All posts by Dr. ESP

A Ledge with a View

Random Thoughts

Random observations with two days to go.

When the Choir Doesn’t Pay Attention

Last Tuesday I had a conversation with a strong Harris supporter who raised two concerns about the election outcome.  This 100 percent Harris voter was distressed that the Harris campaign had run an ineffective campaign.  Then said Harris had spent all her time running against Trump without telling us what she’s for.  My response?  Have you watched any of the rallies?  Have you looked at the analysis of her program versus Trump’s by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget?  Do you think these Zoom calls with Republicans for Harris, evangelicals for Harris, etc. which draw 40,000 to 70,000 participants happen by accident?

Yesterday, I was at a local festival and ran into a friend who is an environmental activist.  I assumed she was voting for both Harris and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democrat running for Senate against Rick Scott.  She did not know who Mucarsel-Powell was.  Someone is not doing their job, but that is not going to be resolved between now and 7:00pm on Tuesday.

So, it is up to each of us to fill this gap in the next two days.  The next time someone tells you watching another Harris rally is preaching to the choir, the reply should be, “I know you think you have heard it before, but were you listening?”  And never assume the outreach includes down-ballot Democratic candidates.

The Light in a Dark Red County

When you live in a deep red jurisdiction such as Nassau County, Florida, odds are pretty good at some time you will buy products from or be served by someone who is a MAGA supporter.  It is what it is.  What I do not understand is why any business owners or employees would post political messages in their facilities or on their commercial vehicles.  In downtown Fernandina Beach there are stores with Trump propaganda. My auto mechanic posted a “Make America Great Again” at their checkout counter.  I need not tell you how often I now patronize these establishments.

Which is why, on Friday morning, I was so pleasantly surprised when an employee of a local home equipment company pulled into our driveway which is surrounded by Harris and down-ballot Democratic candidate signs.  After we introduced ourselves, he asked, “Has anyone stolen your  yard signs?”  When I said no, he told me that he and his wife have been the victims twice of someone removing their signs.  When we agreed he would come back on November 8 to finish the job, he made the point that hopefully we would know if Harris was president-elect by then.

I know, this is just one person.  But it is the demographic who is the target of Trump’s populist message.  And at least in this case, another four years of hate, grievance and chaos may be as unattractive to a broader audience than we might assume.

The 361

Forget 538, the total number of electoral votes and the election prediction site founded and formally run by Nate Silver.  The number that explains disbelief on both sides of the aisle that the outcome could possibly be so close is 361, the number of polling organizations trying to gauge the pulse of the electorate.  With that many players there are bound to be differences in methodology.  Consider the following

  • Embarrassed by their missed calls before the 2022 midterms, several pollsters readjusted their sampling which they already adjusted when they under-sampled Trump supporters in 2016.
  • Many pollsters base their sample on the historic turnout by different population cohorts, e.g., older voters.  Twenty million Gen-Z voters have been added to the rolls since 2020.   Polling of this demographic suggests they are breaking for Harris 2:1.
  • Women are making up the larger present of new registrants, first-time voters and early voters.  Perhaps they are being under-sampled.
  • As I blogged last week, maybe there is a silent, scared majority who are keeping their preference to themselves.

Elections are not won or lost by looking at national averages of all voters.  The best preview of what could happen Tuesday night is the Des Moines Register poll conducted by Selzer & Co., headed by its president J. Ann Selzer, recognized as one of the most reliable pollsters in the business.  At 4:00 pm Saturday,  the Register released its final tabulation of likely Iowa voters in which Harris held a shocking three point statewide lead over Trump.  To put this in context, the same poll had Trump leading Joe Biden in June by 18 points.

Throughout this election cycle, I have said, “If Harris can carry the women’s vote 60-40, nothing else matters.”  The Iowa poll gives Harris a 56-36 edge among female voters.  Other subsets of the poll show Trump with a five point lead in enthusiasm, a 14 point lead among men, a whopping 53 point lead among evangelicals and an eight point lead in the 35-54 age category. 

It doesn’t matter.  Women, in the post-Dobbs era, understand they are the only ones who can protect themselves, whether Donald Trump likes it or not.

