An old youthful observation ---
Volunteering on campaigns is often hard work. But, for me, it also brings some encouraging rewards. One of those happier benefits comes with making the acquaintance of some incredibly inspiring members of the younger generation. Earlier this evening I got a phone call from a young man who I first met in the course of a congressional campaign ten years ago; hes just flown in from the east coast to help with our door-knocking effort, but he wants to set aside some time for the two of us to chat and get caught up. Lovely!
Then, another youngster (twenty-something) from a campaign four years ago, just did something that confirmed the reason our party is committed to education. Given the events of the past few days and the breaking news about tomorrows reportage on a certain candidates relationship with certain Russians, this young fellow called upon his love of history and posted the following, shared with his permission:
"At the start of his political career, (Trump) stood out only because of his big temperament, a voice much louder than others, and an intellectual mediocrity much more self-assured. He did not bring into the movement any ready-made programme, if one disregards the insulted soldier's thirst for vengeance... There were in (America) plenty of ruined and drowning people with scars and fresh bruises. They all wanted to thump with their fists on the table. This (Trump) could do better than others. True, he knew not how to cure the evil.
... (But) doomed classes, like those fatally ill, never tire of making variations on their plaints nor of listening to consolations. (Trump's) speeches were all attuned to this pitch
(Trumpism) has opened up the depths of society for politics... there lives alongside the (21st) century the tenth or the thirteenth... What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet, (Trumpism) has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society had now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism. Such is the physiology of (Trumpism)
- Adapted from Lev Trotsky, 1933"
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