After Chicago

Spent four evenings watching almost every major speech at the DNC. That’s two full 24 hour days out of my life that I’ll never get back. That’s enough hot air to relaunch the Hindenburg many times over. So what do we know now that we didn’t know before? Not much. Over four days we heard nothing about how a Kamala administration plans to address the multiple challenges facing America. Not that anyone looks to Kamala for “leadership.” She wasn’t voted in by popular demand for her fresh ideas on foreign policy or the state of the economy, after all. No, she was chosen for the “joy” factor she brings to the race. Check out this essay at CNN by John Blake; Kamala Harris is tapping into the Black Joy movement. Indeed! Who needs policies when you’ve got Black Joy filling your sails! Blake posits an interesting theory I’d not been previously acquainted with. Kamala’s propensity for inappropriate laughter is actually the manifestation of a long tradition of Black resistance to White Supremacy! Not sure about that. I don’t recall any of the giants of the civil rights movement erupting into inane cackling whenever faced with a question. But that was then, and this is now. We roll different now. Democracy is different now. Ya, those political conventions in the old days were pretty crazy. It was considered normal to go into an open convention not knowing who the candidate would be! Just imagine how inefficient that was! It’s way more efficient to just have the big donors sort things out amongst themselves ahead of time, thereby freeing up the convention itself for a nonstop orgy of cheerleading! Ka-ma-la! Ka-ma-la! Ka-ma-la! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Say what you will about the Trump cult; the Dem cult is at least as deranged, if not more so. The signature achievement of the convention was the successful banishment of any discussion whatsoever about the ongoing US-sponsored genocide in Gaza. The Muslim population in America is growing exponentially faster than the Jewish population and will surpass it within a few years. That would be highly problematic for America’s blank-cheque support for Israel if we had a functioning democracy. Thank God the big donors have eliminated that risk! In fairness, both Joe and Kamala stressed that they have been working tirelessly to achieve a ceasefire, to get the hostages home and spare whatever Palestinian civilians aren’t dead yet. They’ve been working tirelessly on this humanitarian priority since the last ceasefire expired in November of 2023. As Uncle Tim might put it in his folksy way, “that gosh-darned ceasefire is slipperier than a greased pig at the county fair! We just can’t seem to rassle that sucker over the finish line.” And so the genocide grinds on…