Mr. Robinson
" Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad." -- Malcolm X
Holding Cassius, I was focused on being a grandfather for the first time. But something that Eugene Robinson said, on the television I was only dimply aware of, struck me as intense. He said that President Biden's speech was a wartime address to the nation. Here's to you, Mr. Robinson, sane people appreciate you more than you could know.
A brand new link in the DNA chain going back hundreds of thousands of years deserves a better world than the one this old man is handing down. But I'm not wringing my hands in distress. There's a lot of fight left in this old bag of bones, ready to contribute to the larger fight taking place across the nation to battle the fascist threat to democracy.
Back home, I took a phone call from one of the heads of the campaign for Congress that I am working on. I like to find out if people are hoping their efforts will secure a job in DC , or if they are intent upon serving as a grass roots organizer. Perhaps a combination of both.
I was encouraged talking with this young man. I can easily tell who is interested in hearing what an old activist has to say, or if they believe they know everything necessary after sitting in a college/university classroom. For the best campaigns are neither restricted to top-down or bottom-up, but combine the two.
The best campaigns do not include clinging to old grudges. An obvious example would be that in 2016, the majority of white women voted for Trump over Clinton. And a significant percentage of black women -- the strongest base of the Democratic Party -- did not vote. But it would take the synergy of ignorance and pettiness to create the error in thinking that we do not have to appeal to black and white women to win in November.
In this region of rural upstate New York, the numbers of reistered voters goes in the following sequence: republicans, independents, then Democrats. Thus, everyone who has retained the math skills they mastered in the first grade can recognize that a Democrat has to appeal to independents to have a chance for victory. Those chances increase if the candidate can also appeal to some republicans.
At very best, it would be foolish to the point of self-defeating for us to engage in imaginary purity tests as November approaches. If you and I were preparing to go door-to-door, imagine if I said the most important factor for me is knowing if they supported Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 Democratic primary. Why, you would know that I should focus on stuffing envelopes at campaign headquarters, not talking to potential voters. For you would know that my brain was stuck hip-deep in a bitter past.
Now, that's not to say that stuffing envelopes isn't just as important as going door-to-door. I imagine that, over the decades, I've stuffed about as many envelopes as I have knocked on doors. What it does mean is that we all have talents -- things we are good at -- as well as things we aren't as good at. Conversing on someone's porch, for example, is distinct from addressing a crowd. We all have something to offer.
We need people to reach out to teachers' and labor unions. To college senates and other campos groups. And on and on. Everyone's efforts are of value, and needed.
What I do best is convince voters who are to the left of the Democratic Party to vote for our candidates. That doesn't include all Democratic Party candidates equally, of course. I can break bread with those who wouldn't give most campaigners the time of day. And it wouldn't matter if I was wearing shorts and a Malcolm X t-shirt, or a suit. They know I'm not there to lie to them, and that they don't only hear from me come election season.
We are indeed at war, no matter if we want to be, or wish things were different. We now have the opportunity to make things different. If we all contribute to the effort, we will find that democracy is the antidote to the rise of fascism.
= new reply since forum marked as read
All the best to you both in this campaign season, and always. 
