Kamala Harris

Trump Won. Now what?

PNRJ current events, politics, tribal paradigm , , , , , ,

Nov 10 JDN 2460625

How did Trump win?

After the election results were announced, one of the first things I saw on social media, aside from the shock and panic among most of my friends and acquaintances, was various people trying to explain what happened this election by some flaw in Kamala Harris or her campaign.

They said it was the economy—even though the economy was actually very good, with the lowest unemployment we’ve had in decades and inflation coming back to normal. Real wages have been rising quickly, especially at the bottom! Most economists agree that inflation will be worse under Trump than it would have been under Harris.

They said it was too much identity politics, or else that Black and Latino men felt their interests were being ignored—somehow it was both of those things.

They said it was her support of Israel in its war crimes in Gaza—even though Trump supports them even more.

They said she was too radical on trans issues—even though most Americans favor anti-discrimination laws protecting trans people.

They said Harris didn’t campaign well—even though her campaign was obviously better organized than Trump’s (or Hillary Clinton’s).

They said it was too much talk about abortion, alienating pro-lifers—even though the majority of Americans want abortion to be legal in all or most cases.

They said that Biden stepped down too late, and she didn’t have enough time—even though he stepped down as soon as he showed signs of cognitive decline, and her poll numbers were actually better early on in the campaign.

They said that Harris was wrong to court endorsements by Republicans—even though endorsements form the other side are exactly the sort of thing that usually convinces undecided voters.

None of these explanations actually hold much water.

BUT EVEN IF THEY DID, IT WOULDN’T MATTER.

I could stipulate that Harris and her campaign had all of these failures and more. I could agree that she’s the worst candidate the Democrats have fielded in decades. (She wasn’t.)

THE ALTERNATIVE WAS DONALD TRUMP.

Trump is so terrible that he utterly eclipses any failings that could reasonably be attributed to Harris. He is racist, fascist, authoritarian, bigoted, incompetent, narcissistic, egomaniacal, corrupt, a liar, a cheat, an insurrectionist, a sexual predator, and a convicted criminal. He shows just as much cognitive decline as Biden did, but no one on his side asked him to step down because of it. His proposed tariffs would cause massive economic harm for virtually no benefit, and his planned mass deportations are a human rights violation (and also likely an economic disaster). He will most likely implement some variant of Project 2025, which is absolutely full of terrible, dangerous policies. Historians agree he was one of the worst Presidents we’ve ever had.

Indeed, Trump is so terrible that there really can’t be any good reasons to re-elect him. We are left only with bad reasons.

I know of two, and both of them are horrifying.


The first is that Kamala Harris is a woman of color, and a lot of Americans just weren’t willing to put a woman of color in charge. Indeed, sexism seems to be a stronger effect here than racism, because Barack Obama made it but Hillary Clinton didn’t.

The second is that Trump and other Republicans successfully created a whole propaganda system that allows them to indoctrinate millions of people with disinformation. Part of their strategy involves systematically discrediting all mainstream sources, from journalists to scientists, so that they can replace the truth with whatever lies they want.

It was this disinformation that convinced millions of Americans that the economy was in shambles when it was doing remarkably well, convinced them that crime is rising when it is actually falling, convinced them that illegal immigrants were eating people’s pets. Once Republicans had successfully made people doubt all mainstream sources, they could simply substitute whatever beliefs were most convenient for their goals.

Democrats and Republicans are no longer operating with the same set of facts. I’m not claiming that Democrats are completely without bias, but there is a very clear difference: When scientists and journalists report that a widely-held belief by Democrats is false, most Democrats change their beliefs. When the same happens to Republicans, they just become further convinced that scientists and journalists are liars.

What happens now?

In the worst-case scenario, Trump will successfully surround himself with enough sycophants to undermine the checks and balances in our government and actually become an authoritarian dictator. I still believe that this is unlikely, but I can’t rule it out. I am certain that he would want to do this if he thought he could pull it off. (His own chief of staff has said so!)

Even if that worst-case doesn’t come to pass, things will still be very bad for millions of people. Immigrants will be forcibly removed from their homes. Trans people will face even more discrimination. Abortion may be banned nationwide. We may withdraw our support from Ukraine, and that may allow Russia to win the war. Environmental regulations will be repealed. Much or all of our recent progress at fighting climate change could be reversed. Voter suppression efforts will intensify. Yet more far-right judges will be appointed, and they will make far-right rulings. And tax cuts on the rich will make our already staggering, unsustainable inequality even worse.

