Kamala Can Go Full Micah.

Or maybe an adjacent prophet. I'm not sure. I'm tired and I need a minute.

Cassidy Steele Dale forecasts and contextualizes the present to equip us to make a better, kinder future…

… and one of those ways to maybe incorrectly cite the prophet Micah.

OK, I’m tired. I think most of us are.

The past few weeks of multiple rapid-fire WTFs nearly every day. It’s been a lot. But the Biden suspense is over, ended well, ended gracefully, and Kamala has launched off that aircraft carrier and her engines and support and speeches and fundraising are on full blast and she’s successfully into the sky. And Trump and his campaign, still kinda flabbergasted and trying to regroup, are now beginning to Tweet some anti-aircraft fire into the sky. All to be expected.

Soooo I’m just going to lie on the living room floor here for a few minutes and I’ll point at the ceiling while we talk. The floor is kinda nice. Floor understands me.

Here’s my quick answers to things I’ve been asked since Sunday afternoon.

Can Kamala actually, you know… win? Yes. Yes. Yes, she can. Maybe even easily.

But she’s a black woman. That’s two strikes against her already. She can win — in this country?? I noticed. And I know. But we’re not the country we once were. The way I know is because you and I aren’t who we once were and you and I and we ain’t who we once were. Even as good or as bad as we once were, we’re better than that now. And we elected Obama. Yes-I-know-he’s-not-a-Black-woman-but-you-take-my-point. I said yes she can because yes she can.

When will we start to know? If you mean when will we start getting hard numbers? We’ll start getting high quality polls of likely voters by middle to maybe end of next week. In the meantime, as a futurist I’m just paying attention to weak signals.

What weak signals? Well…

(1) The Democrats and all the Never Trumpers massed to her side so quickly and completely it was like when The Avengers lined up to beat Thanos.

(4) Those same folks have been meme-ing the hell out of her. Out of hope and enthusiasm and glee.

(9) Since Biden’s announcement on Sunday afternoon new voter registrations have skyrocketed to 700% the usual daily rate.

(5) Mark Rountree, head of Landmark Communications, a top-notch polling firm, released a new poll yesterday that found that Kamala had erased Trump’s lead in Georgia down to only one point. In days. Georgia wasn’t before but is now a swing state.

(7) Retroactive thing I remembered this week: Chadwick Boseman’s last Tweet before he ascended to rule Wakanda in heaven, was a photo of him hugging Kamala Harris.

(3) On Sunday night, only hours after Biden endorsed Harris, Win with Black Women, a political organizing group of Black women, held a Zoom call expecting a few hundred attendees. But in the hours ahead, uh, word spread. And spread some more. So Zoom removed all the constraints and all the limits on the call. And 44,000 attendees showed up, a few semi-dislegally streamed the Zoom call on Clubhouse, Twitch, and YouTube (which I’m told are real things) for thousands more to listen in, and the call went on for four hours. During the call, the lead fundraiser challenged The Assembled to beat the bushes to raise $1 million for Kamala Harris’ campaign in 100 days. They did it in 100 minutes. And then raised .6 million more over the next 12 hours.

So. You know <waggles fingers at the ceiling> weak signals.

And <two fingers pointed at the ceiling> two side points here:

• I am a little hurt that no one sent me the Zoom link on Sunday. Aren’t I also a Strong Black Woman? (Spoiler alert: I am not.)

• I am reminded that while any gathering like that of political Black women in America should just be a four-hour scream of inchoate anger and rage, Black women are not MAGA men and they don’t do that shit. They did other shit. And now Shit. Is. Gonna. Happen.

Weak signals, y’all. Weak… signals.

Where is the Bible in all this? All over the place. But let’s talk about it like this: Let’s talk about the Bible and political campaign rhetoric.

Trump owns the jeremiad. The jeremiad is a rhetorical structure drawn from the preaching of the prophet Jeremiah who basically said We were once great. Now we are not. We shall be great again. And Trump preaches that narrative really well. (Important: Trump should never meet Jeremiah face to face because Jeremiah would deliver The Word of The Lord unto his golf balls.)

Biden, and Obama and Carter before him, preached “Second Isaiah” (Isaiah chapters 40-55) well: Let us be abjectly and unreasonably compassionate and set the vision of people toward the light. We are greater, we are mightier, we are better, we are closer to the Will of God when we serve.

Kamala Harris might own Micah. Or it’s probably Micah. I’m not sure. I can’t reach my New Revised Standard Version of the Bible from where I’m laying on the floor. It’s… right… there. But I mean whichever prophet cast a Vision of Better But There Was a Bad, Cruel, Rich Ruling Class in the Way.

• No, it’s gotta be Micah. Rich, mean, smug, unjust rulers. False prophets who sold their souls to those rulers. They have forgotten that God got us to the good place and they took God for granted. But the past is ending and The Better is near. The Lord will inspire a peaceful uprising of compassion and justice that will transform the land. Swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. People will study war no more. Do justice, love mercy. Yeah… Micah.

• George Washington quoted Micah to the members of a synagogue once. Trying to remember…

• If I’m wrong, somebody tell me in the comments. I can’t reach them from where I’m laying on the floor. But the comments are… right… there.

The Full Micah by way of Kamala Harris, since she uses the phrase What can be, unburdened by what has been might be something like:

(1) My Fellow Americans, once almost none of us could vote. Our Revolution launched a way that was new upon the face of the Earth. But at the beginning they didn’t know who to include. The Founding Fathers knew they were imperfect. But they had deep faith that we would be better. Now, because we worked and bled to create a more perfect Union, we all can vote. And we can do more.

(2) But now we’re in a very bad place. We’re in deep danger. But hope is not lost. The Spirit of America is with us. And the Danger doesn’t realize yet that we’re not locked in here with it; it’s locked in here with us.

(3) Today we are on the brink of what can be, unburdened by what has been. And the threshold to get to The Better is only weeks… days away.

(4) But one last man stands in our way.

• That Man has raped, robbed, lied, cheated, and bullied his way into power and he’s been smug about it all along the way because no one was brave enough to stop him and every system failed. But we will not. I know how to stop men like him; I’ve been doing it for decades. And so do you. We will do it together.

• That Man has told us — every day in every way — that he will lay low what has lifted us up.

• That Man will be on the ballot. We will see his name when we step into that sacred booth. So when That Great Day in November arrives, pick up that pen. And let’s fuck him up. And punch ourselves into the clear.

And then the world that can be, will be.

Or maybe that’s the first chapter of First John in the New Testament. Or some deep Ezekiel. I don’t know.

But again, I’m tired and I can’t get up off the floor. I need to go to bed and I need to pee. But not in that order. So somebody grab me by a leg and drag me up the stairs, please. And I’ll talk more later if I haven’t bored you to sleep already.

Hello?

Anyone there?

<Sigh.>

Dammit.

<Raises fist toward ceiling.>

‘Murica.