Don't Even THINK of Popping Corks Now...
This presidential race is far from over
By Frank Van Riper
Photography Columnist
I am starting to see the first worrisome signs of overconfidence among my fellow left-of-center Democrats.
The most worrisome sign was in a recent column by historian Heather Cox Richardson:
“Sam Stein of The Bulwark reported yesterday that the Trump campaign is about to start running ads in the area around Mar-a-Lago. Trump insiders say the campaign has paid almost $50,000 to run ads to make Trump and local donors feel good. On August 14, Kevin Cate, former spokesperson for President Barack Obama, predicted that Trump would spend his first television dollars 'in Florida (for his ego and against his team’s advice). And that’s how you’ll know we’re in landslide territory…'”
Please, God, make this stop. Please, please, Democrats: act as if you were running from a hungry rabid dog while holding a pound of ground beef in each hand and wearing outsize rubber boots.
And if that doesn’t work, I have two words for you: Hillary Clinton.
[Editor’s note: Once more, given the closeness and importance of this year’s presidential election, I make no pretense here of writing about photography. See the bottom of this piece for some thoughts photographic.]
Among my favorite souvenirs from more than 20 years of covering national politics for the New York Daily News are three odd rectangular cards: 2’’x 3” plastic sandwiches. Each was imbedded with electronics and I had to use the correct one each day at a turnstile to enter Chicago’s International Amphitheater near the stockyards in order to cover the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
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I have literally hundreds of buttons, pins and other souvenirs from two decades of being a political reporter, but my '68 Democratic Convention hall passes may be my favorites. |
These entrance passes marked the first time such security measures ever were used at a convention—not surprising since all hell broke loose during a convulsive convention week in which, as a national commission later charged, Chicago law enforcement engaged in a violent “police riot” against noisy, hairy, disruptive, largely unpleasant but also largely peaceful protestors.
In all my years covering American politics, I never experienced what I did that week in Chicago at the tender age of 21. I have been arrested for disorderly conduct and breaking a police line, rousted by cops and Secret Service agents, shouted at by marshals, other cops and assorted security types. But never again did I endure “Gestapo tactics” like those used in Chicago. Those were the words Democratic Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (Conn.) shouted at Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley from the convention podium as police pummeled protestors outside the hall. (“Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy motherfucker, go home!” Daley shouted back, his face crimson.)
And, in fairness to the Gestapo, I had seen tactics like this before—in America. Cops wading into unarmed seated protestors, beating the shit out of them with billy clubs swung like baseball bats? Welcome to Bull Connor’s Alabama—or now to Trumpworld with its MAGA thugs: Donald Trump’s own personal brown shirts.
Anyone who remembers Chicago in ’68 with revulsion surely had an even more visceral reaction to the Trump-led insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021—arguably the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. [Simply put: Trump had lost the November, 2020 election—bigly—by any metric available and after numerous groundless challenges. Nevertheless, he refused to concede, urged his followers to riot (violating the Insurrection Act) and did nothing to call off his MAGA dogs when the conflict became deadly.
And now he is running again—warning that if he loses (again) the election obviously was rigged. This amoral sociopath does not deserve to breathe air as a free man. And if God and Jack Smith prevail, by this time next year the Orange Pustule finally could be behind bars.
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How I will welcome the day when Trump's pathetic followers go back into their holes. The more sentient among them even might one day realize that the Obama/Biden/Harris years improved their lives in ways they cannot now imagine--health care, jobs, environment, etc. © Frank Van Riper |
If there is any solace in all of this it is in the smiling face of Kamala Harris and her beautifully grounded running mate,Tim Walz. In the space of a month—and since my last column—Democrats facing near-certain defeat following the first disastrous presidential debate on June 27th, wisely forced an enfeebled Joe Biden to leave the stage and the ticket. Shortly thereafter they elevated Biden’s ebullient—and no bullshit—vice president as their replacement presidential nominee.
The result was electric: record amounts of money flowed in to Democratic campaign coffers, voter registration among key groups like women, minorities and young people soared—and the entire vibe of the election changed. Donald Trump was now that “weird” old guy battling his own dementia and furies; Kamala Harris, by stunning contrast, radiated “joy” and, as important, hope for the future, not despair.
Still, as David French noted in the NY Times: “Joy alone isn’t sufficient to defeat Trump. The best approach combines joy with tenacity and an appealing set of policies. But it’s plain, to me at least, that Harris’s joy seems to have caught the Trump campaign off guard. Even worse, Trump simply can’t pivot to match the spirit of the moment. He’s too mired in his own grievances and rage. He says he’s 'very angry' at Harris. He says he’s 'entitled to personal attacks.' So, no, MAGA can’t answer a smile with a smile. It can only answer with a snarl…”
Cause for celebration? Possibly, but for God’s sake, not yet.
Talk to me after the September 10th presidential debate—if it even comes off and Trump doesn’t hightail it, claiming unspecified “unfairness.”
My thought? Trump cannot afford not to debate—even he must know that his campaign is taking hit after hit, day after day. But he also must know--in what passes for his heart--that he never was a great debater, and that a former prosecutor like Harris is likely to eat his lunch before an audience of millions worldwide.
Being a no-show will only prove that Trump is the cowardly bully that he has been all his life. That could sink his campaign for good—almost as much as would losing the debate to Harris.
What a lovely dilemma to contemplate, were it not for the fact that, in politics especially, anything is possible.
And so I worry.
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And now, some thoughts on photography…
I offer a photoI made in Down East Maine this summer. Chance favors the prepared. But I have to warn you: in my case, “prepared” means doing this for way more than 50 years.
The image is of a dramatically lit fern in the deep woods at Quoddy Head State Park—literally the easternmost point in the United States.
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I have been photographing ferns in Maine for decades: color, BxW, film, digital. This image is one of my favorites. © Frank Van Riper |
I love ferns for their color and their triangular shape, as well as for their incredibly detailed leaf structure. During a Master Class this month, I illustrated how diffuse, off-camera flash can help separate the subject from the background while still maintaining shadow detail. And in fact, it is the shadow detail, as much as the brightly-lit fern, that makes this image work. Note how the bottom fern, in shadow, helps create a pleasing, balanced, counterpoint, and how other plant elements at top and bottom help enhance the context. So much better than if I had shot the fern exposing only for the flash, thereby creating a look of a lone fern against black velvet. (Tech: Nikon D750 w/ 24-120 lens, remote-triggered Vivitar 285 flash, held at camera left, shot through a small attached softbox. Vello flash triggers. ISO 640, f. 14, 1/200th )
Frank Van Riper is a Washington-based author, columnist and documentary photographer. He was a reporter and editor in the New York Daily News Washington Bureau for 20 years and later served for19 years as the photography columnist of the Washington Post. His current book is ‘Recovered Memory: New York & Paris 1960-1980.’ His next book, done in collaboration with his wife and professional partner Judith Goodman, is ‘The Green Heart of Italy: Umbria and its Ancient Neighbors,’ to be published in Fall, 2025.
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Van Riper Named to Communications Hall of Fame
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| Frank Van Riper addresses CCNY Communications Alumni at National Arts Club in Manhattan after induction into Communications Alumni Hall of Fame, May 2011. (c) Judith Goodman |
[Copyright Frank Van Riper. All Rights Reserved. Published 8/31/24]
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