I have some my thoughts on “the anointing” of Kamala Harris. Three pieces that offer three different perspectives stood out for me. One is negative, a second positive, and the third, cautiously optimistic. The mostly negative was Andrew Sullivan’s, followed by Lydia Polgreen’s interesting positive, and, third, Michael Sandel being cautiously optimistic.
My initial reaction was pretty much in line with Sullivan who termed Harris “the weakest and the wokest,” of the possible Democratic nominees. I was not enthused. Part of that was because I thought it would be very exciting for the Democrats to have a truly open convention, instead of the boring coronation “convention,” to which we have become accustomed. The Democrats, it seemed to me, had missed a golden opportunity by consolidating so quickly around Harris.
Harris had not impressed, either as a candidate in 2020 nor as Veep. Sullivan said embracing Harris now will require some amnesia. Noting that (with Biden’s endorsement of Harris), “the mainstream media pivoted instantly to hype, hope, excitement, and … amnesia. Yes, amnesia. With Harris, amnesia is essential. We all have to become unburdened by what we — and, more specifically she — have been.
“And beneath the enthusiasm linger some obvious, loud, unanswered questions. Why did Biden so quickly put his weight behind a vice president he had previously ignored, sidelined, and regarded — according to almost every media outlet — as something of a burden? Why did Obama take his sweet time to endorse her, after calling for an open nominating process? And why did no other viable candidate come forward to challenge her?”
At this point, it seemed to me that both parties have embraced a strategy of “playing to the base,” leaving some of us politically homeless. But perhaps the Democrats needed, and were even wise, to excite their base first with a candidate who was a woman and person of color.
I moved on then to New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen who was a Harris skeptic but has become a supporter. Here’s Polgreen:
“Looking anew at Harris, I see something different from what I once did: a person who stumbled as a candidate and vice president but who kept fighting anyway. I see a woman who struggled to compete for power against her peers, buried under an array of vague and unstated expectations about whether she gave the right answers, had the right ideas, was smart or specific enough. Like any woman of ambition, I deeply relate to these experiences. As strange as it might seem, I have come to think these experiences could make her the ideal candidate in a surreal campaign against a man who is so certain of himself, who admits to no mistakes, who has no humility and who, for many of us, is utterly unrelatable.”
Read more for Polgreen’s good reporting about Harris on the campaign trail. She convinced me to keep an open mind.
The optimistic, if cautious, perspective came from Michael Sandel, a Harvard political philosopher whose writing I have long admired. Sandel argued that Harris and her party still face a crucial choice. They can content themselves with Trump/Vance bashing, going after them as racists and misogynists who threaten American democracy. Or they can pay attention to what has driven many into the arms of Trump, namely the failures of neoliberalism and globalization and their severely adverse impacts on working class people.
Here’s Sandel: “Standing up to Mr. Trump and defending reproductive rights is not enough. To defeat him, Ms. Harris needs to address the legitimate grievances he exploits — the sense among many Americans, especially those without a college degree, that their voices aren’t heard, that their work isn’t respected, and that elites look down on them. She needs a message that reconnects the Democratic Party with the working-class voters it has alienated in recent decades.”
Sandel suggests focusing on “the dignity of work” and offered a menu of proposals to make that more than a slogan. For example, eliminate entirely the payroll tax on worker’s checks and bump up the quite nominal taxes on capital gains and interest income. In other words, reward work more and accumulation less.
But the larger point, with which I wholly agree, is that only attacking Trump as a felon, a creep, and a threat to democracy, while red-meat for her base is not enough to bring over independents and at least some of the working class Harris needs to give her party a chance in November. Nor will such attacks put us on track to overcoming our stupefying culture wars and relentless polarization. You have to take people seriously and not simply label them “deplorable.”
Here’s a key, but often unnoticed, point: American democracy is imperiled not just by Trump and his contempt for the rule of law. It is also imperiled by the vast gap between the super-rich and ordinary Americans. The concentration of wealth in the very few is also a threat to democracy, if not so obviously as Trump. Moreover, it is as much a product of the neoliberalism of the Democratic Party (think, sorry, Clinton and Obama) as it is of the Republican Party.
Both Polgreen and Sandel say that Harris failed in her foreshortened run in 2020 because she didn’t seem to have or convey a clear message on what that election was about and what was at stake. So she came off as merely an ambitious, even opportunistic, pol who wanted to be President. It wasn’t enough then and won’t be enough now.
Polgreen moved me to having an open mind on Kamala Harris. Sandel gives me something to look for her as she campaigns. Time will tell.
Trump is a freaking rapist thieving criminal with a lifetime history of committing fraud in plain view and the so-called mainstream media doesn’t preface each and every story by documenting this FACT ,so yeah, bash away.
Over and over and over and over again.
Someone once said, “When they go low, we go high.” A fine sentiment. Now it’s, “When they go low, we go lower.” There must be better political discourse than a race to the bottom.
If wishes were horses we’d all ride. It’s way past time for Dems to bring that figurative gun to the real-world political gunfight the Republicans have been waging for the last 50 years.
Anthony Robinson’s post reminded me of my own experience relating to Kamala Harris. I imagine that I am not alone in having an opinion which has evolved from mild dislike through skepticism to, finally, enthusiastic support (because I have no better option available).
