RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 309: Palestinian Voices, Fascist Images, and Shilling for Democrats
Ep 309 of RevolutionZ offers insights from an essay by over a hundred Palestinian, Arab American, Muslim, and progressive leaders in Arizona, takes a historical detour into the emergence of Nazism in Germany and its then U.S. echoes, considers the meaning of the label shill for the Democratic Party, considers Trump's voters, and post election communications.
This is my last pre-election episode. Hopefully my next one, recorded once the tallies are tallied, will offer some comments on what happened and, dare I say it, on what (I think) is to be done.
So what am I expecting from the election? I'd rather not speculate, but if I must, I would put 40% Trump will win a very close race, 40% Harris will win a very close race, and 20% and honestly, I think maybe more than that, that Harris will win quite comfortably, at least as these things go.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and this is the 309th consecutive episode of the podcast titled Revolution Z. I've been prioritizing, in episodes I have been recording and in articles that I have been writing, over 15 of the latter, I think the coming US election. By now, everyone who will hear this episode, recorded exactly a week before the election, undoubtedly knows why. Likewise, everyone who will hear this knows my broad views about diverse issues associated with the election. An overview, however, is in the essay I did with Stephen Shalom, for example, and in a couple of more, since all available on Z-Net. So thinking about what to discuss today was a bit of a strain. Should I just repeat points, pounding away again like an out-of-control jackhammer? That didn't seem like a great idea with just a week to go. And yet maybe in some senses it would be, because while for some people the arguments are well understood and considered, and so it would be redundant for them, others do seem to me to be not hearing, not seeing, not registering what I and others have been trying to communicate. Or should I instead take up something different, with less immediate relevance but with continuing relevance beyond the election? That might be more productive. So I decided to do a little of each. I'm going to read two pieces. The first, quite interestingly, bears more hysterically on the combat fascism issue in this election. The second bears on the who says vote Harrison swing states issue. And then, after reading the two pieces, to bring the fascism focus from history to the present, I will comment on the idea that Trump is a dictator-in-waiting and that Trump voters are fascists. And to bring the who-says-vote-for-Harris-and-swing-states issue into perhaps a more personal frame, I will comment on the concept of shills for the Democratic Party. Comment on the concept of shills for the Democratic Party. Finally, I will address a much more general issue regarding post-election ongoing productive communications and organizing.
Speaker 1:So to start, here is an essay that appears on Z, where you can read it, but I think perhaps hearing it will be helpful. I think it is eloquent, smart and exemplary as an intervention in current issues. The title is Arizona Palestinian, arab, muslim and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election. It has over a hundred co-authors and co-signers from Arizona and most are in the Palestinian, arab and Muslim communities there. As indicated in the title, it reads like this the past year has been very difficult for all of us, with over 42,000 Palestinians killed by Israel using American-supplied weapons and no end in sight, despite all our struggle for a ceasefire.
Speaker 1:We approached the presidential election heartbroken and outraged. We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration's complicity in the genocide. We understand the sentiment. Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can't vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones. As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.
Speaker 1:In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become president again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet. When we think of Trump in power again, we recall that even a genocide can get much worse. Trump just said that Netanyahu must go further in Gaza. While criticizing Biden for trying to hold him back, his biggest donor, miriam Adelson, who demanded in 2016 that Trump move the US Embassy to Jerusalem if elected, which he then did is now telling Trump to allow Israel to annex the entire West Bank. Netanyahu, ben-gur, smotrich and the entire far right in Israel want Trump to win and grant Israel total free reign. We cannot give them what they want. Trump must be defeated. The only way to defeat him is to elect Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1:Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she serves. It's an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine and all else that we hold dear. We are deeply frustrated that Harris has not yet meant our movement's demand that she break with Biden, defy the powerful extremists enforcing the status quo, stand with the majority of Americans and pledge to uphold US law and international law and condition aid to Israel. Still, we believe there are clear reasons to hope that we can win positive policy change with a Harris administration and a Democratic Congress. Multiple media reports state that Harris's national security advisors are open to re-evaluating policy and conditioning aid to Israel.
