Nobody predicted it would be easy. Following the malignant shadow of a terrible Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Democrats were facing down a new cold war. The details remain scarce in terms of objective justification – WikiLeaks superhero Julian Assange might or might not have been a tool for Russian shirtless nightmare Vladimir Putin in releasing emails that made the Democrats National Committee look bad; Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was turned into a witch who falls on swords; the great divide within the Democratic party between Bernie Sanders and Clinton wouldn’t survive even the most generous of sutures; hurt feelings are hurt feelings and that’s what they are, and they are real.
So we planted ourselves in front of our computer screens and we watched as the DNC appeared to evaporate into a cloud of vitriol before our very eyes. Chants and gestures, jeers and curses, cheers with hisses behind them: This was how the DNC began on July 25. Those with a penchant for history will note that many a convention has not been the pep rally it set out to be; those with recent history behind their eyes will note that last week’s RNC included all the antipathy you could shake a burning cross at, right down to loser Ted Cruz refusing to endorse his party’s candidate, Trump. This is politics. When you are talking to the masses, the least common denominator rules the arena. Thankfully, our “revolution” has been televised to the point of requiring some common decency, at least in its appearance.
“Hillary Clinton must become the next President of the United States,” Sanders said, in no uncertain terms, as he headlined the DNC’s opening night. He then went on to try to mend fences, to try to offer olive branches, to try to explain that the progressive values of his campaign – a campaign that was new to the Democratic Party, as he was not a Democrat until that infrastructure seemed advantageous for a presidential run.
“You’re not helping,” people say on my social media platforms when I react to such nonsense as a frat party in row 15 screaming “We trusted you!” as proven progressive Elizabeth Warren delivered her speech about income inequality and racial inequality dancing the dance of societal decline. Warren is a champion and you know it. Back off.
MSNBC quizzed a few Sanders supporters, many with tear stains and anger decorating their televised moments, about whether they would take the advice of Sanders and vote for Clinton.
“No.”
That’s right, they said, “no.” Even as Sanders runs back to another independent party affiliation, even as Sanders’ supporters have pushed Hillary even deeper into the progressive battle via a strong platform, even as open minds click light bulbs and we recall that, hey, maybe Clinton is our best candidate, and a great candidate at that. No.
That’s fine. We’ll wait. We’ll go high.
Canova rises
While the rest of the nation (or at least state) gazed wanly into the downward spiral of Democratic leader Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s terrible, no good, decline and fall, her opponent – a Sanders supporter – Tim Canova has been dancing on the $2.2 million in donations he’s received to out that damn spot.
“We have to make sure that we move together in a unified way,” Wasserman Schultz said to angry crowd of detractors assembled at the DNC. “We know that the voices in this room that are standing up and being disruptive, we know that’s not the Florida we know. The Florida that we know is united.”
Well, not anymore, apparently. Canova is troubling Wasserman Schultz’s door like no one else in the Democratic Party since 2004. Schultz has been effectively silenced at the convention and pushed into an obligatory emeritus corner of the Clinton campaign. She is the lamb to the slaughter for whatever perception of the DNC that is currently being proffered. She’s out.
High and dry
Like a phoenix from a particularly controlled flame, the medical marijuana movement is gaining traction in Florida, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Though the amendment to Florida’s constitution has seen its ups and downs over the years, slipping just shy of its 60 percent voting threshold in 2014, it appears that current polling has the weed tipping over the 77 percent mark.
“I’m obviously pleased at these levels of support, but I’m also not surprised,” United for Care campaign manager Ben Pollara told the Times. “The notion of allowing medical decisions to be made by doctors and patients, not politicians, is simply not controversial. Floridians are compassionate and they know that marijuana can help alleviate suffering.”
It can also incite competing campaigns. Allegedly, $10 million will be spent against the ballot initiative when all is said and done. We can’t have good things.
Don’t say “Takei”
Last weekend, Star Trek guru and LGBT speaker to the stars George Takei took a few minute away from praising Florida’s space program (or trying to catalyze it) in order to address the invisible plague of bathroom trauma.
“Now our battleground is the bathroom,” he says, according to Florida Today. “How ridiculous is that? North Carolina’s law requiring transgender people to go to the bathroom of their birth certificate as opposed to how they’re dressed, what their identity is, is ridiculous.”
Takei then took things a little deeper into the abstract. “I said my name Takei, surname Takei rhymes with ‘OK’ as well as ‘gay.’ If they can’t use the word ‘gay,’ then just use the word ‘Takei’ in its place and march in the Takei pride parade.”
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