Signs of the Times

Speaking of voter enthusiasm, this morning when I was walking our rescue dog, I made two observations why this year appears to be different from 2016 and 2020.  In a middle-income neighborhood made up of duplexes, which had its share of Trump/Pence yard signs in the last two elections, this year there were four Harris/Walz signs and NO Trump signs.  (below)

In an upper-middle class neighborhood, I came across a Trump sign from 2020 on which the homeowner had covered Pence’s name with duct tape.  At best, you cannot tell me a high-enthusiasm MAGA voter could not find the time and energy to replace their old sign with the updated one.  At worst, maybe they think reminding voters Pence is no longer on the MAGA ticket is preferential to reminding them who replaced the former vice president.

Epilogue

So keep your powder dry.  Don’t be rattled by the polls. But take nothing for granted.  Then get inspired for the election day push by watching Monday night’s live stream “get out the vote” extravaganza linking rallies in all seven battleground states.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

A Family Affair

Culture

For weeks, Floridians have been unable to turn on their televisions without seeing a “Vote No on 4” ad featuring Dr. Grazie Christie.  Christie claims under Amendment 4, abortions will be the only medical procedure for which minors do not need parental consent.  (I will get to that later.)  Yesterday there was a new ad featuring Dr. Steven Christie, who on August 24, 2024, was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Board of Medicine. Either the surname “Christie” is the Sunshine State’s equivalent of Smith or this must be more than coincidence. One click on the Google machine was all it took to confirm the obvious.

The fact that Dr/Mr. Christie is a paid employee of the State of Florida and the ad in which he appears is funded by the Florida Department of Health with taxpayer dollars is a topic for another day.  Today, the focus is on Grazie Christie.  She is identified in the ad as “a physician.”  And from the way she talks about the nuances of reproductive health. one might think she has years of experience as an OB/GYN.  I was skeptical and again proven correct when the first hit when you Google her name is her profile on the “The Catholic Association” website.  After telling us about hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, her guest columns in a range of newspapers and magazines, representing American Catholics at a Vatican Synod, and her awards including “the Best Regular Column on Family Life from the Catholic Press Association, we finally learn, “She practices Radiology in the Miami area.”

In other words, her medical experience probably does not include being the primary physician for any woman who is dealing with a pregnancy or issues of reproductive health.  Do not get me wrong.  Dr/Mrs. Christie has every right as a devout Catholic to oppose Amendment 4.  What bothers me is that she is a devout Catholic who must have missed the Sunday school lesson about “bearing false witness.”  Remember her argument that minors do not need parental consent.  Here is the full text of the ballot initiative.

Limiting government interference with abortion.— Except as provided in Article X, Section 22, no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. (my emphasis)

Article X, Section 22, as revised in 1968, titled, “Parental notification of termination of a minor’s pregnancy,” reads as follows.

The Legislature shall not limit or deny the privacy right guaranteed to a minor under the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.  Notwithstanding a minor’s right of privacy provided in Section 23 of Article I, the Legislature is authorized to require by general law for notification to a parent or guardian of a minor before the termination of the minor’s pregnancy.  The Legislature shall provide exceptions to such requirement for notification and shall create a process for judicial waiver of the notification. (again my emphasis)

So we know Grazie Christie has no problem spreading disinformation about the referendum on Florida’s six week abortion ban.  What kind of woman would do that?  Perhaps the best indication is a March 27, 2024 guest column in New York Magazine written by her daughter Grazie Sophia Christie.  It is titled,  “The Case for Marrying an Older Man: A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.” in which she justifies “her decision as a 20-year old junior at Harvard University to find a rich, older man and marry him.”

In the article, she describes marrying someone her own age as “two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse.”  But it is the following paragraph that makes it quite clear why her mother has no problem with old, white men telling women what they can and cannot do.  Long-time readers know I often strive for satire, but Jonathan Swift could not have conjured this.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed.

Guess the oak and acorn adage is not limited to male trees.  My question, “Where is Margaret Atwood when we need her?”  I was looking forward to her next novel  The Handmaid’s Daughter.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Hulk Hogan’s Heroes

Culture, Politics

I have no idea who he is. Somebody said there was a comedian that joked about Puerto Rico or something. And I have no idea who it was. Never saw him. Never heard of him, and don’t want to hear of him. But I have no idea.

Donald J. Trump/October 29, 2024

Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said; maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it. I’m not gonna comment on the specificity of the joke … but I think that we have to stop getting offended at every little thing in the United States of America, I’m just so over it.

Senator J.D. Vance/October 28, 2024

If you are going to compare Donald Trump to a Nazi, as his running mate did in 2015, describing him as “America’s Hitler, the least you can do is use the right metaphor.  J.D., if you think others get “offended at every little thing,” let’s see if you are “just so over” this.

