You don’t really want to read about an old racist running for POTUS, right? 

I mean, it’s tempting. 

His idea that you’re either this or that and if you assert the reality that you are both he calls you a liar, or a lunatic or disrespectful to the this or that of yourself you are not asserting at that moment.

For example, in my case there are some rooms where I’m gay (Note: Or, well, REALLY gay) and others where I am THE Jew, or just one Jew among many Jews.

But in truth, I’m always a gay Jew — in any room where I’m present.

It would be impossible for me not to be.

Still, given that I’m a white dude (Note: For Kamala) no one seems too concerned with what I am in pretty much any room. 

At least out loud.

This is not the case for the bi-racial female Vice President of the United States now that she is the Democratic nominee running for president against the old racist. 

He seems to want to make it an issue because…..

1. He’s an old racist who wants to attract those racists still undecided? 
2. He’s that dumb and lazy that he can’t be bothered to bone up on any real issues where he could best her?
3. He’s a snowflake so bubble-wrapped, out-of-it that he doesn’t get the actual reality of 21^st century America.

I could go on.

But whatever you choose it doesn’t matter.  Kamala Harris can take care of herself.  Especially if we all continue to have her back and vote for her in order to save our democracy against an old racist who aspires to be a very old dictator.

It’s looking better after a few weeks with $300 million raised from mostly small donations and #Kamalanomenon actually becoming a viral thing.

Who knew?  We certainly didn’t three weeks ago.

Which is why we need to talk about excellence.

Can you imagine an old racists competition in the 2024 Paris Olympics? 

Yes you could.

At the very least there’d be our old racist; that Le Pen woman who recently lost the race she was sure she’d win to be president of France (Note: Yeah, she’s only 55 but that’s not young by French standards); and that Venezuelan dictator out of central casting Maduro guy proclaiming himself winner of an election he actually lost more than a week ago because you can’t teach a 62-year-old racist new tricks.

Unlike the actual competitive athletes now in Paris, you can’t teach anything at all new to those soon to be obsolete, old you-know-whats.  They operate from a tired ancient playbook that goes back for centuries.  Listen to the second season of Rachel Maddow’s excellent podcast Ultra and you’ll see what I mean.  Pretty much everything happening in the U.S. right now was cribbed from the Sen. Joe McCarthy playbook of the 1950s, right down to the Make America Great Again slogan.  And badly.

As for the 2024 Olympics on view seemingly everywhere, it is the opposite – a testament to training, preparation, excellence AND a diaspora of representation stretched across the planet. 

I’ve never been a sports guy/gay/Jew/whatever but I’ve always found the Olympics highly inspiring. The dedication to get so good at a specialty that you can stand among the best in the world and do your thing alongside them (Note: And actually pat the winner on the back) is something you don’t get in a homogeneous totalitarian state. 

Ask any of the supremely talented Russian or Belarusian athletes banned from competing in Paris this year, if you could get to them to talk at all – or even get to them.  Especially the gymnasts.  (Note: Who else remembers the great Olga Korbut?) They must be truly and rightly p.o.’d. 

Since it happens only once every four years, Olympics excellence is a different type of mastery.  It shows us what a human being or team can do at one peak moment in time as the best in their country and perhaps the WORLD. 

It takes a lot more work than being an old racist because you have to continually fail, get better, hear the truth and the boos, adjust accordingly, get back in the ring and fail better until you are better – maybe even the best.

• Super gymnast Simone Biles, 27, earned three gold medals in the 2024 games after bowing out of most of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to severe psychological stress. But she concentrated on rebuilding herself psychologically, as well as physically, over the next three years and even proudly acknowledged she had a session with her therapist just before going out and winning one of her Olympic golds this past week.
• Swimmer Katie Ledecky, 27, and a veteran of FOUR Olympics, returned this year and became the female athlete with the most gold medals in Olympic history, winning three more in Paris for a total of nine, making it 14 medals for her over 12 years.

And though a certain other kind of bigot might see them merely as unhappy childless cat ladies, both have not ruled out competing at the Summer 2028 games in Los Angeles.

On the men’s side, there were numerous medal winners but none the zeitgeist loved more than Stephen Nedoroscik, 25, adorkable Pommel Horse specialist.  He helped lead the U.S. men’s gymnastics team to a bronze medal (Note: Its first medal of any kind in 16 years) and became the only male gymnast this year to win a second medal in the individual competitions. An electrical engineer, Rubik’s cube master and self-described nerd with severe vision problems, Nedoroscik (Note: Okay, he’s a personal favorite of mine) has been dubbed the Clark Kent of the competition for the seriously corrective glasses he wears at all times except when he competes.  In those moments they come off and he literally has to feel his way around the apparatus as he executes his routine.

I have no idea the political affiliations of the above three athletes (Note: Though Ms. Biles did shade the old racist when she tweeted she “loves her black job,” alongside a picture of herself and her medal).  But it is interesting to note that one is a person of color, another has a physical handicap and the third is a 6 foot tall unmarried woman almost in her thirties without any kids.

More than anyone or anything else, this is and has been America for quite a while. 

Old racists be damned.

Charlie xcx – “360”