Harris vs. Trump

More experienced than the entire GOP ticket, the vice president is the presumptive nominee

July 22: Biden read the polls … Harris rides history … Birtherism rebirth … Secret Service hearing …

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Vice President Kamala Harris. (Undated White House photo.)

If anyone else were gonna run, we’d probably know by now. Which means we get both things that the most vocal factions wanted in the event Pres. Joe Biden stepped aside: An open convention, but also unity behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

It doesn’t mean much to say that Harris is already wrapping up delegates when literally no one else is. At this point, who else could realistically put the fear of metaphorical God in former Pres. Donald Trump?

I kid because I love. Now, let’s start with Biden.

I won’t rehash my sage and powerful and overly wordy paean on Friday to Biden making exactly this choice. But I do want to address the claim that this was a bad call by Biden.

We don’t get to know that. We’ll literally never know how Biden 2.0 would’ve done against Trump 3.0. Sucks not to have a traversable multiverse, I know. Thanks, Biden!

As for the critique that Biden made a mistake or got bullied out of the race, if he could be bullied out of the race, then he was no longer effectively leading his party or he lacked the fortitude we’ve still seen from him. If he had poor judgment on this most important of decisions, then he had poor judgment.

Besides, no one bullies a man who can now legally have you assassinated. And, look, I don’t claim to know this was the right choice. Maybe he could’ve surmounted his challenges. But he didn’t think so.

If you think the world of Biden, then there’s reason to accept his decision. If you thought Biden had the judgment to run and serve again, respect his judgment not to. If you had faith in Biden, have faith now.

Reportedly, Biden did not cave to centrist pressure or selfish, skittish billionaires. He looked at the numbers. And no one could show him the numbers he wanted to see, especially in the battleground states.

You can argue that polls are bullshit, which should be easy because polls are bullshit. You can argue that Biden shouldn’t have trusted even accurate polls in July to predict what will happen in November. And I’d be tempted to agree. But, to use a tautological phrase that I hate…it is what it is.

Now, about Harris.

Harris obviously carries history with her. If she wins we will have the first woman as president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, the commander in chief of the most powerful, misused, overpriced, and widely dispersed military power in history.

Harris will be the first Black woman to hold this position. The first person of South Asian descent. A self-described Black Baptist, Harris was raised Christian…and Hindu. Her husband is Jewish.

That background could have led her not to privilege religion, but in practice, she’s done the opposite: Not not privileged religion. Your intrepid TFN unearthed a case she handled as California attorney general where she took a principled stand against religious exceptionalism, but then backpedaled.

Then there was Harris’s silence on the Catholic Church and sexual abuse, again while she was a prosecutor. That said, she did challenge the Christian exceptionalism behind the Hobby Lobby case, in which companies won the right to deny coverage in employee health plans based on the rulings of death panels made up of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, none of whom responded to requests for comment.

ON THE OTHER HAND Harris has also introduced the Do No Harm Act, to her credit and my embarrassment since I wasn’t aware of this. The Do No Harm Act is both extremely important and a cause requiring some measure of political bravery.

Its intent is literally to roll back a noxious law ostensibly advancing that most sacred of sacred cows: Religious freedom. Your humble and only mildly obsessive TFN has written before about the misguided Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Democratic law that the right has wielded to legalize religious discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, sex workers, drug takers, sex havers, women, and other people.

Taking on RFRA — which was introduced by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) back when he was in the House — when Harris was part of Schumer’s caucus in the Senate was an act of political integrity worth noting, especially in a media ecosystem that renders religion untouchable.

She is the child of immigrants, not Scots-Irish, but Jamaic-Indian. And, perhaps most poignantly, with Trump having been nominated last week, this will be the first presidential race in U.S. history in which both candidates are people of color.

And thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, if Harris wins, for the first time in our history, a Black woman will be immune from prosecution for all the laws she’s presumed to have broken when she gets pulled over at night.

None of which is stopping the right wing from already floating Birtherism 2024. The putative argument (this time) is that her parents were not naturalized citizens when she was born, which doesn’t mean shit because she was born here Black and Indian.

Also, because identity issues and economic issues are not in conflict, it turns out that Harris is pretty much where Biden is on the latter. Maybe even further up the latter. Per Washington Post White House Reporter Jeff Stein, Harris is…

• Pro labor

• Pro striking labor

• Pro canceling debt that’s medical, student, or medical student

• Pro xpanding entitlements (having worked to boost state Medicaid coverage for post-partum care)

• Anti NAFTA

• Pro taxing billionaires

• Pro expanding housing supply

That said, Harris does not go much further than Biden, at least in the record we’ve got so far. So literally the single most effective thing Harris could do politically — and certainly in governance — would be to drop the Biden Band-Aid™ approach to the economy and adopt the apocalyptic, revolutionary, systemic blow-things-uppy rhetoric of the right…without the crazy batshit stuff.

