Today is Monday, January 8, 2024.    Amid declining support from Black voters (which is insane, if you think about how Dump has shown no sensitivity to Black voters in his entire life, given his miserable record as a real estate landlord in New York in the 70s and onward and his denunciation of the so-called Central Park Five and calling for their execution way back in the late 1980s!), President Joe Biden delivered a fiery speech at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, which served as the site of a horrific hate crime in which a white supremacist massacred nine worshippers in 2015.  

The address at the historic church is covered in an NBC News online article by Gabe Gutierrez and Diana Paulsen entitled “Biden campaigns in South Carolina as he struggles to build Black voter support.”

This speech at the groundbreaking church, known as “Mother Emanuel,” comes just days after Biden kicked off the campaign year near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, crticizing his opponent for his actions during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Biden reiterated these themes and spent time highlighting the experiences of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers who were the subject of various right-wing attacks and conspiracy theories, calling them “two brave black women.”

The President also pushed back on repugnican attempts to sanitize the events of January 6, saying, “They tried to steal an election and now they’re trying to steal history.”

Poll numbers show Biden’s support among Black voters – especially Black men – is slipping dramatically.   Biden carried 92 percent of Black voters in 2020, but recent polling found as many as 20 percent open to voting for the Orange Turd.

The frustration among Black voters over Biden’s record has much to do with his failure to pass voting rights legislation, but these voters can thank the entire repugnican party for not endorsing any such legislation like this in the near term or ever. 

Another issue the Black community has with the sitting president is student debt relief, but they must thank the “Extreme” Court for ruling last summer along ideological lines that the Biden administration overstepped its bounds by trying to forgive $400 billion in federal student loans lingering from the coronavirus pandemic.   Meanwhile, the White House has announced it has used other methods to cancel student debt for 3.6 million people.   But that message, sadly, hasn’t reached many voters. 

During his address, Biden showcased what he saw as major wins for the Black community during his presidency, including reducing the cost of prescription drugs, lowering the income gap between white and Black Americans, and celebrating Black history through the designation of Juneteenth as a national holiday.   If ever a repugnican gets into the White House again in 2024, be rest assured all these gains will be erased!

Biden also spoke about his commitment to reducing gun violence through his support for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks, two measures that are opposed yet again by the repugnican majority.

Former state Rep. Fletcher Smith, a surrogate for Biden in the 2008 election and again in 2020, stressed that he was frustrated not with the president himself – but with his administration. 

“I think part of the problem with that is that the messaging from the White House is not actually resonating with the Black community.    That administration looks like they don’t want the Black vote.”

Given how important the 2024 election is for democracy, some sources familiar with Biden’s central campaign message wonder if his full-throated appeals to preserving democracy will even resonate with voters.  Boy, how ignorant can you get?    So should Biden stop declaring war on fascism by portraying his orange-haired insurrectionist as a potential fascist?   To me, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The speech didn’t have its dramatic moments:  it was briefly interrupted by protesters calling for a “ceasefire now” in Gaza.    It’s Biden’s support of Israel that has been cited as a major factor in his falling approval rating among young voters.   Again, would they vote for the worst alternative because of their waning support of Biden in this area or would they just sit home and still give the presidency to the MAGAt?    How could so many young voters be so blind to the dangers inherent in the 2o24 presidential race?

I would tend to agree with those strategists who say that Democrats must get their messaging across better to voters, not only to Black voters here, since it’s crucial that they do this from Day 1. 

Today marked our third day with Atticus.   I can’t say how perfectly he just fit in with us.  Elliot removed his paraphernalia from the bathroom today and now he has free rein in most of the other rooms in the apartment, primarily the living room and the kitchen, where he has his litter box and food tray.    I left momentarily in the morning to go out for breakfast at my usual eatery and Elliot stayed home.  He was fine last night when we both went out to dinner on Metropolitan Avenue.  He’s actually sprawled out and resting comfortably near me on the carpet in the foyer.    One thing, though, he still slinks back a little when I approach him.    I imagine this bit of skittishness will improve with time. 

In the afternoon, I went to the Angelika Theatre to see a remarkable film called All of Us Strangers while Elliot stayed home.    Actually, he had seen this the same day we saw American Fiction at the same theater some weeks ago and I had sat the second film out.   That was the night we had dinner at Emilio’s Ballato, on East Houston Street.   

I can’t gush enough about this splendid film that packs quite an emotional wallop.    It is, on the surface, a film about loneliness and how we all deal with it.   The four-character story involves a 40-something man called Adam (the splendid Andrew Scott) who lives alone in his tidy London flat and is seen mulling over a typewriter as he reflects on his life.  We soon learn that he is a screenwriter and is contemplating writing about his dead parents in the 80s.    You see, his rather young parents both died tragically in an auto crash when Adam was 12.

Then Harry ( Paul Mescal from Aftersun fame) enters Adam’s life and they tentatively embark on a romantic liaison.   Harry is a neighbor who lives in the same building as Adam and shows up one day, sort of inebriated and is eager to hang out, as Adam rebuffs him initially.  

The film takes a metaphysical turn when Adam takes a train to the suburbs of London and meets up – aghast! – with his deceased parents at his childhood home.  His Dad and Mum are played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell who look like they did just before they died, over 30 years ago.  

What is heartbreaking about the exchanges between Adam and his long-deceased parents is the joy on his face as he gives in to the experience even though one is wondering what’s going on here.  There is the exchange between his Mum over his being gay, something that was never revealed before she died.   The film provides those the opportunity to discuss things that couldn’t or wouldn’t be discussed when alive.   And Adam’s choice of a romantic partner is certainly one of those subjects.  Haven’t any of us wondered what that conversation would have been like if we could just talk to our now-deceased parents?    Andrew Haigh’s direction of this tidy little film allows us a window into that wished-for experience.  Haigh adapted the film from a Japanese novel called Strangers by Taichi Yamada from 1997 in which the protagonist and neighbor are a man and a woman.   Here Haigh pointedly spins the tale as a same-sex romance.  ”The condition of loneliness, is after all, according to stereotype, par for the course for gay men.” (This is from Andre Hereford’s review of the film in Metroweekly.)

In the scene between son and mother in the kitchen of Adam’s childhood home, Foy handles adroitly the news that her son is gay after innocently asking if he has a girlfriend and Adam responds accordingly.    Foy reacts also, saying that it’s dangerous being gay (here she is referring to AIDS that was just sprouting up in the 80s), and Adam says things are different today.    

With his parents, Adam tends to lament the past, but with Harry, his new squeeze, he can see the burgeoning light of a new future.  As it turns out, he can’t have both, and must choose which reality he must pursue in this aching yet sensual odyssey to a plane where life and the afterlife meet, and love drives away loneliness.  I won’t give away the shocking climax that makes what has just been shown on screen very apparent.   I actually had to confirm with Elliot what the ending meant when I got home. 

Anyway, this is a film to see and have a good cry.    Take your significant other to this one.

Stay safe and be well. 

By the way, Atticus is bounding all over the place.   He is certainly full of energy. 

Here is the sexy Andrew Scott from All of Us Strangers. I highly recommend seeing this film.