Indeed, it’s not clear that this will be good even for the people who voted for Trump. (Of course it will be good for Trump himself and his closest lackeys.) The people who voted based on a conviction that the economy was bad won’t see the economy improve. The people who felt ignored by the Democrats will continue to be even more ignored by the Republicans. The people who were tired of identity politics aren’t going to make us care any less about racism and sexism by electing a racist misogynist. The working-class people who were voting against “liberal elites” will see their taxes raised and their groceries more expensive and their wages reduced.

I guess if people really hate immigrants and want them gone, they may get their wish when millions of immigrants are taken from their homes. And the rich will be largely insulated from the harms, while getting those tax cuts they love so much. So that’s some kind of benefit at least.

But mostly, this was an awful outcome, and the next four years will be progressively more and more awful, until hopefully—hopefully—Trump leaves office and we get another chance at something better. That is, if he hasn’t taken over and become a dictator by then.

What can we do to make things less bad?

I’m seeing a lot of people talking about grassroots organizing and mutual aid. I think these are good things, but honestly I fear they just aren’t going to be enough. The United States government is the most powerful institution in the world, and we have just handed control of it over to a madman.

Maybe we will need to organize mass protests. Maybe we will need to take some kind of radical direct action. I don’t know what to do. This all just feels so overwhelming.

I don’t want to give in to despair. I want to believe that we can still make things better. But right now, things feel awfully bleak.

Please, don’t let Trump win this

PNRJ core principles, current events, ethics, politics , , , , , , , , ,

Oct 20 JDN 2460604

It’s almost time for the Presidential election in the United States. Right now, the race is too close to call; as of writing this post, FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a 53% chance of winning, and Trump a 46% chance.

It should not be this close. It should never have been this close. We have already seen what Trump is like in office, and it should have made absolutely no one happy. He is authoritarian, corrupt, incompetent, and narcissistic, and lately he’s starting to show signs of cognitive decline. He is a convicted felon and was involved in an attempted insurrection. His heavy-handed trade tariffs would surely cause severe economic damage both here and abroad, and above all, he wants to roll back rights for millions of Americans.

Almost anyone would be better than Trump. Harris would be obviously, dramatically better in almost every way. Yet somehow Trump is still doing well in the polls, and could absolutely still win this.

Please, do everything you can to stop that from happening.

Donate. Volunteer. Get out the vote. And above all, vote.

Part of the problem is our two-party system, which comes ultimately from our plurality voting system. As RangeVoting.org has remarked, our current system is basically the worst possible system that can still be considered democratic. Range voting would be clearly the best system, but failing that, at least we could have approval voting, or some kind of ranked-choice system. Only voting for a single candidate causes huge, fundamental flaws in representation, especially when it comes to candidate cloning: Multiple similar candidates that people like can lose to a single candidate that people dislike, because the vote gets split between them.

In fact, that’s almost certainly what happened with Trump: The only reason he won the primary the first time was that he had a small group of ardent supporters, while all the other candidates were similar and so got the mainstream Republican vote split between them. (Though it looks like the second time around he’d still win even if all the other similar candidates were consolidated—which frankly horrifies me.)

But it isn’t just our voting system. The really terrifying thing about Trump is how popular he is among Republicans. Democrats hate him, but Republicans love him. I have tried talking with Republican family members about what they like about Trump, and they struggle to give me a sensible answer. It’s not his personality or his competence (how could it be?). For the most part, it wasn’t even particular policies he supports. It was just this weird free-floating belief that he was a good President and would be again.

There was one major exception to that: Single-issue voters who want to ban abortion. For these people, the only thing that matters is that Trump appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. I don’t know what to say to such people, since it seems so obvious to me that (1) a total abortion ban is too extreme, even if you want to reduce the abortion rate, (2) there are so many other issues that matter aside from abortion; you can’t simply ignore them all, (3) several other Republican candidates are equally committed to banning abortion but not nearly as corrupt or incompetent, and (4) the Supreme Court has already been appointed; there’s nothing more for Trump to do in that department that he hasn’t already done. But I guess there is at least something resembling a coherent policy preference here, if a baffling one.