Speaker 1:On October 13th, the same day, the administration threatened to re-evaluate military support if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties in the next 30 days. Harris tweeted Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and have access to food, water and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected. In Michigan the other day, harris expressed clear sympathy for the suffering of the people of Palestine and Lebanon and the impact of this devastation on Arab Americans. She pledged to do quote everything in her power as president to end the war in Gaza, end the suffering of Palestinians there and achieve quote a future of security and dignity for all people in the region.
Speaker 1:Beyond Harris's statements, we know that her decisions as president will be shaped by the larger Democratic Party coalition that includes a growing force pushing for Palestinian human rights. Our Arizona Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in January. Every single member of Congress who has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza or for an arms embargo is a Democrat. The major national unions, civil rights groups and progressive organizations that have called for a halt to military aid to Israel are all working to elect Harris. On the other hand, the Republican Party coalition offers zero opposition to unconditional support for Israel and zero support for Palestinian human rights. Instead, republicans urge the US to join Israel in bombing Iran. Call to quote bounce the rubble in Gaza and quote kill them all and would likely support the Israeli far-right's drive to annex Gaza and the West Bank. And would likely support the Israeli far-right's drive to annex Gaza and the West Bank.
Speaker 1:What about a third party? Many in our communities believe this is our best option. Unfortunately, there is not a single third-party member of Congress or even a state legislator in America. In our electoral system, no third-party candidate can win this election, but voting for them could make Trump president. The polls show the presidential election is extremely close and that it will be decided by seven swing states, including Arizona. While voting third party may be strategic in non-swing states as a protest of the current US-Israel-Palestine policy or as a step to qualifying the Green Party for public funding in future elections by winning at least 5% of the national vote, doing it in Arizona or other swing states in such a close election could bring disaster. Palestinian, arab and Muslim voters and our allies vote for a third-party candidate and intentionally throw the election to Trump. Taking credit for defeating Harris, it will prove our power to decide a close election and quote punish Democrats for complicity and genocide.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, this is not how power politics or change works in our country. When Ralph Nader helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, he was rejected by millions for whom he was once a hero, banished ever since to the political margins. When Jill Stein helped throw the election to Trump in 2016, she remained relegated to the political fringe, becoming less powerful, not more. If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing Harris. Instead, by helping to elect Kamala Harris, we can say despite it all, we gave you another chance and helped put you in office to defend democracy and uphold our highest American values. Now uphold them, end the genocide and secure political self-determination. We will fight every day to hold you to it. If Harris and Democrats win, we will wage that fight with more allies among the American people, congress and the White House than ever before. If they don't deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignation, civil disobedience, primary election challenges and even potential mass non-cooperation. It's a difficult path, but the path that offers the most hope. The first step and our best choice in this horrible situation is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us.
Speaker 1:That was the statement from the Arizona collective of about 100 people, mostly representatives from the Palestinian and Arab community, although not exclusively, and it probably sounds a lot like what I've been saying, because it was a lot like what I've been saying, except more eloquent and from a different constituency. Okay, the second component in this episode is another essay. It's titled Trump and Life Under Dictatorship, by Heather Cox Richardson. Now that some media, though far from all, are worried that Trump might literally do what he in fact, has said he will do over and over, and what Project 2025 has literally provided plans to do, and so such media are trumpeting about the fascist risk that Trump represents, this article that I'm about to read is not really unique any longer. Indeed, it appeared a little before Trump's I'd like some generals, like Hitler's generals comment was released, but I found it rather moving, so I thought I would offer it up also, as reading it out loud might resonate a bit. It too is on Z-Net. If you would like to read it more closely, you can do so there. Zenit If you would like to read it more closely, you can do so there. And it goes like this On Saturday, september 7th, republican presidential candidate Donald Trump predicted that his plan to deport 15 to 20 million people currently living in the United States would be quote bloody.
