I don't need a bison in my front yard, but...

I'd like a bathtub and a safe place to live.

A warm welcome to new subscribers! Many of you came from The Liberal Jew, one of my favorite blogs! I love Jill’s writing and perspective, and I’m guessing you do too!

On election day, a friend of mine found a bison in her front yard. It had apparently escaped from a local farm. That is not the kind of thing I find in West Philadelphia where I live. What I do find, as my longtime readers are probably tired of hearing about, is that I do not feel safe. I am afraid of the random gun violence (five shots fired across the street, rapid fire, just a couple of weeks ago), extremely aggressive people who are clearly not well asking for money on the streets, and blatant antisemitism. I do not publish my articles on Facebook because people in the neighborhood know where I live and I fear that they might commit acts of violence or vandalism against me if they knew that I have written strongly in support of Israel and against antisemitism. My neighbors who were friends have told me they aren’t friends anymore. It is just assumed that you hate Israel here. Very few people could actually give you an explanation of why, other than some mumbling about “brown people good… Palestinians oppressed.” I assure you that none of them are protesting against Russia’s war on Ukraine or Syria’s war on its own people or any of the other conflicts in the world. No, just the one and only Jewish state. The Left left me some time ago, but it took the blatant antisemitism of my former colleagues on the Left, including the ones who were born of Jewish ancestry, to make it clear to me. Blind adherence to the idea that all things Western are bad and all things non-Western are good. The true settler colonists are the white anarchists who live here, in what used to be a thriving black neighborhood. I do not see them giving up their houses to their original inhabitants.

I’m going to move. The pieces are coming together. I’m going to move somewhere I can be safe with my aging mom who needs me. She loves Loviefluffy and Loviefluffy loves her.

I just had a very interesting conversation with a friend who lives in rural Illinois and is black. Since the election she has seen an upturn in racial slurs. Her kids are called bad names at school. She said that there are very offensive signs in her area that say things like, “Joe and the ho have to go.” She was upset and is thinking of moving back to her more friendly hometown in the Northeast. We share that we both have struggled to pay the bills. Both of us were disappointed at the Democrats’ refusal to take the concerns of working people seriously.

I told her about the violence in my neighborhood: gun violence, antisemitism, etc. She said she was glad to hear about it because it gave her perspective on why some people voted for Trump. We commiserated about our well off white liberal friends having meltdowns on social media while we are both trying to figure out how to keep the roof over our heads.

All of this division won’t solve anything. The Democrats are out of touch and the right wing of the Republican party may be certifiably insane. I suppose running into the street and screaming that we need Josh Shapiro to save us is not the most effective way to handle this situation? Still, might make me feel better, and I’d join the hundreds of people who run screaming through the streets of my neighborhood every day, for much less laudable motives.

What I see on Substack is a center starting to come together. People who want sane policies that do not pander to the extremists on either side. People who want to be able to leave their homes at night without being afraid of getting shot. We are just tired of being ignored. The Democrats telling us that the economy is great did not lower the price of food for us. Nor did it increase our wages.

The Democratic Party of my parents is no more. I hope it can come back, in some version. I hope it will wake up. A few suggestions:

1. Stop calling the majority of Americans racist and sexist.

2. Listen to people. Ask them what matters to them.

3. Stop making excuses for a flawed process. Primaries are there for a reason.

4. Ditch the scripts. Gen Xers, who moved this election, are tired of your scripted woke interactions. We laugh at people who meltdown at the smallest off color remark. We have no patience - none - for candidates who refuse to give interviews and who speak in word salads. (Everyone is saying word salad now, but over a year ago I had the idea for a column called “woke word salad.”)

5. Actual working class people of color don’t appreciate being taken for granted or pandered to with celebrity endorsements. Please take people seriously. This isn’t about if you prefer Coke or Pepsi. This is about our lives.

6. And from those of us who live in cities, have kids in universities, or are Jewish: arrest people who break the laws of this country in the name of their pro-terrorist cause. And if they are not American citizens, send them back to where they came from.

If any Democrats or Republicans want campaign strategy from an experienced organizer who has had her ear to the ground for over thirty years, hit me up! My rates are so reasonable, you wouldn’t even believe. I’ll give advice for the price of cat litter for a month. Really.

Also, we like Fancy Feast. Chewy Autoship and I’m all yours.