Today is Saturday, February 3, 2024.    Today, the state that launched Joe Biden to the Democratic nomination four years ago, South Carolina, will deliver his first official primary victory of the 2024 campaign.    In a result that was largely expected, Biden will defeat his two nearest challengers, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, as he claims his first delegates in his quest to win his party’s nomination again. 

Democrats approved a shake-up of their 2024 primary calendar last year and made South Carolina their first official primary state after Biden argued the new nominating order would better reflect the diversity of the nation and the party. 

On the Republican side, former president Donald Chump and rival Nikki Haley continue to battle one another ahead of the GOP primary in South Carolina on February 24. 

As of now, Biden is projected to win the primary, with 96.4 percent of the share, with only 46 percent of the state’s counties tallied.   I’m hearing this on MSNBC today right now.    What’s at stake here is 55 delegates.   I would dare say that this is very promising news for the incumbent ahead of the general election in November.

As for Biden’s purported opponent, Donald J. Drumpf, Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson has projected that conservative voters could be much more receptive to voting for President Joe Biden in the 20204 presidential election because of Dump’s myriad legal problems and his bizarre off-the-cuff remarks made on the campaign trail.   This analysis of Drumpf’s chances of winning the 2024 presidential race is provided in a Raw Story online article by Tom Boggioni entitled ‘Obviously insane’ Trump is making himself unelectable:   conservative.”

Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, Wilson called the embattled ex-president ”obviously insane and an adjudicated rapist” who is faced with a major problem hanging on to conservative voters, and that there are more persuadable voters for the Lincoln Project than there were in 2020.  

Predicting that more voters could be convinced to get off the Trump train wreak, Wilson said, “We have an expanded range of voters who are responsive to an anti-Trump message than we did in 2020.”   Wilson stated that in 2020, “depending on the state, we modeled between three and eight percent of Republicans and independent-leaning voters who could be reached and moved by our message.” 

Wilson continued, “In the environment where we are now where Trump is obviously insane and an adjudicated rapist, he is the guy who planned a coup over the U.S. election, he helped kill half of a million people by fumbling COVID – people get it.  They understand now in a broader way.   And he is the guy walking around bragging that he killed Roe v. Wade when a meaningful percentage of Republican women are actually prochoice; either fully prochoice like Roe v. Wade choice or libertarian prochoice like, ‘Stay out of my bedroom, Donald.'” 

Referring to the numbers of voters who could switch from Trump to Biden, Wilson said, “The number now we believe is between seven and 11 percent.  Depending on the state, we believe there is a larger percentage now.”

This too is an encouraging sign of things to come from Republican strategist Rick Wilson over how many repugnican and independent voters could be persuaded to get off the Dump train wreak and board the Biden caravan.   Democracy is at stake if these voters don’t switch! 

In responding to his South Carolina victory, President Joe Biden issued a prepared statement in which he said, “As I said four years ago, this campaign is for everyone who has been knocked down, counted out and left behind.  That is still true today.” 

Biden continued, “In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the Presidency.”

“Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again,” Biden declared. 

In addressing his adversary and the Republican Party, Biden leveled harsh criticism.  “The stakes in this election could not be higher. There are extreme and dangerous voices at work in the country – led by Donald Trump – who are determined to divide our nation and take us backward.  We cannot let that happen.”

In conclusion, Biden hailed his record on the economy, a record that appears to get short shrift in the mainstream media these days, except for Fox News’ recent backhanded kudos to the President for slowing inflation and triggering a robust economy, and said, “We’ve come a long way these past four years – with America now having the strongest economy in the world and among the lowest inflation of any major economy.  Let’s keep pushing forward.  Let’s finish what we started – together.” 

Now that we’ve put aside two promising stories today about the upcoming election that is terrifying to many, many Americans out there who are paying close attention to it and to the hysterical rantings of one of the main candidates, I can now report on a film Elliot and I saw today at the Kew Gardens Cinema, the fabulous German The Teacher’s Lounge, written by Ilker Catak and Johannes Duncker and starring a stellar Leonie Benesch in the title role of an idealistic and resolute new middle school teacher, Carla Nowak.   Originally, we had proposed seeing this Oscar-nominated German import with our friend/neighbor “Diane,” but she bowed out at the last minute, owing to noninterest or not being able to make up her mind. 

So we drove to the theater after 1 to see the 1:30 showing.   As a whole, the film sizzled with tension and could easily compete with the best Alfred Hitchcock production in terms of suspense and nerve-racking score usually supplied by the likes of Bernard Herrmann to many of his more memorable thrillers like Vertigo and Psycho.

The film centers on a German middle school set in a middle-class or upper-middle-class neighborhood where Carla Novak teaches a diverse sixth-grade class.    One scene shows her brilliant teaching of mathematics to the class, which I didn’t even understand.  She is a popular and idealistic teacher who has excellent control of her class, but only at the beginning.

Soon the halcyon routine of the class is upended when a series of thefts occur and the administration barges into Carla’s class one day to search the male children’s wallets for a sum of cash stolen from another student.   Initially, an immigrant student is accused of the theft, but is eventually exonerated after the parents are brought in to refute the charges.  So here is the faint scent of racism brought into this well-oiled educational institution at the moment.  

Before long, Carla takes matters in her own hands to hunt down the culprit or culprits by leaving her jacket with money in the teachers’ lounge and sets up her laptop camera to record the events at her desk.   Because of this action that is not sanctioned by the school’s bylaws, she catches the school secretary in her trap.  She recognizes the culprit from the unique blouse that is captured on camera.  Carla then goes to the school office to confront the secretary, Ms. Kuhn, who vehemently denies it was she in the blouse stealing from Carla’s bag.    Now further turmoil is created by the teacher’s action and accusations, especially when the secretary’s son, Oskar, is a student in Carla’s class and is subject to taunting and ridicule by the other students who learn of his mother’s being released from her job under a cloud of suspicion.

In time, the stable relationship between parents, students, and educators is toppled with further tensions emanating from the original accusation lodged against the school secretary.  Carla is then faced with enormous pressure from her colleagues, parents, and the administration to make the situation right, but it just escalates and escalates.

From one review that I read about the film appearing in Phoenix Film Festival online by Jeff Mitchell, this is stated, “Catak’s film feels like a claustrophobic, tick-tock thriller that Alfred Hitchcock would endorse, one accompanied by Marvin Miller’s nerve-racking score.  ”Lounge” – which also triples as an ethical-debate narrative and whodunit – zips by with its thrifty 98-minute runtime, and before you know it, the last bell rings, and the end credits roll.  Set down your pens, pencils, or chalk and applaud.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment of the film. I was so mesmerized by the film that I failed to eat any of the butter popcorn I brought from home.   Also watching a film about the thorny predicament that this dedicated middle-school teacher faces made me recall my situation with thefts in my last school, where it wasn’t the children who were stealing things, it was the teachers.   And as I recall, nothing was ever done about it.   I do remember that supplies if not nailed down or put away would mysteriously disappear from my room all the time.  And it was other teachers who were adjudged the thieves in this situation.   So I could identify with the film’s premise, but in a very oblique way. 

Without reservations, I strongly recommend your seeing this film.   It’s a welcome departure from all of those American blockbusters that feature just CGI, car chases, and gore. 

Have a good Sunday.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are meeting my good friend “Harold” and his wife “Rachel” at the Brooklyn Museum.    We’re both looking forward to the Spike Lee exhibit there which ends soon, February 11, and to seeing our dear friends.  

Stay safe and be well.