American politics has been a joyless pursuit for a long time now. And while I do remember the fervor for Obama, it was somehow undone by the years of cynicism that would come after. In choosing Trump, a large number of American voters willingly cast their votes for a dangerous, morally specious, wicked, wretched, self-serving, untested, non-politician with more skeletons in his closet than the back loading dock of a Party City before October. There is no love of country with this man – his idea of America is so very different and at odds with the basic brilliance of the American experiment. The fact that many people do not see how self-serving he is, and either don’t know or don’t care about how his personal priorities run counter to those of the average citizen, is a true letdown. It proves that the power that the ordinary person wields with their vote is not necessarily exercised in their best interest.
It surely makes non-democratic outside observers looking in on our ridicilous parlor game feel like they are certainly right. If the results of our democratic exercise yields the election of someone who is so fatally flawed, who ascended to power with so much ease, then that’s tangible proof that the system might not work after all.
There are numerous reasons that Trump’s presidency was an embarassing, ghastly setback to our nation’s general progess, but we have a short collective memory. The possibility is very real that he will be re-elected, Grover Clevelanding his way to a non-consecutive, subsequent four year term. The prospect of such ghastly bookends to the Biden administration is very, very real.
If the mainsteam voter has a very short memory, and votes for Trump come November, the last laugh will be on Trump himself – this amnesia is likely to be the very syndrome that allows him to hoodwink us yet again. For all his feeble-mindeness and barely contained anger and disdain, Trump has not forgotten what he was unable to accomplish during his term, and will surely exercise his fascist tendencies in a revanchist sweep of US government departments, clawing back anything that that hints of BIden’s involvement. He will govern with his angry, fearful heart,. and his priorities will reflect his desperation to avoid consequence for anything he has done heretofore, in the capacity of a citizen or an elected official.
It will not be in service of you, the average citizen, unless you are also a felonious, fraudelent failed businessperson who is expecting to walk away Scot-free from their obligations by reworking the mechanisms of the government.
He has alredy undone the rules of decorum that political campaigns adhered to for the previous 200+ years. No-go topics soon became the only thing people discussed, the tones of harmony became dissonant chords of carnage and complaint, and most standards of decency went out the window in 2016. Why would anyone think he would stop at that, when it comes to everything else?
In 2020, the hangover wore off a bit when Joe Biden was elected. Despite the sad attempt on January 6th to push the opponents of tug of war into the muddy pond, decency prevailed. By most measures, Biden was a competent president. He got stuff done. There was precious little to complain about – even the gossipy, revenge-seeking Republicans who tried to turn Hunter Biden into an issue worth pursuing felt shrill and toothless. The Biden administration was competent, even boring. I guess Republicans were surprised when they discovetred that there are no coverups, scandals or dirty laundry to air – do they not realize that their current political party’s behavior is anomalous, and the opposite of any other administration that would precede it?
Joe Biden’s voluntary departure from his re-election campaign was hard to watch – he is a man who clearly loves his country, and rightfully believed that he was the best choice to continue governing, His age ended up being his undoing – let’s not forget that this man has been in office in some capacity since 1972. Even if one does not agree with his political positions or the results of his administration, few would argue that he has been anything but devoted and consistent in his service to the American people. In a political arena of personalities and egos, Biden stepped down because he was finally made to see that his desire for a second term ran counter to the nation’s best interest. He should be commended for realizing this at just the right time. If his departure from the campaign had come any later, or not at all, we would surely be set for a Trump landslide in November. And while there are millions of us who would have voted for Biden anyway, or who would have voted for any option other than Trump, regardless of if they were feeble, insane or unlikeable, not everyone votes like this.
Not everyone is as engaged or clear-eyed about the power that their vote possesses. Many people would have stayed home. More than a few black men would have voted for Trump in November, possibly enough to switch Pennsylvania and Michigan to the red column. More than a few HIspanic voters in border states like Arizona would have voted for a man who hates them, and the electoral votes would go to Trump. The election would be a master-class in how to screw things up – how lies, bullying, scapegoating, gaslighting, and fearmongering would prevail, and how the Democrats were so very slow to both react to this reality, and how the Democrats in the past 3 years have done precious little to make sure that the phenomenon of Trump should never be made possible again. We could have fixed the obvious issues in the government’s functions that would permit a despot to become a malevolent dictator the second time around. But the Democrats didn’t. And shame on them for not doing so.
