Pop superstar Cher raised $2 million for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidential campaign at a virtual, LGBTQ-themed fundraiser Monday.
Cher asked the streaming crowd if they “believe in life after Trump,” riffing on her famous single, “Believe.”
Cher’s use of her iconic phrase was clever and made for great headlines. But I love it because I think it gets at something deep affecting all of us right now.
Do we believe in life after Trump?
It is always hard for humans to really and truly imagine a life and world different from the one we live in right now. It is hard for us to imagine outside of our current reality.
It led many of us to underestimate the likelihood that a monster like Trump could win the presidency when we had a great man like Obama.
But it is also keeping us from being able to imagine a life without Trump. It is keeping us from feeling as hopeful for the future as we should be.
You guys, we have a chance to win the presidency. A really good chance! We can also win the Senate and keep the House.
It is hard to even imagine it. But we have a possible future in which real change can happen. We have a possible future in which people have access to healthcare. We have a possible future in which the right to vote is expanded and protected. We have a possible future in which there is real reform to the way we police. We have a possible future where teachers are treated with respect, veterans are cared for, and social security is secure.
We hold the keys to that future. We can make it happen. All we need is hope, hard work, and dedication for these next two months.
We can do it. You can do it.
Do you believe in life after Trump?
You know you do. Let’s make it happen.
We Can Win This
Polls this past week had nothing but good news for us
from FOX NEWS:
So Biden +9 in Arizona, +8 in Wisconsin, and +4 in North Carolina is utterly devastating to Republicans. Arizona and North Carolina also have critical Senate races down-ballot, and the strong presidential showings only increase our chances of taking the Senate.
Back on June 25, Fox News had Biden winning North Carolina by just two, 47-45. So this new poll shows that post-convention, it was Biden who made gains. In other words, the trend is in our direction. In an early June Fox News poll of Arizona, Biden had a mere 4-point lead, 46-42, once again suggesting that all momentum has been on the Biden side
Meanwhile, in the last Fox News poll of Wisconsin, also in early June, Biden led Trump 49-40; thus the current 50-42 result shows an equally bad result for Trump.
and this:
Meanwhile, Morning Consult took a look at a bunch of battlegrounds. The number in parenthesis is their previous result, prior to the conventions:
Arizona
Biden 52 (45)
Trump 42 (47)
Florida
Biden 49 (50)
Trump 47 (45)
Georgia
Biden 49 (46)
Trump 46 (47)
Michigan
Biden 52 (50)
Trump 42 (44)
North Carolina
Biden 49 (49)
Trump 47 (46)
Pennsylvania
Biden 49 (50)
Trump 45 (44)
Wisconsin
Biden 52 (49)
Trump 43 (43)
As you can see, Biden is winning every single one of the core seven battleground states. And, he’s increased his lead in five of them, with Florida and Pennsylvania narrowing slightly (all within an expected statistical float)
This is from Charlie Cook who is NOT a partisan and is very hesitant to shift races:
Many Are Afraid To Say It, but This Is Not a Close Race
Yes, there are things that could tilt this race: shenanigans at the Postal Service, voter confusion about how to vote, states' inability to process and count ballots on time, to name a few. But the race has to get much closer before these can possibly make a difference in a few key states.
Trump was the candidate of change in 2016. Now, Americans are very unhappy with where the country is and how he has handled his tenure. How does an incumbent prevail in the face of this? I just don’t see how the reasons why Trump was underestimated then still apply now. This shoe is on a different foot. So I am going to be like the kid saying that the emperor has no clothes.
A focused and disciplined incumbent president could climb out of this hole. But not one who too often seems to be his own worst enemy.
Trump's rhetoric on protests seen as detrimental by majority of Americans: POLL
A significant majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump's rhetoric on the unrest in parts of the country is making matters worse -- with even members of his own party divided on his approach -- a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday finds.
Trump's attempt to reframe the race against former Vice President Joe Biden around "law and order," does not appear to be breaking through.
got that? he build his entire thing on law and order and it isn’t working!
and people don’t just prefer Biden on law and order:
remember all the people sharing panic porn last week about how the RNC convention was going to change everything for Trump? It was dumb then and it has been proven wrong now:
The latest polling evidence suggests Trump’s convention flopped
As the wildly hyped imagery of urban unrest and up-is-down coronavirus propaganda at the GOP convention showed, the convention’s primary aim was to create the illusion that President Trump has decisively crushed the virus — and that the only thing left for White suburbanites to fear is the radical left’s efforts to violently push the country into civil collapse.
Three new polls suggest that neither of those notions proved particularly persuasive.
White People Aren’t as Racist or Stupid as Trump Thinks
So we confront one of the enduring questions of American presidential politics, which goes back to Richard Nixon’s time: Can the Republicans scare enough white people into thinking that their beautiful suburb is going to be taken over by Black criminals if the Democrat wins?