Speaker 1:He also promised to prosecute his political opponents, including, he wrote lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and election officials. Retired chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is quote a fascist to the core. The most dangerous person in this country. The most dangerous person in this country. On October 14th, trump told Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo that he thought enemies within the United States were more dangerous than foreign adversaries and that he thought the military should stop those quote radical left lunatics on election day. Since then, he has been talking a lot about. Quote the enemy from within, specifically naming Representative Adam Schiff and former House Speaker, nancy Pelosi both Democrats from California as quote bad people. Schiff was the chair of the House Intelligence Committee that broke the 2019 story of Trump's attempt to extort Zelensky that led to Trump's first impeachment. Trump's references to the quote enemy from within have become so frequent that former White House press secretary turned political analyst, jen Psaki has called them his closing argument for the 2024 election, and she warned that his construction of those who oppose him as quote enemies might sweep in virtually anyone he feels is a threat.
Speaker 1:In a searing article today, political scientist Rachel Beitkofer of the Cycle explored exactly what that means in a piece titled quote what really happens if Trump wins. Beidkofer outlined Adolf Hitler's January 30th 1933 oath of office in which he promised Germans he would uphold the constitution and the three months he took to dismantle that constitution. By March, she notes, the concentration camp Dachau was open. Its first prisoners were not Jews, but rather Hitler's prominent political opponents. By April, jews had been purged from the civil service and opposition political parties were illegal. By May, labor unions were banned and students were burning banned books. Within the year, public criticism of Hitler and the Nazis was illegal and denouncing violators paid well for those who did it. Bytkofer writes that Trump has promised mass deportations quote that he cannot deliver unless he violates both the Constitution and federal law. To enable that policy, trump will need to dismantle the merit-based civil service and put into office those loyal to him rather than the Constitution, and then he will purge his political opponents. For once, those who would stand against him are purged. Trump can act as he wishes, against immigrants, for example, and others.
Speaker 1:90 years ago, as American reporter Dorothy Thompson ate breakfast at her hotel in Berlin on August 25, 1934, a young man from Hitler's secret police, the Gestapo, politely handed me a letter and requested a signed receipt. She thought nothing of it, she said. But what a surprise was in store for me. The letter informed her that quote in light of your numerous anti-German publications, she was being expelled from Germany. She was the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany, and that expulsion was no small thing.
Speaker 1:Thompson had moved to London in 1920 to become a foreign correspondent and began to spend time in Berlin. In 1924, she moved to the city to head the Central European Bureau for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. From there she reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler. She left her Berlin post in 1928 to marry novelist Sinclair Lewis, and the two settled in Vermont. When the couple traveled to Sweden in 1930 for Lewis to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature, thompson visited Germany where she saw the growing strength of the fascists and the apparent inability of the Nazis' opponents to come together to stand against them. She continued to visit the country in the following years, reporting on the rise of fascism there and elsewhere.
Speaker 1:In 1931, thompson interviewed Hitler and declared that rather than quote the future dictator of Germany she had expected to meet, he was a man of quote startling insignificance. She asked him if he would quote abolish the constitution of the German Republic. He answered quote, I will get into power legally and once in power, abolish the parliament and the constitution. And quote found an authority. State from the lowest cell to the highest instance. Everywhere there will be responsibility and authority. Quote found an authority state from the lowest cell to the highest instance. Everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above discipline and obedience below end quote. She did not believe he could succeed. Quote now from her. Imagine a would-be dictator settling out to persuade a sovereign people to vote away their rights, she wrote in apparent astonishment.
Speaker 1:Thompson was back in Berlin in summer 1934 as a representative of the Saturday Evening Post, when she received the news that she had 24 hours to leave the country. The other foreign correspondents in Berlin saw her off at the railway station with quote great sheaves of American beauty roses Safely in Paris. Thompson mused that in her first years in Germany she had gotten to know many of the officials of the German Republic, and then what she had left to Mary Lewis. They offered quote many expressions of friendship and gratitude, but times had changed. I thought of them sadly as my train pulled out, she said, carrying me away from Berlin. Some of those officials still are in the service of the German government. Some of them are emigres and some of them are dead.
Speaker 1:Thompson came home to a nation where many of the same dark impulses were simmering Her fame after expulsion from Germany. Following her, she lectured against fascism across the country in 1935, then began a radio program that reached tens of millions of listeners. Hired in 1936 to write a regular column three days a week for the New York Herald Tribune, she became a leading voice in print too, warning that what was happening in Germany could also happen in America. In an echo of Lewis's best-selling 1935 novel, it Can't Happen here. She wrote in a 1937 column.
