Get serious about winning

We have witnessed two assassination attempts on the former president, the Republican nominee, who blames hateful, violent rhetoric by the Democrats. He’s forgetting his own hatemongering, disgusting rhetoric spewed most recently on the innocent residents of Springfield, Ohio, a city which most U.S. citizens probably cannot find on a map. As a result, these residents have been visited by some of this country’s most vile inhabitants.

At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, calls herself a joyful warrior. This is no time for such. The Republican nominee and his ilk, should they win the White House, are deadly serious in their intent to impose on us their agenda of revenge, grievances, resentments and recriminations, along with their modern day version of ethnic cleansing. He has stated this quite openly: mass deportations of people of color, being “a dictator on Day One,” and no need to worry about voting again.

In 1968, Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic nominee during probably a fractious Democratic convention after President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection. Humphrey proclaimed himself “the happy warrior.”

Humphrey lost in a close election to Richard Nixon, who said it was “time for a change” and sent dog whistles to those he called “the silent majority.”

So stop this joyful warrior nonsense. Learn from the past. You want to win? It’s a slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners campaign. Otherwise, on Nov. 6, you will be giving a tearful concession speech.