Author: donald barnat

In the Year Twenty Twenty-Five

Only the Shadow Knows
January 6, 2020

The Beguiling Light
Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux FLE v2

First, the ‘Lux is back in my life, baby!

Let me tell you, it’s been very weird the last many years to have a website named for a lens that I no longer own. But those days are over. Sort of. You see, the latest ‘Lux isn’t a repurchase of the site’s namesake 50mm f1.4 Summilux. This ‘Lux is the 2022 release of the updated 35mm Summilux FLE v2 and we’re not going to change the name of this place over 15 silly millimeters.

No, the title of this piece is not a misspelled soap opera. It is, however, kind of my own personal photographic soap opera. But what you’re about to read here is also a master class in using a Leica M camera with fast glass. I promise you. Do not doubt me. 

Is it intended to be a master class for you the reader? No, I’m not that arrogant. But please partake freely nevertheless. It’s really meant to be a master class for yours truly. I have to write this all down now so that I never forget it. Ever. Again. Because I did forget it. I forgot everything I once knew about how to really use a Leica M. 

That occurred even though I’ve been using my M10 pretty much all the time the last few years. But I’m shooting street photography in daylight. I’m shooting with f2 lenses which are almost invariably stopped down to f5.6 on up. Or down. Whatever. Numbers go up, size of the hole goes down. That’s photography. 

Also, for the first time in my photographic life, I’ve taken to using Auto-ISO on both my Leica and Nikon cameras. Finally, at long last, that feature actually works for me. I shoot most often from a moving car. So I need fast shutter speeds. I can’t always focus at 35 MPH. So I also need small apertures. I think you get the picture. This is not Leica Summilux f1.4 shooting. And, while I wouldn’t call it brainwashing, shooting like this does have the tendency to condition someone to look at the process of camera settings as they relate to exposure in a certain light. 

It’s also not indoor low-light event photography, something I used to do quite a bit of. Not so much with Leica gear but, for my personal use, which included a lot of low light wide-open shooting, I pretty much shot only Leica for well over a decade. Even before I got my first digital Leica, the M9, in 2010, I’d been shooting film for a couple of years on a sugar sweet M7 and then later pairing that with an M6. 

I was lucky to be able to afford those Leica cameras, even used. But I couldn’t also afford actual Leica lenses, so I shot with a Zeiss 50 f1.5 Sonnar and a 40mm Voigtlander Nokton f1.4. 

When I got my M9, however, I wanted to shoot it with Leica glass so I picked up the tiny and quite remarkable 35mm Summarit 2.5. So I was set. Loaded for bear or whatever else. I could now shoot my Leica all day long, play games, experiment, it was amazing.

Just one week after picking up my new Leica digital kit I had to fly off to Chicago for a BIG TIME event, which included a pre-dinner the night before. But here’s the thing, I’d already been shooting Leica film bodies for a few years. I’d read and learned so many things. So I had this old archaic film mentality about exposure. I wouldn’t call it brainwashing but… 

Leica 35mm f2.5 Summarit

I was ready. I already knew the M9 wasn’t great over 800 ISO. The widest aperture of that generation of the Summarit family of lenses was f2.5. Do the math. No matter where I was, I was going to need to shoot at very slow shutter speeds. I think I shot the entire weekend at 1/30th all the way down to a quarter of a second. 

Leica 35mm f2.5 Summarit

The pictures I produced that weekend in Chicago were what I’d fantasized about making as I built my photographic dreams up from a young age. I’ve always said my photographic aesthetic is Cincinnati newspaper photographer. And these were mostly old-school photojournalism style shots with some occasional digital razzle-dazzle thrown in. I’d owned the digital Leica and lens for one week and yet I’d never done anything better, and, to this day, I’ve never been more satisfied than I was with the images I came away with from that trip. 

Leica 35mm f2.5 Summarit

Whatever I was thinking that weekend in 2010, however, whatever photographic strategy I was applying to the challenges of the events and the lighting and the various focusing distances and issues like camera shake, it was all lost from my mind a long time ago. My photographic instincts had been completely rewired many times over. 

For God’s sake, I’d even taken to shooting Auto-ISO. Need I say more?

Then came the new 35mm Summilux. Just a few days ago, but 15 years later. And, for the first time in like, forever, an event. And so, as you might’ve imagined, disaster surely followed. I pushed my ISOs into the stratosphere. I shot at 1/125th of a second. My mind had been rewired. Okay. Gloves are off. I had been brainwashed! 

