How a Cultural Shift Favors Harris
www.nytimes.com

... American culture changes with astonishing speed. Nearly every decade, there are shifts in values, fashions and norms " in the whole atmosphere of national life. Sometimes when you're watching a presidential campaign, it is best to ask: What year is it? What values and moods are dominant in America right now? Which candidate just seems right for this moment, and which candidate is simply out of step with the zeitgeist?

Right now, I'd say, Kamala Harris is benefiting from the beginning of a cultural shift and is beginning to have the cultural winds at her back. Donald Trump is beginning to be slapped in the face by those winds.

Trump emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the tail end of the culture of narcissism, or what Tom Wolfe called the Me Decade. It was the era of the unchained self " self-esteem, self-expression, self-promotion. In the '80s, especially in Manhattan, there was an unabashed fascination with wealth, self-display, ego, the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Trump was the cartoon epitome of all that decade's extravagances. The Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue opened to the public on Feb. 14, 1983, with all its gild and glitz. His book "The Art of the Deal" came out in 1987, with its braying and panting over money, money, money. In that cultural moment, gold-plated narcissism made Trump a celebrity. ...

Trump was perfect for this moment. Disdained and scorned by the Manhattan elite, he'd built up a lifetime of anti-establishment resentments that dovetailed with the working class's pervasive contempt. He began a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and then the federal government. The key word in that sentence is "hostile." Hostility was in vogue, on the left and the right.

Then, in 2018, the group More in Common released a survey of the American electorate in which it popularized the phrase "the exhausted majority." Many people were tired of the bitterness, the endless Trumpian and culture war psychodrama. There was an intense desire to leave all that behind. In a relatively tight election, Joe Biden rode to victory promising decency and normalcy. ...

Harris enjoyed a surge in the polls as she became the nominee, in part because she projected a new emotional tone -- the politics of joy, as Democrats kept saying during their convention. During Tuesday's debate she converted that emotional shift into a campaigning and governing style.

During the debate, I thought Harris did a poor job of laying out her vision for the next four years. But she did a brilliant job rebutting the cultural values embodied by Trump.

For example, no debate opponent before Harris has known how to handle Trump's narcissism. Harris seemed to understand that narcissism is fundamentally fragile. She poked it. She pricked it. She induced Trump to lash out feebly " with his talk about crowd sizes and how much world leaders like Vladimir Putin allegedly respect him.

She scorned the moral inversion that Trump represents. ...

An interesting OpEd that takes a step back and looks at the overall picture, and not just what is occurring this week.

Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air (1969)
www.youtube.com

A tune from the era when Democrats, not Republicans were, I'll say, majorly concerned.

Lyrics excerpt...

genius.com

...
Call out the instigators
Because there's something in the air
We got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here
And you know it's right
And you know that it's right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now
...

A Wall Goes Up at the Nassau Coliseum
Uniondale, New York - February 25th & 26th, 1980
www.pink-floyd.org

That concert was notable for me, not just because of the concert, but the ride home.

From the time the concert started until the time the concert ended, there was an ice storm in the area.

Have you ever tried to drive over the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge when it is covered in a layer of ice? I did.

The upside of the bridge had been salted, so traction there was OK.

But the downside of the bridge (with the significant structures of the toll booths at the bottom of that downhill) had not been salted. So... ice.

Brakes do not work on ice.

So, my car is sliding down an incline into the toll booth structures, and I have little control.

Fortunately, because of my experience in living in upstate NY, I was able to maneuver my car through the toll booths without damage to the car or the toll booths.

Once past the toll booths I pulled over to take a breather and say thank-you.

Fortunately, I and my friend came out OK.

My friend and I then made it home safely.

But wow.

Caravan - Where But For Caravan Would I (1968)
www.youtube.com

Yeah, in some areas Caravan is considered to be the beginning of the Progressive Rock genre.

I tried accessing an amazing site that has documented progressive rock. But it seems to be a 404 now.

