Coop Scoop: The Big Election Guide and Overview
If you do your work, Harris wins easily.
October 22, 2024
By Marc Cooper
With the fate of the country and American democracy on the line 13 days from now, it is getting very hard to write these substack essays. Mostly because everything that needs to be said has been and is being said by myself and countless others. And there is just as much NOT being said or being distorted So it is not easy to find a niche that motivates one to start typing.
I don’t know if this will be my next to last substack before the election, or if I will be writing shorter ones almost every day until the election AND certification. I will probably end up somewhere in between those two extremes. This will be long but please read it all.
But The Coop Scoop intends to continue indefinitely providing adequate funding and support.
ALSO TAKE A MOMENT NOW TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT AND JOIN ME ON BLUESKY — THE SANE ALTERNATIVE TO MUSKS TWITTER TOILET. LOOK FOR ME ON BLUESKY AT THECOOPSCOOP.BSKY.SOCIAL. JUST GETTING STARTED THERE. NO LINK. YOU HAVE TO OPEN A FREE ACCOUNT THERE.
This edition will be long but I will try to keep the sentences short and direct to the point. The overall narrative I can tell you in advance. Get out the damn vote and stop wasting your time on stuff that matters not at this moment. The full answer is below but here’s the tease. Harris will win if we don’t play stupid.. Here goes the longer rant and in no logical order as my brain is overdosed with the 24/7 flow of trivia.
On behalf of the Kamala Harris Campaign with which I have no connection other than as a donor, I want to give sincere thanks to the legion of commenters, critics, armchair pundits, keyboard consultants, and similar species for all the campaign advice they are currently cranking out. It is pointless, useless and is not about to make any difference whatsoever.
Harris has a professional and pretty darn good campaign staff that have done maybe not a perfect but a very admirable roll out given the hurried conditions. They KNOW all the concerns that are being voiced and they will or will not address them based on their own precise and well-planned strategy. They may be right or wrong but they are not listening to you and there is little reason to. Whatever genius idea might have popped up this week about “messaging” or whatever has already been thought about and the decisions have been made.
Further, um, er, the election is already underway. By the end of this week somewhere around 40m Americans will have already voted. It’s all about voter mobilization not persuasion for the next two weeks, so enough already please on “messaging.”
I don’t care what positions Harris holds and I am pleased– not upset that she is pandering to the center and to the right because unlike most of the rest of us she is running for president in a deeply polarized country in which the madman Trump has left the center and even the center-right vote up for grabs. It would be malpractice for the campaign to try not to capture a piece of that pie left uneaten given the chance the election could come down to 50,000 knuckleheads in PA or Wisconsin or Arizona or Georgia. I am happy that for once the Cheneys agree with us. Accept it and embrace it and stop bitching about it. Politics is about ADDITION. If you are uncomfortable about support from Republicans, too bad. Ir’s needed and strategic and while a Harris admin would most likely not be “progressive” it will be 100 times better than a Trump one.
This is not a campaign to elect the Goddess Harris. I would vote for Liz Cheney herself before Donald Trump and his troupe of clowns, fascists and evil doers.
This is a referendum forced on the American people on whether we wish to remain under rule of law with all of its flaws or do we want an authoritarian regime that will roll back our freedoms and social support and that could devolve into a presidential dictatorship.
On that last point: even if the Dems win both houses, the system AS IS offers a wide array of presidential decree authority at a frightening level. If, heaven forbid, MAGA scores a trifecta, then be prepared for a dictatorial regime within a week of inauguration. There will be no veto power. The MAGA Senate will take down the filibuster and the game will be over, electorally. The Stone’s “Street Fighting Man" will once again be relevant.
About those tight polls. They are tight. They are real. But they are not in any way decisive. A meaningful poll is one that shows a 20 point lead constantly for months. From what I understand from experienced campaign managers and consultants, the people who really run campaigns as opposed to Facebook armchair analysts, there is no expectation that those polls will vary more than a point or two in either direction as they reflect the real polarization of the country. The polls should not be written off as “always wrong.” They are not. But polls have their limitations on all sides in terms of actually finding the voters who are willing to respond to polls (not so easy) and who is really going to the vote, apart from who are telling the truth. It is also true that MAGA is now engaged in flooding the zone with fake pro-Trump polls that DO get reported and sometimes aggregated along with others in “national polls.” This is an attempt to create a bandwagon effect that Trump is inevitable so give in or surrender. Do not buy into this cynical ploy.