1. 4 years ago, Harris was a newly-elected Senator from a key state putting herself forward as a candidate for the Presidency. I was okay with her resume’ on crime & punishment, but she had no foreign policy experience. What made her think she could handle the job of President? I was astonished by her audacity, not in a good way. Color me irritated.
2. As VP candidate I felt she was literally ‘checking a box’ as a woman, Black/Asian American. Okay, a good move, as she energized important segments of the Dems base, but a lot of people thought Stacey Abrams would have made a stronger VP (maybe that is why Biden didn’t pick her).
3. As VP, she seemed relegated to the sidelines, other than when she embarked on her Central American tour to try and stem the root causes of mass migration to El Norte. I thought it was a start, but after her return I never heard positive media reports on what it accomplished (probably I wasn’t looking/listening hard enough).
4. Also as VP, as more questions were raised about Biden’s capacity to run for a second term, or even to finish this one, I began to pay more attention to Kamala as a successor rather than just President of the Senate and other mostly ceremonial VP duties. I was not convinced she had the leadership chops, nor the foreign policy experience, to be a strong President. Up until the awful Trump-Biden debate, this was a back-burner issue for me. After the first 30 minutes of the debate it became a flaming, red-hot front burner one, with the pot boiling over.
I hoped that we could quickly have the proposed “mini-primary” (or whatever you want to call it) to quickly sort through the presidential hopefuls and pick one, not necessarily Kamala Harris, but that didn’t happen.
5. I do not mean to speak unkindly of the President (whom I like), but when Joe Biden finally accepted the glaringly obvious fact that he did not have the physical stamina to both run a campaign and run the government, it was simply too late to mess with the primary…and besides, we already had a Number 2 waiting in the wings, so then it was “OK, Gooooo Kamala!”.
I think a huge bloc of Dem voters heaved a huge sigh of relief that we now had a candidate who could speak in complete sentences and make it across a debate stage (in high heels!) without everyone holding their collective breath.
Do I think Harris is a great candidate? She has some strong points – humor, smarts, warm personality but a touch of sass when needed ( and when in Prosecutor mode, she asks tough questions and doesn’t take wishy-washy non-answers). Those are positives.
On foreign policy,
a) does she have one, and is it any different from Joe Biden’s? (asking for a friend) b) can she effectively deal with foreign leaders, especially Putin, Xi, Kim and Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei?
c) will she be ready — I mean fully prepared for life and death decisions affecting our vital interests, our military, and the ultimate threat of how to respond to an adversary’s nuclear attack on the US or an ally?
On Domestic Policy:
a) will she be able to wrangle with a possible Republican Congress which would undoubtedly resist most legislative initiatives on Democrats’ wish list?
b) will she be able to hold together the Democratic coalition of Centrists, Progressives and the various single-issue voter blocs that will be called on to support the platform with their voices, their money and their votes?
Bottom line: if any of my Republican friends ( I think I have one or two) ask me if I believe she would make a good President, my answer is, “Yeah, sure, she’s smart. What she doesn’t know going in, she’ll figure out. She’ll do fine.”
But I will have my fingers crossed that things do work out — for her and for all of us..
This election really is in large part about Trump, in the sense of what Trump represents.
Sure, there are root causes that have been exploited, but Harris getting to the bottom of that and trying turn it around from there, is about as likely to yield timely results as her work doing the same thing for illegal immigration.
She has a three months to pick off enough Trump voters in a few tight states. Everything needs to be square on, but the main thing is to break the spell.
Why don’t practicing Christians like Hillary-Methodist, social gospel… Biden, deeply faithful Catholic… and Harris, Yeah Black Church Member try to wrest back God from that Trump hung on the Cross by Biden Justice Dept. MAGA figure, by mentioning their faith now and then? It’s the one issue that’s never addressed.
Barbara de la Cuesta
It’s a fair question, Barbara.
The analogy would be calls from people like Matthew Yglesias to “take back the flag from the fascists”, though I don’t think he uses language that intemperate. Many liberals (though perhaps not progressives) are waving the Stars & Stripes with genuine pleasure & seriousness.
But I think the larger answer when it comes to religion is that we have such a wonderful tradition of separation of church and state that it’s not considered seemly or even good politics to be too religious.
Religion is essentially divisive. You might ask, why so many? You can see how it works throughout history, right up to this day. Get religion, go to war on neighbors.
But thankfully, while in the US all serious contenders for public office are required to profess some religion, we seem to be less prone to putting it to use.
An election for president is only partially about the single person in the oval office.
An election is more about the cabinet of that single person, those who will be advising and guiding, and informing the person in that office.
The choice is very, very clear…Project 2025 and a fascist – religious dictatorship or a government guided by and fact and truth based administrative state dedicated to democracy and world leadership.
I don’t know how long it will hold up, but right now it looks to me like Harris could win it just on demeanor. Trump bashing, policy arguments, all just stuff to fill the air with while you’re on show to the American public. Sweating that stuff is so 20th century, as we now have the media saturation that allows us to view the candidate up close as much as we can stand.
That may sound pretty awful, and I suppose it is not exactly ideal, but in the present context I’ll happily take it. And it isn’t entirely bad. I am not a giant fan of the Obama administration’s policies, but he was maybe the best representative of America we’ll ever have, I mean we had a real gem of a person. And as Cjr points out, the job of governing the country is really done by others to a great extent. Let’s just hope the factors backing Trump don’t find a more appealing candidate to bring their dark age on America. Like Ronald Reagan but worse.