Five Reasons To Be Hopeful Right Now
What is this, a 'reasons to be hopeful' newsletter? Pshaw.
You may not believe this, but people have accused us of being negative and cynical! Ridiculous! We are a beam of sunshine! Yes, recent events have some people being Frowny Frannies and Gloomy Gertrudes. But here are some reasons why things are maybe not so bad.
1. Joe has raised more money.
Biden campaign said it entered June with more than $212 million cash on hand, while Trump and the RNC have at least $170 million. June was Biden’s best fundraising month yet. And 95 percent of the donations were under $200, suggesting Biden has stronger grassroots support. Trump’s cash is also being drained by his legal issues; according to CBS News he’s spent more than $72 million on his legal bills.
2. Polls are shit.
You know who else consistently lagged behind in polls in 2016? Donald J. Trump. Look at these Clinton/Trump polls and how completely wrong they were! And polls showing Biden losing are all well within the margin of error. According to Pew, CNN and Fox News conduct polls by telephone using live interviewers, CBS News and Politico field their polls online using opt-in panels. When’s the last time you picked up the phone to some unknown caller? How lonely and bored would you have to be? Not a lot of people pick up the phone to randos anymore, and we daresay that younger voters are even less likely to pick up a call from an unknown number. And you don’t have to look too far to find other examples of polls being very wrong. For instance, in Maryland’s democratic primary, not a single poll ever showed Angela Alsobrooks beating David Trone, but she went on to trounce him by double digits.
3. Support for reproductive choice and LGBTQ rights isn’t going anywhere.
Yes, we just trashed polling, but forget that for a second. Support for same-sex marriage has never been higher, and is now close to 70 percent. About 63 percent of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, which is four percentage points higher than it was before Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade. Support for reproductive rights is even stronger with voters under 30. There’s 8 million more eligible voters who have turned 18 since 2020, and younger voters favor Joe. Among likely voters under 30, Biden leads by 19 points.
4. Donald can’t escape his New York felonies.
Only nine more days until sentencing! Little Donny Fuckface is desperately trying to get his 34 felony convictions in New York thrown out. That’s not going to happen. He was a candidate, for shit’s sake. The deadline for filing post-trial motions was last month. He’s shown no remorse, he was found in contempt of the gag order 10 times. Sure, even if Justice Juan Merchan sentences him to the prison time he richly deserves, he can keep appealing and delay for years. But seeing Trump freak out about the possibility of an orange jumpsuit is fun, isn’t it?
Update, his sentencing has been delayed so his attorneys can argue that the Supreme Court ruling should vacate his conviction. But hey, Steve Bannon is in prison, and Rudy Giuliani just got disbarred in New York, so some consequences still do exist in this world.
5. Joe Biden is still president, and this game is not over yet!
And he’s a great president! He is kicking ass on climate change. He is doing his darnedest to lower and/or wipe out student debt, saving regular people $167 billion as of May. Crime is down, and violent crime dropped by more than 15 percent in the United States during the first three months of 2024, according to statistics released by the FBI. The economy is adding jobs like crazy. We have over-the-counter birth control now. Here’s a list of 30 Biden accomplishments from Politico that you may have missed.
Yes, it’s easy to be cynical in these challenging times. But Joe isn’t dead yet, and neither are we. What reasons to look on the bright side have we missed?
Someone wiser than I once advised me that when the final outcome is truly unknowable, you might as well hold the belief that gives your heart ease.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it -- always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi