According to reporting, the Trump stimulus plan has payroll tax relief at its center. That is nothing but another handout to corporations and businesses. It will marginally help the rest of us. For many Americans, it won’t even help on the margins. Moreover, it won’t reflate the economy. In the circumstances in which most people find themselves, such a proposal crosses over from cynical to criminal. I hope everybody calls/emails/texts their representatives in Congress.

There is evidence that some of Bernie’s supporters are reacting in a sectarian spirit to Biden’s surge and his near lock on the nomination. They apparently have forgotten, if they ever learned, that this is a democratic moment, not a socialist moment. And it calls for a particular strategic approach that accents a broad, diverse, and multi-class alliance against right wing authoritarian rule. Such an alliance doesn’t preclude struggle, but its accent is on unity in the face of an existential threat — a second Trump term.

But Bernie and many of his supporters don’t seem to understand this. They fight the Democratic Party Establishment (read the moderate and liberal wing of the party) as much as Trump. And why not? In their understanding, the task is to usher in a political revolution and plunge a stake to the heart of neoliberalism once and for all. Thus the problem in this phase of the elections in their rendering isn’t so much Trump as weak kneed Democrats who won’t drink the socialist Kool Aid.

But here’s the problem with this approach, it isn’t just Establishment Democrats who aren’t on board with a political revolution. Tens of millions of other Democrats have said No Thank You as well. That’s the meaning of the Michigan primary and other recent primaries where voters cast vote for Joe Biden in large numbers. Later tonight we will see if primary voters in Fl, AZ, and IL do the same. Realism has a place in politics.

Stitching together a new daily routine at the homestead. More time for reading books I’ve been wanting to read for some time and listening to music (LOUD). Thanks to my step daughter and her father I have a new windfall of cds, including jazz, a genre of music that I’ve been wanting to become more acquainted with. Listening to Bruce now, who I’m a big fan of. I love and connect to the stories he writes and sings, the energy he brings to his craft, and his decency and humanity. And of course, love the E-Street band as well, although miss Clarence.

One challenge will be to retrofit my workout regime from the Y, where I went 6 days a week, to my home and outdoors. Might buy a bike or stationary bike, perhaps with the help of a subsidy from my daughters. Will also do stretching and some yoga poses in my living room as well as climb nearby hills, and they are STEEP.

Finally, I will have more time to get on the horn, an expression I learned from the indefatigable and upbeat Lasker Smith, to talk to my friends around the country. I find such conversations a form of therapy that invariably brings a laugh or a lift. Usually both.

To paraphrase a song by the Boss, “Better Days will shine on through.”

Bernie didn’t hit a home run and Biden didn’t strike out. On the pandemic, he outperformed Bernie. And generally speaking, this was Biden’s strongest debate and it is worth noting that he embraced some of the progressive positions of Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and committed to selecting a woman as his Vice Presidential running mate. He also announced that he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court when a vacancy opens up. In the end, I doubt — and we’ll know soon — if the dynamics of the primary contest changed as a result of tonight’s debate. Advantage, and a big advantage at that, still rests with Biden. On Tuesday, we will know for sure, when some major states hold their primaries.

Is this a socialist moment, as some say? The short answer is no. Generally speaking, a political moment is determined by the particular alignment (or balance of power) between the working class and its allies on one side and its adversaries on the other and the political tasks that logically follow from that alignment.

So how does this apply to the present situation? Briefly, two powerful coalitions are at loggerheads. One is led by Trump and includes a motley collection of retrograde big, medium, and small sized capitalists, more than a sliver of white working people, white evangelicals, outright fascists, Fox and other right wing media outlets, and, not least, the entire Republican Party. The politics of this coalition are white nationalist, misogynist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-working class, and relentlessly anti-democratic and authoritarian.

Vigorously opposing this toxic political bloc is a diverse people’s coalition. It includes sections of the working class and labor movement, people of color, a majority of women, most of the younger generation, and many others. Indeed, even some billionaires and millionaires from Wall Street and Main Street are in the mix.

The overarching task of this coalition is to defend our democracy from Trumpian onslaught in the midst of an exploding pandemic and an imploding economy. And there is no better terrain than this fall’s elections to do this. By denying Trump and his gang a second term to consolidate their power over the state, economy, and country and institutionalize one man dictatorial rule, space will be created to tackle climate disruption, systemic inequality, structural economic changes, pandemic diseases as well as save, expand, and deepen our democracy.

What then is the nature of the moment? It is, to the bone, a democratic one.

There is, for sure, a new, unprecedented interest in socialism. And no doubt, Bernie Sanders had a big hand in its popularization, particularly among young people. He broke the link in the public mind between socialism and its 20th century iteration and the repressive, authoritarian practices associated with it.

But, as significant as this is, it doesn’t make this moment a socialist one. It’s not the defining feature of the times in which we live. That designation belongs to the democratic struggle to break the steadily tightening and extraordinarily dangerous grip of right wing, authoritarian rule and breathe new life into our democracy and democratic institutions.

It behooves us not to confuse the two. When that happens, I can assure you, nothing good will come from it, as we are seeing in the negative, extreme, and sectarian reactions to the likely nomination of Joe Biden by many of Bernie’s supporters who believe, wrongly, that this is a “socialist moment.”

It’s never good to be rigid, but it isn’t helpful either to fail to understand the time of day. Such a failure, if embraced by too many people, will exact a steep price on Election Day.