July proved a disastrous month for the plutocrats currently associated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. From their perspective, four terrible things happened, all having to do with their own meddlings. First, Trump survived the month. He remains the severely damaged and compromised GOP presidential candidate. Second, the full court media and cultural press to force President Biden out of the race worked, but produced a result the very opposite of what they sought. Third, the choice of J.D.Vance (or whatever name he goes by now) is turning out to be a shape-shifter along the lines of former Rep. George Santos but much nastier and lacking in any sense of humor or irony whatsoever. Fourth, their touted Project 2025 as a blueprint for a conversion to an extreme fascist state has blown up in their faces due to overexposure, causing the ongoing program effort to literally shut down amid angry repudiations from no less than Trump himself, even though the report was intended for him and refers to him over 300 times.

Unlike 2016 or even 2020, every uncompromising law enforcement eye that is not secretly working for Trump is glued to every aspect of the complex apparatus that will produce the presidential electoral results this fall. If there are plans coming in place to corrupt the result, to turn it over to Trump or whomever the eventual GOP nominee turns out to be, they are being very closely scrutinized as we speak, with very hefty prison sentences awaiting any bad actors that may be at work out there. For example, Attorney Marc Elias, the man who won over 60 lawsuits against Trumpers challenging the results of the 2020 election, predicts “mass refusals to certify the election this November with “the other side more organized, more ruthless and more prepared” than before. But then again, it can be argued, so it’s going for the good guys, too.

We are wiser now than before, and as long as there are a preponderance of those willing to stand up for the rule of law and basic fair play, nothing short of an alien (outer space type) invasion or all out thermonuclear war can win for the bad guys. The “if” before us has to do with motivation. Those on the right (as in “correct”) side of history must be sufficiently aroused to actually go out and cast their votes and get their friends and families to do likewise.

This is why the backfire linked to the second thing that went wrong for the plutocrats listed above is the most important. The level of enthusiasm for presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris that we are all experiencing right now is the substance of humanity’s best hope for moving forward. Yes, enthusiasm as substance! Such is the real binding agent of history and progress. It’s what underdogs have always experienced, why the odds makers are not always right. At its root, it is the stuff of love.