Get In The Damn Boat!

Politics aside, I can’t imagine any more satisfying end to Trump than to be soundly thrashed by a woman – a woman of color no less.

In a rare explosion of Democratic Party sanity, Biden’s withdrawal glided smoothly into what I predict will be a Kamala Harris juggernaut. Harris is dynamic, wicked smart, confident and prepared. Her VP pick – I predict Mark Kelly – will further strengthen the ticket. (I do think J.B. Pritzker would be great, just for a J.B./J.D. VP showdown.)

The naysayers are annoying. It is like watching snooty shipwreck victims refusing to get in the lifeboat because they don’t like the color of the hull.

Some of the armchair critics think her ascension is just another manifestation of identity politics. Hmmmm . . . and neither Trump nor J.D. has ever, ever, benefitted from identity! I digress a tad, but the only “identity” that has conferred great advantage throughout American history is whiteness. I know of what I write, as I have enjoyed a lifelong American trifecta – white, male, straight.

Even some of Harris’s friends have her identity wrong. On MSNBC they gushed over her as an African-American. I suppose I needn’t remind that she is a spicy blend of Afro-Jamaican and Indian.

Her candidacy has me more hopeful and excited than Obama’s. It is not that I prefer her politics. She is far from my progressive ideal . . .  but remember that lifeboat idea. And Obama was more pragmatist than idealist too. In neither case do I intend criticism. I, for example, with my democratic socialist/atheist bona fides could not mount a successful dogcatcher campaign.

As I have previously confessed, I am a New York Times comment junkie. The aggregate voices in the comment threads provide a revealing picture of what one slice of the electorate is thinking. As to Harris; enthusiasm tempered by policy nitpicks, worries that America is not ready for a woman of color, snide remarks about her laugh, and great relief that Biden stepped aside. Unsurprisingly, the most unconditional joy was expressed by women. Count me among them.

Yes, there is a complex Electoral College map to traverse, but a 30,000 foot analysis is good enough for me.

• No die-hard Trump voter will change in any way but blood pressure.
• No Biden fan will be quite sexist or racist enough to switch to Trump.
• Many folks who were too dispirited to engage are now activated.
• The cumulative power of Black women – even the Afro-Jamaican/ Indian ones! – will rumble across the land.
• Reproductive choice will animate local, state and national races.

Unfortunately, the campaign will be partially waged in the peculiar American style, aka “What have you done for me lately?” If I never see or hear another, “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?”, it will be too soon.

A disappointingly large segment of the electorate will be assessing their voting preferences by “kitchen-table” metrics. Gas prices, egg prices, blah, blah, blah. I admit very real empathy for struggling families, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the inflation-gripers spend more on streaming videos than they do on groceries. And, of course, most “kitchen-table” metrics have absolutely nothing to do with the president, whoever she or he may be. But there will nevertheless be hundreds of thousands who will say, “I don’t like some things that Trump says, but that gas pump . . .” I was particularly struck by one alleged Democrat who says he can’t pull the lever for Harris because she opposes fracking and supports Medicare for all.

Millions of us find protecting our precious Earth and our collective well-being more compelling than lowering heating bills and saving a few bucks in taxes.

I believe there are more good folks who care more about the lives of thousands of young women who must endure the agony of unwanted childbirth than there are who lose sleep over the price of unleaded at Costco.

There are more of us who find utter horror in mass deportation than there are low information voters who believe the vile MAGA lies about immigrant crime.

Quibbling over the inflation rate or contemplating the unanswerable calculation of your own “better-offness,” is a fool’s errand in a nation and world on the brink.

Vote for Kamala like our lives depend on it, because they do.

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