Free college? Bang. Free health care? Bang. Universal basic income? Bang. 1950s-level marginal tax rates? Bang. Massive assaults on predatory hedge funds and venture capital? Bang. November landslide? Bang.

As I railed, wannabe-Network style on Friday, things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.

The system is so fucked that systemic metrics no longer capture just how fucked we are. Pretty much everyone, insured or not, is one medical calamity from penury. Everyone with less than a five million in the bank has to figure out how to afford their kids’ or kidses’s college education(s).

Imagine the effect all of that would have on disenfranchised young voters. Especially if she tacks left before Trump gets there. (Don’t let the caricature fool you: He’s staunchly pro-Social Security and his antennae — the ones that didn’t get shot off — are finely attuned to the political rewards for economic populism. The Democrats are vulnerable on their economic left flank.

Nevertheless, despite warnings of party chaos and fracturing if Biden dropped out, we got unity and energy. The closest thing to a potential challenger is…Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV). Reportedly, Axiosly, Manchin is considering re-registering as a Democrat to run for president. Manchin would be the first trans-party candidate to transition back without the aid of hormones or surgery or a clue.

As an Independent and former conservative Democrat, Manchin has the unique potential to unite the country and virtually every faction of both parties in rejecting him. A Manchin campaign would also bestow upon the American public the sight of a Black woman of South Asian and Jamaican descent walloping the West Virginian shit out of a crusty-ass, fossil-fuel guzzling, poor-people-hating millionaire.

To wit: While Manchin has been doing his sage pondering, Harris already has:

• The support of 531 out of the 1,986 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

• The endorsement of all 50 state party chairs.

• The backing of 98 House members.

• Thirty senators.

• Ten governors.

• Seven of the 9-member Squad.

• Six state DNC delegations

• Both Clintons.

Still, let’s hope for an open convention. Harris seems to be on board, saying she expects to “earn” the nomination. She’ll be a stronger candidate for whatever fight she might get, and if someone does win the nomination instead of her, they’ll have earned it and will likely be seen as a giant-killer for defeating the presumptive nominee.

Now, about those insufferable scolds — TFN possibly included — who beat the drum for Biden to step aside: They all have a huge a moral obligation to make damn sure they were right.

Everyone’s asking what will happen. As if someone else will determine the outcome. Sure, each individual Newsfucker is only 1/3.4 millionth of the deciders, but that ain’t nothin’!

We get to decide if we’re going to pull undecideds to vote by pulling their heads out of their asses. We get to decide if we’re going to get out the vote among constituencies who don’t usually vote but support abortion rights, contraception, IVF, the right to divorce, the right not to be tossed in immigrant detention camps without due process, and the right to choose both your genitals and how to clothe them. We get to decide whether we’re going to give what we can afford to the most effective, non-former GOP political action committees the world’s most compelling and vulgar topical newsletter.

All that said, how do things look for Harris coming out of the gate¹?

Stock futures were up this morning, reportedly on the belief that Harris has a slightly-better-than-Biden shot at beating Trump.

After Harris announced her no-shit-Sherlock candidacy, ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, announced that yesterday was the biggest one-day money haul of the 2024 campaign. Small donors small-donated $27.5 million in the first five hours. As of 9pm eastern time, Harris had raised $46.7 million. (On top of the $96 million in Biden bucks she gets to keep because they’re the ticket’s bucks, not Biden’s.)

Even Democratic donors who haven’t endorsed Harris say they’re feeling new optimism now (gift link).

And, because I know everyone hates polls but loves the feeling of certainty polls help us pretend to have, some polls, courtesy of the NY Times:

This poll was taken before Biden dropped out, of course. And we don’t even know who Harris will choose as her running mate, with the experience and political backing they add to the equation.

Even without a running mate yet, Harris alone has more experience in federal government than both of the identity-politics candidates on the Republican ticket combined.

So remember that Harris can still get a bounce from:

• Choosing a running mate

• Being a non-hypothetical candidate

• Winning the nomination

• A powerful convention

• Appealing to gender norms by serving Trump up for dinner at their debate and/or

• Trump running scared from debating her.