The lens itself is incredible. This is actually my second 35 FLE. I got my first in 2010, even before I was able to get my hands on the 50mm Summilux this website is named after. Same optical formula as the first FLE but maybe newer coatings push out wide open sharpness to the very edges. But the close focusing capabilities, on a 35mm lens? GTF out of town, people. Just go. Leave, right now. 

This 35 is a lifestyles photographer’s dream. 

Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux FLE v.2

But I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a clue. And when I got home I felt sick looking at my images. I’m not a professional photographer and I haven’t pretended to be one in years. But this event was personal. And stressful. There was a pro photographer working the room there and no one was even taking cell phone images. The atmosphere was elegantly reserved. Even if it is the same ballroom where they host the always wild and wooly Golden Globes Awards telecast. So pulling out even my tiny M kit was awkward at best and I only managed to grab a handful of frames. 

But enough of all that. Let the master class begin. 

The Master Class Begins 

In order to really know how to best use Leica M cameras, and fast lenses, you have to go back to the principles of the design of the M camera system and the minds that conceived of and continued to build on that design. Seriously. 

But first this…

We all know the exposure rule on focal lengths and shutter speeds. To avoid camera shake, it is best to shoot at shutter speeds no slower than the focal length number of your lens. So if you’re shooting a 35mm lens, for example, you wouldn’t want to shoot at a shutter speed below 1/35 of a second. 

But Leica is Leica for a reason. Many reasons. “M” bodies are flat and sit flush against the shooter’s face. The lenses are small. The center of gravity of the entire kit is mostly stabilized just by the act of bringing the camera up to your eye and holding it steady. 

So that old shutter speed vs. focal length rule. Forget it! That’s right. THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW. You can, for example, hand hold a Leica M body at half or less than half of your 35mm focal length and get incredible, even reliable, results! 

And I’ll add this. We’re always trying to replicate the looks of the film photography of yore. Right? Of course we are. Almost everyone uses filters on their cell phone pictures at one time or another to try to emulate the look of vintage photographs. 

So here is a stealth vintage photography pro-tip courtesy of the old pros. Slow shutter speeds. Creates an entirely different look than shots snapped at mere hundredths of a second. Who knew? And remember, this is actually how so many of those beloved vintage and historic shots were taken. So do the same thing the 20th century greats of photography did in order to take one giant step towards achieving similar results. Duh-UH! 

So let’s talk about the red dot. Not the one on the lenses. The one inside the viewfinder. You know what it’s there for, I’m not going to tell you. But think about what the minds who put it there were thinking when they came up with this idea. Think of what they created. A solid red dot tells us that, in theory, our camera settings have delivered to us a proper exposure. There are chevrons (arrows) that may appear pointing our index finger that is resting (hopefully) on the shutter speed dial in the exact direction we might want to move that dial in order to make that red dot solid if it isn’t a spot-on proper exposure. 

But unless we are just simply and dumbly shooting an object (which is often the case) we might not (even infrequently not) want a spot-on proper exposure. In some cameras, we might use exposure compensation to achieve something more or less than what the camera’s light sensor might consider to be a proper exposure. 

But not us and not with a Leica M. Because we have the red dot and the chevrons. Never forget that, my people. Never. Ever. (Pounds fist against forehead.) 

Think about what these 20th century Leica geniuses created with their M camera system. They gave us more than we know. 

Why, for instance, might the chevrons be even more important than the red dot? Well, how about this? What about when we’re not dumbly photographing mere objects? What if we’re photographing light? Which is, you know, what we’re actually doing anyway no matter what we think we’re doing. (I’m not going to go into the whole light thing as it applies to photography, but it IS a thing and it is a thing for a reason.) 

So what are the photographs that catch your eye and make you sigh with appreciation, even if only for a moment? What is the most charming aspect of any image? Is it the subject? Yes, it can be. But I’m going to tell you that that is rarely the case for me. I may be incredibly interested in the subject of a photograph. Or the scene or the decisive moment. But what makes me truly stop in my tracks when I look at an image is always the light. 

Natural light is king, especially as it is bouncing around indoors. Pictures of nothing important. Back lit objects. Reflections on a shiny floor. Doesn’t matter. We love the light. 

Nick’s Cafe, Pico Blvd (no more)

Dimly lit rooms with artificial lighting also offer many opportunities to make available light the charming star of your photography.

Leica 35mm f2.5 Summarit

And it’s not something you have to work all that hard to achieve. You just have to fully appreciate that the artificial light that is available to you, even dull uninteresting light that you might otherwise scoff at, IS nevertheless light, and that you simply need to adjust your exposure settings, as well as your mind, to take full advantage of that light. 

Not by boosting your ISO. 

But by slowing down your shutter speed. 

