It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times
Well, I Can't Help It If Dickens Said It Before Me...It's True!
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…
Sound familiar? Feel familiar? That was Dickens point when he made those famous sentences the opening of “A Tale of Two Cities.” In fact, the very next words of the opening go on to note that for all those stark contradictions he outlined, the period he is describing (1775) was very much like that in which the book was written or being read.
It certainly could describe the time in which we live. That best of times-worst of times vibe seems particularly strong these days. Let me give you just a few examples from the past 24 hours or so:
Did you see the speech of Vice President Harris in Atlanta? Did you feel the speech? Did you hear the crowd? Did you see the glint in her eye when she said, looking directly into the lens, calling out her opponent, “If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face!” The response from the crowd was rapturous. No question, the moment lands squarely in the category of “the best of times.”
Fewer than twenty-four hours later, we had the rattled, aging, disoriented Trump speaking before the National Association of Black Journalists and saying about the VP that “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. Now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know — is she Indian or is she Black? I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.” In so doing he thereby answered the question of how he intended to wage his campaign against his new opponent: Pure racism. He has always been a racist. But sometimes, unsuccessfully, he has tried to hide it. But no longer. For any other candidate at any other time in our history, this would be disqualifying. For him, it was disgusting, repugnant, nauseating and pretty much par for the course. So long as he is a serious contender for the highest office in our land, then it is also the worst of times.
Today, Harris won the endorsement of the United Automobile Workers. This 370,000 member union is one of the most influential in the U.S. and it comes as dozens of other top unions have said that Harris has their backing. Unions mobilize voters. The UAW has had some rough patches with President Biden so its endorsement was particularly significant and yet another side that Harris’ campaign has definite mojo. The best of times.
Earlier this week the same Trump who today decided he would tell black people who was black or not that he would also tell Jewish people who was a good Jew or not. His target was the Vice President’s husband, Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff. Trump—friend of Nazis, defender of Nazis, the guy with the Hitler speeches on his nightstand—felt he was within his rights to call the SG “a crappy Jew” He also indicated that he felt that the VP, who as I mentioned earlier is married to Emhoff and has helped raise his two Jewish kids, did not like Jews. Completing his trifecta of hatefulness he also stated that Jewish people who vote for Democrats are “fools.” It makes my blood boil just as the racist display today at the NABJ conference. He’s a racist. And the tens of millions who support him are at best encouraging the racism but, face it, many many of them are racist, anti-Semitic misogynists. And I’m not afraid to say it. (We’re told we shouldn’t say such things because it will offend them and we won’t get their votes. But guess what, we will never get their votes and they deserve, bigly, to be offended.) More worst of times dystopian scenes.
That said, here we are 10 days into the era of Harris as the presumptive Democratic Nominee and she has engineered just an extraordinary turnaround in the polls. As of today she is leading in seven, count ‘em seven, new polls. Furthermore she is up 22 percent over Trump among young voters. And she is also up by substantial margins with suburban women and voters of color. And the shift upward in her approval rating is unprecedented, off-the-charts, exceptional. Polls are polls. But the shift is major and, according to a well-respected pollster with whom I spoke today, the numbers are likely to continue to surge in her favor through her VP pick (coming soon) and then the convention. What’s more, in a twist no one saw coming, the unified, energized Democratic Party has absolutely dominated the news all summer—despite the RNC, the Vance VP pick and even the assassination attempt on Trump. Of all the developments so far in the race, surely being bumped from the headlines must have the Donald reeling. Best of times!
Every day brings these ups and downs and it would be easy to be reeling ourselves. But the key is to keep your eye on the trendlines and more importantly, on the work. There are 97 days to go. In just over 40 days early voting begins. As noted here many times before, we are—depending on how hard we work—going to be the ones who determine whether historians or novelists following in the footsteps of Dickens judge that this was either the best of times or the worst of times.
If Trump were my relative, I hope we'd be organizing an intervention and getting him into rehab.
And Trump denied that Harris is black to a room full of Black journalists. A stupid, stupid man.