Visiting the Adirondacks, I saw the Democratic National Convention only sporadically, via internet from a lodge with no TV. I hadn’t seen the Republican National Convention at all, traveling in Central Europe with a busy schedule. I thought about the “Kamalanomenon,” a term I enjoy as it reminds me of Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, with Donald Trump’s difficulty in defining Kamala Harris, or conjuring a memorable derisive moniker, reflecting a similar intractable gap between reality and limited mind.
The “Kammunism” image, which I saw in Todd Seavey’s article “It’s Protest Vote Time,” struck me as ineffective propaganda, as she looks great in it, plus it’s uncertain if the term should be “Kamunism,” as the New York Post spelled it. The Democrats-are-Communists schtick might’ve worked better if Republicans haven’t been rebranding as a “Workers Party.” As for Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver, touted in Seavey’s piece, I was pleased that he defeated the illiberal Mises Caucus, supports ranked-choice voting, and proposes to reduce federal spending to “pre-pandemic levels,” not abolish all government, as the latter would lead to tyrannical rule by nominally private entities. Still, I expect to continue voting for Democrats, so long as the main alternative is an authoritarian Republican Party.
The North Country is Trump country. I’m in Eagle Bay, near Old Forge, in Herkimer County, part of New York’s 21st Congressional District, currently represented by Elise Stefanik. Herkimer, one of the reddest counties in the state, went 64.4 percent for Trump in 2020, compared to 60.9 percent for Joe Biden in the state overall. “Biden Sucks,” reads a sign as I drive from the lodge, the messaging not yet caught-up with the change of candidates. In Old Forge, a t-shirt shop prominently displays pro-Trump merchandise, including a shirt upbraiding the viewer for thinking the wearer might be one of the “sheep.” At the public library, though, an older woman speaks enthusiastically on her cell about the Democratic convention.
As a new Austrian dual citizen, I mailed my voter registration papers to Vienna a few weeks ago, though I’ll only be able to vote in September elections there if my application was processed by August 8, a deadline I may or may not have met. I marked on my papers my intent to vote in E.U as well as Austrian elections over time. I’ve started familiarizing myself with Austria’s political parties, in part by reading interviews at the Vienna Briefing, a helpful Substack. A few people have asked me if I’m allowed to vote in both U.S. and Austrian elections, to which my answer is, “Sure.” It’s not like voting from two different states in the U.S., or two different E.U. nations for the European Parliament, which are illegal.
Rain in the mountains forestalled some hiking plans and inspired a visit to the Strand Theater of Old Forge, where matinee tickets are only $6, and which has museum-like hallways lined with movie memorabilia and equipment. We saw Alien: Romulus, which I thought was pretty good albeit perhaps overly similar to Alien and Aliens in plot and atmosphere. I’ve surprisingly clear memories of the first two films despite not having seen them, I think, since their opening runs, respectively in 1979 and 1986.
Desire for novelty’s a factor in my cultural and political preferences. In the early-1980s, when I experienced a period of science-driven philosophical anxiety, among books I read was The Conscious Brain, by neuroscientist Steven Rose, which included a passage criticizing B.F. Skinner, dean of the behaviorist school of psychology, and his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity for adopting a “rigid” behaviorist “line which reveals that, like the Bourbon kings of France, the experience of the last forty years has helped him neither to learn anything nor forget anything.” I never forgot those words, which refer to a remark attributed to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand that the French royal house hadn’t changed between its overthrow in the Revolution and its return, for a time, in the Restoration. Whatever things I might be accused of, holding the same opinions I held 40 years ago isn’t one of them.
—Follow Kenneth Silber on X: @kennethsilber