So here is the process… 

Okay, so maybe it isn’t THE process. Maybe it’s just my suggested process. Maybe I’m just talking to myself to try to make sure I never again forget the things I once knew. 

So you walk into a room. Or an event. You think like you’re living in the pre-digital days of film. Always. You look at the available light and you make a judgement on ISO. Again, think as if you’re deciding what film speed to purchase and put in your camera. Whatever decision you make, my advice is that it should be 1000 ISO or under. In the rarest of cases, you might push it to 1600. But just for a few shots. 

Yes, I’m fully aware of how good cameras have gotten at handling high ISOs here in 2025. I’m telling you to put all of that out of your mind. It is poison. If you’re shooting a Leica M with a Summilux lens you freaking idiot (talking to myself now) you are living in truly rarified photographic air with a different set of rules entirely. 

So you’re in your room, large or small, and you’ve looked at the light and ball-parked an ISO under 1000. (Hey, if it’s a sunny day outside and you have good sized windows you might be fine shooting at 400 or even 200 ISO. You will get GORGEOUS images.) You open your lens to its maximum aperture. Turn on your camera and look into the viewfinder. Look at the red dot and look at the chevrons as you scan the room. 

The only exposure adjustments you make at this point is with the shutter speed dial. Focus on something near the middle of the room. Take some shots. Adjust according to the chevrons and then against what the chevrons are telling you. Look at the images. Look at the light near the windows. Is it pretty? Or is it too much? Or is it too dark? Settle on a shutter speed that looks best to you and leave it there. For a moment. 

Then take more pictures of other things around the room. Notice you may have to slow the shutter speed down even more for objects further away from the window. Hold the camera steady against your face and keep in mind always that you don’t have to worry about shooting a Leica body with a 35mm lens at single-digit shutter speeds. JUST DO IT!

Get used to this process. Try to hard wire all of this into your brain as option numero uno when shooting fast Leica glass in available light. Make it second nature. Set an ISO for the environment you’re shooting in. Open the lens up all the way. Go as slow as you need to with the shutter. Rinse and repeat for as long as you shoot Leica. 

I’m not trying to be a snob here. But this is a piece about how best to shoot a Leica M body with ultra-fast glass. If we can apply any of this to other camera systems–as I’m sure we can–then go for it. Please. A lot of this is just a basic old-school photography approach (my own) from before we had the capability to change ISOs at will or check our results on an LCD screen. 

So I ask you to think about what Leica has given us, even here well into the 21st century. 

They’ve given us an amazingly exquisite playground that exists in our minds, in our eyes, and in our hands. 

The most beguiling thing in any photograph is the light. Always. Light is the magical mystery of the universe. Man did not create light. Could not have invented it. Leica M cameras, like no other photographic product ever created, give us the opportunity to explore that universe and to play with the magical mysteriousness of light. 

If you don’t know that, I promise you will learn how true it is by simply following the process I’ve suggested in this piece. See the light, play with it, and photograph it. 

And, please. Never forget how to do that. 

I’ve only had the new 35 FLE for three days so all the images below were taken with the first (2010) version.


P.S. I officially no longer know how to use WordPress to post images. I don’t have any idea why my shots here appear to be so soft. They’re not soft and they’re certainly hi-res enough for this website. Let me add to the voices who have bemoaned the many changes to the user interface here. I think this has severely impacted my desire to post on 50lux.com.

Meeting Julia Dean

A great pleasure and long overdue moment for me this past Friday was finally meeting the amazing Julia Dean. Julia is quite possibly the most important figure to photography and photographers in Los Angeles ever.

She has a stunning exhibition of her black and white film work (made with a Leica M6) on display at the Leica Gallery in West Hollywood. Be there. The space is beautiful and the people at the Leica Store are wonderful.

Current Exhibitions

A Boomer Punches Back

It’s been said that public discourse in America has deteriorated to the point where people aren’t able to agree even upon basic verifiable facts. And, of course, that’s due mostly to politics and political viewpoints. But an idea put forth by Bret Weinstein in a recent podcast suggests that this is a new and even historic development that signals a turning away from a core principle of the Enlightenment. That core principle would be logic.

As Weinstein’s thinking goes, when people can’t agree on basic facts then logic goes out the window as we can no longer apply logic to any question or issue we humans face.

So, for instance, I consider it to be a basic fact that a decline in Joe Biden’s mental capacity, his mental energy, all the things that become ‘at issue’ for so many of our elderly citizens at some point in their later years, is evident now with the president.

I’m not going to say what it is specifically that leads me to that conclusion. Because, for me, none of it needs to be stated. It’s simply an obvious observable reality.