For the record, Donald Trump is nothing like Adolf Hitler.  Hitler was responsible for the death of six million Jews and millions of other innocent people.  Trump, based on his incompetent response to the early days of the COVID pandemic, was only responsible for 400,000 preventable deaths, based on an analysis by the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health, of U.S. fatalities compared to other industrialized nations .  There is one other distinction.  Co-anchor Ronny Cheung suggested on last night’s edition of “The Daily Show,” Trump cannot be a Nazi.  Nazis served in their country’s army.

Back to J.D. Vance.  Hitler is the wrong comparison.  When I listen to this dysfunctional duo say things, like the above quotes, I do not think of Adolf Hitler.  The only Nazi that comes to mind is Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz (John Banner) in the CBS sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” (1965-71). Maybe you remember his excuse after every incident when the Allied POWs whom he monitored outwitted him and the stalag commander.  To cover his incompetence, he would tell his superiors, “I hear nothing.  I see nothing.  I know nothing.”

There is one difference between Schultz and the Batty-Man Trump and his boy wonder Vance, when it comes to their response to insult comic Tony Hinchcliffe?  The only people who outwitted this dysfunctional duo were themselves.  Trump admitted what most of us already know.  “I had no idea.”  I guess, in this case, Trump did not even have the concept of an idea.  And he protests that the comic was unvetted even though the media reports Trump staffers watched him workshop the material at The Stand, a New York City comedy club.

However, in MAGA world one lie is only valuable if it is repeated and amplified.  On Monday night, Trump told Sean Hannity:

Now what they’ve done is taken somebody that has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us, said something, and they try and make a big deal. But I don’t know who it is.

Not true, according the The Bulwark.

“He [Hinchcliffe] had a joke calling [Vice President Kamala] Harris a ‘cunt,’” a campaign insider involved in the discussions about the event told The Bulwark. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”  Campaign staffers had asked all speakers to submit drafts of their speeches ahead of time—before they were loaded into the teleprompter—according to the aforementioned sources. Once the objectionable “cunt” joke was spotted, the sources said, a staffer asked Hinchcliffe to strike it. He complied.

Pardon my rambling. It is so easy to get off track, but the brilliance comes from bringing it all together in beautiful “weave.”  Back to J.D. Vance.  What does his response say about his potential performance as vice president.? The joke about Puerto Rico and negative reactions were on the front page of every major U.S. newspaper and the lead story on every broadcast and cable news program.  But he did not see it, so he says.  Just imagine a situation where he is asked his response to the next mass shooting, natural disaster, health crisis or economic downturn. I can hear him “hedging” now.  “I haven’t seen it?  I’m not gonna comment on the specificity of the situation.”  

Let me close by asking, “Messrs. Trump and Vance, when the National Guard shows up at my door, will you be okay when I tell them, ‘I had nothing to do with this blog.  I never saw it.  I don’t know who wrote it.  You have to stop getting offended by every little thing someone writes about you. You need to just get over it.'”

I doubt it will work with them.  It should not work for us either.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Still Say Their Names

Politics

During her recent campaign rallies, Vice President Kamala Harris has told supporters to say the name of Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year old mother who died of complications from sepsis because she could not get the reproductive health care she needed in her home state of Georgia.  The scope of this crisis is clear from the growing sisterhood of brave women who have exhibited the courage to share similar stories how Trump’s abortion bans are anything but pro-life.  The tag line is powerful.  “We do not have to imagine the consequences of a second Trump administration.  We are already experiencing them.”  This shift from speculation to observation is compelling.

So let me add four more names I hope you will say.

ALLISON KRAUSE
JEFFREY MILLER
SANDRA SCHEUER
WILLIAM SCHROEDER

You are forgiven if you do not immediately recognize them.  After all it has been 54 years.  Maybe this picture (below) of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over Jeffrey Miller will jog your memory.

Donald Trump says he will use the National Guard, and if really necessary, the military to handle people he calls “the enemy from within.”  You know, American citizens like Krause, Miller, Scheuer and Schroeder, unarmed protesters who opposed Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia.  So please, do not tell me calling out Trump for promising to order U.S. soldiers to take up arms against U.S. citizens is hyperbole.  It has happened before.  And can certainly happen again.

And do not assume there will be justice for the dead or wounded.  Though charged with violating the students’ civil rights (not to mention their bodies), the eight National Guardsmen who  fired their weapons were acquitted in a bench trial.  After ordering their release, the trial judge gaslighted those in the courtroom.

It is vital that state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the issue involved.

