Politics:
What a two weeks of politics it has been! The failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the Republican convention in which Ohio Senator JD Vance was picked as Trump's running mate, Joe Biden dropping out and putting Kamala Harris' name forward, the torrent of donations following, Harris' campaign machinery jumping into gear straight away and attempting an entirely new strategy: calling the opposition "weird" (I think "Trump is old and quite weird?" from a campaign strategy publication will be remembered for a long time - if there ever has been a more Gen-Y question mark in history, I can't think of it), pivoting away from the "when they go low, we go high" (someone pointed out that it's just a version of respectability politics) years that never really worked out for the Democrats. The timing of Joe Biden's exit from the race meant that the Republicans practiced all the wrong talking points at their Convention: they're no longer running against a man who would have been in his mid-80s at the end of his second term. Trump, certain of his victory, picked a running mate (who started his political career as a never-Trumper but has come around to helping elect a man he once compared to Hitler) that probably won't help him much in the polls, and has become a meme within days of being elected, perhaps showcasing that this new political machine purpose built for Donald Trump has forgotten about the importance of vetting candidates.
Around the big headlines, there's a few other things that are maybe relevant to record for posterity: right before Biden dropped out, creator of The West Wing and famed centrist Aaron Sorkin suggested in a much ridiculed NY Times op-ed that the Democrats should pick Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election. It's truly a radical suggestion that the "polarised political climate" of the US could be balanced out if the Democrats simply became the centre-right Republicans of the 2010s, the kind of national healing that only a man who is equally afraid of the progressive left (a progressive left that has consistently positioned itself as a voice of reason, pragmatic even) in the Democratic party as he is of a future Trump presidency could possibly suggest. Sorkin changed his tone quickly after the Biden announcement.
The Trump campaign also seems eager to distance itself from Project 2025, a detailled conservative platform document that outlines how government agencies should be reshaped to reflect a radical, right-wing agenda in the next few years - a document that contains a lot of horrifying prospects, including dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides data on how climate change is worsening. It also includes plan to further "restrict abortion and contraceptives, cut social security, outlaw pornography, end marriage equality" (obviously, a lot of these initiatives poll badly with the general population, hence the distancing). To clarify what is at stake in this election, Trump has been quoted as saying "Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians!" at a campaign rally recently.
The next few weeks will bring insights into who Kamala Harris picks as a running mate: the Democratic National Convention starts on August 19.
Pop Culture:
I've caught up with the Dragon show, and it's quite nice to watch something again that is widely viewed, even though barely anything these days has the water-cooler quality of peak television (and the sad demise of television criticism due to what is happening to media has been a constant sadness in my life). I quite like it for the premise of being based on a book by George R.R. Martin that is written from the perspective of those who record history for posterity - what happens on the show compared to what happens in Fire and Blood almost feels like a comment on what gets left out in the kind of history written by victors, and only interested in great power politics.
Last week, I had a chance to see the great Kim Gordon at Unsound, but the discovery of the festival was Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske.
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