The point here being that no matter what specifics are presented, enough of us will invariably continue to claim not to see the president’s mental decline and, for purely reasons of political affiliation, refuse to admit that it’s happening at all, with the end result being that those on either side of the political chasm can no longer move forward together in reality.

My own political affiliation until the last few years has been Democrat. But I now see my party as being the more powerful half of the duopoly that controls our entire political system. And our American duopoly is an essential tool of a frightening global elite that has been consolidating its control over western nations for decades now.

And so I’ve come to believe that the only answer to this situation and maybe our last hope to break the grip that our party and the duopoly and the globalist forces have on our country is to elect Robert F. Kennedy Jr. president.

RFK Jr. has articulated, and continues to speak to, the realities facing Americans, as well as the profound changes to American lives that have been wrought by a predatory elite now for many decades. And he’s doing so in an election year when no other candidate is even remotely speaking to these same concerns.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, is in an obvious state of physical and mental decline. And the nation he presides over is in a state of social and economic decline. Are these facts or just opinions? Can words and their meanings be used and manipulated to deflect from what seem to be basic observable realities?

I would consider all of these statements to be irrefutable facts.

We know, however, that there are many who would disagree. But as Bret Weinstein has suggested, we are living in an era wherein even highly intelligent and educated people are not in agreement about what would seem to be basic and easily observable facts.

So I might suggest that the quality of life in this country has deteriorated greatly over the last half century for all but the more affluent who live in the most affluent regions of the country.

I would offer that the working and lower middle classes have been bled dry by the affluent through decades of wage stagnation, loss of health benefits, the busting of unions, and the disappearance of complete employment sectors of the economy accompanied by a simultaneous ever-increasing cost of living.

But somehow this perspective has come to be disputed by those who say it is merely the tendency of older Americans to look back at past eras in their lives through rose-colored glasses.

This is a very common claim that has evolved into powerful politically weaponized propaganda.

We’ve all heard it. It asserts that our recollection of how this country used to be is simply boomer nostalgia. Just a vague longing for a better past that never actually existed. Not good for minorities or gay people. It ignores our nation’s darker past. Kind of racist, actually. At the very least, not to be taken seriously. Just poor old codgers who are incapable of remembering the past accurately.

So, for instance, it would follow that I’m simply not remembering accurately being hired into the steel mill in 1977 at $5.29 an hour (which is about $25 an hour today) with full benefits like comprehensive medical and dental insurance and two weeks paid vacation.

I’m not actually recalling correctly being a member of one of the most powerful labor unions in American history, the United Steelworkers of America. I guess I should finally just accept the fact that none of these very significant moments in my life ever really happened.

So I must also be misremembering my thriving hometown of Aliquippa, PA, you know, actually thriving.

The teaming downtown full of locally owned businesses. A ballpark with stadium lighting and, in the summer, softball leagues of grown men playing under those lights till long after dark. The Sheffield Lanes filled with bowling leagues every night of the week, just like every other bowling alley in every surrounding rust belt state. The packed bars everywhere. The parades down Main St. or through downtown. The annual 4th of July celebrations and fireworks. Neighbors sitting on each other’s front porches all summer long. The yearly Italian San Rocco Festival attended by thousands. The incredible ethnic diversity of the entire region.

So it would also naturally follow that I simply don’t remember correctly working in the mill with almost as many blacks as whites.

I’m somehow misremembering how almost right out of high school anyone hired into the mill was able to buy a house. As RFK Jr. has accurately stated, there was a time when you could get married, have kids, buy a new car every few years, take your family on vacations, all on one salary. And no matter how many children you chose to have, they all enjoyed full comprehensive health and dental coverage, quite unlike the restrictive health insurance plans we have today.

The full-employment Aliquippa I remember was not a wealthy place, but it was a place where very few suffered the kind of financial insecurities that are so common today.

Today, in a bleak contrast to the past as I remember it, the blue-collar unionized working-class manufacturing base in this country has been replaced by low-wage non-union service jobs and a gig employment economy with neither providing health insurance or other benefits once enjoyed by vast sectors of the American workforce.

Some have said that, starting out in life, without a college education, it’s perfectly fitting that people should be employed at low wage fast food jobs and that they should simply work their way up to better higher paying jobs as they get older. Okay. Fair enough. People are entitled to their own opinions.

But remember, we’re talking now about whether or not they are entitled to their own facts.

In a past we boomers are now told never existed, people like me were hired into high-paying union manufacturing jobs right out of high school and could get on with our lives being financially responsible individuals who could, in short order, get married, own a home, and raise a family.

