Rain Perry

Hello activists!

It truly feels like a month since the last email, which I sent the night before Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate. And what a week. Thrilling, packed rallies in the swing state cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Eau Claire, Phoenix and Las Vegas, buoyed by a growing coalition: Black women, Black men, Latinos, White women, White dudes, AAPI, Republicans, Rural Americans, Latter Day Saints, and more. Comics, too (including my fave, Trae Crowder). I'm aware of a "Fiber Artists for Harris" zoom in the making.

During this time, TFG ("The Former Guy," for those who don't want to say his name) has had two events: an unhinged press conference at Mar-a-Lago and a rally in the red state of Montana, where he theorized that Biden would take the race back from Harris, and invoked his father Fred Trump's racist housing policies (immortalized in a Woody Guthrie song called "Old Man Trump") as he opined that he was big with suburban women because he won't allow low income housing near their neighborhoods. The cherry on top is NBC Montana's reporting that Trump still hasn't paid his bills from previous Montana appearances.

Meanwhile, JD Vance continues to be, well, weird -- stalking Harris' plane in Wisconsin, arguing that people with more children should have more votes, defending Trump's meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes even after he attacked Vance's own Indian-American wife, and all this while photos have emerged purporting to show the anti-trans, anti-drag Vance in drag on Halloween during law school. JD Vance is a weird, weird dude.

So, let's talk briefly about "weird." On Washington Week the other night, the pundits concluded that the use of "weird" means that the Democrats have ceded the high road and are now engaged in Trump-style name calling.

But I look at it differently. "Weird" is about behavior, while the slurs Trump wields are about identity: "Sleepy Joe," "Pocahontas," "Kamblama," Barack HUSSEIN Obama," "childless cat ladies," "Demoncrats," "L'il Marco," "Crazy Nancy."

Obsessing about folks' private lives is weird. Having a gold toilet is weird. Believing that parents deserve more votes is weird. Joking about having sex with your own daughter, as Trump repeatedly has, is extremely weird. Burying your ex-wife in a nondescript grave at your golf course is so weird. Feeling up a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump at a Republican women's group is super weird.

Of course, they're more than weird. Promising to be a "dictator on day one" is beyond weird. Taking away the bodily autonomy of half the nation is far past weird; it's evil. A plan to create a deportation force with mass internment camps at the border is horrendous.

But listen to Tim Walz in the speech, from before he became the VP nominee, where he began the "they're weird" trend. Trump and his ilk, he points out, are bullies. Yes, they have terrible plans. Yes, they're going to try to achieve them. But don't give them more power than they deserve. Bullies have no confidence, and the one thing a fascist cannot take is mockery. They want to be feared. The last thing they want, the thing they can't stand, is to be laughed at.

So may I suggest a viewing of The Great Dictator, or Jo Jo Rabbit, or a listen to the WWII jingle "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball?"

Strategy

Republicans and LDS for Harris are evidence that there is an opportunity right now to talk to people who may be conservative but are open, at least a little, to stepping away from Trump and his chaos. Retired educator Elyse Aidman Aahdahl has some intriguing thoughts after spending hours lately calling into swing states. If you've got folks in your life that you think might be a little bit persuadable, you may find her words helpful.

As Simon Rosenberg is always saying "optimism is a choice." It's okay to feel good about where we are. It does feel good - in a way I'm still getting used to -- to have hope! And hope begets, as Rosenberg calls it, a "virtuous cycle of participation." The corollary to that is that small crowds, chaotic candidates, bad infrastructure add up to suppressed enthusiasm. Trump is doing himself no favors right now. Yes, they talk a big game, but I look at Trump and Vance right now and I see a lot of unforced errors.

The best defense against election interference is winning "too big to rig." So whatever role you can find for yourself -- donating, calling into swing states, sending postcards, traveling for voter protection, working as a poll worker -- make a plan now for the next 85 days.

Hope

I'll leave you with two quotes. First, FDR's words spoken on March 4, 1933, at his first inauguration, in the thick of the Great Depression:

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Second, these words from punk rock icon Henry Rollins: "My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud."

Let's do this.

xo, Rain

Thank you for being on this list! Please feel free to pass this along. If you received this email from someone else and would like to get your own semi-weekly through the election in November, click here and select "I want to join Rain in political work." Thanks!