Today is Sunday, February 18, 2024. An online USA Today article by Sara Pequeno details a strategy that is lacking among Democrats as they face a fascistic Republican opponent in the body and face of one Donald J. Duck and what she poses for the entire Democratic Party should be heeded very seriously as President Joe Biden appears to be squaring off with his old nemesis in November 2024. The title of the article tells it all: “Republicans always fall in line behind Trump. Why don’t Democrats do the same for Biden?”

The writer of this article immediately cites Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who came to Biden’s rescue after the damning special counsel report last week called into question Biden’s memory and, therefore, his ability to lead the country.

Pequeno admits that this support from the fiery progressive was a change of pace for the Democrat who has criticized Biden and his administration’s policies in the past.

As recently as last month, Ocasio-Cortez has gone after Biden for his handling of the conflict in Gaza and the need for universal health care in the United States.

In spite of these earlier critiques and her own political ideology, the progressive Democrat used her platform to make it clear that Biden, the presumptive nominee and incumbent, deserves the support of the country’s progressives.

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez told CNN, “I know who I’m going to choose” and his name doesn’t rhyme with “Dump.” She continued to sing the praises of Biden thusly, “It’s going to be one of the most successful presidents in modern American history that passed the Inflation Reduction Act, that got us the American Rescue Plan, that ensured that we could pass one of the largest federal investments in climate change in U.S. history.”

Here is the crux of Pequeno’s argument to get Biden reelected: “Her defense of the president is exactly the kind of energy other Democrats should be embodying ahead of the election.” She credits Ocasio-Cortez with the kind of outward support that would ensure Biden’s chances of securing reelection come November.

Pequeno notes how Republicans have fallen in line behind Drumpf and his Make America Great Again movement over the last eight years. But there have been plenty of reasons not to, she mentions, like 91 criminal charges against him to recent election losses to his own verbal slip-ups that “would be a death knell for any other candidate.”

Unfortunately, those who have disagreed with Trump have learned to keep their opinions to themselves, lest they follow the path of former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who lost her election after condemning Chump.

“Members of the GOP know that going against Trump is one of the surefire ways to lose a bid for reelection or lose status within the party,” Pequeno indicates. What infuriates most Americans, in my opinion, is what Pequeno refers to as Republicans’ undying loyalty to the bum in which they seldom say negative things about the former president, “even when there is a long list of things they should be saying to preserve the legitimacy of the institution.” Pequeno adds, “Instead, they offer a level of loyalty Biden should envy.

In the next two paragraphs, Pequeno mentions two representatives who are fiercely loyal to the Orange Demon, in spite of everything. One is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2015, the year before Chump won the presidency. As recently as 2020, she was known as a moderate but not anymore. She now calls herself “ultra-MAGA” (yuck!) and campaigned for the former president during this year’s New Hampshire primary.

The other Chump loyalist everyone knows (and wishes they hadn’t) is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who since her election in 2020, she has essentially acted as another manager of Drumpf’s image. Not only has she campaigned for him in 2024, she has used any airtime she receives to double down on her support for the former insurrectionist.

On the other side of the coin, it’s Democrats who don’t necessarily rally behind Biden in the same way.

The president’s policies have been criticized by lawmakers as diverse as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) who thinks that Biden’s current campaign strays away from his messaging four years ago to New York’s Mayor Eric Adams who has criticized Biden over immigration policy, “even though the blame for the influx of migrants in the city would be better placed on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott,” who is a Republican.

Pequeno advises “Democrats would be wise to rally behind Biden in their own states and in the media ahead of November.” In conclusion, she writes, “Democrats should remember another four years of Biden is better for their agenda than another four years battling Trump.” Her words should be heeded by Democrats immediately. We don’t have a moment to lose.

We still have time, fellow Democrats, to get our act together and throw our unquestioning loyalty over to President Joe Biden; it’s not too late.

Today Elliot and I saw a sprawling new play about antisemitism called Prayer for the French Republic by Joshua Harmon which takes place in France during two distinct time periods, 1944-1946 and 2016-2017, and recounts the fortunes of one Jewish family by the name of Salomon. The play was performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, on West 47th Street.

