldn't afford a private gynecologist. I am so sad at the loss of those services for young women just starting out.
Right!!!
Chills!!!
Any man who values the women in his life, as I do, would not think of voting for the former guy. Women's reproductive systems are way more complicated than those of men, and insuring that women have access to reproductive care is absolutely critical, as the sad and upsetting cases due to Dobbs have demonstrated, and I wish the wives and significant others of MAGA men would all go Lysistrata on them.
It's not even the reproductive issue to me, David. When the Access Hollywood tape came out, THAT was the point where, no matter what I already knew about the creep, I would work tirelessly to get everyone to understand just how low-life he truly is. There are a thousand other issues, but that one pushed me over the edge.
Thank you! Fortunately all the men in my immediate family and circle of friends agree with you. I'm glad to see the Access Hollywood tape making a fresh appearance among the youth of TikTok. For me, it was also him mocking a disabled reporter ... I hope that clip also sees new light, because it encapsulates Trump's attitude toward the vulnerable. He has no business being within an ass's roar of the levers of power.
He's one of the worst H. sapiens who's ever walked the planet. Probably as evil as Hitler. The sooner he's in prison, dead, or totally demented, the better.
I live in a neighborhood with 3 asses, of the donkey kind, and I can easily tell you how far their roar, also known as a bray, travels, even thru closed windows! And that is still too close for me.
See my comment which is now (at 12:52 eastern on election day) directly above yours.
The thing that convinced me that Trump is a true scumball was when I realized--long before Access Hollywood--that the business plan of "Trump University" was to get people to pay the tuition by maxing out their credit cards, by convincing them that they'd make large amounts of money using the knowledge gained. It was easy for me to understand that this was bullshit, having all the knowledge that I did from growing up with two professor parents, and going to good private schools for most of my primary and secondary eduction, but understanding that Trump's marks had not had the advantages that I had had.
I agree with you about what the access hollywood tape signifies, but it absolutely IS a reproductive health issue as well. Many women have died, and many more have had their bodies irreparably harmed due to the lack of availability of abortion in around half of the states in the Union. One can blame that on the SCOTUS Justices who voted for Dobbs, and of course, Trump is ultimately to blame, and I will be glad when he is in prison, and I will glad when he is dead.
Wholeheartedly agree, David!! But the tape came first, at least for me, and the thousand of so other atrocities followed. Truth be told, I've known what a scumbag he is since the early 80's. Being a Clevelander, and a Browns fan, I was outraged when our quarterback, Brian Sipe, signed with a team in the upstart USFL from New Jersey. The team's owner was a bluster-f*ck named Trump, and I wanted to know more about how he was able to coerce MY QB out of town to a dead-end league and franchise. What I found was a carpet-bagger, who was absolutely HATED in NYC. I've been aware of him since, and am appalled that so many of our neighbors have been hood-winked by him, just like my QB was way back when. A standard death would be too kind for the likes of him, and it can't come soon enough for me, too!
Amen! We women are compassionate and care about all women & how the laws affect them. It’s not about me me me & screw everyone else.
Surely, even to “the Nates”, it’s indisputable that the heretofore understated female voter cohort is in fact showing up in record amounts vs the male counterpart, and breaking strongly for Harris. The dumb-ass polling consistently fails to account for the Dobbs effect, perhaps even worse than in 2022, when the SC decision came only a few months before the mid-terms.
But the consequences of Dobbs have now been keenly felt, tRump and Hillbilly have doubled down on archaic patriarchy - if not outright misogyny - and it’s curtains for MAGA and the vulgar, wretched GOP ticket.
I’m 77, and my 2 daughters are in their late 40’s, so past the age where they could possibly get pregnant. However, my 9 yr old granddaughter will soon be entering puberty, and the thought of her going thru the next 35 yrs of her life without the option of healthy reproductive care is not something I am willing to tolerate in any way. So get out of my way MAGA voters and any of you men who think this is not a big deal. Let’s try permanently taking away your Viagra, condoms, and testicular cancer treatments and then you might begin to understand why this really is a very big deal for women.
The women of the 50+ generation do NOT want to hand off a country where their children and grandchildren have fewer rights than they did. It's, frankly, shocking to hear how many republican men think issues ONLY matter when they affect them personally, and are flummoxed that women give a damn about other people, too. That's a reflection on the shallowness of those men. But like Jon Snow, they know nothing.
