Happy Days Are (Almost) Here Again

There was a time when I thought I saw a blue tsunami coming in November’s election. Now I’m sure of it.

It’s a tsunami that not only will keep Democrats in the White House but also retain control of the Senate and take control of the House.  All we have to do is vote, and vote the whole ticket, and once again we will be singing that Democratic theme song,  “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

The MAGAs are not dead, but they are dying.  And by the way, I don’t say MAGA Republicans anymore because there is nothing Republican about them.  I call them MAGAs now because that’s who they are, and it almost rhymes with what my drill instructors at Parris Island used to call us.

Anyway, let’s meander through recent news events, beginning with a comparison of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

He is a white supremacist; she is Black, which ought to help bring out the Black vote.

He is androcentric; she is a woman, which ought to bring out the women of any color.

He is a xenophobe who says he will expel millions of immigrants from our country; she is the daughter of immigrants.

He has been convicted of 34 felonies involving election fraud, is credibly charged with 54 more felonies, and has been adjudicated a rapist; she is a former prosecutor who has sent numerous felons, including rapists, to prison.

He wants to be a dictator in charge of a Nazi-like autocracy; she wants to be the president of an American-like democracy.

He wants people to vote “just this time” because “in four years, you don’t have to vote again.  We’ll have it fixed so good you‘re not going to have to vote.” (Given the chance by Fox News Monday to back off that statement, he instead bore down: “I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.”) She wants to protect voting rights for everyone.

He brags that he is responsible for overturning Roe vs. Wade; she fiercely supports women’s right to abortion.

He wants to kill Social Security and Medicare; she wants to expand and strengthen them.

He wants to “drill, baby, drill;” she wants to lead the world on climate and clean energy.

He wants to cut taxes on corporations and billionaires; she wants to make corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

He wants to cut billions in education funding; she wants to expand it.  He wants to cut access to medical care; she wants to expand it.

He’s old and cobwebbed; she’s much younger and vibrant.

And on, and on.

He once said  he knows nothing about Project 2025 but opposed it anyway (opposed it even though his words mimicked it and his leading supporters wrote it??)  She knows what Project 2025 is and vehemently opposes it. (If you don’t know what it is, or want to forward it to someone, click here.)

He says President Biden is “the worst president in the history of the United State,” but more than 150 academic experts in presidential politics recently voted Trump the worst president in the history of the United States.

The!  Worst!  Ever!

Biden himself proved Trump dead wrong on that last point in the opening lines of his farewell speech to the nation when he said, “Over the past three and a half years we have made great progress as a nation.  Today, America has the strongest economy in the world.  We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans.  We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years.  Appointed the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court.  And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world.  America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today….Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  We’ve protected and preserved our Democracy.  And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.”

And then there are the lies: 30,573 of them during Trump’s term as president, according to The Washington Post, and he hasn’t slowed down a bit since then.  During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention alone, the Post assessed 34 false claims, including:

“The biggest tax cut ever.”  (It was the eighth largest in the last 100 years.)

“The biggest regulation cuts ever.”  (No, that was Jimmy Carter.)

“We had the greatest economy in the history of the world.” (False by any count).

“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. (We rank 10^th.)

And on, and on.

And all of that came before his bloviating, narcissistic, question-dodging, lying performance at the Black Journalists Association conference last Tuesday.

Which brings us to the person Trump chose to be vice president , freshman Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.  It looks like Vance is doing everything he can to be to Trump what  Quayle was to Bush and Palin was to McCain.

Who hasn’t heard his 2021 assertion that Democrats, including Kamala Harris, are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable as their own lives and the choices they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”  He added that they should “have no direct stake” in America’s future.  He also said that “our country is basically run by childless Democrats who are miserable in their own lives and want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

Instead of backtracking those words, Vance is on record as saying, “Sometimes it is the truest and most important points that cause them to attack you the most.”

He’s also more radical than even Trump when it comes to his anti-abortion stand.

And please do not forget his 2021 speech in which he said that people with children should be allowed to cast additional votes on behalf of their offspring.  “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.”

Yes, he actually said that.

Even Vance’s wife, Usha, expressed revulsion to her friends about President Trump’s actions amid the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Some of those friends watched in disbelief earlier this month as she addressed a Republican National Convention crowd in support of Trump and JD Vance.

Back to Vance.  In a PBS interview in October 2016, Vance said: “I’m never a Trump guy. I never liked him.”  And in an August 2016 interview with PBS, he said, “I think that I’m going to vote third-party because I can’t stomach Trump.  I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.”  Now, however, he loves Trump.

But Vance is just part of  the Trump minions who said really nasty things about Trump before they loved him.  They include the former governor, U.N. ambassador and presidential candidate Nikki Haley; the former governor and presidential candidate Ron DiSantis; the former entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; the U.S. senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz;  the U.S. senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio; U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.  There are too many to mention them all by name, or to quote what came out of both sides of their mouths, so instead I wrote a poem to all of them.  I titled it,

An Ode to Donald Trump’s Hypocrites 

You used to insist
That he was inferior,
But now you line up
To kiss his posterior.

I  cannot, and will not, believe that most of Americans will vote for a person like that in November.  Or Vance.  Or any other MAGA.

Oh, yes, happy days are here again.  Or soon will be.  If we vote.