Mojo Rising: Is the US Vanquishing the Demons of Fear from the Higher Ground of Hope?
Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports on how a 'total badass' and a deeply talented Democratic bench are reigniting the power of hope in America.
“Is America getting its mojo back?”—Stephen Colegrave, Byline Times co-founder and publisher
Like a continental divide along media consumption lines, there are two Americas — one that is infused with a new kind of hope, and another that is mired in darkness and fear.
The one celebrating freedom and joy and inclusiveness has pitched such a large, expansive tent, it’s now being joined by life-long Republicans.
The other America, the one that buys fear, grievance, and over-priced gold shoes, has been told the big tent is filled with ‘communists’. No one explained to them what communism is and why calling Democrats communists is not only another lie to throw on the already putrid mountain of lies, but truly disrespectful to those who endured the pain of totalitarian rule by communist leaders. Under communism, my friends shared their firsthand experiences about people not getting food basics or health care because communists stole everything. Their world was violent and scary, filled with secret police, neighbors turning on neighbors, routine roundups of regime opponents. It was never the promised people’s paradise but rather, a system that gave leaders a pass to commit genocide without consequence.
Many of those who believe Donald Trump’s name-calling lies have been proven to be enemy combatants of democracy and freedom as we saw on January 6.
That America simply doesn’t cherish democracy enough.
And as Vice President Kamala Harris told the country on Thursday in her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President: “We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”
In Chicago last week, the heirs to the greatest democracy took the stage and gave America its mojo back.
In speech after speech by political stars of every stripe and party, the ugliness and fear of the Trumpocene was vanquished by hope and joy — feelings we’ve become unaccustomed to.
And for good reason. When I was in the UK in July on the day of Labour’s big win, people I spoke with said they couldn’t quite exhale. And a month later, when race riots broke out, it felt very much like an ominous foreshadowing for the US.
Both countries have endured years of trauma — countries bruised by ugly words and ugly events.
In the US, that trauma made the joy of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) feel both liberating and surreal — the Democrats were like conquering heroes coming to reclaim their flag and country.
President Biden was cheered for a full five minutes before he could even begin speaking to the crowd. When he told America that he had given his best, there wasn’t a dry democratic eye in the nation.
The messiness of celebrities publicly urging him to step aside after he’d steadied our country and built a great economy was all gone. Once he made the decision after getting Covid to give the power to Harris, a political party that is a shitshow in the best of times, mobilized in a way I have never seen in my lifetime. A united Democratic party was on display in Chicago, and the power and the glory was awesome.
The power of Kamala Harris on that stage, in her midnight blue suit and with the professional command and surety of her words that can only come with experience and confidence, was a moment for this nation.
And for those who need extra proof: a Republican took the stage on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention — former US Representative from Illinois and January 6 Committee member Adam Kinzinger — and told the world that Democrats are patriots.
All four days of the DNC, flag-waving patriotism was very pronounced, as chants of ‘USA, USA, USA’ reverberated throughout the convention. Country artists like the Chicks performed, and a big show of military strength in numbers was also present.
There were great and cathartic speeches by the Obamas, the Clintons, former presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and myriad Republicans and ex-Trump train riders who unpacked the dangers of His Weirdness on stage at the DNC.
A Total Badass
As Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said: “Why wouldn’t we choose the leader who’s tough, tested, and a total badass?”
And there was national confirmation of what a brilliant VP pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is — he not only gave us the gift of ‘weird’ but he also is the embodiment of love — love of country in his military service, love of family in his prominent display of his children Gus and Hope and his wife Gwen, but also his ability to coach America. The former athletic coach said in his speech to the nation on Wednesday night:
“We’re on offense and we got the ball… and boy do we have the right team… get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling… there’ll be time to sleep when we’re dead. We’re gonna leave it all on the field. That’s how we’ll keep it moving forward. That’s how we’ll turn the page on Donald Trump.”
Those words in that moment were exactly what Americans needed to hear. Coach Walz getting everyone fired up and ready to go.
The normalcy of it all was such an antidote to the toxic levels of fear-baiting propaganda from Trump and the right-wing in the US.
Higher Ground
The appearance of both Barack Obama and Stevie Wonder served as a reminder that hope is our higher ground.
“Hope may seem a flimsy thing to wield against autocracy, but it is the secret weapon of resistance and an essential lever of action,” wrote Italian fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat in a 2023 essay about the fall of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. “The opposition’s optimistic slogans ‘Joy is coming’ and ‘Happiness is a rainbow’ (the rainbow was Concertación’s symbol) helped to lessen fear and fatalism. A March for Joy, held days before the election, attracted hundreds of thousands.
“The movement’s television ads, which featured soccer stars and ordinary people expressing hope for Chile’s future, were a sensation. Pinochet’s ads, in contrast, repeated the old talking points about the threat from leftists and harped on grievance and loss, picturing people fleeing armed mobs and screaming. Terror, in the end, was all the regime had. The courage of Chile’s citizens to get out the vote and the power of their positive messaging created the momentum to remove Pinochet from power.”
The Strongmen author could be talking about Trump’s grievance politics — terror, in the end, is all any authoritarian regime has, because the cruelty is the point.