Others also talked about his ideas on trade and immigration, but they didn’t seem to have a coherent idea of what a sensible trade or immigration policy looks like. They imagined that it was a reasonable thing to simply tariff all imports massively or expel all immigrants, despite the former being economically absurd and the latter being a human rights violation (and also an economic disaster). I guess that also counts as a policy preference, but it’s not simply baffling; it’s horrifying. I don’t know what to say to these people either.

But maybe that’s a terror I need to come to terms with: Some people don’t like Trump in spite of his terrible policy ideas; they like him because of them. They want a world where rights are rolled back for minorities and LGBT people and (above all) immigrants. They want a world where global trade is shut down and replaced by autarky. They imagine that these changes will somehow benefit them, even when all the evidence suggests that it would do nothing of the sort.

I have never feared Trump himself nearly so much as I fear the people of a country that could elect him. And should we re-elect him, I will fear the people of this country even more.

Please, don’t let that happen.

The worst is not inevitable

PNRJ core principles, current events, politics , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jul 14 JDN 2460506

As I write this, the left has just won two historic landslide victories: In France, where a coalition of left-wing parties set aside their differences and prevailed; and in the UK, where the Labour Party just curb-stomped all competition.

Many commentators had been worried that the discredited center-right parties in these countries had left a power vacuum that would be filled by far-right parties like France’s National Rally, but this isn’t what happened. Voters showed up to the polls, and they voted out the center-right all right; but what they put in its place was the center-left, not the far-right.

The New York Times is constitutionally incapable of celebrating anything, so they immediately turned to worries that “turnout was low” and this indicates “an unhappy Britain”. Honestly this seems to be a general failing of journalists: They can’t ever say anything is good. Their entire view of the world is based around “if it bleeds, it leads”. I’m assuming this has something to do with incentives created by the market of news consumers, but it also seems to be an entrenched social norm among journalists themselves. The world must be getting worse, in every way, or if it’s obviously not, we don’t talk about those things—because good things just aren’t news. (Look no further than the fact we now have the lowest global homicide rates in the history of the human race. What, you didn’t realize we had that right now? Could that perhaps be because literally no news source even mentioned it, ever?)

Now, to be fair, turnout was low, and far-right parties did win some representation, and any kind of sudden political shift indicates some kind of public dissatisfaction… but for goodness’ sake, can we take the win for once?

These elections are proof that the free world’s slide into far-right authoritarianism doesn’t have to be inevitable. We can fight it, we are fighting it—and sometimes, we actually win.

So let’s not give up hope in the United States, either. Yes, polls of the Biden/Trump election don’t look great right now; Trump seems to have a slight lead, and it’s way too close for comfort. But we don’t need to roll over and die. The left can win, when we band together well enough; and if France and Britain can pull it off, I don’t see why we can’t too.

And don’t tell me they had way better candidates. The new UK Prime Minister is not a particularly appealing or charismatic candidate. I frankly don’t even like him. He either is a TERF, or is at least willing to capitulate to them. (He also underestimates the number of trans women by about an order of magnitude.) But he won, because the Labour Party won, and he happened to be the Labour Party leader at the time.

Biden is old. Sure. So is Trump. And if it turns out that Biden is really unhealthy, guess what? That means he’ll die or resign and we get a woman of color as President instead. I don’t see eye-to-eye with Kamala Harris on everything, but I don’t see her taking office as a horrible outcome. It’s certainly a hundred times better than what happens if we let Trump win.

Are there better candidates out there? Theoretically, sure. But unless one of them manages to win nomination by one of the two leading parties, that doesn’t matter. Because in a first-past-the-post voting system, you either vote for one of the top two, or you waste your vote. I’m sorry. It sucks. I want a new voting system too. I know exactly which one we could use that would be a hundred times better. But we’re not going to get it by refusing to vote altogether.

We might get a better voting system by voting strategically for candidates who are open to the idea—which at this juncture clearly means Democrats, not Republicans. (At this point in history, Republicans don’t seem entirely convinced that we should decide things democratically in the first place.)There are also other forms of activism we can use, independent of voting. But not voting isn’t a form of activism, and we should stop acting like it is. Not voting is the lazy, selfish, default option. It’s what you’d do if you were a neoclassical rational agent who cares not in the least for his fellow human beings. You should never be proud of not voting. You’re not sending a message; you’re shirking your civic responsibility.