I hear you! Empathy and experience are your power! I might not be a woman anymore but I'll damn well keep that combination in my heart.
A lot of the women over 50 marched for the rights that were taken away!
AND we did a whole lot of work this year, writing postcards, canvassing, all the things. We are in this to WIN!
Unfortunately, there are several women who are still under Trump's spell. I know of at least two, unfortunately. They believe all of the misinformation about Trump's economy being great, border security, and Afghanistan, to name a few.
I was poll observing during EV last week and a women came in wearing a bubblegum pink ball cap with MAGA embroidered on it, a Trump t-shirt and a jeans jacket. She had brought her grade school daughter wearing the same Trump t-shirt. UGH!! Indoctrination starts young with those people.
That’s bizarre that they were not asked to leave!
Here in Los Angeles County, where I am currently working as a Vote Center Clerk, “electioneering” is not allowed within 100 feet of the polling place, and it is clearly marked *everywhere*! Wearing clothing that supports a candidate, as you’ve described, is against the law and we have been trained to ask the person to please remove the clothing before they can enter. Period. We have been trained that if there are “problems” with that person becoming belligerent or threatening, the Lead will call the police to assist with their removal.
I can’t imagine that being allowed in ANY state, but I don’t know election laws outside of California.
I was poll greeting during the 2022 primaries in Durham and could not vote while wearing a t-shirt with the name of a school board candidate. I went to my car, scrunched down in the sear, took off the shirt, turned it inside out and went back in and voted. And no spring chicken either.
Grandmas for Harris.
And great uncles for Harris!
You are SO right, CroneEver!! 🌊💙🇺🇲🌊💙🇺🇲
Thank you for helping me get through this election season. I've appreciated your explanations and encouraging words. Now may the best woman win.
In the day before we make history, I want to thank Jay and everyone here! You all have helped me get through this crazy time with humor and solid information with no spin, even if the information was bad.
My feeling is that Harris is poised to win BIG tomorrow!
My Madam President lawn sign is waiting to go! I second your thanks to Jay and everyone here for helping each other get through these anxious times. I'd also like to thank Joyce Vance's emotional support chickens.
I've been shopping for a "Trump Lost" sign.....Lost Again would be perfect
It would be more eye-catching to note the "again" in trump's favorite black sharpie, right onto that yard sign.
Or a "Trump is going to Jail" sign.
My fav lawn sign , because it’s prone to a double-take, is:
Trump
20-24
Years In Prison
Cafe Press and Etsy are good places to look.
A somewhat disengaged older man (about my own age) asked me what difference it would make voting for Harris instead of Trump.
I told him that if Harris were elected the country would continue to be a democracy and function in accordance with the constitution. Since that is the way we have functioned for 248 years, that makes it a conservative vote. It would also mean that if he was dissatisfied in four years, he would have the opportunity to vote again and change the results.
If Donald Trump is elected, both his plans and the plans of the people backing him are to overturn Democracy and replace it with an autocratically led oligarchy with unchecked power. That is neither liberal nor conservative, but revolutionary. As it is currently planned, it would be the last free election in this country.
The things that Trump's team have said they will do are bad enough. However a fascist revolution also evolves in some entirely unpredictable ways, because the government becomes an extension of the individual personality of the dictator. Donald Trump's personality, such as it is, has no moral or philosophical principles guiding it; only personal gratification. It is also unraveling at an alarming rate due to obvious prefrontal dementia. (Donald Trump's father developed Alzheimer's.)
A vote for Donald Trump thus becomes a vote for a big black box. You have only the vaguest idea of what might be inside it, but if you use history as a guide the chances of it being anything good approaches zero. There has NEVER been a single example in history where overturning a democracy in favor of a dictatorship turned out well for the average citizen. Not one.
After that great description did he tell you who he would vote for?
He said that he hadn't thought about voting for Kamala Harris as being a conservative vote before.
“Disengaged” is a generous description.
I am not a Christian myself, but I have used the Old Testament story about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a "mess of pottage" to describe any voter willing to sell their right to vote for lower grocery prices. Of course, they don't really understand WHY their grocery prices are higher either.
I truly appreciate folks like you who are able to have a conversation like the one you wrote about in your first post. Even imagining it, my blood boils and I become ineffective in my cause. Maybe it’s my response to the adrenaline? I dunno. But I thank you for doing what I so far have been unable to do.