As Trump continues to diminish in the polls — his weird image pasted next to a powerful woman of color — he will continue to escalate violent, brutish verbal attacks and promote events celebrating violence, like his ‘Awards’ Ceremony for January 6 in two weeks.
His pro-Russian pal, ex-presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr, is now throwing his support behind Trump and appearing at his side like an Apprentice audition. Images of the toothsome duo are furthering rumors of a mid-season VP replacement for Ohio Senator JD Vance, who is tanking in the ratings.
As Harris so succinctly put it in her speech:
“Simply put, they are out of their minds.”
Thanks to television and a feckless media, we’ve made demon gods out of those trying to end our democratic governance. We gave them more power than they deserved, and they have proven themselves unworthy.
The real freedom lies in their defeat.
We know the enemy of democracy is going to try to do everything in its power to disrupt the mojo we all witnessed and experienced and felt last week. Rumblings of voter suppression, preplanned electoral challenges, and a Supreme Court that already made Trump a king are sobering.
And cruel memes were rickrolled throughout the newsphere belittling Walz’ son Gus, who proudly proclaimed his love for his father during his speech when he stood us and declared: “That’s my dad!”
But the counter-messaging offensive was strong and efficient, forcing right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter to delete her cruel tweet about Walz’ son. In addition, a battle plan is forming to upend the planned challenges to voting outcomes by the GOP. The Harris campaign hired Mark Elias, a leading voting rights advocate who has led many victories for voting integrity.
Cognitive Healing
As extremist researcher and reporter Jim Stewartson told Byline Supplement: “The amount of cognitive healing that has gone on this week is quite remarkable and a testament to the candidates and those running the campaign.”
Among the campaign themes is not returning to the past — a direct hit on MAGA’s return to a mythical past. On that theme, Stewartson said: “And if we’re not going back, we need to scorch the earth behind us this time.”
Geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra said Democrats can stay on offense by hitting Trump and the GOP’s weaknesses like heat-seeking missiles, while celebrating Harris-Walz strengths.
“Work on Trump weaknesses and jump on every opportunity,” Camarra told Byline Supplement. “Analyse what the Trump electorate is and see which groups can be swayed away to reduce the strength of the Trump alliance.”
She said keep building the resilience and strength of the Democratic coalition.
“People get excited by what will be. You win this kind of war through hearts and minds. You keep the alliance together through values and shared goals. People fight with their hearts. That’s how the US won the Cold War.”
She said to visualize Trump as “the totalitarian leader waging war on American democratic citizens”.
“He said that he would rather live in Venezuela: I would take a dancing Trump and put him in the middle of a video with the colectivos kidnapping people.”
In memetic warfare, visuals do count… a lot.
The artist Shepard Fairey, who created the famous Obama ‘Hope’ image — which was vital to winning the hearts of voters — just created an image of Kamala Harris with the word ‘Forward’. The image is joyful and sparks new hope. The DNC’s theme centered around freedom and liberation from the tyranny of fear and deprivation of rights — themes that took flight in the hearts and minds of pro-democracy Americans.
Reclaiming Freedom
As author and progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann, who reported live from the DNC, told Byline Supplement:
“What Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have done in seizing back the word freedom from Republicans is nothing less than brilliant. Like with their repudiation of Reagan’s neoliberalism, it’s a return to the policies and rhetoric of Franklin D Roosevelt, the man who created the American middle class and famously said:
“‘We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry, people who are out of a job, are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.’”
The events of this week felt like the unmaking of a potential dictatorship.
We need to hold on to that feeling for dear life.
Having grown up and become a young adult in a socialist state (East Germany), usually described as part of the Communist Bloc (when only the USSR officially declared its transition from socialism to communism a handful of years before the fall of the Berlin Wall), allow me respectfully to disagree with this description of ‘communism’ from the article :”The other America, the one that buys fear, grievance, and over-priced gold shoes, has been told the big tent is filled with ‘communists’. No one explained to them what communism is and why calling Democrats communists is not only another lie to throw on the already putrid mountain of lies, but truly disrespectful to those who endured the pain of totalitarian rule by communist leaders. Under communism, people could not get basic food or health care because communists stole everything. Their world was violent and scary, filled with secret police, neighbors turning on neighbors, routine roundups of regime opponents. It was never the promised people’s paradise but rather, a system that gave leaders a pass to commit genocide without consequence.”
We did have basic foods, and enough for everyone, at subsidised retail prices which were the same in every shop of the land. Healthcare wad free, too, as was education, including university, with housing, culture, public transport again being subsidised and accessible to everyone despite the low income. Secret police and an informal spy network existed but it was an open secret and one simply took care of what one said to whom. My own paternal grandfather was coerced into becoming an IM at the Stasi but his chosen handle made it clear to the initiated that he wouldn’t provide any actionable information.
What was described in the article sounds to me a lot more like national socialism, which was already an attempt to subvert the idea if socialism with a totalitarian agenda. I am a little tired of people who weren’t even there trying to tell us how things were while conflating all sorts of things.
America had a moment in 1968, when hope could have been re-ignited … but RFK was assassinated and HHH was not the man. Ken Mo inspires us to celebrate that today, we now have the right woman for the moment!
https://youtu.be/FciQeRGYFlw?si=ti5BUvAO1WZmERnx