10/28/24

Good morning! It’s Monday, October 28th.

Chucks n Pearls Day

This is a real day (I mean… as real as the others, I guess) that was started in 2021 to celebrate Kamala Harris, our next president.

And now, the news.

One Week Out

-via Washington Post, AP News,

Okay, so twist – We’re doing a special episode.

On a Monday?

Yeah, on a Monday!

We are eight days out from the most important election of our lifetime. Oh Kim, you said that two years ago. And two years before that.

Yeah, first of all… that impression was spot on also and hurt my feelings.

Second of all, yeah well Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and so all of those elections have been the most important ones until this one. Because Trump has stepped up his rhetoric and also his plans. And so we are here. At a precipice.

This is a historical moment for this country.

Here, now, is when we decide who we are.

As a nation. In this world.

And so because we are a week and a day out, let’s talk about a few things that have happened.

First, Friday.

On Friday the Washington Post, whose motto is Democracy Dies in the Darkness, came out to say that, for the first time in 36 years, they will not be endorsing a candidate for president. On their lack of an endorsement, they wrote: “We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

I’m sorry… in this election, that is what you’re saying your reason is for not endorsing?

One of them, of the preferred candidate of nazis.

Now, it does sound like the paper was prepared to endorse Kamala Harris but Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, put a stop to it.

Which reminded me, and a lot of people on Twitter, about the first page of Yale professor Timothy Snyder’s pamphlet On Tyranny:

“Do not obey in advance. Most of the post of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

If it’s true, if Jeff Bezos stopped this historical newspaper from running an endorsement because he’s scared of Trump… then that’s more reason to run the endorsement. To loudly say Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy.

This is not a small story.

It’s not a big story, but it’s not nothing.

And on the heels of the Post just not knowing who on earth could be better – the candidate with real plans or the guy who has quite literally said Hitler “did a lot of good things,”

On Sunday, Trump had what can only be called, well, a white supremacy rally at Madison Square Garden.

I mean, quite literally, here are some things that the opening acts said:

From Tony Hinchcliffe: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

He also said, “These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”

That guy is meant to be a comedian – he’s not funny and those jokes are trash.

He also made a joke about a Black man in the audience carving watermelons over the weekend.

Hey here’s something that sure doesn’t feel like a coincidence… 85 years ago Madison Square Garden hosted a nazi rally.

On that same stage, where just 85 years ago, 20,000 people attended a nazi rally Stephen Miller said “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

Which sounds a whole lot like Hitler’s 1935 quote: “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”

Now the Trump campaign would like you to know that they came out against Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico and Latinos. But I would like you to know… those jokes were on a teleprompter. They were vetted.

The Trump campaign is fine with those comments.

Trump himself is fine with those comments.

I don’t know what happened at the Washington Post that made them unable to endorse a candidate. But here’s my thing.

While I always have been, and always will be, a never Trump guy – what happened on Sunday was a white supremacist rally.

And so let there be no confusion about it (though I truly can’t imagine there could any possibility of anything else)…

This little news show unequivocally endorses Kamala Harris and denounces Donald Trump and his white supremacist beliefs.

But the point of this episode is not the endorsement. Instead is this: we are eight days away from Election Day.

Donald Trump help a white supremacist rally on Sunday.

What will you do today, to make sure he is never elected president again?

Are you, and is everyone you know, registered to vote?

Raisingvoters.org/beavoter

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I don’t know what this week of news is going to look like. Probably nothing cool. Nothing chill.

But because I know you. I know we can get through this. I know you know this week is when we leave it all on the field… I’m proud of you.