You Can Run, but

You Can't Hide...

I am writing this on 30 October 2024 … it is 09:44. I have been awake since 02:30. I awoke from a sound sleep after dreaming that VP Harris was shot during her speech on the Ellipse. I got up and watched the news and a replay of her speech.¹

It Has Been a Rough Week

Like many of you, I have felt a bit anxious this week. It all started with a tragic event in Lisbon on 21 October that reminded me of too many days when I lived in the States. A police officer shot an unarmed man … a 43-year-old man, Odair Moreno Moniz, an immigrant originally from Cape Verde. Of course, there was a car chase. Of course, he was a hardworking chef and was well-liked. He also had a record and had served time earlier in his life. Of course, his killing sparked riots … first in his neighborhood, and over the next several nights, these disturbances spread through the city.

I thought, you can run but you can’t hide.

The Anti-Immigration Party

To make matters worse, the leader of Chega André Ventura was quoted as saying that the officer should be “decorated, not indicted.” Another Chega party advisor thanked the officer on social media, saying there was one less criminal on the streets…then deleted the post. The pièce de résistance was another Chega lawmaker, Pedro Pinto, saying on TV, “If the security forces shot more to kill, the country would have more order.” Had Mr. Pinto listened to Trump’s ramblings when he called for “one real rough, nasty day”?

Emails

Then there are the emails. Currently, there are 31 emails in my Gmail Promotions folder … all but 2 are from political candidates or their surrogates. I cleaned out that folder before going to bed last night. How many more will I get today? I think the current record is 92 in one day.²

Oddly, I also got an email in my Primary Gmail folder last week from the Editor of Público, the Portuguese newspaper with the second-largest circulation in the country. I assume I got it because I have a free subscription to the newspaper's online edition. The email addressed his concerns about the US election for Portugal … Europe … for the world. He is not alone in his sentiments:

“A half-sentence uttered in a farm in southern Idaho brings everybody from Porto to Helsinki to panic," Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg quipped to Reuters, urging Europeans to stay calm to avoid feeding a sense of insecurity. —Reuters.com

I thought, you can run, but you can’t hide.

Can you identify where I snapped this photo?

I Know, I Know

You would rather me write about Denmark, Bourdeaux, Prague, Pamplona, or Bragança. Yes, they are all on my list. And I sincerely hope to return to those topics next week and in the coming weeks.³

However, I also remember the day of the 2016 election. We were watching the returns in Japan (12 hours ahead of the US). A map of the US turning red and blue glowed on every TV screen. Tears streamed down my face.

And I remember being in Portugal and watching the January 6th attack on the capital.⁴

You can run, but you can’t hide…

You don’t need to know Portuguese to understand these headlines.

I guess I always knew that the US had an impact outside its borders⁵, but I never really appreciated how much. I never thought the lead story on Portuguese news might be an election on another continent. But it is. That a section of the paper, above the fold, would be dedicated to the American election. That the cowardice of the LA Times and the Washington Post would be covered on Page 1 of the most circulated Portuguese paper Expresso.⁶

Yes, I am anxious. And Portuguese columnists are too.

Donald Trump’s election campaign has become so grotesque that it can lead us to underestimate the danger that hangs over American democracy, today much more threatened than during its first term. I don’t like conspiracy theories or catastrophic analysis. But I’m part of the “tribe of the very worried”. — Jorge Almeida Fernandes, Público columnist

Podes fugir, mas não te podes esconder, beijinhos

Nanc

Editor’s Note: I woke Wednesday morning at 3:30 with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned on the news and felt tears well up in my eyes. It is now 8:00, and Donald Trump is giving his acceptance speech. It appears that it is worse than I feared…that he will win the Electoral College and the popular vote. I need some time to wrap my head around this. I have not yet written Monday’s post … I should have because I am not sure when I will recover enough to write it. Stay tuned….

1. The last time I wrote something that offended Trump voters (16 September 2024), over 200 people unsubscribed. I was hovering just under 5000 subscribers … I doubt I’ll reach that goal this year.

2. I am thankful I don’t watch a lot of American TV live. I watched the Eagles game Sunday night, and as it was the Philly feed, I was bombarded with political ads. I never knew that the gender identity of 1.14% of the US population was so important to America’s economy or security.

3. But elections have consequences even for someone living thousands of miles away.

4. I lost a bunch of subscribers after that one too.

5. Visiting Normandy certainly reminded me of our impact on WWII.

6. I am among the 250,000 who canceled their subscription to the Washington Post. Of course, he charges for his content, so canceling impacts more than his ego.