That being said, this treatment of the past two presidencies is quite cynical and glib, but it is true and we need to never forget our recent past.
Enter the breath of fresh air in the form of Kamala Devi Harris. She is doing about as good as could be expected, given the awkward in-fighting of last month’s limbo over Joe Biden’s fitness and right to remain on the ticket after his terrible debate in June. Her oratory skills are sharp, her energy kinetic and palpable, and her devotion plain to see – the Harris campaign has hit the ground running.
She does have to answer for her relatively ineffective vice presidency, and the right wing peanut gallery will racialize her, vilify her, and try to present her as an “other”, but her mere presence as the Democratic nominee will force the American voter to reckon with the twin biases of gender and race. Barack Obama was elected twice, so I know that in the end, race doesn’t always matter enough to prevent the most competent candidate from winning.
Hillary Clinton, despite winning millions more votes than Trump in 2016, had enough demerits and flaws to enough voters in swing states that she would not prevail in her attempt to become president. Consider that she has always been hard to like – consider that her husband was previously a two-term presient – consider that she looked irritated and glib, entitled and annoyed. The nepotism of her being first lady, the aloofness of her demeanor, and the implication that she should become the second member of a nascent dynasty of Clintons, in combination, was enhough to make her unelectable. Any cynical assessments of her being a woman became amplified – it was not now, and is not today, enough to make a candidate deserving of being elected.
Kamala Harris is different. She is an example of what this century’s concept and embodiment of American potential looks like. Her parents were immigrants who were by any measure good citizens of their newly adopted nation, an economics professor from Jamaica, and a scientist and cancer researcher from India, people who chose the United States as their home, and whose choice to become Americans enriched us.
The place I grew up in, Austin, Texas, and the high school I attended, Westwood High School, was one of those places where the population was majority white, but featured a large minority of non-white students – there was a solid minority of kids whose parents, or who themselves, came from places like India. Many of the brightest, most capable of my generation and graduating class, were Asian, and some Hispanic, and some black, and some were mixed race. Whether it was my friend who was nicknamed “the Japanican”, the results of an Chicano army man who fell in love with and married a local girl from Okinawa, or my Indian-American friend, her parents from Gujarat, but born in Houston, who liked reggae music and Nine Inch Nails, and who would shout out a cynical “fuck you” and raise her middle finger to anyone who might make fun of her, I grew up seeing that the diversity is the source of strength.
While the results of my adulthood and its impact on the lives of others is pretty much none, I know that many of my graduating class. especially the non-white kids at the top eschelons of their class rank, were destined to be movers and shakers. They were obvious testaments to the fact that the winners of the American dream can look like any of these people. And look like their parents, even if one of them is Jamaican and the other is from Madras.
The 2024 election is one of monumental importance – it will be a referendum on our ability to retain our levers of democracy and use our power wisely. It will be another opportunity for us to move forward and to voluntarily present some transparency and accountability about whether we are a racist America, a misinformed America, or an America that would prefer a felon over a female who has accomplished an order of magnitude more for this nation than Donald Trump ever has or will.
The choice is clear. So please, I implore you to make the right choice if you can, and to make Kamala Harris the type of politician we will have portraits of hanging on the walls of American immigrants and on the walls of social-studies classrooms. And, it is hoped, that Donald Trump’s fraudulent, flawed existence will be relegated to a chapter in every textbook abut the page our nation turned at the precipice of peril. The potential for dissapointment is just as high as the potential for a renewal of American pride, and I sincerely hope that our collective decision as a nation will result in the latter.
This year, Christmas is in July, and November could be like opening presents early, if we vote for Kamala Harris. “‘Tis the season to be jolly, Kama-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!”
