US Elections 2024 – Oscar Valdes

Why Trump Won’t Win

A central part of Trump’s personality is that he overvalues himself and devalues others.
Mind you, that tendency exists in most human beings but, if unexamined and unchecked, it grows to become a big problem.
In Trump’s case it comes across as grandiosity. ‘Look at me, I am the one!’
In a recent question/answer session with Black journalists, he stated that he had been the best president since Abraham Lincoln. He had done more for Black folks since Lincoln.
In his excesses, Trump is so obnoxious that sometimes he’s even funny, which has helped him keep his followers around.
The layer of overvaluing himself and devaluing others goes hand in hand with his divisiveness.
It does not take much to have people unwilling to think a little to be sucked in by Trump’s talk that all our nation’s problems lie with Democrats.
Republicans, in contrast, are flawless.
Trump’s song has that riff down.
But sowing division will not help our country find common purpose, which is essential to better use our resources in a world heavily influenced by dictators (Putin, Xi Jinping, Iran’s clerics).
Along with Trump’s divisiveness come his love to stir up toxic masculinity.
The effect of that led to the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6th 2021.
But toxic masculinity hurts us the most in the attitudes of many men toward women, the way our nation chooses to deny women the right to control their bodies.
It takes time to wake up from a historical slumber.
Women did not wake up when Hillary Clinton ran against Trump in 2016.
But now they’re getting a second chance, and this time it will be a Black woman confronting the White dude.
Trump’s already making every effort to demean Harris. ‘I didn’t know she was Black, I thought she was Indian (East Indian)’.
But it won’t work.
Kamala Harris is, first of all, a strong woman, and her appeal among other women is growing steadily, for she is sparking in them the reality that one of their own will soon be president of this country – 248 years after the nation declared its independence. That’s a hell of a long wait.
I say that Trump won’t win because he’s already sensing that Kamala Harris is better put together as a person than he is. And that hurts.
It doesn’t have to be that way, if he were kinder to himself, a little more introspective, and chose to learn from his mistakes, but he has trouble doing that.
Trump won’t win because his essence is clear to most Americans. He makes little effort to hide his flaws and instead prefers to tout them. There is no embarrassment in him. He thinks of his faults as assets instead.
And because he doesn’t change, it will be easier for most people to reject him as unsuited to be our leader.
Kamala Harris offers us something very different. An intelligent and ambitious woman eager to learn, joyous in the pursuit of her goal, willing to seek advice, and proud to be an American willing to fight the forces of the opposition in the name of all of us.

Will mail to Biden and Harris.

95 days to ballot day.

My short books ‘Putin’s Revenge – The Final Days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’ and ‘Letters to a Shooter,’ are out on paperpack and eBook. Go to Oscar Valdes Author Central (Amazon)

Black Woman Against White Man

Hello America!
We’re getting a chance to see how much we’ve evolved.
Are we really where we think we are racially and sexually?
To hear the Trump side, women should know their place. At home raising children. Mind you, that is a most honorable choice, but women in this country have been fighting for parity for a long time.
They only gained the right to vote in 1920, with the passage of the 19th amendment, two years behind England and 27 years behind New Zealand, the first nation to allow it.
Kamala Harris was born in 1964, only a year before the Civil Rights Act passed in 1965, outlawing discriminatory voting practices.
All these years in between it’s been a hard slog for women.
They’re still having old White men decide if they can have an abortion or not.
So, yes, it’s high time for women to form a solid block and beat Trump and all that he stands for.
Kamala Harris will be standing for all women this November 5th. Democratic women and Republican women and independent women. Women from the right, the left and the center.
Yes, because a woman president will open a different kind of dialogue for American women.
‘Baby, you know what it means to be one of us,’ they will be saying to Kamala as they march to the polling booth or make their contributions to the campaign.
Will Harris be a catalyst for parity in the workplace? Yes, she will.
Will women stand a chance to push up the so called glass ceiling? Yes, they will.
It will be most interesting to see leaders of industry (mostly male) having to speak to a woman president to try and gain favor.
Damn, it will be good to see that.
So Republican men who are casting their lot with Trump need to rethink their positions.
We don’t need testosterone to manage our nation. We need brains, empathy, imagination, moral strength, a commitment to the freedom of all human beings.
It’s time, fellows. If you’re falling behind in earnings, don’t blame in on women. They have as much a right to earn what you do. If you have the greater capacity, then you earn more.
If not, you earn less. And work on it if you want better.
The beauty of a woman running for president is that it puts all prejudices on the table.
So we can better deal with them.
It’s high time we did it. It will be good for us. Damn good, in fact.
I’m reminded of something the distinguished poet and writer Erica Jong once said about the feminist movement. I was in the audience when she said it. That the feminist movement had helped men become better fathers. And how right she was.
So, yes, the lack of barriers to women’s advancement ends up being better for all of us.
For we will be freer and wiser as a result.
So onwards, American women, this is your moment. Seize it, damn it.
Don’t let it slip away like you did when Hillary Clinton ran in 2016.
The world has been waiting to see tangible proof of your full powers. So, go for it.
And yes, Joe Biden made this moment possible when he chose Kamala. So thank you, Mr President.

