I suppose you heard the big news this week. Excited? Well, you should be. It’s a tremendous accomplishment for a woman of color in this deeply racist nation. Tuesday’s big news practically guarantees another two years of Ihan Omar in the United States House of Representatives. Woo-hoo!
Oh, right … and Biden picked Kamala Harris. Thought as much. Frankly, that could have gone a lot worse. We were hovering very close to Klobuchar territory before the murder of George Floyd, and then it was all over. I’m terrible at predicting things like VP picks, but this one seemed pretty obvious – Biden needed somebody youngish with some star power, experience, and grit. He obviously feels no need to give a nod to the left, and that’s no surprise either. My biggest complaint about her is that she let Mnuchin off the hook over his foreclosure mill in California and that her criminal justice record is not the kind of progressive counterbalance you would hope for in a Biden-topped ticket.
Their announcement event was kind of dismal, largely owing to the fact that COVID is still running wild. I just wish the Biden Campaign would hire someone who can compose a shot. The two-shot as Harris spoke was just weird – Biden in profile, giving that SOTU squint of his, which from the side doesn’t look all that great. I’m not sure I heard anything encouraging in the torrent of platitudes, but be that as it may, I hope to hell they get over the finish line this fall. The Democratic Party is positively expert at shooting itself in the foot, and they may not know it, but they’re taking a big chance on Biden this year. The notion that Harris is going to help light a fire under the activist base is a bit of a stretch, but hopefully there’s something to it.
As we approach the non-Convention, scheduled for next week, there are some worrying signs. First, some progressive grassroots media outlets, like The Young Turks, have been denied press passes …. to a virtual event, for crying out loud. Even worse, anti-choice Bush administration alumnus and former Ohio governor John Kasich, last seen attempting to school yeshiva scholars on the Old Testament, has a major speaking role at the convention …. whereas Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), leading voice of the progressive left in the party, is being allowed … wait for it … sixty seconds to speak. This tells you all you need to know about their electoral strategy. They appear to be listening more to the partisan flacks on DNC-friendly media than to the masses of people their party depends on for any chance of victory this fall.
What the fuck. We’ve been to this dance before, and it didn’t turn out well. The so-called centrists in the Democratic party need to get their heads out of their 1990s asses and get a clear look at who their constituencies are. And they need to do it fast.
luv u,
jp
Omar is the perfect target for Trump. She’s a woman, a person of color, an immigrant from Somalia, and a Muslim who, like many Somali women, wears a headscarf. The orange-faced jackass has attacked all of those things separately on many occasions – by attacking Omar, he gets more bang for the buck. Would that he were the only one so eager to jump on her over an anti-AIPAC tweet. Democratic leadership really showed their ass this week, following up on their shameful support of Trump’s Venezuela policy from the previous week. A really poor performance. Still, Trump and Kevin McCarthy both get extra credit for crying antisemitism when their own track records on bigotry are unambiguously offensive. Both McCarthy and Trump made George Soros the bête noir of the mid-term campaign last year. Not subtle.
Immigration. Beyond the same lies, distortions, and barely concealed bigotry that usually erupt from his festering maw, Trump used the well-worn SOTU practice of using guests as rhetorical human shields in his argument for the Wall, greater immigration enforcement, and so on. This time it was family members of a U.S. citizen victim murdered by an MS13 member. Of course, Trump could bring in dozens of such cases if he can find them, and it would no more prove his case than this sorry demonstration. People get murdered in America, including a relatively small number at the hands of immigrants. Crucially, his “get tough” policy makes these victims less safe. By rounding up undocumented aliens by the thousands, Trump’s agents are creating a strong disincentive for members of that community to call the cops when they either witness or become victimized by gang activity. Just more evidence that bigotry is not only wrong and immoral – it’s just effing dumb.
This, again, feels like a big distraction from what the administration and the congressional majority are actually doing. If we’re obsessing over one or the other revealing memo, we’re not thinking about recent surveys – including 
“A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land,” he tells us, referring to a year ago, then jumped right in with the anecdotes and the guests of honor. “We always will pull through together, always.” Runs through a litany of lifesavers, mostly from disasters of our own making, through climate change, gun violence, etc. “The state of our union is strong because our people are strong. And together we are building a safe and strong and proud America.” Platitude.
Then there’s “Morning Joe” (or “Morning Blow”) on purportedly liberal/progressive MSNBC. Their foreign policy braintrust of, well, Joe Scarborough, Richard Haas, and various senior editors from Politico have been engaging in a narrative that goes something like this, in short – “W” Bush did too much, Obama does too little, and both put us in greater danger from the scourge of jihadist terrorism, which has killed nearly one person in the United States so far this year (call it none). Setting aside the obsessive focus on this rare and sensational threat, I agree with the assertion that both presidents’ foreign policies have put us in greater danger, breeding a new generation extremists, several of whom, for instance, attacked the offices of Charlie Ebdo in Paris. But the notion that Obama does too little is ludicrous. Bush and Obama basically have the same foreign policy. Obama is following Bush’s playbook from 2006-08. And yes, it is murderous and destabilizing and designed to radicalize people.
enough. But whatever his motivations or limitations may be, we simply cannot allow ourselves to be confined by them. What America needs is a healthy dose of movement politics – the kind that brought us the five day work week, earned black people the vote, and brought the Vietnam war to an end. It’s the only way fundamental change happens, and we had best start facing that fact.
Whether or not Obama is serious about making positive change, he should understand one thing: the Republican party, particularly those in Congress, will not support him no matter what he does. He could adopt all of their positions (instead of just many of them) and they will still work to destroy him politically. That is their clear objective, whatever noises they make for the cameras and microphones. From a political standpoint, I don’t blame Obama for addressing the G.O.P. retreat this week and taking their questions. I think he should call them out, and we did see a little bit of that today. But if he seriously thinks that they are going to work with him on anything substantive, he is smoking crack. He would be well-advised to start appealing to his base, a.k.a. the people who got him elected, and use his considerable rhetorical gifts to articulate a more progressive vision of governance.