It’s on us now
The gap couldn’t be much wider at this point. Donald Trump gave an “economic speech” this week which mostly consisted of him threatening to become a french fry cook at McDonald’s. Then Kamala Harris gave an economic speech which consisted of smart and reasonable proposals for helping improve the lives of working class Americans. Somewhere in between the two speeches, a couple of afternoon talking heads on MSNBC did an entire bit about how Harris’ economic proposals don’t contain enough specifics about the economy. Perhaps she should have spent more time talking about cooking french fries.
So here we are. President Kamala Harris would be a dream come true for the middle class. Donald Trump is obsessed with Hannibal Lecter. There has never, ever been a bigger gap between the two major party nominees for President. From the competence gap to the mental competence gap, this is turning into the Grand Canyon. And we all know it. Except not everyone knows it, because the major media outlets – even the ones that profess to be on our “side” – are still grading on a curve and pretending that these two candidates are somehow on a similar level.
In other words, the media is not going to rescue us in this election. If anything the political media is functioning as a villain at this point, as it desperately tries to keep this race close enough to be able to milk it for ratings all the way to November. Put another way: if the mainstream media outlets all came out tomorrow and admitted that Harris is objectively one of the best candidates of all time, and that Trump belongs in a padded room in an assisted care facility, this election would be over, and there would be no ratings to be achieved these final six weeks.
The good news is that, even with the media almost unanimously refusing to do its job, we’re still winning. Kamala Harris is ahead in just about every national poll there is. So the entire media is focused on the one poll where Trump is ahead, because that’s what the media does for ratings. But that’s their problem at this point. If the mainstream political media wants to destroy what little is left of its credibility, so be it. Our job is to tune that crap out and remind ourselves that we’ll win this election if we decide to win it.
By “decide to win it” I don’t mean stare at our screens in fear and hope we win. That’s not a decision to win. It’s a decision to give up. It’s surrender. We have six weeks left for all the marbles. Do we really want to waste them listening to talking heads who think their job is to keep the race competitive? No, we need to spend these six weeks going out and doing something. And by “doing something” I mean phone banking, knocking on doors, making small dollar donations to the most competitive downticket races, sending voter registration postcards, and all the other things that actually bring in more votes for our side.
This election is on us. It’s not on anyone else. The media is going to do everything it can to keep this election close. We have to do everything we can to make this election not close. That starts with going to the Kamala Harris website and putting in your zip code to see what Kamala has going on in your area. Think of it as your way of fighting back against the media. Now let’s go win this!
