'Ode to Joy'

Vice President Kamala Harris could not have made a better choice for her running mate than Governor Tim Walz.

You can’t pretend to be the sort of man he so obviously is - you have to earn it.

It feels good to be kind, to do the right thing and to care for others.

Walz is the real deal and so is Harris; that is why they are not just generating excitement but palpable joy in the Democratic Party.

My hunch is it will spread well beyond party lines and reach not just independent voters but those that so often sit on the side lines instead of participating in elections.

There’s a feeling of hope in the air - to not accept it at this point is to leave a gift unopened.

The fact that universal free lunch programs and equality initiatives, along with environmental sanity, were central to Walz’s bipartisan popularity in Minnesota are icing on the birthday cake we are about to cut.

The good news is that everyone gets a piece.

That is the America I believe in and want to belong to; my suspicion is I am not alone in my optimism.

I needed a politician looking out for me the way Governor Walz does the children of his constituents when I was a kid living in an underprivileged, multicultural community in my elementary school years.

Instead I watched Reagan come in and cut school lunch programs.

I grew up in the ‘ketchup is a vegetable’ era of Republican policy where meanness became a guiding principle to protect the ruling class.

We are still paying a price for the GOP’s dereliction of duty.

A politician with a warm smile who celebrates his ability to ensure the students in his state’s classrooms will be learning on full bellies is a good man - and the perfect antidote to the toxic masculinity and angry rhetoric on the right.

The GOP wants to dismantle public education while sending their own kids to elite private schools and Ivy League universities.

The fact that Governor Walz is a former teacher who orients his policy based on his own life experiences only reinforces his own humanity and connection to the people he serves.

Donald Trump fears authenticity because his entire life has been a fraud.

He exists only to serve himself.

Fake business, fake grades, number of floors in his eponymous tower, fake hair, fake tan, fake billionaire, fake boardroom, fake tough guy act.

His entire career has been a case study in fraudulent activity.

There’s nothing honest or natural about anyone I’ve met in the Trump clan.

They’re a family of illusions; of smoke and mirrors and dark secrets.

It’s a crumbling empire built upon lies and the seas of change are about to wash their sand castles away forever.

At least as far as their political ambitions go, the only thing Trump fears more than authenticity is intellectualism and compassion - two traits he has never possessed.

Of course he will cry ‘fake election’ and try to get his idiotic sycophants and ‘MAGA warriors’ to go along with the ‘big lie’ yet again but my hunch is he is about to get the get the electoral ass-kicking he so richly deserves.

It’s been a long time coming.

It’s no accident he chose for his V.P. candidate one of the phoniest, most inauthentic men this country has ever produced.

Water seeks its own level, especially the murky, brackish kind.

JD Vance is an Eddie Haskell for folks who talk about eugenics in a Cabela’s parking lot.

A pretend populist who dons a flannel shirt and talks down to a constituency he will only exploit.

A Yalie who could probably wax philosophic about the best pizza in New Haven (Sally’s Apizza) for hours but pretends to enjoy a Cincinnati three-way (which in his case might involve both a sectional and an ottoman).

Enough folks may come to see through the grift in the coming weeks that it will be quite obvious the Trump/Vance ticket will lose the election long before November.

Of course with treasonous little weasels like Mike Flynn lurking in the shadows they will have a few dangerous tricks up their cuff-linked sleeves but my guess, at this point, is their second attempt at coup d’état will fall well short of the mark.

Joy is infectious - so is competency - and the Harris/Walz ticket is delivering both to voters.

By sheer inertia it will snowball into something we are only just now beginning to glimpse (they’ve already had to upgrade capacity at venues due to the volume of attendees.

A fact that will no doubt make Trump absolutely apoplectic and further his unraveling).

Excitement feeds on itself; there is plenty to cheer about for so many Americans who have found themselves trapped in the doldrums of darkness for far too long.

Echoes of 2008 already abound and the opportunity to further a dream that began under Obama/Biden will become irresistible to millions of people who yearn to see this nation live up to its true potential.

One that rejects divisiveness in favor of equality and optimism.

We find ourselves in one of those rare moments that certain eras provide its generational inhabitants; one where we collectively can correct the course of our ship of state, one that all too recently was captained by a self-seeking madman who sought out icebergs instead of calm waters.

Trump was rejected in 2020 by a plurality of voters.

He then did the unthinkable and failed to accept the results of a free and fair election - the single weakest moment by an American president in the history of our Republic.

We must not allow his impending tantrum to upend our Democracy again.

Trump is a man who belongs in prison, not on a podium.

We have ninety days to cast him off into the dustbin of history where he belongs.

You know what to do.

Vote Blue.