When Joe Biden announced that he was only going to choose a woman as his running mate, he was obviously limiting his options considerably; I can’t say that any of the available options, save perhaps for Michelle Obama, excited much enthusiasm on my part. Biden admitted that she was his first choice if she was interested, but apparently she was not. There were white female commentators in the “liberal” media who were quite open about their desire to see Elizabeth Warren on the ticket, mainly because she offered them a vicarious connection that fit right into their white, elitist, feminist shoes. To others, however, she was a back-stabbing, flip-flopping opportunistic hypocrite who was insensitive to minority concerns; Warren may be the “darling” of those on the anti-Wall Street far-left, but given the economics of the COVID-19, such rhetoric would only inspire more fear and paranoia among corporate mega-donors and fence-sitters who fear the fate of their pocketbooks more than the fate of the country. And let’s be frank: Warren was the Republican’s “candidate of choice,” because she would have provided them a well-stocked ammunition depot to raid.
In retrospect, Biden’s eventual choice, Kamala Harris, was indeed the “safe” pick. Black female commentators in the media were insisting that he must pick a black female, because black females are allegedly the “heart” of the Democratic Party (but apparently they were not “motivated” enough to vote in swing states in 2016). Harris, in my estimation, is the Barack Obama “type,” not “too” black (her mother is Indian) to frighten off certain white voters, and her political views are not obviously “far left.” She was a prosecutor, so she can’t really be attacked by the “law and order” crowd, and most importantly, she carries herself in a “presidential” manner, which is important given Biden’s apparent physical condition—and provides a stark contrast to Mike Pence’s Trumpian toadyism, as well as to Trump himself.
Harris is also in stark contrast to the new group of far-right extremists entering the “mainstream.” This country has always had such extremists, beginning at least with the so-called “American” or Know Nothing Party back in the mid-19th century, and they continued to emerge with basically the same nativist and white nationalist ideology through the present time, just calling themselves by different names. The most recent iterations were the “Tea Party” movement and the so-called “Freedom Caucus”—which if anyone is wondering why the Trump administration refuses to negotiate with the Democrats in good faith on the second stimulus package, they can blame “acting” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was a member of that caucus, which John Boehner characterized as “legislative terrorists.”
The newest iteration of “mainstream” far-right extremism is the QAnon Conspiracy movement, and CNN is reporting that a few of its adherents will likely be unwanted participants in the next Congress, thanks to a certain strain of the electorate that Trump’s embrace of crackpot paranoia has “permitted” them to espouse openly without fear of being ridiculed. The BBC, an “outside” observer, described the movement as
At its heart, QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that says that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media. QAnon believers have speculated that this fight will lead to a day of reckoning where prominent people such as Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed. That's the basic story, but there are so many offshoots, detours and internal debates that the total list of QAnon claims is enormous - and often contradictory. Adherents draw in news events, historical facts and numerology to develop their own far-fetched conclusions.
Insane? Yes. But while most Americans are unfamiliar with it, its influence in the current political discourse is not. Trump fits right into their fact-challenged and conspiracy-laden diatribes, so whether most people have heard of them or not is beside the point. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham daily spread QAnon-type conspiracy paranoia to its viewers. In Georgia’s solidly Republican 14th Congressional District, Marjorie Taylor Greene beat incumbent John Cowan; Greene is unabashedly QAnon in her outlook, calling “Q”—if that is in fact a real person—a “patriot” who is “pro-Trump.” When asked about her QAnon support during a primary debate, she asserted that she is “against all of those things”—meaning the “deep state” conspiracies “Q” has “uncovered”—and that she “will work hard” to help in the “fight” against them.
Not unexpectedly, Chris Wallace was the lone Fox News commentator who said that out of all the VP choices Biden could have made given the limitations he imposed on himself, Harris was probably the one that the Trump campaign will have the toughest time trying to paint into a “socialist” corner. He pointed out that anyone Biden picked was going to be attacked by the right, but it would have been Harris from Biden’s list who they would “struggle” the most to deal with. There can be little doubt that Fox News’ “big three” as well as the Trump campaign will resort to even greater levels of misinformation and outright falsehoods, since Harris has few obvious attack points, so they will have to work harder to invent them.
Naturally, it didn’t take long for the lunatics to take control of the madhouse. Carlson revealed his own ignorance of definitional nuance by calling her “transactional” as if that was supposed to be a “bad” thing. According to business website iedunote.com, transactional leaders could be Many high-level members of the military, CEOs of large international companies, and NFL coaches are known to be transactional leaders. Transactional leadership also works well with policing agencies and first responder organizations. Good for you, Carlson—but I wonder how many of his listeners “missed” his “point.” Carlson went on to show his fearfulness by deliberately mispronouncing “Kamala” even after he was corrected; one wonders if he keeps this up he may alienate just enough of his viewers to vote for Biden.
Then there was Hannity, who simply read the script he had prepared regardless who Biden picked. He predictably made the false accusation that Harris was a “socialist” with a “radical extremist” record. Who can possibly take Hannity seriously when he says something like "This pick solidifies what's the most extreme radical far-left out of the mainstream ticket of any major political party in American history." Well, I guess you can “forgive” Hannity for not being around during the FDR or LBJ administrations, but you can’t forgive him for being ignorant of history, a pathological liar, and Trump’s personal Joseph Goebbels. And then of course there was Laura Ingraham adding her two-bit, “warning” viewers with rather “sinister” suggestiveness that if Biden is elected, Harris will become the de facto president, because of Biden’s supposed condition.
I don’t have any issues with the Harris pick, although I observed before that she lacked a certain level of “charisma,” certainly not of the kind Obama had. But there should be no doubt in voters’ minds that she is far more capable of the kind of leadership at the top that we should expect to see than what we are getting from the conspiracy-spouting, morally and ethically-challenged fool currently in the White House.
No comments:
Post a Comment