Following the Harris/Bash interview, I looked at the Facebook home page of two women writers, each well-educated and bitchy. (I mean that in a good way.)
The reaction of Lady A: “I’m bored.”
Lady B: “She did great.”
Now — neither of them was lying. They said what they felt. This is a perfect example of two people viewing the same event through their personal filters, or prejudices, if you like.
It is not intentional.
As I know them in real life, I am sure they were not influenced by Kamala’s race or gender.
What was the filter?
Lady A is a straight edge conservative.
Laby B is a medium squishy liberal.
I am neither. I am in the middle.
Following the interview, the perceptions were predictable. The Red team found the questions soft, and Bash too friendly.
The Blue team believed every Harris answer was a home run. Brilliant!
The Ladies’ political position slips goggles over their eyes that filter out what they don’t want to hear.
This is quite apart from the insane comments or observations from others, such as “Why is she looking down?” (Answer — she had a cheat sheet. Really, someone said that.)
“She was afraid. That’s why she brought an older white man.” (The older white man is 60. She is 59, and she is the vice president of the United States, and a former U.S. senator.)
“CNN edited out all the stupid things Kamala said.” No, it did not. It could not do something like that and keep it secret.
Back to perceptions.
Lady A believes Democrats are a threat to democracy, and believes every campaign promise is a lie.
Lady B believes precisely the same about Trump.
When each accuses the other side of destroying democracy, it sounds like projection.
If you believe all Democrats are Marxists (when only some of them are) you are likely to see every fiscal or social idea as some form of socialism. Funny, I rarely hear Republicans calling for an end to Social Security, which some uninformed souls call socialism. It is not. With a few exceptions, you get back benefits because you have paid into it during your work life. (Some cops, firefighters, and teachers are not in Social Security, and some disabled people receive benefits even if they have not paid in.)
If you believe all Republicans are Nazis, then you will see most of their proposals as fascist.
It’s just amazing that Harris has gone from approval ratings below Joe Biden’s, to equal, or surpassing Trump in just four weeks.
She has raised half a billion dollars and enrolled 200,000 volunteers.
This has made her a transformational phenom on a plateau with Barack Obama. Her supporters — especially women — are swooning at her feet. They are in love, and I don’t mean in a gay way (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
It has the earmarks of a cult, and that brings us back to Trump.
Like it or not, about half the electorate loves him. I tried to explain why a little while ago to a friend who had asked. Here’s what I said.
Some of his supporters actually use Godly images for him, and take everything he says to be Gospel.
The Kamala brigade isn’t there yet, but they are working on it. She’s like the second coming of Eleanor Roosevelt.
It would be nice if both sides knocked the star dust out of their eyes and embraced the reality that their beloved candidates are human, fallible, sometimes smart, sometimes stupid, sometimes kind, sometimes cruel.
I’d like it, too, if we concentrated on their policies and promises, and even better if they kept both.
Sigh. I completely agree with the stardust.
One of the things that really, really, really bothered me before Biden dropped out were the Dems who refused to see what was in front of their eyes, not just after the disaster of a “debate” that his numbskull aides put him through, but the increasing frailty and cognitive hiccups all too visible in the years before that. There is little question in my mind that Biden was a very good president, but he was a human with faults. But any suggestion that he was becoming unfit for holding office for another 4 years was met with howls of outrage and verbal abuse directed at us who asked the obvious questions. To me this uncritical, worshiping stance was no better than the Trump cult’s behavior, and just as worrisome. I too see the adoration of Kamala in the same vein. I like her and Walz. They are a breath of fresh air, joyful, invigorating and charismatic. But they are fallible people and worshiping them as something more is risky. This kind of emotionality interferes with what should really be cold-eyed intellectual assessment of them as people who will be making decisions for us for the next four years. I think what makes it more alarming (albeit also admirable) is that they have tapped into a well of desire for hope, normality, real patriotism and love for our country that was dormant and untapped by Biden. I hope that emotions will not overwhelm logic, but I also know that humans are not always logical and clear eyed — on either side of the political spectrum.
I agree with your comment about Biden’s inability to govern for another four year term. As far back as a year, or more ago, most people could see that. I still would have voted for him, vs. Trump and the new MAGA Republican Party. But what I was really hoping to see was Nikki Haley steal back the Republican Party–now her vs. Biden would have been a no-brainer in my mind. But alas, it wasn’t to be and so I’m now breathing a terrific sigh of relief that Biden, or somebody, brought him to his senses and got him to drop this foolish endeavor.
I see the women on the Left as YEARNING to have SOMEBODY to vote for other than TRUMP, and when KAMALA became that somebody, they went wild. FINALLY there was a choice and it wasn’t a pineapple but might just as well have been. I don’t think they put much thought into what she represents e.g. her far left leanings with regard to Israel and her aligning with “the squad” and “palestinians”. Or her popularity, lower than Biden’s prior to his run wanting her to be replaced on the ticket, her record of supporting the Marxist BLM and the defunding of police, her position on ’emptying’ the prisons and no bail. We have too many incidents of crimes by illegal aliens and they’re spreading across the country. What happened in Aurora CO. is a symptom of the horrible immigration situation that she and Joe allowed to happen. Now she’s flip-flopping on everything.