Speaker 1:Quote no people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the incorporated national will. When Americans think of dictators, they always think of some foreign model. If anyone turned up here in a fur hat, boots and a grim look, he would be recognized and shunned. But when our dictator turns up, you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys and he will stand for everything traditionally American. In less than two years the circulation of her column had grown to reach between seven and eight million people. In 1939, a reporter wrote quote she is read, believed and quoted by millions of women who used to get their political opinions from their husbands, who got them from political commentator Walter Lippmann. Unquote the reporter likened Thompson to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, saying they were the two quote most influential women in the US.
Speaker 1:When 22,000 American Nazis held a rally at New York City's Madison Square Garden in honor of President George Washington's birthday on February 20, 1939, thompson sat in the front row of the press box where she laughed loudly during the speeches and yelled quote bunk at the stage, illustrating that she would not be muzzled by Nazis. After being escorted out, she returned to her seat where stormtroopers surrounded her. She later told a reporter, quote I was amazed to see a duplicate of what I had seen seven years ago in Germany. Tonight I listened to words taken out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler. Two years later, in 1941, thompson returned to the issue she had raised when she mused about those government officials who had gone from thanking her to expelling her.
Speaker 1:In a piece for Harper's Magazine titled who Goes Nazi, she wrote quote it is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances to speculate who, in a showdown, would go Nazi, she wrote. By now I think I know I have gone through the experience many times in Germany, in Austria and in France. I have come to know the types, the born Nazis, the Nazi whom democracy itself has created, the certain to be fellow travelers, and I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis. Examining a number of types of Americans, she wrote that the line between democracy and fascism was not wealth or education or race or age or nationality. Quote kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi, she wrote. They were secure enough to be good-natured and open to new ideas and they believed so completely in the promise of American democracy that they would defend it with their lives, even if they seemed too easygoing to join the struggle. Quote. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the winds of success, they would all go Nazi. In a crisis, she wrote those who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't, whether it is breeding or happiness or wisdom or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi.
Speaker 1:In Paris, following her expulsion from Berlin, thompson told a reporter for the Associated Press that the reason she had been attacked was the same reason that Hitler's power was growing. Quote Chancellor Hitler is no longer a man, he is a religion. She said, suggesting her expulsion was because of her old article disparaging Hitler In her own article about her expulsion was because of her old article disparaging Hitler In her own article about her expulsion, she noted quote my offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man. After all, that is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany which says Mr Hitler is a messiah sent by God to save the German people To question this mystic mission is so heinous that if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I was merely sent to Paris. Worse things can happen. That's the end of the article.
Speaker 1:So next section Is Trump a dictator in waiting, and are Trump voters fascists? My answer to the former is yes, he wants to be, and to the latter it's a mixed no. First, let's consider Trump. Trump has told us he has told us over and over, even before Project 25, which lays it out in 900 pages what he wants to do. He wants to rule, he wants to have his way. He wants to institute a number of changes, first in the government itself, rather like Hitler, in order that obstacles to his pursuing his agendas are removed, and then in the country. He wants to drill baby drill. He wants to drill, baby drill. He wants to drive out immigrants. He wants to rep a camera and say I told you what I was going to do. Now I'm going to do it. You voted for me, you gave me a mandate, I am going to fulfill it. He won't be lying.
Speaker 1:So I think that there's not much need to say too much about Trump. But what about Trump's voters, oversimplifying greatly but, I think, usefully. I see them as composing two subsections. Of course there's more than that, but for purposes here? Two subsections those that are unreachable and those that are reachable. What characterizes the unreachable? I doubt that anyone is going to talk to the Proud Boys and convince them to take off their MAGA hats and realign themselves toward more left values and aspirations aspirations. It's not a good use of time, it is not likely to succeed. So unreachable are the people who are fully in a cult. They are like what was described for Hitler in the above article. They think of Trump more or less as a kind of messiah, which is actually what he's starting to, as a kind of messiah, which is actually what he's starting to broach himself. They think of him not just even as a leader, but as an infallible leader, and they, much more persistently and for a long duration, are racist, are misogynist, are jingoist, are violent. That subsection that I think is not going to be reached anytime soon by calm reasoning, by even emotional exhortation, is what I'm calling one of the subsections, what I'm calling one of the subsections. The other one is more reachable.