Bullshit!  Someone authorized deployment of the National Guard to the Kent State campus.  Someone approved their carrying lethal weapons. Yet, no one was held accountable.  I am sure you are getting tired of my saying this, but the U.S. Supreme Court, because the Constitution says the president is also the commander-in-chief, now makes his use of that power “an official act,” completely immune from any legal liability.  The only remedy is impeachment and conviction which we know is less likely than the earth being hit by an asteroid.  Even then, the only punishment is removal from office.

So, when you vote this week, continue to say their names.  These four long-dead Americans are ghosts of our past, imploring us to imagine an all too probable sequel to their “Back to the Future” story.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

T-Minus Nine Days

Politics, Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts in the home stretch.

American BORG

My congressman Aaron Bean attended a naturalization ceremony and posted a picture on his Facebook page.  One of his loyal MAGA supporters posted a comment which included the phrase, “shows you that some people DO ACTUALLY plan on assimilating.”  Who are these people?  THE BORG?  It certainly is an apt metaphor for MAGA.  Especially if you imagine Donald Trump as the Borg queen (to be reprised by Alice Krige in the Jonathan Frakes sequel to his 1996 production “Star Trek: First Contact.”)

The Scariest Halloween Decoration  

This morning I was walking our rescue dog Bucky in an upper-middle class residential community when I came upon a house that was decked out in Halloween paraphernalia (pictured).

Though hard to see due to the shadow, there is a Trump sign in the window on the left (the HOA does not allow yard signs).  The scene reminded me of former “Daily Show” correspondent Roy Wood, Jr.’s observation about efforts to discourage folks from displaying the Confederate army’s Stars and Bars.

But if we get rid of the confederate flags (pause) how am I going to know who the dangerous white people are? I’m just saying, the flag had a couple of up sides. 

In this case, if you are Muslim, Haitian, transgender or a Jewish Harris voter, you mind want to move on to the next house.

Tarnished Silver

This week, FiveThirtyEight founder and former editor Nate Silver, the man who would run 1,000 simulations of a presidential election to make sure his predictions were as precise as humanly possible, surprised followers with a New York Times op-ed titled, “Here’s what my gut tells me about the election, but don’t trust anyone’s gut, even mine.”  I could spend the rest of this post explaining why one’s gut is the most reliable predictor and, if like Silver, you don’t trust it, it is wrong to call it a gut feeling.  Call it a hunch.  Mere speculation. Or anything else but a gut feeling.

During my tenure as a professor of entrepreneurship, students would bring me their “great” idea for a new enterprise.  Even if I believed the concept had potential, I would point out some flaw, even one I knew could easily be addressed in the business plan.  If a student then said, “I guess it’s not that great after all,” the discussion was over.  If they gave up that easily, that was the best indication what they believed in their gut.  However, if they pushed back, “You don’t get it,” my response was, “then make me get it.”  Or if they said, “I guess I have to find a way to address that flaw,” I would offer any assistance I could.

Richard Haas, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, offered a more apt description of the state of the election.  “This race is not even.  It is opaque.”  In other words, this election is so different from any other and there are so many variables, polls tell us nothing about the outcome.

The Red Flag Law We Need

A red flag law (named after the idiom red flag meaning “warning sign“) is a gun law that permits a state court to order the temporary seizure of firearms (and other items regarded as dangerous weapons, in some states) from a person who they believe may present a danger.

~Wikipedia Definition

Imagine a member of your household told you that your next door neighbor was eating cats and dogs.  Or that neighbor represented a greater threat than the dictators of Russia, China and North Korea.  He considered Adolf Hitler a role model.  Thought the U.S. military should shoot peaceful protesters.  Whether there was a red flag law in your state or not, you would check to see if that individual had been purchasing and stockpiling firearms.

Now imagine that person is the president of the United States.  And has a stockpile of nuclear weapons purchased with your tax dollars.  You would think someone might seek a court order to restrict the president’s access to them.  To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court said that person, as commander-in-chief, can do whatever he wants with his cache of weapons of mass destruction with complete immunity.

On November 5, 2024, the only available court of jurisdiction is the upcoming election.  Do you really want to wait to see if that person, who has demonstrated such anger and vitriol,  wakes up one morning,  and decides as he suggested in 2017, that he could “use a nuclear weapon against North Korea and suggested he could blame a U.S. strike against the communist regime on another country”?  Or, if offended by something Emmanuel Macron of Gavin Newsom said, even decimate France or California?

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP