Things sometimes change very quickly in politics! On Saturday, July 20, Joe Biden was still running for President. By early afternoon on Sunday, July 21, he was dropping out of his reelection campaign and endorsing VP Kamala Harris as his successor. 
Contrary to what some Republicans seem to be calling for, Biden has every intention of completing his exemplary Presidency and not resigning – and the media was flooded in the first hours after his announcement not only with exuberant praise and gratitude for Biden but also hundreds of endorsements for Harris and millions of dollars in donations toward her campaign. The next few weeks will bring greater focus on Harris as well as the workings of the Democratic National Committee as it makes its rules and runs its Convention in Chicago starting on August 19.
In the meantime, several positive things have been taking place to counter recent damaging trends related to the convicted felon, former President Donald Trump, including: his announcement of extreme right-wing Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate; the appalling Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity and the low esteem in which SCOTUS is held; and the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump in Florida.
- Special counsel Jack Smith has appealed the case dismissal in Florida and sent it to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has already highly criticized Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon in two previous cases related to Trump. While the classified documents case cannot be tried before the election, most likely, if Trump loses the election, the American people may well see a decision anyway – which would still be a modicum of justice. There is also some reporting that suggests that the 11th Circuit will remove Cannon from the case altogether.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY joined by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), introduced articles of impeachment on July 10, 2024, against SCOTUS Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over their refusal to recuse themselves from certain cases.
The move has been criticized by some as a non-starter – it is extremely difficult to impeach a Justice – but it does serve to draw attention to the many ways in which the two right-wing Justices have crossed lines of ethics and behavior. It further shows the American public, which has a very low opinion of the Court at this time, that at least some members of Congress are willing to do something about the situation. - What may be even more significant, and also related to SCOTUS, is that Biden is apparently about “to call for term limits and an enforceable ethics code for US Supreme Court justices in what would be sweeping changes to the high court and the way it operates.” According to court watchers, progressives and ethics experts, these proposals – which would need congressional approval – are very welcome, even though difficult to implement. The proposals would resonate well with the vast majority of Americans, who believe that justices should not serve for life and should be subject to basic oversight, in the same ways that Congress and the executive branch are. This move from Biden, which came following a meeting with a group of progressive lawmakers, is a departure from his previous inaction on court reform. Soon after he took office, he had formed a commission on the Supreme Court, which proposed some of these actions, but the report sat on a shelf until now.
There are other measures introduced by lawmakers in Congress that concern the Supreme Court, so it is important that the Senate remain in Democratic hands and that the House “flip” to Blue in order for the progressive measures to get traction.
The selection of Vance as VP candidate provides a huge opportunity for Democrats to make inroads in the independent vote.
Reproductive rights. We cannot be fooled about the true intentions of the far right in the area of abortion and women’s rights to their own bodies. Trump and others have recently realized that their extreme stances – and their long-articulated goal to prevent all abortions under all conditions – is not popular in the US, so they are moderating their rhetoric. But their true motives are everywhere. Vance has supported banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and has equated the procedure to murder. In various interviews and debates since 2021, Vance been all over the map on the abortion issue: in one breath, he favors leaving it up to the states, while in another favoring “a number of different exceptions” without specifying what exactly those exceptions would be. He has also on occasion supported the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. Trying to have it all ways shows clearly that Vance’s true commitments are to himself and his political ambitions, not to women or the will of the American people.
Support for Ukraine. 
According to NPR’s reporting, Vance “is one of the leading congressional Republican voices against U.S. aid to Ukraine.” Some Republicans even complain that “Vance has a long history of confusing free, America-loving countries like Ukraine with tyrannical, corrupt, anti-American dictatorships like Russia.” Vance as Vice President would be a grave danger to American security: Ukraine is on the front lines against Putin’s tyranny, and the Russian leader will not stop at Ukraine if he succeeds there.
The 2020 election and the insurrection. Vance repeats Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from them in Biden’s favor. Constantly feeding this kind of disinformation to the American public seriously undermines faith in one of our bedrock principles: the sanctity and reliability of free and fair elections. Also, Vance has downplayed the severity of the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, even going so far as maintaining that former VP Mike Pence’s life was not in danger, although Americans could hear the crowd chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”
Demolishing the “deep state.” Vance is among right-wing activists – like convicted and imprisoned felon Steve Bannon – who are calling for destroying the so-called “deep state,” that is, in Vance’s words, firing “every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, [replacing] them with our [Trump’s] people.” Conservatives have long wanted to decimate the federal government infrastructure – in part because they resent many regulations that they say have been promulgated by “the left” (not that such regulations actually make our nation work better for everyone…) – but the radical proposals of Trump, Vance, Bannon and their cronies would result in mass disruption of many institutions that affect all of our lives and far-reaching damage to our health and safety.
Housing. One final positive note, apart from Vance, concerns a long-standing national challenge that affects millions of Americans. Following a powerful address by Biden to the NAACP National Convention in Nevada in mid-July, the White House unveiled a two-pronged approach to address the housing crisis. The proposal, which would need congressional approval, would “cap yearly rent increases on corporate owned properties nationwide at 5% and free up federal land in Nevada to build more affordable housing.” This move would provide relief for many vulnerable Americans. 
Biden, VP Harris and their team continue to work extremely hard on behalf of the American people.
As we have said many times in the past, the November election is, at base, about the very future of our country and what we want it to be. For now, we as voters have a say in which direction we will go: the way of a self-proclaimed dictator and autocrat – Trump – or the way of democracy and the rule of law – Harris and the person she will choose as her Vice President running mate. If Trump wins, it is highly likely that we will have no more free and fair elections. In November we have a golden opportunity not only to continue our national experiment – and build on the vast successes of the Biden-Harris Administration – but also to make history by electing a strong, talented woman with a diverse background that reflects that of so many of our fellow citizens.