That said, there are 100m people who never or rarely vote and NOBODY knows exactly what they will do.
I am figuring that Harris will win. I have made that prediction publicly. My basis for that is manifold but put simply, there are more of us than them. We have more bedwetters and defeatists and neurotics that they do, though they have more insane people. But the defeatism last week by so many Democrats based on a couple of polls they didn’t like was really counterproductive and annoying to say the least.. Put on some diapers or change the sheets and get out canvassing. Not only will it help politically, but it will lift your depression. Doing something is much better than having anxiety fits. If you cannot canvass, lick envelopes. Or simply DONATE strategically, that is directly to contested congressional seats. Harris has plenty of money. Go down-ballot.
Do I KNOW SHE WILL WIN ? Of course not. But it has gotten REALLY bothersome, to be polite, to say that the media --who doesn't know either-- keeps filling space over and over again with the same trope modified on each occasion, Examples like: The young Black vote can decide the election. The Latino vote in Arizona could decide the election. These twelve micro counties could decide the election. North Carolina could decide the election. Youth turnout could decide the election.The undecided could decide the election(!). The phase of the moon could decide the election.The hurricanes could decide the election.
Duh duh and duh. Why not tell the truth: “We here at this publication don't have a damn clue who is going to win but read this twaddle anyway.”
Turnout will decide the election. Or if you prefer, the voters will decide the election. And nobody knows who and how many will turn out until they do or do not. To repeat, there are more of us than them. Turn them out!
Instead of wanking around, 15 days short of the election, the objective media should be objectively alarmed by not only the mental impairment of Trump but his increasing threats of jailing anybody he feels like and his public plans to break the rule of law. And you better damn believe it. Trump might not know what Habeas Corpus is but JD Vance does. The US President has sweeping powers of decree. Just like you, I laugh and mock Trump when he is in outer space talking about schlongs or sharks. It’s ok to laugh for a minute. But then take his Hitlerian threats very seriously because he means them.
Remember that he had Michael Cohen locked up in solitary for not signing an NDA. All it took was approval from Quisling Bill Barr. It took Cohen's world class lawyer more than two weeks to get a writ of habeas so a judge could release him and who went on to condemn the illegal tactics of the White House. If you think if Trump is elected he cannot or will not start JAILING (not indicting) "bad people" from Hillary Clinton, to Joe Biden, to Kamala Harris, to his own niece and critic Mary to Jamie Raskin to AOC while beginning to deport as many "migrants" as he can, then you better slap your face real hard and wake the fug up. This is not Trump 2016. This is a crazier, more vengeful Trump being bankrolled by bloodsucker oligarchs and billionaires who are willing to trade in the constitution for tax breaks and de-regulation. And unlike 2016 when a lot of folks voted for Trump as a lark, he has since then built a serious authoritarian movement in which tens of millions of Americans now yearn for dictatorship. Wake up. Please.
The evolution of once=Democratic leaning oligarchs into MAGA supporters and funders has some serious consequences. Man/Baby Elon Musk has become a threat to national security and is now blatantly buying votes in the swing states with personal bribes to voters of $100 with one a day winning $1m from him everyday until the election. The workaround he thinks he is using to stay legal is that people are only being asked to sign a do-nothing petition stating their support for the First and of course the Second Amendment. There is no mention of any candidate or party. But Misuk is giving him at least $200 million, much of it dark through Superpacs.
However, to participate in Musk’s despicable bribery scheme, you must prove you are a registered voter in one of the swing states. Legal experts say this is a felonious violation of campaign laws that should result in felonies with 5 year jail sentences. They are effectively unreported and illegally sized donations to political campaigns.
