The Kamala Effect
No, you didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. And you didn’t want her, either.
I saw an email referring to “The Kamala Effect” today, and I was fascinated to read it; after all, there’s a very legitimate concern that at least one arm of the Democratic machine is going to remove Biden at some point during his term and replace him with Senator Harris. I wanted to know what “The Kamala Effect” is, because whatever it is, we’re likely to have to put up with it for a while .
It turns out that there are little girls wearing “My VP Looks Like Me” T-shirts. That may be true, and that’s a good thing, but hopefully that’s where the similarities end.
She may look like those little girls — and good for all of us, because one’s race and/or gender (or gender identification) isn’t really significant as an indicator of capability. But I think it’s really important to keep Senator Harris’ context grounded in reality, because while she’s significant for various reasons, she’s not that significant.
For example, a lot of people are saying that they voted for her — I’m sorry, but no, they didn’t. Senator Harris didn’t even rate “dumpster fire” in terms of her effectiveness as a candidate.
Remember, she ran for President in this cycle, and was considered a front-runner for almost fifteen minutes — after which she was gutshot by Tulsi Gabbard, and then sautéed, minced, and salted over by Joe Biden himself.
Then her campaign flamed out and died before even reaching the very first Democratic caucuses. Which means the Democrats, who just put her one heartbeat away from the Presidency after selecting a President who is in the most susceptible group for COVID-19 and other health problems, basically avoided her in droves when given the chance not to.
Did we vote for her? I think not. Put her on a ballot at the top in any normal year — and remember, that’s what the primaries are, a chance to put virtually anyone at the top — and she’d crater, based on her own campaign history. The nation at large cast ballots as a referendum on Trump and very little else. Biden and Harris just benefited from Trump tying his own shoelaces together with his tongue.
This is a DA who looks like all those little girls, who made her name prosecuting black men for minor offenses she had no problem committing herself, and her office advocated leaving them in jail past their sentences so they could serve as cheap labor for the State of California. She may have the skin of some former slaves, but she’s got the soul, or at least the behavior, of a slave owner.
For the record: she ended the practice as well, but it was still under her auspices that the practice was instituted. If she’s going to blame Trump for everything that happens on his watch, such as for instance COVID-19, or violent attacks using “weapons of mass destruction” like pistols — then she needs to be held responsible by the same measure.
Her gun policy is no better, although she shares it with many. It’s hard to blame her for an opinion on the Second Amendment simply because of axiomatic political differences. But the lever Biden used against her was her understanding of the Constitutional boundaries that she’s already sworn to uphold. She didn’t understand what could and could not be done, and insisted that those limits were malleable, as long as she was President.
There are worse ways to be President, but not many. Think single digits.
She’s one heartbeat away from the Presidency. All Biden has to do is catch COVID-19, or go on a presser where he loses track of the teleprompter, or perhaps just have a moment of confusion as someone who’s 8000 years old is wont to do, and we have a 25th Amendment invocation and a President Harris.
So.
Let’s celebrate that Senator Harris does in fact show that color and gender isn’t as severe a barrier as it used to be. I’d think the color barrier was more significant than the gender barrier, because Hillary Clinton (woman) won the popular vote and Barack Obama (of color) won the Presidency itself. But it’s still nice to be reminded that the country isn’t so deeply infested by racism that it finds it unable to vote for a female person of color, no matter how toxic her politics are.
I just wish there’d been literally any other female person of color to nominate.