Speaker 1:Consider an interesting fact After the last election it was revealed. I don't know about polls, but this one was probably accurate because it wasn't a pre-election poll. It was a count that over 50% of white women supported Trump against Biden. That diminished some, but even in the lead up to this election it was roughly the case. Women were more supportive of the Democrat first Biden, then Harris, but still it wasn't anything overwhelming. And then Roe v Wade was rescinded and something happened to the point where it's I don't know whether it's now 70-30 or even more than that that women favor Harris, but why? That is to say, trump was a rapist all along.
Speaker 1:Trump was misogynist, grossly vile and said he was going to get rid of abortion or reproductive rights, and yet none of that seemed to matter very much. It didn't lead to anything like the large-scale change in the voting commitments of women. I think it's because lots of people in the let's call it Trump camp, the Trump voters, don't take his words seriously. The unreachable part do, but this other part, this reachable part, thinks it's entertainment, it's amusing, it's exaggeration, it's, in a more sophisticated vein, an attempt to capture the news cycle, which he does do awfully effectively. But it isn't something that we have to think about in terms of this guy's going to do that. He's not.
Speaker 1:Then comes the rescinding of Roe v Wade and suddenly reproductive rights are real. Suddenly. Reproductive rights are real. Suddenly it is clear, crystal clear to at least most of those reachable Trump supporters that reproductive rights are doomed if Trump wins. And so there is this massive shift among female Trump supporters. That says something. Actually it says two things. One's very depressing. The shift did not occur in anything like remotely the same degree among men, and that's rather sad. But the phenomenon among women shows that women, shows that these women were not deeply attached to Trump. Once something real became evident and became pressing for them, their allegiance changed. They decided they would vote instead for Harris. That says that a great many Trump voters are reachable. Reachable with evidence, fact, sentiment, etc. Reachable by a constituency or a movement that can talk to them and hear them and respect them. But challenge all of the misguided assumptions. Let's call it what are the sizes of those two groups? How many of Trump's voters are in the unreachable group? How many of Trump's voters are in the reachable group? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows, but I suspect and I hope that over half of his voters are reachable and maybe even three-quarters of them are reachable.
Speaker 1:Next, I want to bring the who says votes for Harris in swing states issue into a more personal frame, and so I will comment on the concept shills for the Democratic Party. So what is a shill for the Democrats? What does that even mean when people call other people a shill for the Democrats? Well, the dictionary says a shill is quote an accomplice of a hawker, gambler or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others. Using the phrase shill for Democrats, I think, means the Democrats are swindlers, liars, hawkers etc. And the shill is somebody who acts as an enthusiastic customer but isn't really enthusiastic about the Democrats, rather has different motives, for instance self-advance or, you know, being paid off or something like that. I think that's what it means.
Speaker 1:I think that's what applying the term to people sort of says. Sort of says whether intended or not. It says the person being called a show for the Democrats is being dishonest, is not motivated by truth or anything like that, just is trying to gain support for Democrats for some obscure reason like their own personal advance. So how does it happen that someone calls me, say, or Noam Chomsky four years ago, or a good many other people who have written and thus become visible advocates of voting for Democrats, in our case, in seven states in an election with a fascist as shills. I think that it goes sort of like this at least most often At least, this is how it seems to me the person hurling the epithet is offended or outraged that someone else could advocate for people to vote for Harris in swing states to stop Trump. Because the person says that someone with left values who is paying attention to ongoing genocide can't possibly be urging even just swing state votes for Harris, unless there is some extra motivation or unadmitted agenda at work.
Speaker 1:What is then assumed to be at work is either some kind of psychosis we've lost our minds or, when the concept shill is applied, some form of self-interest that overrides the person's usual values and reasoning. Or, I guess, sometimes what is assumed to be at work is that the person was never critical of Democrats in the first place and has always been an advocate for them. Why does it happen when there is literally zero reason to think it is so? So someone sees that I or Chomsky in the past, or Norman Solomon, say, or Stephen Shalom or Max Albaum or Bill Fletcher Jr or many others, or perhaps the over 100 signers of the statement I read to start this episode off saying to vote for Harris to stop Trump and can't quite convince him or herself that we have literally become crazy or literally support all the ills of the Democrats and so decides we must be nothing but shills for the Democrats for some other reason that has popped up into our motivations. It's ridiculous, and yet it is asserted, often with vehement and even with very nearly violent conviction.