If anybody other than Merrick Garland, Chief Chin Stroker, and still wondering if Trump broke any laws on January 6, were Attorney General, Musk would already be trying to make bail. He is more dangerous than Trump in the long run as is Mimi-me JD Vance. I can’t resist mentioning the fact that Musk, who seems more unhinged, more erratic and more threatening with every hours, talks like a 16 year old C minus student. I question how smart he really is. He is much more of a venture capitalist than some genius tech innovator. Apart from turning Twitter into a Nazi-filled toilet bowl with his crap floating at the top of the site, he DID NOT invent Tesla. Two other guys did and he bought it from the dough he made as an INVESTOR not a designer of PayPal. He has built it up but it wasn't his original baby, He has $3b in current US govt contracts as he controls all of our satellites and NASA launches on his schedule not theirs. Keeping Musk away from any more levers of power is one of the best reasons to keep his new pet, Donald Trump, out of the White House.
A final few thoughts. The Green Party. You are hearing this from someone who supported Nader in 2000 and think I might just have been wrong. The Greens used to be a small, eccentric grouping that was in its a way a real party. That was before Dr. Jill Stein took it over and made it a cult-like organization in which she impersonates and revives Jim Jones. Please understand, please, The Green Party today is her personal business and easily defined if you wish as a cult. In the 10 years or so since she took it over, the tiny party has become much tinier. Except in a few places where there is a large university population, the Greens will get no more than 1 or 2 percent of the vote. The party will not grow . It will not be built. It will elect not a single statewide official anywhere in America,
The problem is that a whole lot of money, a whole lot of dark money, has magically gotten her on the ballot in all 50 states. I know much of the help she got came from Republican funders and election lawyers, the same ones who will be challenging the certification of the election.I cannot prove it but I would bet a team of reporters will eventually find the Russian money behind her. After all she was Vlad’s dinner companion in Moscow on the eve of the 2016 election.
I understand those who think voting for Harris is voting for genocide. I’ve argued this elsewhere and not about to expand on it. I oppose her current policy on Israel. Trump’s is worse and just this weekend he encouraged Netanyahu “to do whatever is necessary” to retaliate against Iran. One day there will be a settlement of this war and when that day comes I would rather have a US administration with Harris and her group rather than Trump and his Saudi bootlickers. And make no mistake, the murderous Crown Prince is much closer to Israel than to the Palestinians. Anyone who thinks Trump will magically de-escalate really is living in a fantasy world and should not be taken seriously.
So you live in a blue state so you have “the freedom” to vote Green because Harris has a lock and the Green vote will not affect the outcome in your precious Democratic heaven. BUlly for you! It is true, but mostly not true. Your Green vote in CA or NY or MA will not change the outcome, fortunately. However, you will be still enabling and emboldening what is now a cult-like organization so it will continue on in the next election, if there is one, and will continue to be a spoiler as it currently is. There’s a reason Jill Stein will not abandon her current campaign. She is making money off it, or she is just plain out of her mind. Also, the down ballot races that determine the House are crucial. Spending your time on the Greens is a great way to pay not enough attention or give enough money or time to the vulnerable or flippable congressional seats in your Blue Heaven state. Do you know that Orange County, California and other parts of that state are, indeed, congressional battlegrounds that really, honestly, firmly can decide which party will control the House and therefore the funding for everything from Head Start to WIC, to Food Stamps, Medicare and just about the rest of the government. Ignore those races at your own peril and that of your parents and children. I urge you to read this piece where Stein’s own family is urging her to quit, but that’s like asking Jim Jones not to mix up the Kool-Aid. Every moment you spend promoting Dr.Jill Stein, giving money to the Greens or carrying water for their propaganda, is time and money and information you should be spending on the vulnerable house races that Dems must win to overturn the current GOP House majority run buy a bible belting fascist-adjacent screwball from the backwaters of Louisiana.
I find some great irony in the muddled thinking of Green supporters. One imagines those folks as being among the most radical critics of The System, one so corrupt they want little part of it. Yet their proclamations about the “morality” of their vote reveals that in the end, they are bigger victims of The System propaganda than they would like to think. The system tells us it is very democratic and represents the people and is the best vehicle to make your voice and position heard. Well, that’s the bullshit that Green Party supporters are buying like popcorn at the movies. This System was invented as one of the most advanced in the world when it was birthed. Over the decades it has degraded and is not dominated by citizens any longer but rather by big money interests on both sides. The voters might be sincere but The System is not and it certainly is not about any morality that I can see.