My short books ‘Putin’s Revenge – The Final Days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’ and ‘Letters to a Shooter,’ are out on paperpack and eBook. Go to Oscar Valdes Author Central (Amazon)

99 days left to election day in the US

It’s Harris’s Moment

And she’s having a ball.
Flush with excitement, she addressed the crowd at her first rally in Wisconsin and earlier at campaign headquarters in Delaware and each time she exuded confidence.
‘People, I’m doing this and we are going to win!’
And she smiled broadly, her eyes sparkled and right in front of the cameras she went up to Doug, her husband, and gave him a big kiss in the mouth. And they both loved it.
She’s acting like’s she’s already won.
‘Fellow Americans, we got this!’
And news had gone out that in a 24 hour period, she’d raised 81 million bucks! Now that’s a lot of cash, folks. Lots of money to persuade the undecided that going Democrat is the only way.
By contrast, Trump is already depressed.
Angry, sensing that something is slipping away from him, he can’t take it. He’s bitter than the spotlight is not on him.
‘Where’s the love?!’ Trump is saying. ‘Goddammit, I took a bullet for all of you! Have you forgotten so quickly?’
And yes, Mr Trump, we very much regret that you were the target of an assassination attempt and are very glad that you are alive and there for your loved ones. But that doesn’t get you the election.
But Trump cannot resist.
Knowing that campaign funds allotted to Biden would now be transferred to Harris, he instructed his lawyers to file a suit with the FEC (Federal Elections Committee) to block the transfer arguing that it was illegal. It is not.
And then he heard that Musk was now changing his mind and that he would not be putting out 45 million dollars a month into a super PAC to help his campaign. And Musk added something about his not being into the cult of personality. Ouch! That had to hurt Trump when he heard it.
But it goes to show the impact Biden’s decision and Harris’s enthusiasm had on Musk. And I hope Republicans read that because, yes, you still have time to change your minds and vote Democrat. We welcome you, brothers and sisters. You know we love you.
And, secretly, Republican women are wondering, why in hell can we not have a woman be a candidate for President?
And they shake their heads and seem puzzled. It’s not like they haven’t had bold women step front, it’s that they have not got support. There was Margaret Chase Smith in 1964, Michele Bachmann in 2012, Carly Fiorina in 2016. Pioneers, all of them, ahead of their times. But ignored by most Republicans.
And while Trump stews in his frustration, envious of the energy and enthusiasm that Harris is showing, angry that all Americans are not thrown into fits of ecstasy when they hear him or see him show up, President Biden has quietly found his peace.
Biden can say to himself, ‘I picked Kamala Harris to be my vicepresident and she became vicepresident – the first one ever – and now I’ve endorsed her to be president and she will become president – the first one ever.’
But it gets better. Biden can say, ‘I was essential to Kamala’s political development. I chose her to be my running mate after she’d dropped out of the race in 2016, then I nurtured and guided her all these years she’s been at my side. And she learned what she had to learn, and I transmitted to her the joy of being the leader of this country, the profound satisfaction and honor that is to work hard on behalf of the American people. She learned fast and I know she will not disappoint. She is my legacy. So I now can breathe easier and accept that though my time to lead is coming to an end, I can be proud that I lent a hand in the making of our next president.’
Biden recognized that he had got stuck for a moment after criticism of his performance against Trump in the June 27th debate.
But then he fell ill with covid and he got away from the lights and the public attention that come with being president. And being alone as he isolated to recover from the virus, he reflected at length on his role as leader of the United States.
And he recognized that he had done his work and he was proud of it.
He smiled as he thought about it, feeling relieved. He enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm Harris radiated when she spoke to people about the tasks ahead.
And he knew that she was ready and she would become the 47th president of the United States.
And he remembered a little private moment she had with Harris a few months before the debate had triggered the events that followed.
They were alone in the Oval office, Biden and Harris, talking about something and he had had a rough time sleeping the night before and so he paused and looked at her, ‘Kamala, do you have trouble sleeping?’
And smiling, she said, ‘I sleep like a baby. But every now and then, I may have a little difficulty, and I will just get up and read something and then go back to sleep. You know how they say that it’s not good to stay in bed if you can’t sleep. But if I’m having trouble falling asleep and I turn and see that Doug is awake, I then ask, ‘baby, will you read me a story?’
‘Sure, honey,’ he answers. And when he reads to me, I just relax and five minutes later I’m sound asleep.’
Biden laughed.
‘And the funny thing is, it works for him, too,’ continued Harris, ‘because he tells me, “the moment I see you fall asleep, I put the book down and I fall asleep, too.”’

Good night, folks.

My short books ‘Putin’s Revenge – The Final Days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’ and ‘Letters to a Shooter,’ are out on paperpack and eBook. Go to Oscar Valdes Author Central (Amazon)

104 days left to election day in the US