POLITICS
The Harris Waltz
Can hope and joy really be the anecdote to Trump’s MagaWorld rage?
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The most effective taunts often have a grain of truth in them. MVP Kamala Harris smiles a lot and is an easy laugher, so Trump has tried to paint her as a stupid, unhinged lunatic, all of which is beyond ironic. Mostly, it’s a tired tactic for arguing that a Black woman can’t possibly be competent or intelligent enough to do the job. But it was also an attempt to turn a positive (Harris’ relative joy) into a negative (she must be crazy), which can be an effective strategy when it lands. Most recently, this technique was illustrated beautifully by the general acceptance that even if JD Vance hadn’t actually written about having sex with a couch in his hillbilly biography, he seemed like the kind of person who would. So it stuck.
This morning, it was announced that Kamala Harris had chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her 2024 running mate. For most political watchers, Walz had been more of a dark horse candidate, with little national visibility. Compared to PA Governor Josh Shapiro or Arizona Sen Mark Kelly, Walz seemed like an unconventional pick. But when it was announced, the image the media chose to use was one where he was laughing and surrounded by the…