Pretty much every liberal I know is terrified that the answer is yes. I don’t think so. Biden has to handle this right, of course. But this isn’t 1968, Biden isn’t some anti-cop crusader, and Trump is an unpopular extremist who is not speaking for most Americans. These things will matter.
this points out why these stupid stories about focus groups of Trump voters are trash and should be ignored:
Biden's GOP endorsements show the cracks in Trump's coalition
Joe Biden is attracting more crossover endorsements from prominent members of the opposing party than any other presidential candidate from either side in decades. That doesn't guarantee the former vice president victory in November, but history suggests it could signal a lasting break in the Republican coalition that provides new opportunities to Democrats for years to come.
A new poll shows rank-and-file Democrats finally realize the Supreme Court is important
There’s a widespread perception — shared by both Democrats and Republicans — that GOP voters are far more motivated by a desire to control the judiciary than Democrats. It’s the reason why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed, somewhat hyperbolically, in a 2019 address to the Federalist Society that “the single biggest issue that brought nine out of 10 Republican voters home to Donald Trump ... was the Supreme Court.”
But a recent poll by the Pew Research Center suggests that this perception that judicial politics favor Republicans is outdated. Pew asked Democratic and Republican voters which issues are “very important” to their vote in the 2020 presidential election. In their poll, 66 percent of Democrats and only 61 percent of Republicans named “Supreme Court appointments.”
Democrats have voter registration advantage in four battleground states
Since Election Day 2016, Pennsylvania has added 922,000 new voters to the rolls, according to data from TargetSmart, a Democratic political data company. Democrats have an edge of 132,000 over Republicans in new registrations. In addition, there are about 197,000 registered unaffiliated, that is without a political party.
That 132,000-registration edge for the Democrats is not insignificant. In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 45,000 votes.
Florida has added 2.4 million new voters since Election Day 2016, with Democrats holding an edge of 59,000 in new registrants in the two-party split, with unaffiliateds clocking in at 858,000 new registrants. Trump won Florida by a more solid 112,000 votes in 2016, but 59,000 is not an inconsequential number.
In Arizona, more than a million new voters have registered since 2016, and there, things have been a bit closer. Democrats hold only an 11,000-person edge in new registrations. In addition, there have been 355,000 unaffiliated new registrants
And North Carolina has added 1.3 million more voters to its rolls since 2016. Democrats had an edge of more than 56,000 in new registrations, while 583,000 others registered as unaffiliated.
Texas Democrats announce massive voter registration drive aimed at flipping the state
With the national convention season over, the Texas Democratic Party is launching a massive voter registration drive this week as the country turns its attention toward November.
Dubbed “Texas Voter Registration Week,” the state party announced Monday that it will partner with Joe Biden’s campaign for president and MJ Hegar’s campaign for U.S. Senate to contact 1 million unregistered voters across the state this week — focusing their efforts on reaching out to young people and minority communities. The drive will be the largest in the state party’s history.
“Registration is critical to our path to victory,” said Luke Warford, voter expansion director for the Texas Democrats. “There’s a huge population of unregistered folks in the state. We know that unregistered population leans heavily Democrat. They’re young, they’re people from communities of color, and we want to register every Democrat in the state.”
Biden is doing a great job
Joe Biden is the only one trying to act like a president
Asked Wednesday what he would be doing if he were president, here’s part of what he said:
I would make sure everybody understood, if I were president, that any violence, any violence, protesting is a right and free speech is a right, but to engage in violence, burning, looting, the rest, in the name of protesting is wrong, and that people should be held accountable for their actions.
What I’d be doing is I’d be bringing people together in the White House, right now. I’d be having that police commission set up. I’d have law enforcement at the table. I’d have the community at the table. I’d have people and saying, “How do we get through this? What do we do to deal with this?” Because I believe the vast majority of the community writ large, as well as law enforcement, want to straighten things out, not inflame things, but this president keeps throwing gasoline on the fire, every place he goes.
There’s nothing earth-shattering about Biden’s words. It’s a pretty simple message meant to find a common ground that nearly everyone can or should agree on: that violence is wrong, that police and community members need to communicate more, and that some way forward can be found.
There’s plenty that message doesn’t address. But it’s what we expect of a president at moments like these: to be a voice of calm and solace. When there’s a natural disaster or a mass shooting or a situation like we’ve seen in Kenosha, he’s supposed to act as a representative of the country as a whole, to give voice to our feelings and call upon our better angels. Presidents have to perform those rituals of comfort and conciliation all the time.
Trump’s behavior ‘legitimizes the dark side of human nature,’ Biden says at Kenosha church
After listening to several speakers — including a firefighter, a lawyer and a woman whose business was looted — Biden stood and addressed attendees at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha.
“I made a mistake about something. I thought you could defeat hate. It only hides,” said Biden, who like others was wearing a mask. “And when someone in authority breathes oxygen under that rock, it legitimizes those folks.”
He addressed the need to combat systemic racism in education, the economy and the criminal justice system and also said there should be zero tolerance of looting and property damage.
Jill Biden to visit Minnesota amid renewed campaign focus on Midwest
Jill Biden, the wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, will travel next week to Minnesota, a trip that comes amid a broader push by Joe Biden’s campaign to focus on Midwestern battleground states.