Voting isn’t writing a love letter. It isn’t signing a form endorsing everything a candidate has ever done or ever will do. If you think of it that way, you’re going to never want to vote—and thus you’re going to give up the most important power you have as a citizen of a democracy.

Voting is a decision. It’s choosing one alternative over another. Like any decision in the real world, there will almost never be a perfect option. There will only be better or worse options. Sometimes, even, you’ll feel that there are only bad options, and you are choosing the least-bad option. But you still have to choose the least-bad option, because literally everything else is worse—including doing nothing.

So get out there and try to help Biden win. Not because you love Biden, but because it’s your civic duty. And if enough people do it, we can still win this.

Good news on the climate, for a change

PNRJ macroeconomics, politics, public policy , , , , , , , , , , ,

Aug 7 JDN 2459799

In what is surely the biggest political surprise of the decade—if not the century—Joe Manchin suddenly changed his mind and signed onto a budget reconciliation bill that will radically shift US climate policy. He was the last vote needed for the bill to make it through the Senate via reconciliation (as he often is, because he’s pretty much a DINO).

Because the Senate is ridiculous, there are still several layers of procedure the bill must go through before it can actually pass. But since the parliamentarian was appointed by a Democrat and the House had already passed an even stronger climate bill, it looks like at least most of it will make it through. The reconciliation process means we only need a bare majority, so even if all the Republicans vote against it—which they very likely will—it can still get through, with Vice President Harris’s tiebreaking vote. (Because our Senate is 50-50, Harris is on track to cast the most tie-breaking votes of any US Vice President by the end of her term.) Reconciliation also can’t be filibustered.

While it includes a lot of expenditures, particularly tax credits for clean energy and electric cars, the bill includes tax increases and closed loopholes so that it will actually decrease the deficit and likely reduce inflation—which Manchin said was a major reason he was willing to support it. But more importantly, it promises to reduce US carbon emissions by a staggering 40% by 2030.

The US currently produces about 15 tons of CO2 equivalent per person per year, so reducing that by 40% would drop it to only 9 tons per person per year. This would move us from nearly as bad as Saudi Arabia to nearly as good as Norway. It still won’t mean we are doing as well as France or the UK—but at least we’ll no longer be dragging down the rest of the First World.

And this isn’t a pie-in-the-sky promise: Independent forecasts suggest that these policies may really be able to reduce our emissions that much that fast. It’s honestly a little hard for me to believe; but that’s what the experts are saying.

Manchin wants to call it the Inflation Reduction Act, but it probably won’t actually reduce inflation very much. But some economists—even quite center-right ones—think it may actually reduce inflation quite a bit, and we basically all agree that it at least won’t increase inflation very much. Since the effects on inflation are likely to be small, we really don’t have to worry about them: whatever it does to inflation, the important thing is that this bill reduces carbon emissions.

Honestly, it’ll be kind of disgusting if this actually does work—because it’s so easy. This bill will have almost no downside. Its macroeconomic effects will be minor, maybe even positive. There was no reason it needed to be this hard-fought. Even if it didn’t have tax increases to offset it—which it absolutely does—the total cost of this bill over the next ten years would be less than six months of military spending, so cutting military spending by 5% would cover it. We have cured our unbearable headaches by finally realizing we could stop hitting ourselves in the head. (And the Republicans want us to keep hitting ourselves and will do whatever they can to make that happen.)

So, yes, it’s very sad that it took us this long. And even 60% of our current emissions is still too much emissions for a stable climate. But let’s take a moment to celebrate, because this is a genuine victory—and we haven’t had a lot of those in awhile.

Trump will soon be gone. But this isn’t over.

PNRJ core principles, current events, ethics, inequality, public policy, tribal paradigm , , , , , , , , , ,

Nov 8 JDN 2459162

After a frustratingly long wait for several states to finish counting their mail-in ballots (particularly Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona), Biden has officially won the Presidential election. While it was far too close in a few key states, this is largely an artifact of the Electoral College: Biden’s actual popular vote advantage was over 4 million votes. We now have our first Vice President who is a woman of color. I think it’s quite reasonable for us all to share a long sigh of relief at this result.

We have won this battle. But the war is far from over.

