This blog is about the political hellscape that is America following the 2024 presidential election. As it is fleshed out, the blog will convey the author’s
- understanding of the salient facts,
- suggestions about strategy and tactics to deal with both the underlying rot that led to the crisis and the immediate threats and crises we face,
- observations about which hills to die on—and which hills not to die on, and, from time to time, add some inspiration, whimsy, and inspiration.
The Intended Audience
The blog is public, and anyone can read it. (But if you are, by chance, a rabid Q-Anon conspiracist with anger management issues and a machine gun, may I suggest you would probably be happier reading other websites?)
I assume that people who find this blog helpful will mostly be people somewhat like me: an educated, economically comfortable person who unhesitatingly voted for the Harris-Walz tickets, despite whatever reservations they had, understanding that the Trump alternative was unacceptable.
The Author’s Motivation
I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m not trying to prove that I am smarter than anyone else. I’m not famous, and I’m not trying to become famous.
My name is not Nostradamus, and I claim no magical power to predict the future. My name is not Uri Geller, either, and I do not read minds. But I do know something about marshalling the facts and drawing reasonable inferences from the facts.
In sum, I’m just an ordinary American patriot with an internet megaphone, trying to work through the present mess and share what I am learning along the way.
Why to Read the Blog
The author of this blog is Ron Davis. I’m not a political scientist. I’m not a political philosopher. I’m not a distinguished journalist. I don’t write for The Atlantic. You won’t see my face on CNN or the Bulwark podcast.
The only reason to read this blog would be that, having once sampled it, you find something insightful or inspiring that might encourage you to read on.
Life Experiences
All of that said, I have some life experiences that not everyone has had, and that, I believe, are helpful in understanding our current predicament.
A Paleo-MAGA Childhood
I have seen this movie before—or, rather, the prequel. I grew up, during the 1950s and early 1960s, in a working class family in the Deep South. To paraphrase the song, my extended family was MAGA when MAGA wasn’t cool. If that was not your life experience, then the weirdness of the MAGA cult is hard to fathom; to me, every aspect of it is something I have seen before.
An Ivy League Education
Scholarshipped up to the eyeballs, I earned my undergraduate degree at Princeton, did my first year of law school at Harvard, and spent the second and third years of law school at Columbia. I would make a good poster child for David Brooks’ thesis that the Ivy League broke America.
A “BigLaw” Career
I was a partner in two New York-based international law firms, and I survived in that world for more than three decades. I counseled clients. I placed large bets using other people’s money. I developed litigation strategies, arguments, and tactics. I learned how to manage crises without losing my head. Most of all, I learned how to be an advocate. This blog will draw heavily on these experiences.
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Facing MAGA 