Are there downsides and will there be fuckups and deeply depressing days ahead? This is 2024, is it not? Shitty things will happen. Racism and misogyny will no doubt play a part in voter perception.

But there are so many upsides and so much room for growth. Trump’s racism will be in much starker contrast. So will his sexism. And so — even though I try to resist appeals to ageism — will all of his 78 years and ??? pounds.

Trump will now go into the general election as the oldest presidential candidate in U.S. history. The voters who deemed Biden too old today will understand that Trump will be even older by the end of his term if he wins. 

Now, I won’t deny you your despair. We’re all doomscrollers and we’re all Biblically sure, all the time, that the end is nigh, all the time. But there are some more buts out there for even the gloomiest of Guses.

But a poll taken after The Martyrdom of Donald Trump’s Ear and his nominating convention left him with only a 40% approval rate.

But Republican abortion bans have sired historic, unprecedented red-state losses. Sen. JD™ Vance (R-OH) is even abortionier than the reluctantly abortiony Trump…who may not support a national abortion ban but certainly opposes a national right to abortion.

But America elected a pro-death-panels Kenyan Muslim terrorist named Barack Hussein al-Qaeda Qaddafi Ayatollah Obama twice. Once over a decorated war hero running with what would have been the first woman vice president and over a successful, centrist businessman with the lush hair of modern Jesus. Then a Catholic Democrat named Joseph Robinette No Really Robinette Biden walked into the White House on Jan. 20, 2021 (with Harris at his side!), even though the commander in chief of the United States military didn’t want him to.

And if those aren’t sufficient or recent enough batshit-impossible political miracles for you, reember: Just yesterday Joe Biden put America first again.

Secret Service Under Fire from MAGA

I seriously considered ignoring this ostensible controversy mostly because who gives a shit. But now it looks like it’s going to get past our perimeters and make it into the very poorly guarded inner area of our politics. So let’s, I suppose, roll.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will testify before the House Oversight Committee today as part of a congressional investigapalooza into the July 13 shooting of former Pres. Donald Trump’s ear.

Cheatle was subpoenaed by Chair James Comer (R-KY). Of course, Republicans almost never gripe when law enforcement persecutes, falsely prosecutes, or otherwise fails to protect disenfranchised people. But fail the enfranchised and, mister, we’ve got a problem!

So it’s fair to question the motives hare, especially given their “investigative” track record. One key difference: This is a thing that actually happened. And motive notwithstanding, the questions are legitimate. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) co-signed Comer’s letter saying Cheatle “must come” before the committee.

Cheatle herself has said the gunman’s ability to take his shots represented a “failure” by the agency, a failure we’ve yet to fully understand. So here we are. (At least we’re not hearing any more “Biden gave the order” bullshit from MAGA bullshitters.)

One big issue: Whether the Secret Service denied Trump protection that his team requested. The answer was a clear ‘no.’ Then it was a clear ‘sometimes.’

On Saturday, the Secret Service copped to not fulfilling every cop request the Trump campaign made. The emerging implication, courtesy of journalistic shortcomings, is that the request rejections were political. To wit:

A source is only a source (of course, of course) if they’re in a position to know what they’re talking about. Being close to Trump does not mean you’re in a position to know whether this decision came from the top ranks of the Secret Service. Which the sources don’t even say!

The story itself admits that the sources don’t know jack: They feel that the decisions, which they believe were personal, came from the top. These are known in the journalism trade as rank guesses. By people with clear political motive to feel and believe and guess wrongly.

Meanwhile, that same story makes zero mention of the reasons the Secret Service might have for not assuming the competence or good faith of the Trump Alleged Security Team and its requests. What reasons? How about history!

What history? How about the history of Trump going places that “required” Secret Service to pay him money? Lots of money. Increasingly lots of money.

Despite all the obvious reasons the Secret Service had for not accepting Trump tactical requests at face value from a face you can’t take at face value, expect Republicans today to press Cheatle hard. Mostly on why she’s not more masculine like the tough guys who let Kennedy and Reagan get shot. And on lapses such as a lack of presence on the roof and Cheatle’s lack of male genitalia.

And if Republicans are absolutely livid that the Secret Service failed to block every single line of fire in the space-time continuum that an AR-style rifle could find, imagine how pissed they’ll be when they learn who made it possible for the gunman to get that rifle! I’ll share the fascinating story of The Rifle That Nicked Trump’s Ear in tomorrow’s TFN.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids.

1. Actual horserace metaphor! Drink!