I have to admire the “courage” of Taylor Swift. She could have much more easily remained on the sidelines of this election. But she chose not to. I hope other entertainers and sport’s figures follow her courageous example.

The “Swift Effect” is real!

The problem with some on the left is that they expect Kamala Harris to campaign as a candidate of the left. But she isn’t. She is the leader of and speaks for an expansive cross class, multi-racial coalition, the likes of which I haven’t seen in my lifetime. It stretches from AOC to the Cheneys and includes tens of millions in between. And its mission is to defeat a candidate whose politics fall somewhere between extreme right wing authoritarian and neofascist.

What is more, her challenge is not only to activate this disparate coalition, which she is skillfully and vigorously doing (watch her mass rallies and note her massive ground game), but also to earn the support of a sliver of voters who are so far undecided as to whether to vote for her or Trump, or not vote all.

These voters, and it shouldn’t require any reminding, don’t hang out on the left. They have no desire that is discernable, in my calculus anyway, to “storm heaven.” They are, from nearly all accounts, moderate in their political attitudes. Her appeal, therefore, has to take THEIR political disposition — not the left’s —- into account for their votes could decide who enters the White House in January. Thankfully, she does, while ignoring those on the left whose only advice, no matter what the concrete circumstances, is to up the ante, up the ante.

Here is a snippit of a larger sketch on joining the Communist Party

Unlike my two older brothers who did well academically and were elected class presidents in each of their four years, my high school resume and report card were, how to put it, thin. Not one a parent would proffer in conversation with a neighbor.

On my good days, I was an average student who found school a perfect site for daydreaming, misbehaving, glancing at girls in the corridor or classrooms, and watching the clock in its slooooow march to dismissal time. I don’t know if, like Springsteen, I learned more from a 3 minute record than I ever learned in school, but I do recall that in my senior yearbook in 1963 my favorite saying was “I find every book too long.”

That sounds more like a clever editor putting words into my mouth than my own words, but even so, it did succinctly capture my attitude toward book learning at the time.

If I read anything at that age, it was the sports page of the local newspaper. Every morning at the breakfast table, I eagerly checked out the box scores of the Red Sox or Celtics or Giants or Packers, depending on the season.

Of course, my Bible was Sports Illustrated. It arrived in the mail, like clockwork, on Friday and as soon as I got home I devoured it with the same enthusiasm that I gobbled down the jelly donuts from a local bakery that my parents picked up on their way home from work.

If I knew any Marx, it was, not Karl, but Groucho. His weekly TV show, “You Bet Your Life” was a hoot! If it was a choice between his comedy show or doing an assigned school reading such as Dickens or Shakespeare or George Eliot, the choice was an easy one for me. Groucho by a mile!

Lesser evilism in the current elections has no political utility. The concept, as I interpret it, rests on the notion that the differences between one candidate and the other are differences of degree. But that isn’t the case in this election.

The differences between Kamala Harris and Trump are differences of kind. Or said differently, what separates them are differences that are qualitative in nature, not quantitative. None more so than their attitude toward democratic governance, democracy, and constitutionalism.

Harris would defend, deepen, and extend democracy in its many forms. Trump, on the other hand, would not waste a New York minute before running roughshod over them. You may not believe me, but you should believe Trump who said he would be dictator on Day 1. And much more in this vein.

There is no reason to think he is engaging in hyperbole. Or making promises that he won’t keep. Or only speaking in such extremist language to mobilize his retrograde base for the elections. He means and believes what he says. To think otherwise is not only mistaken, naive, and deeply subjective, but exceedingly dangerous to your future and the future of the country and world.

Socialism in the MAGA mind is anything that redistributes wealth from the billionaires to working people. But you might be thinking: Why would white workers who are a part of the MACA base and struggling for some semblance of economic security be opposed to wealth redistribution that would benefit them and, instead, buy into the claim that any form of redistributive economics by the government is socialism?

The answer, or at least a good part of the answer, is RACISM, that is, the false understanding on the part of white workers in the MAGA movement that redistributive — “socialist” — measures of any kind transfer wealth from white people — white workers first of all — who have earned it to Black and Brown people who haven’t.

Moreover, anybody that supports such measures — and at this moment it is Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, say Trump and Vance — are a “socialist” or a “communist” or a “Marxist.”