@desafinado i’ve nothing upside down. i’ve not said the two tell remotely the same stories. of course they don’t. i’ve said they both emphasize personal stories, when they might frame things much more in community or policy terms. both try to persuade voters to vote for these people for who they are as individuals rather than emphasizing a movement that encompasses both voter and speaker. that is what “personalist” means. 1/

@desafinado i think you’ve captured what DNC speakers hope people hear in their parade of personalisms: “we are of the people” and “our election will prove that anyone can make it.” i will say, for me, someone all-in for Kamala, who has donated to the campaign hundreds of dollars that i absolutely can’t afford, that’s not what i heard or felt, it was much worse than ineffective. 2/

@desafinado i heard a lot of self-righteous, extraordinarily successful people telling us their bootstrap stories means that anyone can succeed in their America. i’ve lived in their America more than five decades. it’s a harsh and unforgiving country in which the successful act like they did what anyone could and those whose stories aren’t so great are losers, who deserve “help” and pity perhaps (that’s how we’re better!) but are what they are. 3/

@desafinado the story i want is a story about a we, who all of us rise together if we are to rise at all. that doesn’t say “you too can make it”, but that we all can make it if we work in concert. i’m not interested in the life story of famous people and what hardscrabble background they rose from. 4/

@desafinado i really am a Kamala diehard. i have to be, given the alternative. but also both her economic messaging and her choice of Walz has given me hope. but i watched nearly the whole Democratic convention. rather than inspired, it left me nauseous. 5/

@desafinado “I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.” ~Eugene V. Debs /fin