So why do the most radical against The System think that their “moral” vote makes any difference in a System completely oblivious to any morality? This is a System imposed upon us, not chosen by us. We are forced to make a decision between a couple of parties that have an unpleasant stench. But they are not the same. Not this time around. One is bent on some minor improvements to the status quo. The other wants a dictatorship. Your vote is PRAGMATIC in a closed system…it is not a moral statement in a garden of a hundred flowers. There is no reward except self self-virtue in casting your “moral” vote, There is only the possible crime of empowering a fascist regime by pulling a few thousand needed votes.
I understand that nobody owns your vote – but the system owns all of us. So don’t give me the bullshit that Democrats think they own your progressive vote and you are going to show them they are wrong. Actually, YOU OWN YOUR VOTE. And it is your decision to make it count as much as possible or simply toss it away or, worse, cast it in a place where it will empower the MAGA fascists who are widely supporting the Greens as I write this. There is a reason why the current pro-fascist algorithm of Musk’s Twaddle puts him at the top of the general X feed along with another 250 extreme rightists and pro-fascists but peppered liberally with the Don't Vote Democrat “radicals” ranging from Sten, to Chris Hedges Code Pink, to the Syrian-funded Aaron Maté and his other soulmates from the disnfo rag Grayzone (named by the Guardian as one of the leading disinformation sites in America… and so on down this smelly line. It’s because Musk wants to promote that headless “left” vote against the Democrats being urged by the online “leftists” who only recently discovered that the Democratic Party was no, gasp, socialist (!). Please don’t be a dummy about this.
Voting should NOT be the definition of your politics, sorry. It takes a minute or two every couple of years and your pragmatic and realistic choices are usually narrow, but not this time around. Your real politics are what you do in between those 2 minutes every two years. Are you building real community networks? Are you building a union? Are you educating yourself to better educate others? Are you working on local school and library boards? Are you, God Forbid, trying to build a real multi-racial social movement for deep radical reform? Or do you just piss around with performative events that usually result in no organization.
I don’t give a AF if u are psychologically prepared for a possible Trump victory – though it seems half the Dems I know gave up last week when the polls moved a point in or two in the margins of error. I want to know if you are politically prepared for a Trump victory. Joking about moving to Canada is a joke. Are you organizing a local committee to keep a watch on the militia poll watchers? Are you at least thinking about organizing a local anti-Trump community organization ready to fight the closure of libraries and schools? Are you making contact with immigrant communities to figure out how to resist deportations including maybe your residence as a safe house? Are you preparing to go to jail to protect our freedoms? Are you preparing for the social violence that will CERTAINLY break out election week no matter who wins? What are you doing except worrying?
We can win and we will win if we do what is needed at the moment and stop wasting time with wishcasting, bedwetting, offering strategic messaging advice, rehearsing for the umpteenth time the mostly true but hoary threadbare and well-known critiques of the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris’s many defects when the election is already underway, and jacking off by pondering the morality of your vote. Not that hard a choice when we are quite possibly 15 days away from the electorate voting FOR dictatorship.
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Marc, what a thoughtful, hopeful and equally frightening piece. You are incredible.
Because Substack arrives by email. Having taught digital Journalism and researching rather profoundly i Delved into the more obscure aspects of reader behavior, I found that along with others, that many many people do not read their emails yeyond. the first 15 or 20 in their in box and peruse them at different times of the day. It’s not an ego trip. It’s a necessity because of the way people look at email. You are probably an assiduous reader and look at everything. Or look to see what you have in your inbox at least. But the fact remains that most people only look at certain chunks of their inbox at certain times of the day and don’t catch a lot. That is in there. I understand your implied irritation because it also irritates me. But you are the first person to note that to me, which is a good sign because I could see on the back end of Substack when and who are opening the links and you would be quite surprised to see who starts reading at one in the morning, but only goes back a few hours in there inbox. I would tell you that I am seeking alternatives to that practice, but the data is the data as they say. I appreciate your remark and I am not at all offended because as I said, I am also irritated by this necessity. Thanks much.