The Witness Chronicles, September 12, 2024

A different Swift and another Fail in the House of Representatives

Photo by Lava Lavanda on Unsplash

A Swiftian End and Other Oddities

Debate, debate, debate

How many words can be said about the debate this week and when will it stop? The media and the pundits have dissected this thing every which way there is and all agree (except of course the loyalists) that Trump was beat down, bad. He lost and made a fool of himself, his running mate, and those who spread stories so bizarre they should never see the light of day.

And yet…nothing has been learned and the right is doubling down.

Let’s take the Taylor Swift endorsement, a beautifully timed social media stab by the queen of the medium. Her 283 million Instagram followers received her message just minutes after the debate ended and it was a doozy. Articulate, sharp as a razor blade, and punctuated by a gorgeous fashion photo of her and a cat.

It was brilliant. But can the Childless Cat Lady’s endorsement change things? Swiftian used to refer to something that echoed the brilliant sarcasm of 18th century writer Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels). But there is a new Swift in town and her reach is far beyond anything imagined even a few years ago.

But, like most social media, is it momentary or will it have an effect? The big story is that the government site vote.gov got 337,000 hits from the link she posted, in the first 24 hours. This is a site that provides information on how to register, but not the ability to register. You must go to your own state’s site to do that, and it provides links.

How many took those steps is unknown, though I’m sure it will get dissected in detail. Swift’s influence is important because it reaches deep into a huge and often apolitical group (younger women) and may bring more to the election booth. Anything that expands the base among Gen Z is good for Kamala Harris.

I’ve been rattling on about this expanding your base thing for a while now because to my amateur eyes, it looks like the defining factor in who wins this election . And every indicator is that there is a huge shift going on in American politics.

In with the new, out with the old might be the theme. Before Biden dropped out we were stuck with the old on both sides (I’m in my sixties, so I am not bashing older folks). Then a political miracle happened and suddenly the old was on its way out, replaced by the less old.

Demographics are starting to tell this story, beginning with Florida. After Governor Ron DeSantis exposed his idiotic heavy hand censoring everything in sight while conducting a terrible campaign to win the Republican nomination, there was a backlash.

It turns out banishing books, ending freedom of speech in schools, and bashing gays is not as popular as he thought. Florida was long known as the retirement state but that reality is long gone, and so is its influence in politics. Despite it being Donald Trump’s adopted home state, it is now in play politically.

These days I would say that the Sunshine State is now the Climate Change State, and since climate change does not exist for the Republican Party, that is not good for the right and Mr. DeSantis. I’m one generation down from the last of the ‘retire to Florida’ generation and that is not changing. The youth see it as a place to party, not a place to live.

And climate change is the number one issue among younger voters.

That’s one thing. But it points to changes across the map that the Republican Party does not seem to understand. Their response to Taylor Swift was swift (couldn’t resist) and it was threats, as usual. The usual implied violence threats and threats that her record and concert sales would plunge because of her endorsement.

Yeah, right. The geniuses making those threats are way underestimating the Swift fans, whose loyalty to Taylor goes far beyond the sad and shrinking legions of MAGA Trumpies. Why a campaign would go after that huge demographic is mind boggling.

So, Swift and Florida. And childless cat ladies. And those who believe that a woman should have the right to save her own life or not carry a child conceived from rape or incest. And every legal immigrant who does not eat those childless cat ladies’ cats. And all of us who watched as a former President and current Republican Candidate attacked all those things on national TV to an audience of 67 million.

If you still don’t think Donald Trump is crazy or just plain stupid, how much more proof do you need? Or that JD Vance is nothing more than a misogynist pinhead after he doubled down on his stupid pet-eating story.

As someone who pays way too much attention to this, it is tough to not get sucked into how totally bizarre all of it has been and the bizarro is increasing daily. But something stands out this week. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are not bizarre. They are not weird. They are normal.

Normal. And it looks like Taylor Swift is pretty normal too. I vote for normal.

Meanwhile in the House of Representatives

Sometimes when I sit down to organize my thoughts and see if they are worth writing about, the writing helps me put things in perspective. And sometimes things are so surrealistic that it’s hard to do that. We’re in those surrealistic times and the right seems determined to keep it that way right through the election and beyond. It is the beyond that worries me.

There is a huge political story going on right now that has been eclipsed by the debate and Ms Swift; the impending closure of the government by incompetent right wing Republican House members who cannot agree, even among themselves, on anything.

They tried to hijack the election by attaching a law to the budget resolution that would keep the government open. That attachment would require proof of citizenship to vote, which would mean you better dig out your passport or birth certificate on November Fifth, if you have them.

But, of course, it failed because of infighting among those who proposed it. So Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the resolution. The entire thing is meaningless because it was going nowhere in the Senate. It was a stunt but the effects of that stunt may very well be the shutdown of the federal government just weeks before an election.

Trump losing the debate is a big story but so is the possibility of a shutdown and the utter failure by the Republicans in Congress to do their jobs. One story is much more entertaining but both are things we should be watching and considering when we walk into a room and cast our votes in November.

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