The Closing Argument Must Be Abortion Rights and More … Plus An October Surprise
By Bill Lasarow
October 26, 2024
With the existentially consequential 2024 election only a week away, I am including my recent Substack article on the TDC website. If you already read it there, don't waste your time. Oh yes, and if you haven't yet please get your vote in.
But first … Robert Kelly may turn out to be America’s savior, even though he died in 2010 at the age of 29. His father is John Kelly, the four-star general who served as Trump34’s longest serving Chief of Staff. Kelly has now weighed in on the fascism and corruption of Trump34, and did so on an audio recording that he authorized for public release so that there can be no room for ambiguity.
Käthe Kollwitz, “The Grieving Parents,” a memorial or Kollwitz’s son Peter, Ypres, Belgium.
That his Marine Lieutenant son died in action in Afghanistan, one can reasonably surmise, has gnawed at his father through many of Trump34’s remarks disparaging of our war dead as “losers and suckers.” Now Kelly has joined the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and many other prominent conservatives, in characterizing Trump34 as the fascist that he has always been. “To the core.”
Many have called this pair of statements the October surprise of 2024. Note that neither have endorsed Kamala Harris, which is in keeping with the non-partisan tradition of our military (Michael Flynn on the other hand suffers no such restraint). And that is just fine.
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DeWitt Cheng, “Prisoner in Orange,” 2024, digital collage. Courtesy of the artist.
Assuming that Kamala Harris carries the Electoral College, Trump34 will launch his long planned effort to overturn the result. But on November 26th, Judge Juan Merchan’s sentencing may effectively remove Trump34 from direct involvement in this scheme. Consider the unprecedented weight on the judge’s shoulders; no previous sentencing of a convicted felon has ever carried such weighty political consequences. Yet Merchan’s duty is to render a sentence in the context of the felonies of which Trump34 was convicted while turning a blind eye to the political landscape. What might unfold upon sentencing is the stuff of which B movies are made.
Lose or win, Trump34 is running for President to stay out of prison, but is also energized by his desperate lust to wield the dictatorial powers made possible by the Supreme Courts’ treacherous immunity ruling, a true betrayal of the Constitution’s letter and spirit. It is that ruling that renders Kelly’s and Milley’s assessment of the felon and his cult’s lethal fascism so compelling; without it the partisan pooh-poohing might be more convincing. Keep in mind that President Biden still has nearly three months during which he could unilaterally invoke that decision to dissolve the Court and declare the ruling null and void (effective after January 19th at least) by Presidential fiat. He is too much an institutionalist to actually take such a measure, a stretch beyond which his imagination will not allow him to go.
Jasper Johns, “Coat Hanger,” 1960, lithograph, 25 9/16 x 21 1/16”.
Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
But there is a campaign to be won, and it is reproductive health care, or abortion rights, that must be the Harris campaign’s closing centerpiece. This final thrust has already begun, building to a crescendo of rallies and media appearances that are the largest, loudest, most raucous, and most star-studded to date. At his own rallies, Trump34 has declared the he will win without the help of such stars as Springsteen, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, and Barbra Streisand. Not to mention an opening act from Barak Obama.
Harris, make no mistake, is the candidate, therefor it is she who must close the sale. That close began with her remarkable convention speech, which has remained substantially intact on the stump. She has tested a number of key points and their unifying narrative. She has tested them within a number of media formats and interrogators, ranging from corporate media professionals to sample groups of undecided voters. The campaign strategists and consultants track the data reflecting the proclivities of small cohorts of voters could well spell the difference between winning and losing. But it is the candidate who must ultimately deliver a message that forms a coherent and compelling whole.
Oscar Bailey, “Untitled (this way out),” c. 1960, vintage gelatin silver print, 4 x 5”.
Courtesy of Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla.
From well before becoming the nominee, Harris expression of the rights of women to the autonomy of their own bodies has struck notes simultaneously rational and expressive that are fully authentic. Assisted by a growing number of ballot measures enshrining abortion rights into state constitutions, Harris has brought a number of voters to her side who would otherwise vote the Republican ticket. Such measures are now present on ten state ballots, including toss-ups Arizona and Nevada, along with Republican leaning Florida and Montana. This could not only benefit Harris’ own campaign, but to also impact those states’ close Senate races, which together may enable Democrats to retain their majority in the Senate as well as regaining (as is widely expected) a House majority.
The political story is that the Presidential and Congressional campaigns can, and I believe will, ride the coattails of … a state ballot initiative.
That does not mean that we are looking at a single closing issue. But the placement of reproductive health care rights is the driving force of a set of timely and powerful issues. These include the cost of living, the threat to democracy, preserving healthcase access, immigration reform, and crime. National security, gun violence, climate change, energy independence, and other significant issues also serve as minor notes that can be placed in the foreground at some of the remaining campaign stops. Harris has distilled all of these into her overarching narrative themes: “freedom from government overreach,” “love of our country,” and “we are not going back.”
Norman Rockwell, “Spirit of America,” 1974, illustration for the Franklin Mint.
Courtesy of the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
The fact that by the time of her convention speech Harris had already crafted a well integrated narrative provided a two-month window, brief by normal Presidential campaign standards, to refine and adapt it. In interviews she has moved from succinct, clear, and convincing arguments (abortion rights), to overly wordy but vague ones (fracking). On some issues her moral authority has shined (an economy that benefits the middle class), but also has faltered on some issues for which she appears to be groping for the right specifics (continuity with the Biden administration).
If I were on the Harris team, my advice would be to emphasize integrating the issues that she frames with succinct moral and emotional clarity into a vision of integrity, tolerance, and optimism for a future under her leadership. The Democratic Party today, after all, boasts a very large tent that stretches from Bernie Sanders to Liz Cheney, and welcomes civil debate as not merely permissible but essential to our success. Crafting her closing stump speech into a compelling closing argument where each policy pronouncement and anecdote builds the case and ends on a soaring note requires only some tweaking, not an overhaul.
Jasmina Cibic, “A Shining City on a Hill,” 2017, multi-media installation. Courtesy of ‘O’ Space, Aarhus, Denmark.
Will she deliver on this over the next ten days? I think she is moving closer to that powerful close as the days of the calendar peel away. Probably the most difficult piece to balance is that she is not only build the case for her candidacy, she has and must continue to sound the alarm that her opponent is not normal, that he poses a unique danger to this nation — a fascist threat that, if handed the Presidency, will dim if not extinguish the light of our shining city on the hill that has made America not merely an example of democracy and liberty, but its singular beacon.
Not exactly simple or easy. But, as I wrote a few weeks before President Biden decided to step aside and endorse her candidacy on July 21st: She is ready and she is prepared.