Thank you for your kind words.
There are people whose lives are quite small and focused only on their own day-to-day problems. It is often difficult for such a person to comprehend how large scale events affect them. I am not talking about a rabid MAGA convert, but someone who truly does not know or understand what is at stake. Such a person is almost by definition a "low information voter." Those are the people that the two campaigns have been trying to reach in the final weeks of the campaign.
A vote for Trump is a vote for a JD Vance presidency. Never underestimate the fury of a pissed off woman.
Yeah - what Doug said. That's what I think too.
Polls, schmolls, what is indisputably and objectively CORRECT and patently OBVIOUS has been the yuuge female-voter cohort as reflected in virtually all early-vote compilations, and significantly out-distancing the male-voter cohort.. And not only that, but Democratic turnout has been anchored by women voters, and what suggests a small but significant GOP anti-tRump/ex-Haley voters going to Harris.
If that early-vote enthusiasm is maintained during same-day voting tomorrow, and tRump's low-propensity "bro-vote" continues its disengagement, this election will be a walkover. This is THE women's election to win, by. a large or even narrow margin, but they will defeat tRump, full stop.
I wanted to share this article from the editorial staff of the Minnesota Star Tribune. The company decided not to endorse this year, and that staff is not happy, so they are publishing their endorsements via social media.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/12Cw9Ry9fct/
I worked for the Star Tribune for 40 years and this is so disappointing that they are buckling to pressures of this election.
The "obeying in advance" is one of the precursors to tyranny. LA Times too.
Thank you, I shared it.
Of course older women are voting for Harris, they remember the days when their rights didn't exist!
I'm still in awe of how much Kamala's gotten done in just 100 days. She hit the ground running and hasn't missed a step since; picking Walz as her running mate was a genuine masterstroke. The combination of the pair of them shows future leaders who are strong, intelligent, kind, determined to get things done and fearless in the face of fascism.
Some older women have daughters, or sons who marry other's daughters.
The short-sightedness of their pandering to the Nationalist "Christians" is breathtaking, as is the outright lying the Extreme Court's politicians in robes lies at each of their confirmation hearings.
Anita Hill TOLD US about Thomas, but nOOoooooo.
MAGAts are the dog that caught the car. And now the car is coming back around, fast.
The GOP have badly underestimated women! And they always have, but now they will finally pay the price for it. Here is an interesting quote:
“I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” ~Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams, 1776
Abigail was a great woman! John should have listened to her.
Excellent!
You last paragraph is terrific! Giving thanks to hardworking Kamala and Tim.🤗🤗🤗
The Harris/Walz ground game has been simply outstanding, while Dipshit Musk has literally thrown money but little else other than rhetoric (and, apparently, his mommy) at the problem.
We are within a time in history the likes of which we could never, ever, ever have predicted, but in a very real way the divisiveness and bid for domination has aroused a fierce patriotism in the majority, a fellowship that will play well in the immediate and long-term future.
If I had to sum the campaign up here at the end, I would say it came down to the mean, mendacious patriarchy against literally everyone else. I don't think there are many outside the MAGA sphere they have not offended. They even have older white women up against him and their Project 2025. They had better be ready to sedate the Orange One tomorrow night.
I would add that I remember in 2016, Trump actually shut up for the last couple of weeks to let the Comey investigation dominate the news. It has been the opposite this time around.
And plenty of us older white women have been opposed to and disgusted by him….since we were younger white women in the ‘80s. Always pervy slime.
(NEVER UP AGAINST him! Just gross.)
Thanks for your hard work over the past several months providing principled analyses of both the legal and election scenarios we've been facing. Congratulations on your daughter, your effective work in the lbgt community and your general decency.
I’m trying to stop being scared witless. Your words help.
Absolutely giving thanks to and for Harris and Walz.
We, those thinking people, know how horrible he would be for this country and the world, and yet there are so many people who ignore the obvious. They believe the rhetoric about how Kamala did thus and so, even though she was a VICE President and had no authority to actually do anything.
Women over 50 are the very people who understand what has been lost to their children's and grandchildren's generations with the godawful Dobbs decision. OF COURSE, they're the ones motivated to correct it. The republican notion that people only care about things which affect them personally is a reflection of their ethos, not ours. Republicans have only ever given a damn about something after it hits home for THEM. But they are not us.