A compendium of solid reporting, commentary, and direct-from-the-source information surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" (even when one is lying) BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links – with brief quotes from the coverage and short commentary from me – to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's, and the world's, future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
The political party that’s been battered and bloodied in America’s culture wars since the end of the 1960s by not even really knowing how to fight them finally decided to stop worrying about churning out policy papers and pleasing newspaper nitpickers, and instead start playing to win — and on their terms. Backed by a pulsating soundtrack that jumped from the soul of Stevie Wonder to Lil Jon’s hip-hop to the Texas Americana of The Chicks, Democrats in Chicago successfully argued that their culture — a middle class full of hardworking Black and brown folks and strong women, seeking only the freedom to make their own life choices — is America’s culture. And that fighting for things like reproductive rights or against climate change should not be pigeonholed as progressive but embraced as patriotic.
I've read lots of the op-ed instant reactions to the Harris speech and Democratic convention. Almost without exception, they tell us what it all means, but with almost no context or nuance. This isn't because the commentators are stupid. They're just shallow, because their jobs require them to be shallow. (They're vastly better than the talking-head TV people, howver. Bunch's commentary is one of the rare exceptions, because it is teeming with context and nuance.
Paid parental leave. Health care as a human right. Freedom to control your own body. Taxing the wealthy to pay their fair share. Protecting democracy. These were the themes of the Democratic National Convention. They will be exceedingly difficult to achieve in the chaos of our escalating climate crisis. Yet we heard almost nothing about the threat to a livable planet during convention prime time.
Speaking of context, the environment in which humanity exists is pretty much the ultimate example. And it's becoming less habitable each year. As existential crises go, this is the big one. Yet as Fenton explains, the Democrats were reluctant to talk about it. It's easy to understand why. And to be fair, the Biden administration has done some useful things on climate change – and a new Trump administration would be an announcement to the world that the U.S. intends to do everything possible not to deal with it, but rather make it worse. But this is a scary example of ostrich-like politics.
Living in the vicinity of an unhinged conspiracy-spewing political kook who is disavowed by his own family sounds like an unusual state of affairs. Except in Arizona.
E.J. Montini, the Arizona Republic's ace columnist, brought some interesting context to the pathetic but dangerous trajectory of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr.'s family has disowned his wretched ways again and again – not least his attacks on public health as a leader in the anti-vaccine cult. Today, a bunch of Kennedys denounced his Trump endorsement. Montini, in his commentary, notes similarities with the long-suffering family of Arizona's off-the-wall right-wing member of Congress, Paul Gosar. My own belief is that RFKjr realized his "independent" campaign for the presidency was going to benefit Harris, after assuming (along with his funders) that Trump would be the beneficiary of his run. I look forward to reading deeper looks into just what transpired.
ProPublica, America's finest investigative journalism organization, is taking a much-earned bow with the announcement today of government action – federal and state, including Republican-controlled states – against some nasty operators. This situation strikes me as a clear case of bad acts by (literal) rentiers, who collude to raise prices in a cartel "marketplace" – rental housing – that rips off some of the people who can least afford it. The Biden administration has become a real force in antitrust activity, the first administration in decades to do that. It's a reminder, once again, that elections matter.
Kudos: ProPublica
A mother's message
[F]or people who are different and have no support, the world can be bleak. Their loneliness can be agonizing. Some people assume the school days are the hardest, but it’s the years after that are the social desert. Having a friendly, forgiving workplace to go to is critical. It’s often their only taste of community and what makes them such reliable and rewarding employees. The work from home movement has been a killer for people with special needs, often depriving them of the only social connections they have.
Please just read this Brown essay, about her neurodivergent son and how the images of Gus Walz at the Democratic convention prompted her to write it. The jerks who mocked this kid the other night deserve all the contempt they're getting for their online behavior. Brown's lovely piece is the best way to leave them behind.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
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David Fenton
, The Arizona Republic
Lulu Ramadan