That simply is not the current reality in America today and no one in this country with any credibility at all would dare suggest that it is.

The countless towns and small cities like Aliquippa all across the country with thriving and safe streets full of locally owned small businesses provided Americans with something we might call COMMUNITY. I come from one of those communities. One of so many. Like countless others in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and on and on.

Today, most of downtown Aliquippa has been bulldozed. The thriving community it once was, like a thousand others across this once great nation, is now ancient American history.

You can’t come from a place like that and not recognize how widespread this collapse of American small towns and communities has been as well as recognizing how the destruction of an all-important sector of the American economy and the societal base it supported has been repeated thousands of times across the country.

We see it maybe a lot clearer than others because we notice that something that was once there is gone. It was the reality of the times many of us lived in. We remember it because we were there. We know.

The fallout of this destruction of the American manufacturing base has been devastating to the health of what we might refer to as the once great American society. But you have to have a certain sensibility to recognize this fallout for what it is and what it has done to the people of this country.

The Aliquippa I grew up in was an incredible community. J&L Steel: Aliquippa Works, was the largest steel mill in the world for many decades. Nine miles long. At its peak, it employed somewhere between 10 and 20K workers.

My hometown is the birthplace of the United Steelworkers of America. It is the birthplace of the right of workers IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to organize themselves and form a union via the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Wagner Act in 1937.

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jones and Laughlin had a large plant in nearby Aliquippa that became [in 1937] the object of the National Labor Relations Board prosecution. Vertically integrated with 19 subsidiaries, it owned and operated ore, coal, and limestone properties; lake and river transportation facilities; and terminal railroads located at its manufacturing plants. The fourth largest steel and pig iron company in the nation, Jones and Laughlin employed 33,000 men mining ore, 44,000 men mining coal, 4,000 men quarrying limestone, 16,000 men manufacturing coke, 343,000 men manufacturing steel, and 83,000 men transporting its product. The company had about 10,000 employees in its Aliquippa plant, which was located in a community of about 30,000 persons. –

Encyclopedia.com

So, in the late 1930s, the fourth largest steel manufacturer in the United States employed over a half-million men. Point six percent of the nation’s total population at the time of 129 million. If half the country was female and twenty percent (rounding off current percentages) were children, that means a full one percent of the nation’s men were employed by just the fourth largest steel company in the country.

Now throw in the three even larger steel manufacturers and the countless foundries and finishing plants that lined the Ohio and rivers throughout the industrial northeast and Midwest and you can easily understand why the steel manufacturing industry was the largest employer in the United States for much of the 20th century.

Then, of course, it all disappeared. By the 1980s, you could look around Aliquippa as well as the rest of Western Pennsylvania and the good union jobs with full benefits were gone, the prosperity was gone, the excitement was gone, a massive sector of the American economy was gone, and, I would suggest, along with it, the economic security of the American working class.

In the country we live in today, the working class has no economic security. I state this as a cold and irrefutable fact. But we should know by now that facts only get us so far.

Because now, incredibly, people who think of themselves as progressive Democrats push back on the idea that things are really that bad in America today. And to do that with any shred of imagined credibility it is imperative that they push back even harder on the suggestion that things were ever better in some now distant yesterday that exists only in the deluded memories of us baby boomers.

Stand back for a moment and just look at the inherent political power that comes from simply denying someone else’s lived experiences. This is revisionist history at its most dangerous.

I often wonder if these so-called progressives don’t see how they’ve changed sides. They’re now not simply denying past historical realities. They’re glossing over and even mocking the current struggles of the working-class in 2024. This isn’t progressive or liberal or traditional Democratic Party politics. It’s the propaganda apparatus of predatory elitism, and it’s nothing less than ongoing class warfare being waged on working- and middle-class Americans.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the one candidate for president in 2024 who is not denying the past economic security of the working classes in America.

Far from it. He’s actually running his campaign on acknowledging it and promising to work to help restore some of the economic security once enjoyed by the working people of this country.

And, dare we hope, that through a President Kennedy’s efforts we might again see that certain level of prosperity that working Americans were allowed to believe they’d achieved when they were able to buy a home and raise a family on nothing more than the sweat of their backs and a high school diploma.

She Who Laughs Last: A Nightmare On Pennsylvania Ave

It’s doubtful any political junkies missed the really big news yesterday. Joe Biden will not be prosecuted for HIS classified documents issues. But the reason why as stated by the special counsel investigating the current President of the United States is that Biden would be unlikely to be convicted by a jury as he would be seen as a doddering well-meaning old man of diminished mental acuity. This is mostly my characterization of the special counsel’s language but, trust me, I’m not cooking the books here.