My main “filter” is that we need a Commander in Chief to protect and to strengthen the USA in a troubled world.
We do not need to elect a high school class president, based on gender and interesting parents, who speaks in indecipherable gobbledegook word salads. No one has any idea what she is saying. Can we take her seriously as a candidate for President of our country? And Walz? Good grief.
The 2024 election for our President is far more important.
Megan Kelly had a clear and amusing review of the interview with Kamala and a fair critique of Dana Bash’s questioning; recommend it to all.
This is similar to what I’ve often said that we allow our opinions and prejudices to determine what are, indeed, facts. In the case of Harris and Trump, it’s a bit less clear cut as we’re not judging a fact, but rather the person, persona and personality that will lead this country for the next four years. And as you’ve said, they’re both human, they both have some strengths and weaknesses. So who, and how our opinions have been shaped through the years will influence our vote. But it’s facts, irrefutable and inarguable, that we refuse to acknowledge because of those same factors that drive me crazy.
👍
Yo Stu! Great column. And thanks for calling me bitchy. You know I take that as a high compliment!
Of course. I put in that note for others. 😘
Trump has a proven record of being a leader and good president. Biden and Harris have failed the American people. The country and the world are in a state of chaos because of their incompetence. Why would you want 4 more years of this. Their records speak for themselves.
Except for his leadership during Covid, his election denialism and asking his VP to overturn the election he lost. As much as you try to, that is not forgotten.
He did a great job with Covid.!it’s a free country he can deny anything he wants.. There are some democrats who still think the election was stolen from Al Gore. Hillary Clinton still thinks she got screwed. Get over it. Biden was president and he did a lousy job. We would be in great shape today if Trump would have been re-elected.
He did such a great job he was not re-elected and then asked his VP to overturn the results. If you care about democracy, Trump is not it. And Biden did very well, considering the mess he inherited from Trump. That’s a theme with the GOP….Democrats fix Republican messes and get criticized for things not bouncing back fast enough.
He didn’t get re-elected because idiots like you believed all the lies the democrats and media said about Trump. Are you related to freeze because your as dumb as him.
Awww…that hurts. Idiot…dummy… cause I don’t think like a cultist. All that hate will eat you up….and you have stupid hair too…be a grown up.
I like to think of myself as an independent evaluating political candidates on their positions and stated policies. But I got my Democrat leanings as a small child. My dad was a union member and, while I have never worked for an organization that was unionized, I am pro-labor. I think all of my political leanings, particularly as a young person, were as much or more based on personality than agenda. My household was for FDR over anybody, Truman over Dewey and Harriman over Ike. There was no doubt in my mind that Kennedy was far better than Nixon and Nixon, despite his denials, was a crook although his goal was more power than money. After JFK’s death and the ascendancy of Johnson and the lies about what got us into the Viet Nam war, Nixon’s lies about Watergate, Jimmy Carter’s selection of Georgia staffing incompetents as well as Reagan’s selection of James Watt as Secretary of the Interior where I worked, I felt like none of the presidents, regardless of party, gave a damn about the U.S citizens. Donald J. Trump surely didn’t so I didn’t take his suggestion to inject myself with bleach to avoid Covid.
Americans always get what they vote for and since the election of Lyndon Johnson, they haven’t gotten a lot of decency from their president or their Congress. For the first time since Kennedy, listening to Harris, I have some hope for us.
As you probably know, my parents chose Norman Thomas over all of the above, and Trump did NOT suggest injecting bleach. Don’t believe me, believe snopes https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-inject-bleach/
I will except Gerald Ford from the above. I thought he did a good job for the time he was in office.
DJT did not tell people to inject bleach. Get yhe facts
The left couldn’t elect Hillary Clinton, and they will not be able to elect Kamala Harris. Just my opinion. (In case I am wrong, I am getting the second crow prepared for display.)
This opinion is within the bounds of reason and probability.
But remember — Trump has NEVER won the popular vote.
Which is why we have the electoral college — to keep the big Blue states from determining every election. It has worked well for more than 230 years (which is why the Left hates it).
Both the electoral college and the part about black mens’ (slaves) ‘votes’ are counted as 3/5th of a white man were put in the constitution to protect slavery. Even that so-called ‘beacon of liberty’ James Madison was for these to protect Southerners. With 93% of the slaves concentrated in just 5 southern states, the 3/5ths compromise greatly increased the size of the South’s congressional delegation and the electoral college resulted from this. Vince don’t know s*** about constitutional history & embedded racism in it.
Your thinking remains stuck in the late 1700s. The Electoral College today is working fine to keep four or five extremely populous states from turning the presidency into a quasi-monarchy. Which is why you hate it, oviously.