“Dewey Defeats Truman”, the front page of the Chicago Tribune declared in giant letters on the morning of November 3, 1948.
Thomas Dewey didn’t defeat Harry Truman, of course. Truman, defying the polls, came from behind to win the Presidency with 303 electoral college votes, to 189 for Dewey and 39 for “Dixiecrat” candidate Strom Thurmond. The Chicago Tribune had jumped the gun, and was left with ink splattered all over its embarrassed face.
Fast forward to September 10, 2024. No president being chosen that day — it was just the date of an important debate between the candidates for that high office, in the run-up to election day. Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris — an elderly, disruptive ex-President squaring off against an untested candidate almost twenty years his junior.
It was no contest. Harris didn’t just wipe the floor with Trump: she scrubbed the walls, scoured the windows, and swabbed the toilet bowl with him before tossing him aside with mirthful disdain.
In the aftermath, “Harris defeats Trump”, was the consensus opinion and the sum of headlines the following day.
And there’ll be no Dewey-esque reversal of that verdict: Trump got beaten, and badly. He was reduced to truculent muttering about cats and dogs being eaten, about immigrants pouring in from third-world insane asylums and prisons, about incipient nuclear Armageddon; all while Harris looked on smirking and with a twinkle in her eyes.
Who could have predicted, by the way, that Election 2024 would be the Year of the Cat? First we had J.D. Vance’s “childless cat ladies”; then dead cats supposedly being consumed by immigrants in Springfield, Ohio; and then (childless) Taylor Swift, the current Queen of Pop, endorsing Harris following the debate, complete with a photo of herself (with her cat, of course):
Although a person’s gotta wonder, given that Swift has made a career out of crooning about her poor choices, about the value of that endorsement.
Whether Trump’s abysmal performance on Tuesday night ultimately makes a difference on November 5 remains to be seen. His support appears to be mostly baked in. Opinion polls still have the two candidates neck and neck. Time will tell.
Nevertheless, here we are. At this juncture, after all the years of turbulence that Donald Trump has brought to the political scene, America stands on the cusp of electing the most left-leaning candidate in history. And a host of Republicans have declared that she has their vote, so eager are they to see the last of Trump. Heck, even Dick Cheney is going to vote for her.
Not withstanding her ultra-liberal past, Harris assures her audiences that she’s going to be a President for all Americans. Although if I was an American concerned about free speech, or merit-based advancement instead of DEI clap-trap, or the scourge of “gender-affirming care” for children, or the dangers of Marxist economics, I’d be a tiny bit skeptical.
She’s peddled furiously away from a host of positions she held just five years ago, when she vied (very unsuccessfully) for the Democratic nomination for president.
Her values haven’t changed, she insists, even if her current positions have done a 180. In Senator Bernie Sanders’ opinion, Harris is simply being pragmatic in order to get elected.
Some of us, at least, don’t see that as pragmatism. We see it for what it is: bald-faced lying.
There’s plenty of lying on both sides of the political fence, of course. It’s increasingly difficult to know where the truth resides. And that’s an enormous problem. As Hannah Arendt once said:
“A people who can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people you can do whatever you want.”
It remains to be seen which liar will prevail on November 5, and how much damage he or she do to a blinded and pliable American electorate.
Truman and Dewey? Those were halcyon days.
TDS is a terrible affliction. Please seek help.
I’m one of many Republicans who will be voting for her! I just published an article that I think you would find informative. It’s a quick seven minute read if you get a chance to check it out. 🙏
https://open.substack.com/pub/donovanwashere/p/why-its-time-to-stop-hitting-snooze?r=13lrsx&utm_medium=ios