Former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer Krystal Ball gives her reading of the report and what it signifies here.

And even though Krystal is a prominent face of the indie-left media, her take is pretty much an accurate characterization of the mainstream establishment media’s reading of what it all means.

Look at the lead story on the New York Times this morning. I’m gifting it via this link so if you don’t have a Times subscription you can still read it here

But that’s not the most significant part of this story for me. After the report was made public and the media tongues began to wag, and as the sun began to set over the Biden White House, Sundowner Syndrome himself decided to hold a somewhat impromptu prime-time address and press availability in order to defend himself and attack the special counsel’s characterization of his mental state.

Biden looked like an angry old man but we’ve certainly seen worse examples of his mental decline in just the last few days. That’s also not the story for me.

What I found to be absolutely JAW DROPPING (but still not the point of this piece) was the behavior and treatment of the president by the White House press corps.

It seemed (at least in the edit I saw last night) to start with Peter Doocy the FOX News reporter who is a constant daily thorn in the administration’s side.

But this wasn’t that.

It quickly became very clear to me that someone told the piranhas that it was finally okay for them to go ahead and start eating this president and, let me tell you, this was one HANGRY grouping of this nation’s most prestigious news organizations’ top correspondents. You knew these probably once idealistic journalists had been deprived of doing their actual jobs for FAR too long.

They all but ran poor Joe out of office right then and there. I’ll start this (I hope) at the point where that good White House applesauce Joe likes hits the fan.

But none of this is why I’m writing this piece.

So I started this year with a prediction that either Biden or Trump or both were very likely to be unavailable to voters come November. Astonishingly bad poll numbers along with some of the most uncomfortable video examples of the president’s mental decline yet in the past week or so has resulted in what can only be called visible cracks in the fuselage of this Boeing Boeing gone idea that Joe Biden will ever be re-elected President of the United States. But hey, Joe. Never say never. There’s always 2028.

So why am I writing any of this here today? It’s all over the news. See it for yourselves. None of this is why I’m really here pounding on my laptop.

This all is presenting the likelihood of what can only be described as the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare scenario.

Is it that Joe will announce that he’s not seeking re-election? Nope. That’s not how this is going to go down. Biden has to go now if not sooner. He has to resign the office of the presidency. Full stop. I believe that’s coming very soon. 

If Biden were simply to declare he’s not seeking a second term he would still be there. He would still be a story that would be running parallel to the story of whoever the Democratic Party is running at the top of their ticket. He would continue to be a doddering leader of the free world during these so very treacherous times. So, while the Democratic Party would be desperately trying to establish their replacement candidate as the story, Joe Biden’s continuing mental decline would still be an issue for all of us and a competing headline for the Democratic Party’s preferred election year narrative.

Enter Kamala. Yep. There she is, the cackling nightmare we’ve all been dreading. But this is also the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare. And here is why.

Many are the reports coming from inside the White House about how recalcitrant the vice-president has grown over the last year or so. She has been bristling at how she’s being used or not used by the administration. She is reported to be one unhappy camper. Yes, she probably still laughs uncontrollably for no reason, but this shit is no longer funny for her and especially not funny for the Democratic Party because, while they will be more than happy to celebrate Kamala as the country’s first female president, they do not want her to be the candidate that replaces Joe Biden on the ballot in November.

Joe Biden resigns the presidency and the Democrats and the news media celebrate the nation’s first woman president. Personally, I too would love to celebrate this historic moment. I once thought Kamala Harris was a pretty sharp cookie. But no one thinks that anymore. 

The Biden administration has never found a way to use her in which she doesn’t end up embarrassing herself and the administration in short order. So they’ve hidden her away. The public has had her number since she first entered the 2020 Democratic Primary. Senator Kamala Harris of California was exposed over and over again during her short and painful primary season run as the walking, rambling, inappropriately laughing personification of an empty pants suit. VP Harris never caught on with the American public in the three years she’s been in office and the real-life VEEP’s poll numbers to this very day are worse than even the ever-declining numbers not enjoyed by the president.

But now he’s gone and she is president. There was no deal to be made. Ha-Ha Harris was the Vice President of the United States and the Democratic Party put her there. THAT was the deal that was made. Now they as well as the rest of us are stuck with her. Certainly someone is going to have to impress upon her the Democratic Party establishment’s desire that she forego any attempt to run on her own at the top of the party’s ticket in November. “No way, honey,” Someone’s going to be thinking. “This silliness stops right here!”

