I've been involved in winning presidential races and races that lost. One common thread is that everyone seems to have a reason why you won or lost which usually reflects a personal perspective or agenda.
So here's mine: I think VP Harris ran a very good campaign that operated at a high level. She had a great convention, crushed Trump in a debate, and put on a series of big event rallies that were the best I'd ever seen.
As a Republican operative, I spent years pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party and I'm not here to say it doesn't need to go through a period of questioning and self-reflection. Those are much larger questions than one election and one campaign. But the Republican party is an anti-democratic movement, attacking the pillars of American democracy from elections to the judicial system.
I understand those who say that if there had been a "normal" Democratic primary, the results would have been better. Maybe. But think about it. In modern political history, every time a sitting VP has run for the nomination, that VP has won. Perhaps it would have been different this time and the eventual nominee would have emerged stronger for the process. But more likely there would have been a bloody primary fight that left the nominee broke and trying to patch together a fractured party to face a Republican party that has become Donald Trump's party. In all probability, VP Harris would have won that primary and been in a weakened and vulnerable position when it was finally resolved in May or June.
I would say to my Democratic friends to go through this post-election process with open minds and hearts but never doubt that the Democratic party is the only pro-democracy party in America. No one will have a position in Trump's administration who is not an election denier adhering to the Big Lie. That's toxic to a country's sense of self and the damage will take a generation to repair, if it is possible to heal.
Losing an election does not mean that you were wrong and they were right. It means you lost an election. I grew up in Mississippi watching my parents back candidates opposed to segregation. When those candidates lost, and they did for a long time, my parents didn't question if they were on the right side. They didn't ask themselves if the majority who supported segregation had proven the justness of their cause by winning.
The mid-terms start after the Super Bowl. It will likely be a good election for Democrats and then the 2028 presidential race will be upon us. After a loss, the days seem long but the months will pass quickly. Reflect, rest up, but come back prepared to fight. Fight not because victory is assured but fight because not to fight is to give up. And if we do that, we no longer deserve to call ourselves Americans.
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My book "It Was All a Lie" will be published on Aug. 4th by @AAKnopf. Leading up to that, thought I'd share some passages to give a sense of the book. Hope you will consider pre-ordering through your local bookstore or here: bit.ly/itwasallalie
"As much as I'd love to go to bed at night reassuring myself that Donald Trump was some freak product of the system - a "black swan," - as his ludicrously unqualified son-in-law says - I can't do it. I can't keep lying to myself to ward off the depressing reality that I had
"been lying to myself for decades. There is nothing strange or unexpected about Donald Trump. He is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party became over the last fifty years, a natural product of the seeds of race, self-deception, and anger that became the essence of
With thanks to @vermontgmg for idea, giving shout-out to some of my fave travel books while we're all locked down. Tonight: "The Thousand Mile Summer" by Colin Fletcher
Fletcher was a Brit. At 18 joined Royal Marine Commandos & had what the Brits like to call "a hard war." Bounced around for decade & ended up in SF. When trying to decide if he should get married, he hit upon idea of walking length of Ca. to think about it.
Generally if you have to walk 1,000 miles to think about getting married it's probably a bad idea. Fletcher didn't marry but wrote a travel classic that became the first in a series of wonderful books. In "The Man Who Walked Through Time" he follows Colorado River from source.
Inspired by the great nightly book suggestions of @vermontgmg, I'm giving a shout out to one of my favorite travel books each night. Tonight it's "News From Tartary" by Peter Fleming. I loved this book so much I retraced his steps for my first book.
Peter Fleming was a famous writer in his 20's. Only in a last ditch effort to compete with his younger brother, did his hell raising, alcoholic older brother try writing a spy novel in his 40's. That was Ian Fleming & he called his lead character James Bond.
"News From Tartary" is story of Fleming's 1935 journey across China from Beijing to Kahsgar. I recreated the trip in 1989 for "Night Train to Turkistan." Fleming traveled with a Swiss woman named Ella Mallart.