The Minnesota stop on Sept. 9 is part of Jill Biden’s “Back-to-School Tour,” during which she “will meet with Minnesota families and public school educators,” the campaign said. Joe Biden will travel to Michigan the same day.
Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, held a virtual event Wednesday night aimed at Minnesota voters. Joe Biden’s campaign has also begun airing ads in the state one week earlier than planned that reminded voters of his background and plans.
Trump keeps walking into Joe Biden’s trap
rather than run away from a fight with Trump over the violence in some American cities, Biden took it and the president head-on. “Donald Trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline,” Biden said. He unequivocally denounced those committing violence and accused Trump of inciting it.
Within hours, Trump proved Biden right. During a White House news conference filled with unhinged whinging about “antifa,” “left-wing rioters” and “dangerous rhetoric from far-left politicians,” Trump refused to denounce the actions of vigilantes such as Kyle Rittenhouse.
I believe Biden has an upper hand against Trump. Forget about the president’s lame attempts to question Biden’s mental acuity or his ability to do the job. Those are projections meant to distract and to stoke fear among easily panicked Democrats. No, pay attention to what Biden has done. He’s laid a trap that everyone can see and Trump fails to avoid. Every time he opens his mouth, Trump forays into racism and white grievance that give Biden another chance to stand in stark contrast to him. Another chance to show humanity and leadership to a nation in desperate need of it.
Biden Expected to Surpass $300 Million Raised in August, Shattering Record
In a sign of the financial momentum behind Democrats, ActBlue, the main site that processes donations to the party, reported the second-biggest fund-raising day in its history on Monday, with more than $35 million donated. A majority of Mr. Biden’s August total came from online grass-roots donors, according to another person familiar with the figures.
Mr. Biden’s sum laps what is believed to be the previous monthly record of $193 million, set by Barack Obama in September 2008, though there is no formal record-keeping.
Wait, tell me again about our lack of enthusiasm… 😆
Can Joe Biden be ‘Swift boated’? Probably not.
Senior Republicans are launching a massive super PAC this week to bolster Donald Trump’s reelection in the final stretch of the campaign — a move that comes as the president has been pummeled by Joe Biden on TV
Preserve America will be overseen by Chris LaCivita, a veteran Republican strategist who orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth takedown of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.
According to Politico, the group will try to “tear down Biden” by pushing the claim that the former vice president has refused to take on the “defund the police” movement.
But there are good reasons to doubt the efficacy of this effort.
First, the Biden campaign is now fully engaged on this front, with Biden just delivering a speech in which he forcefully condemned violence at protests and noted that he has worked with police for many years, while also speaking to the hardships endured by family members of those killed by police.
Second, the idea that Biden supports defunding the police is just a weak attack. It has been completely debunked, and it has already been pursued by the Trump campaign for months, including in $20 million worth of ads, with no signs that it’s working.
Finally, the media is far more pointed in debunking falsehoods and its infrastructure substantially more built out for fact checking than in 2004.
There’s a long way to go until the election, and there’s still plenty to worry about. But this doesn’t look like something to fear all that much.
On the lighter side
Be A Part of History
Donate!
Click here to donate to Biden.
Fair Fight builds a robust network of grassroots activists to strengthen democracy
And I still Vote works to empower our communities to act.
Black Votes Matter goal is to increase power in our communities.
Let America Vote ensures people don’t have to pick between safety and their vote
ACLU — Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, has filed 20 lawsuits and counting to ensure every eligible voter can vote by mail.
Non-financial ways to help:
- Volunteer with the Democratic party Explore their centralized hub for grassroots volunteer opportunities to take action on your own time.
- Volunteer with the Biden campaign You can get training to text for Joe, make phone calls for Joe, host an event, or attend an event.
- Get involved with Postcards to voters. Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.
- Volunteer with Beto to turn Texas Blue Over the recent months, thousands of Powered by People volunteers have stepped up to help us reach the Texas voters who will decide the most important elections of our lifetime. Join them!
- Register voters in key battleground states. Vote Forward has active campaigns going in 8 key states to encourage under-represented (potential) voters to register. In 6 of them, the packet you send to each potential voter will include the actual voter registration forms and instructions with pre-paid postage for that state. The folks at Vote Forward have collected data on this technique and determined that it does, indeed, appear to increase voter registration.
- Text voters in key Senate races Payback Project has a comprehensive, four-pronged approach to make sure Republicans Senators are held accountable for their actions, their votes, and their enabling of Donald Trump.
- Organize your community online The Democratic National Committee’s digital organizing team put together a list of ways you can keep organizing in your community online.
- Do whatever we can to promote Biden in tweets and posts and emails and wherever. The same goes for other D candidates. Help them get positive recognition!
- Find out how to be a poll worker on election day. Use this link
- sign up to be a voter protection volunteer with the Biden Harris campaign
- Swing Left offers virtual tools to help you maximize your impact on the closest races in Super States across the country. Swing Blue has a wonderful list of ways you can help from your home and links for each one of you are motivated
- register for protect the results which is building a coalition of voters to mobilize if Trump refuses to accept the election.
Pick a couple of things and get to it! ❤️
I am so proud and so luck to be in this with all of you! ❤️ ✊ ❤️