But now (or then) behind the scenes, is where the nightmare truly begins. The party has no power over her. She’s the President of the United States. If leaks from the administration and her former staffers are to be believed, and they are believed here inside my head, she probably hates every White House face she sees. And so I think President Kamala Harris will go rogue on the party that put here there. I think she will not go quietly into that good-night victory column of history as merely the first woman president of the US. I think she’s going to want to hang onto what she has and try for the brass ring of being the first woman, and a woman of color at that, to be elected President of the United States.

And that, ironically, could end up being a massive nightmare for the Democrats. Best case scenario for the party is an all-California Harris-Newsome ticket and I’d be looking for that announcement even before Joe Biden can remember where he put his PJs.

The however many months Kamala Harris will actually be president could very well be a nightmare for the country and the world. Maybe not as bad as we might imagine. Maybe better than we could have hoped. But this is one pissed-off lady with a wildly inappropriate sense of humor and poll numbers somewhere down in the basement of poll numbers for public figures. I can’t imagine that she’d be someone the Democratic Party can control.

Even I, who rightfully imagines this party to be the most powerful disorganization of humans in the history of the world, have to admit that once Kamala Harris is president she’s going to possess, albeit probably quite temporarily, the power to do whatever the hell she wants to. And, to paraquote a familiar boast from her current boss, to anyone who doesn’t believe that, I would say, just watch her.

The Process of Elimination

The first abbreviated work week of the new year is now all but behind us and nothing truly ground shaking has happened yet in the 2024 presidential election year story. So there’s still time for me to go out on one of those limbs that is, unfortunately, my happy place. 

Obviously I can’t see into the future (okay, maybe that hasn’t always been so obvious) but here’s some things that I think are very likely to happen this year. 

I think it’s ever more likely that either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump or both might be unavailable to voters by November. That’s about the most generic way I can put it. Don’t over think it. I’m not. Whatever, however. And look, typically in American politics, election year is almost as much about selecting the eventual party nominees as it is choosing a president. And I get that. In the old days, we didn’t even know until after the conventions late in the summer. So in normal election years past, the parties could take half the year to decide upon their candidate. 

But these are different times and this is a vastly different election year than any of us has ever seen. Trump is now like a mythical American political figure. He’s both a former president and the leader of a movement. MAGA. He has the Republican Party base in a passionately emotional heart and soul head lock. That part of the country is ready to explode as it is right now. Look at January 6th. However you feel about them, those people and that part of America is exponentially more agitated now than they have ever been before. They see these really corrupt banana republic legal efforts (I mean, who doesn’t?) by multiple partisan jurisdictions and entities to remove Trump entirely from the elective process—either by indicting and convicting him or by literally having his name taken off the ballot—and they are quite literally seething.

But no matter the passionate displeasure of so many of our fellow Americans, I think it very possible that these efforts will be successful to the degree where it becomes impossible for Trump to win due to the pile up of enough disqualifying cases and successful efforts to remove the former president from ballots so that the Republican Party, maybe as late as the convention, will then be forced to put forth another candidate at the top of their ticket. Somehow, some way. It might happen.

So let’s just stop right there and consider what that would be like in this country coming at some point later in this already guaranteed to be explosively chaotic election year. 

Everything this massive base of Trump supporters believes is wrong with their party, their country and their elective processes will unfold exactly as they fear, right before their eyes. That alone is going to make for a s— show unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Trump is already a folk hero in much of this country. This will elevate him to political martyrdom. If MAGA can’t vote for Donald Trump on election day the national turmoil this is going to create is going to make, in my opinion, every political uprising we’ve ever seen in this country pale in comparison. JMO. 

But now think of the mad scramble AGAINST THOSE HEADWATERS of the Republican Party trying to replace Trump on the ballot. What an absolute losing proposition. Mission accomplished, Democrats! It’s VERY hard to see any Republican candidate other than Trump bringing out the 80 million or so voters it’s going to take to win the White House. 

Okay? So what about the other side? Well, I think it’s even LESS likely that Joe Biden will be available as the Democratic candidate come November. I’m not even going to go into arguments why. Come on! He’s the incumbent and yet he is DEEPLY unpopular, and the American people believe, quite correctly, that he’s not physically or mentally up to the job and they are, I believe, very disappointed in his policies and in the direction the country is heading. You can pump up, as I know some will, his accomplishments but you’re talking to yourselves. Out there in the eyes of America, this is a president and a party that is in deep trouble. I’ll leave it at that. 

So, just like the Republican Party’s problem, but not as explosively problematic, they’re going to have a hell of time selling either Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsome as America’s best choice for its next president. You could even trot out Michelle Obama and it’s not going to sell with much of this country. Look, I hate to break it to anyone who isn’t quite there yet, but people are REALLY starting to see through this elite duopoly that controls our country and they are, I believe, desperate for another option. Hold that thought. 

