We Can win This Election If We Want To. How much Do We Want To?

You know I wanted Biden to stay. With all my heart. But it's a new day.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 59th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2024. Harris condemned efforts to limit access to voting and reproductive health services. (Will McLelland/Alabama Reflector)

I wanted Joe Biden to stay in the race. That’s been obvious on these pages since that awful debate when all hell broke loose and the Dems went public with their fears of a huge loss if this leader who has been presiding over us and doing it well stayed in. Suddenly the curtains parted and there stood an old man, halting and frail and vulnerable to the forces that openly threaten to take the country down if given the slightest chance.

The powers-that-be in the Democratic Party decided then and there they couldn’t take the chance. The press and the pundits joined in. Celebrity donors joined in. The die was cast.

One look at the posts on my home page will tell you where I’ve been on this. I tried to make my case. I never swerved. I admit I must have sounded frantic at times, but I couldn’t see how we could win without supporting Joe all the way.

I thought the treatment of him, the utter disrespect as more and more Dem leaders publicly shamed and admonished him for staying in was appalling. I still do.

And when I heard the news yesterday afternoon that President Biden was stepping down I was devastated. Not just for Joe, who must have been wrenched by the escalation of the calls for him to remove himself, but for us. How could we get through this and go on to make a strong case for whoever came next? Who would come next? In their fear and haste, what might the party do now?

Within an hour or so of the announcement everything changed. I read Joe Biden’s gracious letter to the country. I read his endorsement of his Vice President, Kamala Harris. I saw the outpouring of approval from all corners of our country, I saw the quick support from state and federal leaders, I saw the donations begin to pour in, growing to astounding proportions in a matter of hours. I felt the excitement and the energy.

I breathed.

I wrote this to someone who threatened to leave the party and never look back:

I get it. This is painful. But now we move on. We have to. The only other choice is to let Trump win, and that's far more appalling.

We can be angry and still work to keep Biden's legacy alive by making sure all of his efforts to make the country a better place aren't smashed by those monsters promising to do just that if they get the chance.

And this within hours on someone else’s page:

I’m in. I thought it would take me longer but the stakes are high, the time is short, and it isn’t about me.

It isn’t about us. We’re on the way to building momentum now and we can’t get it wrong. We can’t listen to the noise—and there will be plenty of it. From all sides, as usual. It will distract us. It will try to throw us off. We can’t afford to lose our focus.

Our focus now is to make Kamala Harris the president come this November. We can do that if we want to. And we have to want to. We have to do landslide efforts. We have to make this win foolproof. We have to let that half of the nation hellbent on giving authoritarianism a try know that Americans don’t and never will run that way.

We’ll all have our roles. I’m taking on cheerleading. It’s my nature, I guess, and it seems to be a habit now. I’ll do it from here and I hope you’ll be here with me. We can talk it out as we’ve been doing. We can share our thoughts and our findings and nobody will be judging anything. We’ll listen to each other.

I will learn from you. I know that. I’ll share my own thoughts, and I’ll share what I find on the pages of those others we’re going to need to follow in order to keep our heads and stay strong.

So here’s a start: I know most of you read Heather Cox Richardson, as I do, but have you seen her podcast from yesterday? She wanted Joe to stay in, and her reasons solidified my own. But I urge you to watch as she explains in her uniquely smart way how Joe pulled this off and made it right. She saw strategies I never would have thought of, and I came away relieved.

It’s here.

In this piece,

David Rothkopf

talks about Kamala Harris, whose career he has followed and reported on for decades. He’s a huge fan and he lists all of the reasons why. He talks about the doubters and suggests strategies to build a case for her. I learned things I might never have known about her and I’m grateful for the ammunition.

It’s here.

Here are some I’ll be following in the months to come. (This will be a running list. I’ll add more as I think of them.)

Letters From an American - Heather Cox Richardson

Lucid - Ruth Ben-Ghiat

The Dworkin Report

Lucian Truscott Newsletter

Need to Know by David Rothkopf

Proof - Seth Abramson

Popular Information - Judd Legum

Civil Discourse - Joyce Vance

The Good in Us - Mary Trump

America, America - Steven Beschloss

Public Notice - Aaron Rupar

Steady - Dan Rather and Steady Team

Breaking the News - James Fallows

Simon Rosenberg - Hopium Chronicles

The Hartmann Report - Thom Hartmann

Enough Already - D. Earl Stephens

Project 25 - Andra Watkins

I’ve left off many, I know. Feel free to add to my list. They’re all solid voices working in their own ways to get this win accomplished.

This is our time. We’ll need to make the most of it. As always, we can do this if we do this together.

Let’s get started.