The play asks the age-old question, “where can one go when your adopted land is not safe anymore?” This is the question on the minds of the central family at the core of the play, the Salomons. The play obviously predates the atrocities committed by Hamas in October 2023 and the resulting uproar over it, but it does touch on a rising tide of antisemitism occurring in the City of Lights before the election of Emmanuel Macron to the presidency of the country.

The Salomons in the 2016-2017 segment of the play are portrayed by Betsy Aidem as Marcelle Salomon Benhamou, a psychiatrist living in Paris in 2016 who is overly protective of her two children, Daniel and Elodie, both in their twenties and still living at home. Her husband, Charles Benhamou, is essayed by Nael Nacer. The crisis forming the crux of the play is introduced when Daniel (Aria Shahghasemi) wearing a yarmulke and is outwardly more religious than the rest of the family is beaten up by antisemitic thugs near the school where he teaches math.

Marcelle’s frenzied response to the beating opens up a fissure in the family that the play proceeds to pry wide open. Her husband, Charles, a physician who emigrated to France from Algeria when conditions became intolerable for Jews in the early 1960s, eventually concludes that, like his native country then, his adopted one now is profoundly unsafe. Familiar with sudden uprootings, he wants to move as soon as possible – to Israel. This forms the central question of the play then: where is it safe for Jews to be, ultimately?

But here France is hardly the whole story as the audience is introduced to Marcelle’s great-grandparents Irma and Adolphe Salomon who run a piano store in Paris, along with a national brand, as they await word of their family at the end of the war. It’s 1944-1946. Soon, their son, Lucien (Ari Brand), returns from Poland with his son, Pierre, who eventually returns in Act 3 as Marcelle’s elderly father over 70 years later. During the postwar years, Pierre is 15. We soon find out that both father and son were encamped at Auschwitz losing a wife and two daughters to the death camps.

What I found most entertaining about the play, despite its very serious themes of identity and antisemitism, was Marcelle and Charles’s daughter, Elodie (Francis Benhamou) who is a self-involved, know-it-all and is given a vey long speech during Act 2 rhapsodizing as to why there is so much antisemitism in the world and why the media seem to concentrate on reporting the good, bad, and ugly of Israel, despite its relative small size, and fail to even mention much about larger countries like India, Indonesia, and the like. At what appears to be a local bar, she pontificates all this to Molly, a distant cousin, who is visiting the family during her college year abroad and seems to be attracted to Daniel, her shirtless, guitar-playing brother, the son who was beaten up at the beginning of Act 1. Because of her status as an Upper East Sider living in New York, both Elodie and her mother, Marcelle, lay into Molly constantly, as if her naiveté, which they attribute to her being a pampered American, were a crime against Judaism.

The title of the play comes from the name of a blessing recited in French synagogues for 200 years and what we can extrapolate from that is what prayer can be recited to end antisemitism itself. So far, there isn’t any that can be answered yet is what the playwright appears to be saying.

I thought this play was altogether well acted, especially Betsy Aidem as the matriarch Marcelle Salomon, Francis Benhamou (have you noticed this actress’s last name is the last name of the fictitious family’s?), and Nancy Robinette who played Irma Salomon, Marcelle’s great-great grandmother.

If you like this sort of play, I recommend that you see it before it closes in early March. I’m not sure when, though. It was supposed to close today, February 18, but its run was extended.

Oye, it’s getting late. Atticus woke up from his nap.

Tomorrow I will not be writing my blog since I’ve been invited to participate in a horror movie trivia contest at Rockbar, a local haunt on Christopher Street. The contest goes on at 7 and ends at 10, I think. I was invited by one of the regulars at my gay men’s reading group at our last meeting in early February. I thought this would be fun and I’ve never been to this place, so tomorrow would be a good time as any to see it, I thought.

Have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.

Here is Atticus under my bureau looking up at me this morning.

What a rascal!

Here is a small roll of toilet paper that Atticus unraveled while we were gone. He didn’t take it from the bathroom, thank God, he took it from under the breakfront in the living room. Why it was there I can’t tell you.