But step back now and take in the entire picture. Election Year 2024. Starting right now. Week One. Incumbent president running against his immediate predecessor. Then suddenly, slowly, whatever!, like a disaster movie, one by one or together in short order, both candidates fall out. I’ve only hinted at the actual chaos that will ensue. That chaos, all of it predictable, will only further disgust the American people. 

The spectacle put on by both parties will cause Americans to be even MORE disenchanted with our current national politics. They will be looking for some safe harbor in what would be a complete s— storm of an election year meltdown by both of our major political parties. 

Have I set the stage? I believe I have. 

So now there’s this guy out there named Kennedy who’s managed to get himself on all 50 states’ ballots. There he will be. The son of RFK. People will be hearing his message, which is EXACTLY what they are going to want to hear. If you haven’t heard him, trust me, it’s exactly what the people of this country are going to want to hear, and HAVE wanted to hear, for DECADES. 

These things are all very possible to even more than mildly likely to happen this year. And I think this is how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will become our next president. And that’s what I’m predicting will happen.

The scenario that I’m describing and predicting is, of course, completely unprecedented. Here now in the year of the election, the two major party candidates, an incumbent president and his immediate predecessor as president, both involuntarily rendered by, in Biden’s case age or infirmity and in Trump’s case the actions of his political opponents, no longer available for the voters to choose as their president. This alone would be something none of us have ever seen before and would set the stage for further unprecedented upheavals.

I mean, we’re clearly heading for something like that on the Trump side of things. This is already very likely to be a quite ugly possibility. But if MAGA can’t vote for Trump because he’s not on the ballot then I predict they’re going to vote for Kennedy.

If both Biden and Trump aren’t on the ballot then I believe Kennedy will win fairly easily and that’s really the point of this piece. I don’t, at this time, want to get into all of the things that have gone wrong in the last seven years under both of these candidates’ administrations and by way of the actions and direction changes of their political parties, but all of that is weighing against the establishment at this time. This is a country that elected a TV guy seven years ago. It remains vastly misunderstood and willfully misrepresented as to why that happened. But here it is. People were just that desperate for someone else. An outsider. Someone who was telling them what they wanted to hear as opposed to someone telling them the same old s—.

This country is on the brink right now. People are already scared. If you had a clean election without RFK Jr. in it, Trump would likely win, but it would be very close. The Democratic Party is scaring the hell out of so many Americans and no one more than those of us who now self-identify, reflexively, and as a pre-emptive act of self defense, as life-long Democrats. And I’m predicting that no matter who is running for either of the major parties the most important collection of letters on the ballot won’t be Kennedy or Trump or Biden or any other candidate’s actual name. It will be the word INDEPENDENT. And that word will be sitting right next to Bobby Kennedy’s name. For that reason alone, even with Biden and Trump still in the race a Kennedy win is possible. But if you remove Trump or both Trump and Biden I think RFK Jr is going to be our next president.

The context all this is taking place in now is so different than anything we’ve ever seen with the exception of what the climate must have been like in America leading up to the Civil War. We are truly living on the brink as a nation of democratic ideals because we have so often and so routinely betrayed those ideals. The chickens have now come home to roost and, as I’ve said, the American people really are waking up and seeing through their government, the relationship between the mainstream media and their elected officials, the donors and industrial complexes who ultimately call the shots, etc. LIKE NEVER BEFORE. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 is all the proof anyone should need that this is the case. Now more and more Americans are there. It’s a trend and it’s going to continue to trend for the rest of most of our lives.

The people of this country are attempting to take it back from those who control it. I would agree with anyone who maintains that it is doubtful as to whether we will actually be able to do so. But the only thing that will stop we the people is undemocratic authoritarianism as realized by the now all powerful duopoly, its donors, and maybe most especially the vast landscape of NGOs that employ the elite political classes that inhabit the Washington DC area and the other affluent coastal regions of the country. This element is already using authoritarian and even fascist tactics to smother free speech on social media or wherever else they may find it and they are NEVER going to stop. Should Bobby Kennedy Jr. become the second President Kennedy he has vowed to dismantle the national security anti-free speech elements in our government and most prominently within the Democratic Party and allow the people of this country to once again speak on their own behalf and be heard. 

Is this Kennedy simply telling so many of us what we want to hear in order to get elected? If you stay tuned you’ll get my take on that and so many other questions and issues that are sure to bombard us here in 2024. Buckle up. This is going to be an election year like no other.