First, there is the fact that we are still in a historic pandemic and economic recession. I have no doubt that Biden’s policy response will be better than Trump’s; but he hasn’t taken office yet, and much of the damage has already been done. Things are not going to get much better for quite awhile yet.

Second, while Biden is a pretty good candidate, he does have major flaws.

Above all, Biden is still far too hawkish on immigration and foreign policy. He won’t chant “build the wall!”, but he’s unlikely to tear down all of our border fences or abolish ICE. He won’t rattle the saber with Iran or bomb civilians indiscriminately, but he’s unlikely to end the program of assassination drone strikes. Trump has severely, perhaps irrevocably, damaged the Pax Americana with his ludicrous trade wars, alienation of our allies, and fawning over our enemies; but whether or not Biden can restore America’s diplomatic credibility, I have no doubt that he’ll continue to uphold—and deploy—America’s military hegemony. Indeed, the failure of the former could only exacerbate the latter.

Biden’s domestic policy is considerably better, but even there he doesn’t go far enough. His healthcare plan is a substantial step forward, improving upon the progress already made by Obamacare; but it’s still not the single-payer healthcare system we really need. He has some good policy ideas for directly combating discrimination, but isn’t really addressing the deep structural sources of systemic racism. His anti-poverty programs would be a step in the right direction, but are clearly insufficient.

Third, Democrats did not make significant gains in Congress, and while they kept the majority in the House, they are unlikely to gain control of the Senate. Because the Senate is so powerful and Mitch McConnell is so craven, this could be disastrous for Biden’s ability to govern.

But there is an even more serious problem we must face as a country: Trump got 70 million votes. Even after all he did—his endless lies, his utter incompetence, his obvious corruption—and all that happened—the mishandled pandemic, the exacerbated recession—there were still 70 million people willing to vote for Trump. I said it from the beginning: I have never feared Trump nearly so much as I fear an America that could elect him.

Yes, of course he would have had a far worse shot if our voting system were better: Several viable parties, range voting, and no Electoral College would have all made things go very differently than they did in 2016. But the fact remains that tens of millions of Americans were willing to vote for this man not once, but twice.

What can explain the support of so many people for such an obviously terrible leader?

First, there is misinformation: Our mass media is biased and can give a very distorted view of the world. Someone whose view of world events was shaped entirely by right-wing media like Fox News (let alone OAN) might not realize how terrible Trump is, or might be convinced that Biden is somehow even worse. Yet today, in the 21st century, our access to information is virtually unlimited. Anyone who really wanted to know what Trump is like would be able to find out—so whatever ignorance or misinformation Trump voters had, they bear the greatest responsibility for it.

Then, there is discontent: Growth in total economic output has greatly outpaced growth in real standard of living for most Americans. While real per-capita GDP rose from $26,000 in 1974 to $56,000 today (a factor of 2.15, or 1.7% per year), real median personal income only rose from $25,000 to $36,000 (a factor of 1.44, or 0.8% per year). This reflects the fact that more and more of our country’s wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the rich. Combined with dramatically increased costs of education and healthcare, this means that most American families really don’t feel like their standard of living has meaningfully improved in a generation or more.

Yet if people are discontent with how our economy is run… why would they vote for Donald Trump, who epitomizes everything that is wrong with that system? The Democrats have not done enough to fight rising inequality and spiraling healthcare costs, but they have at least done something—raising taxes here, expanding Medicaid there. This is not enough, since it involves only tweaking the system at the edges rather than solving the deeper structural problems—but it has at least some benefit. The Republicans at their best have done nothing, and at their worst actively done everything in their power to exacerbate rising inequality. And Trump is no different in this regard than any other Republican; he promised more populist economic policy, but did not deliver it in any way. Do people somehow not see that?

I think we must face up to the fact that racism and sexism are clearly a major part of what motivates supporters of Trump. Trump’s core base consists of old, uneducated White men. Women are less likely to support him, and young people, educated people, and people of color are far less likely to support him. The race gap is staggering: A mere 8% of Black people support Trump, while 54% of White people do. While Asian and Hispanic voters are not quite so univocal, still it’s clear that if only non-White people had voted Biden would have won an utter landslide and might have taken every state—yes, likely even Florida, where Cuban-Americans did actually lean slightly toward Trump. The age and education gaps are also quite large: Among those under 30, only 30% support Trump, while among those over 65, 52% do. Among White people without a college degree, 64% support Trump, while among White people with a college degree, only 38% do. The gender gap is smaller, but still significant: 48% of men but only 42% of women support Trump. (Also the fact that the gender gap was smaller this year than in 2016 could reflect the fact that Clinton was running for President but Harris was only running for Vice President.)