Speaker 1:Why Should we wonder if there is something more or other than careful thought and assessment at work? Better not to Better to just say well, no Like. Since I was first 18 and earlier, in my case about 60 years ago, I am still who I was and simply believe, with the same values intact and fully aware of Democratic Party ills, that it is essential, because of all those beliefs, to stop Trump and that the only way to do that is for Harris to win, and that the only way for that to happen is for Harris to win in seven, or at least a subset, a sufficient subset, of seven swing states and therefore advocate voting for Harris in those swing states. Where does all this lead? For that we have to consider post-election, post inauguration. It is Trump or it is Harris in the White House. And what does someone like me, someone like you, do?
Speaker 1:Next, part of the answer seems to me really quite evident we work on for change, given our means, as we think best. It'll be different if it's Harris in the White House or if it's Trump. If it's Harris in the White House, I think it will be that we are working for positive gains. We are trying to marshal momentum to bring people into movement, activism, to raise consciousness, to have demonstrations, to pressure the government to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do by raising social costs that they don't want to have raised any further. I could go on about that, but that's basically what it means if Harris is elected.
Speaker 1:What does it mean if Trump is elected? I think it's rather different. I think it will mean a lot of defense, a lot of defense of existing situations, not efforts to get things to be much better, but defense of things which are flawed but which Trump nonetheless wants to remove, to eliminate, things that aren't what we really entirely want but that have been won over time and that Trump wants to reverse. It'll also be defense against repression. It'll mean defense of immigrants. It'll mean defense of dissenters, of radicals. It will mean intervening and trying to stop repression and trying to prevent full-on fascism. Those are two very different conditions, and that's part of why people like myself think it's absolutely important and critical for Harris to win instead of Trump.
Speaker 1:But there's another part of the answer that seems to me not so self-evident. The above part, I do think, is literally self-evident. I don't know why people don't all see it, who are on the left, who do want positive change, who do want to be fighting for positive change. Anyway, what seems to me to be not so self-evident is not just the details of how to do the first part, but the issue of who we reach out to and how we reach out. And this brings us back to the earlier issue of Trump's voters, earlier issue of Trump's voters.
Speaker 1:It seems likely that Trump is going to get roughly 50% of the voting public to vote for him, hopefully a little less, with Harris having a little more, but it may be. I think that Harris may win by considerably more than that. I don't think Trump will. I think if Trump wins, it'll be very close, but I think that Harris might win by considerably more for a number of reasons. But in any event, after the election is over, even if Harris wins, trump's voters voted for Trump and if Trump's voters, who are reachable, move toward being unreachable, the future is just about as bleak as it would be if Trump had won.
Speaker 1:So it's essential, it's important that Trump's reachable voters are reached, that Trump's reachable voters move out of the MAGA camp and hopefully, especially since they are incredibly alienated, justifiably, and they have experienced incredible oppression and so are angry at that, justifiably. So hopefully they not only move out of the MAGA camp but they move into a progressive, even a radical, even a revolutionary camp. But how does that happen? I think one thing that would tend to strongly prevented is to have the tone of the left be that Trump voters are horrible, that they're deplorable, that they are deluded, that they are ignorant and stupid, etc. Etc. Etc, etc.
Speaker 1:Even if one is talking about just the unreachable Trump voters, even if one is just talking about the most racist, the most misogynist, the most prone to become Nazi, in the words of the earlier article, even so, addressing them in that fashion, describing them in that fashion, is going to tend to cause the reachable Trump voters to defend them. It's going to tend to cause the reachable Trump voters to be offended and to take sides with them. That's a disaster. It's an unintended disaster. It is not what we should be doing. Therefore, we have to find a way and I can't propose what it should be, I can't but we have to find a way to communicate with Trump voters in a manner that takes them seriously, that shows respect for them, that listens to them, that hears their grievances, which, for the most part, are valid and are even, in many instances, greater than the grievances that many, and even perhaps most of Harris's voters have, and we need to be able to express how to address those grievances, how to try to win changes to alleviate the pains that they suffer. So all that, I guess, is where you know I'm feeling a week before the election.
