So it's Kamala Harris -- a graduate of Westmount High School -- who is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. She's the future, Frank Bruni writes. And, God knows, Donald Trump and his vice president -- Mike Pence -- are ghosts from the past. The vice presidential debate will be a study in contrasts:
There’s Mike Pence, white of hair as well as cheek, his demeanor more starched than his dress shirt, his smile so tight it’s the twin of a grimace. He represents more than the Trump administration, God help him. He represents an America that’s half memory, half myth.
And there’s Kamala Harris — younger, blacker and more buoyant. She’s only the fourth woman on the presidential ticket of one of the country’s two major political parties and she’s the first woman of color. She represents an America that’s evolving, fitfully, toward equal opportunity and equal justice.
Under her gaze, Pence has to defend a racist, sexist president. As he watches helplessly, Harris gets to talk about how that racism and sexism feel to a Black woman like her. This isn’t any ordinary clash of perspectives and philosophies. It’s an extraordinary collision of life experiences.
Harris can be razor-sharp. But intellectual nuance is not Trump's thing. He won't fight Harris with ideas. He has none. He'll call her names. And she'll respond:
And oh, can she be nimble and fierce. That’s what Biden learned in that tense primary debate, cheap shot or no cheap shot. That’s what Jeff Sessions, Brett Kavanaugh and William Barr learned when they appeared before Senate committees and endured her grilling.
Pence -- who is afraid to deal with any woman except his wife -- will not have an easy time of it. Neither will Trump.
Image: The Boston Globe
12 comments:
Owen, let the games begin!
I agree, Lorne. It's time to deal with the problem.
I'm not surprised. Besides their fake-protests about [genuine] Repugnican inhumanity, the Democrats rely on identity politics because the oligarchy is okay with identity politics. So long as the oligarchy continues to reap all the benefits of political-economic policy they have no problem (as a class) with hiring women, or non-whites, or LGBT people and even admitting some to their ranks.
But the desire to preserve inequality is what makes it only possible to give positions to conservatives among the non-white males that are candidates. Kamala Harris is a "law and order" (re: "authoritarian") Democrat and she's careful not to embrace policies that displease the oligarchy and so she generally communicates in meaningless platitudes.
That's a bit unfair, thwap. Harris has her critics among progressives. But politics is about coalition building. And the Democrats will need the support of more than progressives if they are to send Trump back to New York City.
Owen, yesterday we talked about Dubois' "The Souls of Black People", how African Americans have two souls: one based on how they view themselves, the other on how they see themselves as viewed by others - especially white people - a conflicted, warring identity. If Bidon and Harris are able to unseat Trump and give Americans rational hope for a better future as a just and unified nation, I think African Americans will be a step closer to enjoying a single comfortable soul, one they haven't had since their enslavement.
CED
If it wasn't so serious, Owen, this could be a heck of a lot of fun! Can't you just see Pence shrink in fear (like a deer caught in the headlights) any time Kamala throws a challenge his way? Quite frankly, I don't think "mother" even allows him to make eye contact with any of the female species. And Trump will just rely on his usual gutter tactics (he can't cover up who HE really is) and resort to all sorts of comments that further reveal his true self. He is especially vulnerable when he has to respond to women who have confidence as well as possess a fully functioning brain - something he lacks in spades!
This pairing looks like it gives Biden the ability to carry on with his "soft" side while Kamala delivers the one-two punch. I think, finally, the times - they are a changing. It will also tell us in spades just where the American public, as a whole, want their country to be when they "grow up".
I take your point, CED. Dubois understood just how deep the original sin ran in the United States. He knew that the country was conflicted from its beginning. Obama was a step toward unifying the African American soul. The election of Harris would be another step in that direction. And it would also be a step towards erasing the misogyny which has also been at the heart of American politics.
When Harris began her presidential campaign, Lulymay, she said the United States was "at an inflexion point." Biden's choice of her as a running mate makes her point abundantly clear.
I think we need to remember that her professional career was as a district attorney or attorney general so she has a law and order focus. A better measure of her focus can be found in her confirmation grilling of Jeff Sessions and Brett Kavanaugh.
Harris, the Senator, and Harris, the state A.G., are quite different but that's the nature of the beast. There are, among the ranks of military officers, a great many pacifists who nevertheless answer the call to duty. It's a paradox. They train their entire careers to fight but they don't want to fight. Why would they?
I think she'll do just fine even if the leftists and rightwingers oppose her.
She'll have her critics, Mound. And the worst will come from the Trump camp. But she'll be able to deal with them. They're not towering intellects.
She is a good choice and we can already see trump is afraid of her by starting the refrain of "not born in the U.S.A.", ETC.
She will have appeal to voters. trump may call her nasty, but all I see is a nice smart woman who answers questions and certainly knows how to ask them.
she looks good, she's smart and trump doesn't like her, upp she's a good candidate.
Now if there is an election, she and Biden can win. Of course after watching rachel Maddox's show last evening, who knows if there will be an election or if he refuses to leave. She did a great job of comparing the U.S.A. to Belarus and then interviewed the intelligence agent who resigned. His speciality was identifying failing nations and those headed for dictatrship. His opinion, the USA was and he resigned to be able to speak bout it
If an election fails to take place, Canada needs to wrap its head around the possibility of American political refugees headed north and lots of them. What is going on in Belarus is also happening in the U.S.A. and it can and will get worse. If you don't think Trump wouldn't have his political opponents arrested think again. who ever thought American citizens would be kidnapped off the streets of Portland and look at what happened in Oregon yesterday...................
Trump knows, e.a.f, that if an election takes place according to the usual procedures, he'll lose. So he'll use every trick he can to sabotage the election. We should expect nothing less from a loud but abject coward.
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