We shouldn’t ignore the real suffering and discontent that rising inequality has wrought, nor should we dismiss the significance of right-wing propaganda. Yet when it comes right down to it, I don’t see how we can explain Trump’s popularity without recognizing that an awful lot of White men in America are extremely racist and sexist. The most terrifying thing about Trump is that millions of Americans do know what he’s like—and they’re okay with that.

Trump will soon be gone. But many others like him remain. We need to find a way to fix this, or the next racist, misogynist, corrupt, authoritarian psychopath may turn out to be a lot less foolish and incompetent.

We must stop Kavanaugh now!

PNRJ core principles, current events, ethics, public policy , , , , , , , , , ,

Post 257: Sep 16 JDN 2458378

I realized that this post can’t afford to wait a week. It’s too urgent.

It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time: Paul Manafort has pled guilty and is cooperating with the investigation. This is a good day for Mueller, a bad day for Trump—and a great day for America.

Manafort himself has been involved in international corruption for decades. It’s a shame that he will now be getting off light on some of his crimes. But prosecutors would only do that if he had information to share with them that was of commensurate value—and I’m willing to bet that means he has information to implicate the Donald himself. Trump is right to be afraid.

Of course, we are still a long way from impeaching Trump, let alone removing him from office, much less actually restoring normalcy and legitimacy to our executive branch. We are still in a long, dark tunnel—but perhaps at last we are beginning to glimpse the light at the other end.

We should let Mueller and the federal prosecutors do their jobs; so far, they’ve done them quite well. In the meantime, instead of speculating about just how deep this rabbit hole of corruption goes (come on, we know Trump is corrupt; the only question is how much and with whom), it would be better to focus our attention on ensuring that Trump cannot leave a lasting legacy of destruction in his wake.

Priority number one is stopping Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh may seem like just another right-wing justice (after Scalia, how much worse can it get, really?), but no, he really is worse than that. He barely even pretends to respect the Constitution or past jurisprudence, and has done an astonishingly poor job of hiding his political agenda or his personal devotion to Trump. The most fundamental flaw of the US Supreme Court is the near-impossibility of removing a justice once appointed; that makes it absolutely vital that we stop his appointment from being confirmed.

It isn’t just Roe v. Wade that will be overturned if he gets on the court (that, at least, I can understand why a substantial proportion of Americans would approve—abortion is a much more complicated issue than either pro-life or pro-choice demagogues would have you believe, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy agrees). Kavanaugh looks poised to tear apart a wide variety of protections for civil rights, environmental sustainability, and labor protections. Sadly, our current Republican Party has become so craven, so beholden to party above country and all else, that they will most likely vote to advance, and ultimately, confirm, his nomination. And America, and all the world, will suffer for it, for decades to come.

If this happens, whom should we blame? Well, first of all, Trump and Kavanaugh themselves, of course. Second, the Republicans who confirmed Kavanaugh. Third, everyone who voted for Trump. But fourth? Everyone who didn’t vote for Clinton. Everyone who said, “She’s just as bad”, or “The two parties are the same”, or “He can’t possibly win”, or “We need real change”, and either sat home or voted for a third party—every one of those people has a little bit of blood on their hands. If the US Supreme Court spends the next 30 years tearing away the rights of women, racial minorities, LGBT people, and the working class, it will be at least a little bit their fault. When the asbestos returns to our buildings, the ozone layer resumes its decay, and all the world’s coastlines flood ever higher, they will bear at least some responsibility. All their claimed devotion to a morally purer “true” left wing will mean absolutely nothing—for it was only our “cynical” “corrupt” “neoliberal” pragmatism that even tried to hold the line. It is not enough to deserve to win—you must actually win.

But it’s not too late. Not yet. We can still make our voices heard. If you have any doubt about whether your Senator will vote against Kavanaugh (living in California, I frankly don’t—say what you will about Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, they have made their opposition to Kavanaugh abundantly clear at every opportunity), write or call that Senator and tell them why they must.

The confirmation vote is this Thursday, September 20. Make your voice heard by then, or it may be too late.