Speaker 1:Am I scared that Trump will win? Yes, do I think that a Trump victory would be horrible for the United States, but also for those in the Mideast and for, indeed, the world? Yes, do I think it's the end of history? No, it would be possible after that to stand up to defend what needs defense, which would be a lot and to begin to move toward also seeking positive gains. But it will be very difficult, very much more difficult than under a Harris administration. So that's why I urge people who live in swing states not in safe states, whether it be safe for Harris or it be safe for Trump, but in swing states to vote for Harris, to stop Trump. That's why the statement that I read at the outset urged the same thing. That's why the statement about fascism had a similar implication regarding what we might expect from a Trump victory victory to take very seriously the constituency that has voted for Trump, that will vote for Trump, so that it doesn't move to become unreachable, but in fact becomes reachable.
Speaker 1:I guess the next episode of this will be recorded either on election day, because I usually do it on Tuesdays, or maybe I'll hold on and do it a day or two later. It's going to take that long, I think, to even know who won. And let me just say one more thing for your I don't know what to call it sanity almost on election day. Be aware, on that night, trump is going to be well ahead, well into the night, maybe, until your eyes close and you fall asleep. The reason that we know that in advance is actually very simple. It's not because he's really winning 60-40, let's say, and it might be 60-40 for a good part of the night. It's not because he's winning by 20 points, it's because and hopefully it won't be 20, hopefully it'll be 55-45, but nonetheless he will be winning.
Speaker 1:And the reason is because, when the votes are being counted in the rural areas, where Trump predominates, his support is more predominant. The voting districts I suppose you could call it I don't even know what the technical terms are have far fewer population, so the vote count is complete when, let's call it, 10,000 or 20,000 or even 30 or 40 or 50,000 votes have been counted and they can be recorded then, and so, relatively early in the evening, the reports start coming in from those rural areas, from those smaller voting precincts I guess it's called, maybe, I don't know. On the other hand, the places where Harris has her strongest support, which is typically the urban areas, have much larger, and sometimes vastly larger populations, and so it takes longer to complete the count there. There's even another factor which adds to that, which is the votes in advance typically get counted on election day, and again, there are going to be more of them that are Democratic, we think, but it's going to take longer to count them because they're going to all have to be counted in the state, I think, for all of them to be reported. So don't get too depressed early in the evening when it looks like, oh my God, trump is going to win a landslide. I don't think that's going to happen, I don't think it's going to remotely happen, but it may be that we won't know who has actually won the vote and won the electoral college and won the electoral college until the next day, maybe well into the next day. And then, undoubtedly, trump will be challenging and I think you can be pretty sure that on election night, around 10 o'clock, let's say, or 11 o'clock, whatever, trump will declare victory. O'clock whatever, trump will declare victory. And he will declare victory at a moment when his vote is in fact higher than Harris's and even, you know, considerably higher than Harris's. And so a lot of people will feel like, okay, that's it, I go to bed. And then the next morning, when they get up and Harris is ahead, I hope, or it's very close, at any rate they will feel like, when Trump tells him it was stolen overnight, there will be an initial reaction yeah, that sounds right. That's what he did last time.
Speaker 1:I just recently read that Bannon, you know, the fascist supporter at the last election, just a few days before the election, against Biden. Biden wrote I mean Bannon wrote the vote early will be lopsided for Trump. We know that because we know that's the way the counts occur. Trump then will declare victory. We won't know that he has won. Hopefully what Bannon would say He'll win, but we won't know that he has won. But he will declare victory so that later he can declare theft if he loses.
Speaker 1:He spelled the whole thing out in advance. These guys are quite remarkable. They do that just like Trump has said. Here is what I'm going to do and somehow has gotten the bulk of the country actually until maybe just this past week to ignore it, to think it's all just exaggeration and humor and showmanship, when it was really truth all along, probably his only truth, the only thing about which he's been honest. I mean, the oddity of the whole thing is just mind-boggling, but he has been honest about that. Anyway, all that said, this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.