I’ve been dreaming about Kamala Harris. Seriously. I’ve watched her speak so many times that I can almost sing along. As a result of this repetition, I can tell you about her policy plans with some amount of detail and specificity. $6,000 child tax credit. $25,000 assistance for first-time home buyers. New affordable housing construction. $50,000 tax credit for new business start-ups. Codify Roe vs. Wade. Lower taxes on the middle and working class. Lower the cost of prescription drugs. Pass an Immigration Reform Bill. Facilitate the end of the war in the Middle East. I don’t understand at all the criticism that she has not been talking about policy. This is the first time I have ever been so clear about what a candidate wants to do in office. I suppose that’s all to the good, but as a fan, or a follower, or a devotee, or a voter in favor of the democratic ticket, the repetition gets tedious. I love her best when she’s not doing the usual song and dance, when she’s speaking off the cuff, when she’s making a joke or laughing at one, talking about her family, the music she likes, or cooking, chatting up the employees at the spice store. I find her exceedingly likable, more so than any other presidential candidate ever in my lifetime. I also find her beautiful. In contrast to right wing criticism of her personality, I love that smile and that laugh. That smile and that laugh make me exceedingly happy. And she is smart as a whip and has a more impressive resume, perhaps, than any individual who has ever run for the office.
The only time I’m truly disappointed in Kamala Harris are those times when she skirts a question in favor of those scripted talking points. I kind of get why she’s doing it, but it’s frustrating. And I was unsatisfied in that town hall when she cited as a personal weakness her habit of thinking deeply about a problem and soliciting feedback from people with different perspectives. That’s not a weakness, silly. Again, I get why it might be awkward, while running for the highest office in the land, to talk about personal failings–but I wish she would have done it more seriously and honestly–because, Dog knows, the other guy would never do such a thing. His narcissism makes it impossible. One of Trump’s most aggravating failings, amongst a vast catalog of failings, is his inability ever to admit of a mistake or a weakness.
In the Fox interview with Bret Baier, while I thought he was mostly an asshole the entire time, he asked a question that also burns within my little brain. He asked her, how do you explain Trump’s popularity, the fact that the race is, for all intents and purposes, a dead heat? He asked, “Are half of all Americans stupid?” She said, “My god, I would never say that about the American people.” And I don’t remember how she followed up, but that was pretty much her answer. I would have answered differently, and, I wish she would have answered differently. Here’s a true, but critically appropriate answer: No, Americans are not stupid, but, Bret Baier, they have been fed a steady stream of misinformation and lies from YOUR network steadily over the last nine years. If people are ignorant (not stupid), it’s the fault of Fox News and other “news” outlets of their ilk. But it seems to me, if the hilarious late-night correspondents’ interactions with clueless Trump supporters are at all representative, and considering that people could always change the channel, check out some competing points of view, or READ, that it might in fact be true that half of the American citizenry is indeed very stupid. And if there are more stupid people in the country than there are people with a critically thinking head on their shoulders, we are doomed. Amusing ourselves to death, remember? Brave New World, remember? Actually, in this endless debate about who was correct, Huxley or Orwell, concerning our dystopian destiny, it appears to be a tie between these two brilliant but terrifying visions. Super scary.
O, the humanity. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the first time Trump won the presidency I essentially cried myself to sleep. I was so depressed. I could not believe it was happening. It was like something out of a nightmare. And god damn it, if we aren’t right back there on the cusp of a repeat. I am beside myself with incredulity. Guilty of 34 felony charges and more on the way, responsible for inciting a insurrection, this sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, thief of classified government documents, pathological liar, sexual predator, wouldn’t stand a chance of being hired to do nearly any job in America–could not be hired, for example, due to his criminal record and slew of negative references, as a teacher, not as a barista, not as a deep fry cook at McDonald’s, but he’s somehow eligible for the presidency? Here’s another head scratcher: why can’t there be a set of actual qualifications for the job of the President of the United States?
I am holding my breath. I’m hoping that the polls, as some pundits have suggested, are wonderfully inaccurate in Harris’s favor. We can’t do another four years with that loser. It feels without exaggeration that another Trump presidency might be the end of us. I know– holding my breath for the next 10 days or so is not a healthy choice. Happily, I am 26 days into a Sober October, otherwise I worry that I might be drinking like a fish. We have to think of effective ways to take care of ourselves before, during, and after this election. Becoming a political news junky, as I have become, is not effective. Drinking ourselves into oblivion, not effective. Nights full of tossing and turning, not effective. Last night, 30,000 people in Houston buoyed my spirits. Beyoncé buoyed my spirits, but, as much as I wish she could, she can’t do that every night until election day. I am, on the one hand, preparing for a joyous celebration, and on the other, preparing for the end of the world as we know it.
michael jarmer 