Why do Trump and Vance double and triple down on their racist inventions that Haitian people are eating pets. The answer is simple enough. It commands media attention. Racism and xenophobia are at the core of their beliefs. And it is also at the heart of their voter mobilization strategy.

In most campaigns, voter mobilization combines activating the base with persuading the undecided. In Trump’s campaign the accent is heavily on the former. And accomplished by embracing the worst forms of racism, xenophobia, and misogyny.

How low will Trump and Vance go? As low as necessary. In other words, whatever it takes to mobilize their base on election day is in play. No lie is too big or too small. We would be naive to expect anything different.

The mass murder continues as Netanyahu and his coalition of right wing extremists wage war against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza — and now beyond Israeli borders. It’s past time to withhold military weaponry as well as unequivocally condemn Netanyahu. Israel’s right to exist and defend itself has turned into a rationale by Netanyahu to justify mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, territorial takeover, and imperial aggression. If a much larger war ensues the perpetrator is in Tel Aviv.

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!