Fortunately, archive.org seems to have been able to archive the great information progarchives.com contains ....

https://web.archive.org/web/20240802001546/https://www.progarchives.com/

Caravan - Where But For Caravan Would I (1968)
www.youtube.com

Yeah, in some areas Caravan is considered to be the beginning of the Progressive Rock genre.

2024 Texas Senate - Cruz vs. Allred
www.realclearpolling.com

...
RCP Average 6/29 - 9/5 Cruz +6.0

The Hill/Emerson 9/3 - 9/5 Cruz+4
University of Texas* 8/23 - 8/31 Cruz+8
University of Houston* 8/5 - 8/16 Cruz+2
...

www.realclearpolling.com

Still a toss-up, i.e., too close to call.

No cents of shame: Trump unveils new commemorative coin for $100 in latest merchandise grab
www.independent.co.uk

Greenwich, Connecticut
en.wikipedia.org

...It is the largest town on Connecticut's affluent Gold Coast. Greenwich is home to many hedge funds and financial services firms due to its residential setting and proximity to New York City.[4][5] ...

Wealth

Greenwich is home to three of the wealthiest zip codes in Connecticut, 06878, 06830 and 06831, with average adjusted gross incomes of $754,990, $638,560 and $721,550 ...

Voting History

Greenwich, Connecticut was a mostly Democrat jurisdiction up through 1892, voting for the Democrat in 13 of the 17 presidential elections from that party's founding in the mid-1820s up through 1892. Then the GOP would win Greenwich in 27 of the 28 presidential elections from 1896 to 2004, and in three of the last four presidential elections, the Democrat has carried the town.

The largest share of the vote received by a Democratic presidential candidate is the 64.56% of the vote received by Martin Van Buren in 1836, the largest share of the vote received by a Republican presidential candidate is the 78.25% of the vote received by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, and the largest percentage of the vote receive by third-party presidential candidates was the 27.61% of the vote received by the third-party candidates in the 1912 presidential election. Most prominently, Theodore Roosevelt under the Bull Moose Party.

The results of Greenwich in all 49 presidential elections since 1828 can be found below: ...

In summary, Greenwich voted Republican from 1968 through 2012, excepting 2008.

Then went Democratic in the years fmr Pres Trump ran, 2016 and 2020.

Many the uber-wealthy of Greenwich who did business in NYC knew fmr Pres Trump and eschewed from voting for him in the voting booth?

Elon Musk backs down in his fight with Brazilian judges to restore X
www.theguardian.com

... The platform agrees to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, pays fines and takes down user accounts that the court had ordered removed ...

Twitter pushes back as Elon Musk tries for third time to back out of deal (2022)
ny1.com

... Twitter on Monday pushed back against yet another attempt from Elon Musk to back out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase the social media company ...

Fans Rip WNBA for Connecticut Sun's Awful Practice Conditions Ahead of Game 1 vs. Fever
www.si.com

As I said previously, I do not follow the world of sports.

But this particular issue.... wow.

imo, it should be bumped up from sports coverage to business and financial coverage on the news, at a minimum.

Of course, there is always the secondary question lurking in the background...

Why are women professional sports treated so differently than men professional sports?

Is it, as (R) Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently stated, that women should be humble?

And, fwiw, a query in my search engine of choice about ownership of WNBA teams turned up some interesting results...

WNBA ownership snapshot (2022)
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com

-- and --

How an Atlanta basketball team went from Republican hands to LGBTQ ownership (2021)
www.nbcnews.com

.../ WNBA veteran Renee Montgomery and executive Suzanne Abair are part of the Atlanta Dream's new ownership trio " and among the first LGBTQ owners of a pro sports team. ...

Who will win the presidency? (November 2016)
projects.fivethirtyeight.com

...
Chance of winning

Hillary Clinton 71.4%

Donald Trump 28.6%
...

Mr Silver's predictions seem to have associated issues.