[Note from BenIndy: This post was first published on Stephen Golub’s blog, A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. There, Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.]
In a blast from the past, a hopeful film resonates as Kamala’s campaign takes off.
A Promised Land, by Stephen Golub, August 4, 2024
For a fun, relaxing time the other day, my wife and I went to see Fly Me to the Moon, the lighthearted Scarlett Johansson/Channing Tatum flick about an attempt at faking the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Despite the enjoyable escapism, I couldn’t help comparing it with our troubled times.
A Time of Darkness, Division, Promise and Progress
I’ll start, though, by acknowledging that 1969 was far from untroubled. We were in the depths of the Vietnam war, wreaking havoc on that country while absorbing over 50,000 deaths of our own. The war and a host of other issues bitterly divided the United States. President Richard Nixon was hardly a unifying figure.
Still, if 1969 was far from an innocent time, it at least offered signs of hope and progress, starting with the massively moving accomplishment of the moon landing itself. The seeds of the women’s rights and environmental movements had already been planted, with progress soon to flower in both fields.
And for all of Nixon’s sins, insecurities and instability, which became even clearer as the Watergate scandal came crashing down on him a few years later, some of his proposals (such as a guaranteed annual income) and achievements (the launching of the Environmental Protection Agency) would be considered progressive today in Democratic circles and anathema to Republicans.
That era also merits comparison with today in other respects. There was no Fox “News” or social media to pervasively present a perverse, fact-resistant version of reality to Americans. Which in turn meant that senior Republicans could and would force Nixon to step down when the actual reality of Watergate made that a necessity. Contrast that with today’s craven Republican leaders caving to Trump even after he sought to extort Ukraine’s president and distort U.S. foreign policy for political gain, and even after he chose to support insurrectionists intent on tearing apart the Capitol and the Constitution.
Hope
Speaking of today… Fly Me to the Moon is by no means a great movie. But underlying the mix of humor, goofiness, romance, drama, cynicism and commercialism marking the film, there’s an underlying spirit of hope. And hope, despite the darkness and craziness of 2024, is what many of us now feel for the first time in some time.
It started, obviously, with the leaders of the one flawed but functional major political party we have left persuading a diminished, unpopular president that his time had gone, that for the good of the party and the country he needed to step aside. It continued with his accepting that verdict, as painful as it was, and doing the right thing.
It’s culminated, for the moment, with the impressive rocket launch of Kamala’s campaign. In the wake of her debacle of a race four years ago, the first doubt about her could have been whether she could even run for president competently. The three months ahead will truly be trying, with lots of difficulties. But she’s off to an inspiring start.
What I find most promising is that she seems to have learned valuable lessons from that campaign, as well as from those of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. Those lessons include tacking toward the center somewhat, given the realities of winning the crucial, centrist swing states necessary to win the Electoral College, which is all that matters in a presidential campaign. That in turn involves playing up her prosecutorial credentials, as opposed to previously playing them down.
Her strong start also involves standing steadfast on vital matters of principle (as well as political advantage), especially a woman’s right to an abortion and women’s rights in general; triggering an organic online buzz that might sway younger voters; and bringing on senior advisors from the successful Obama campaigns.
She’s smoothly parrying Trump’s ugly, racist, misogynist, nativist thrusts, most recently by not getting dragged into his pigsty over whether she’s Asian or Black. (Though I wonder how J.D. and Usha Vance feel about what Trump’s either/or attacks mean for their mixed-race kids.)
There’s another president Harris merits comparison with: Ronald Reagan. For all their dozens of differences, she’s coming across as her own kind of Reaganesque “happy warrior”: a blend of strong, stern, sunny, cheerful and hopeful. It’s a winning combination if one can pull it off. So far, she is.
Triumphing Despite the Troubled Skies
Inevitable troubles lie ahead, ranging from potentially legitimate negative stories to attacks on Kamala’s policy positions to Trump lying about her at every nasty turn.
Which is where we all come in. By voting, donating and working for Harris. By influencing others to do the same. By holding on to hope, even during those days when things look dark.
Triumphing in November is all very doable. After all, we’re not talking about shooting for the moon.
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