Imagine what this country would be like right now, if Kamala Harris had not been the victim of sexism, misogyny, racism, ignorance and plain old laziness on November 5, 2024.
It didn't help that Joe Biden, with his brain-dead performance in the debate, dug her into a hole so deep that even George Washington couldn't have managed to climb out of it.
If voters were remotely rational, that wouldn't have mattered -- because no matter how brain-dead Biden's performance was in that debate, the simple fact is that by any objective standard of what it takes to actually be president, Trump's performance was far worse. Simply being able to talk loudly (the sole thing that Trump did better than Biden) should not have been sufficient to declare Trump the winner.
I'm reminded of when in high school this guy said he was ashamed to be white. This was in 1971, my Junior Year. I said I'm not ashamed to be white. I had nothing to do with slavery, nor the atrocities going on the the South and in big cities throughout the United States. I continue to fight for the rights of black and brown Americans.
The four biggest reasons VP Harris lost her race were:
Biden didn't keep his promise to be a bridge to the next generation;
misogyny - the Bernie Bros still refuse to vote for a woman and the Christian right still believe women should be in the home;
racism - white women voted overwhelmingly for abortion rights but still voted for the Felon and too many Latino men believe the Democratic Party are strictly for Black Americans;
the Felon lied about everything, as he always does, and 10,000,000 stayed home.
What I see is that most people know so little about the situation in the Middle East that they can only process it through emotion--not with the added weight of history, the contingencies of stability in the area at large, and their own biases. All that yelling directed at Biden and Harris in the past two years has been divorced from the reasons for why U.S. relations with Israel and a Palestinian state evolved the way they did, and divorced from the volatility of circumstances that continually change.
Americans, and particularly the vocal ones, pick up on a black or white issue and hammer it into the ground, regardless of the myriad repercussions outside of the goal they want to attain. They don't even know why they want to attain it--just that they do, and by god, you'd better give them what they want, or they'll be mad at just one or two scapegoats. "I just won't vote, so there!"
White people are angry with Black people who are no longer in charge. They are afraid to direct their anger at the White people running the country now. They share this befuddled reasoning with their MAGA counterparts. Blacks and Latinos do not control this country yet Whites want to blame them for the problems created by the White ruling class.
"Some" whites. Come on. Some of us are white and Latino. Some of us don't give a crap what color people are. I literally can't believe this country still keeps this argumentative ball in the air after all these years--after taking this land from another race of people. Grow up, America.
What an excellent line: “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” In my tradition, there's a story about a pillow whose feathers were scattered. The moral of that story was that you can't put the feathers back in.
I am not a black woman so I don't know what that's like but I imagine being angry at (or taking anger out on) Kamala Harris is a bit different. So I disagree here. Kamala Harris rose above and was doing well given that she came in late and the process was aborted. Maybe the anger is about Biden too, mixed in. Perhaps being black ( or identifying as) and being a woman was a bridge too far for some voters. Obama won twice after all. Race is not not an issue.
Trump claims he won overwhelmingly, but he did not. Many people sat home or went with Trump for one (astonishing) reason or excuse or another ( vulnerability, ignorance). But now, KNOWING what the vote for Trump brought, the anger is more about the Democrats. Don't try to make sense of it- this double standard. Democrats were and are supposed to save us from this scourge. Democrats expect their elected representatives in Congress to deal with this- even if they don't hold the power. We have not been used to fighting ground up.. want it all done for us as we lay waste our own powers getting and spending, complaining about quotidian issues as we lose our democracy. Maybe the anger is a good sign, just misdirected. Next step is to get into the fight. That is democracy at work... while we have it.
I agree about Democrats being perceived as saviors (by us); I, too, expected a resistance leader to emerge from those in office now and, yes, emeriti too. This article by David Brooks, while not perfect in its reasoning, made me realize that our way out of the Trump problem is to make it not a political party problem but a democracy problem. We need a leader drawn from outside the party elites who is not acting as a Democratic operative--far from it.
Authoritarianism changes the lives of every American resident; it's not Republican or Democratic. Look at the R Party right now. It has no power. It cowers in the face of one man--a man who will dies soon and who is controlled by other people who want to seize power. We need a leader who can speak for all Americans and rally us to prevail over Donald Trump's march of unelected minions, who are really pulling his strings.
Who will lead us? Most of us can't do it, but I'll bet Barack Obama knows some stellar organizers. We need a leader now. We'll wholeheartedly join in the resistance. Take a vacation after that book tour, Kamala. Or get out in the streets with us.
I don't think we imagined that things would be this bad, so outrageous on a daily level- really there are no words for the astonishment I am sure many feel... the disbelief. We have never seen anything like this assault on the foundations of our social contract, our democracy of nearly 250 years, with its ups and downs and it's glory days. There was/is so much so many of us could feel good about, about how we are doing something difficult: growing a multicultural liberal tolerant democratic society. And yes we have our shame as well- as a country. But we have never before seen the fast paced dismantling of our government, the Executive using the Congress both houses and practically owning the Supreme Court. We are 10 months into this " monster thing" that has been moving quickly like a thunder and lightining storm over us. We are just getting our stride resisting. The Republican shell that the MAGA party owns now HAS the power.
Only we can stop this if we work together.. against fear, complacency, nihilism, despair, negativity, selfishness.
The yin and yang of this is that the more THEY do to destroy hurt and tear us apart, the more we wake up to the call and fight back, the more this hurt reaches. People will realize that this is not about the usual partisan differences. It's about the ground we stand on. This is a plague that destroys its host..a cancer. If we allow it. The MAGA make no sense, they have no future here even after Trump but they will continue take us all down only if or until we stop them. History teaches...
Hopefully this will not last too long- but as long as it takes.
With you, friend. You really expressed the astonishment of seeing all that our predecessors worked for and all that we have lived for destroyed. My father came to America from Cuba before the revolution and could never go home again. I never thought I would see that day come here. See you on October 18th!
Imagine what this country would be like right now, if Kamala Harris had not been the victim of sexism, misogyny, racism, ignorance and plain old laziness on November 5, 2024.
It didn't help that Joe Biden, with his brain-dead performance in the debate, dug her into a hole so deep that even George Washington couldn't have managed to climb out of it.
If voters were remotely rational, that wouldn't have mattered -- because no matter how brain-dead Biden's performance was in that debate, the simple fact is that by any objective standard of what it takes to actually be president, Trump's performance was far worse. Simply being able to talk loudly (the sole thing that Trump did better than Biden) should not have been sufficient to declare Trump the winner.
And since when were voters even remotely rational?
Suppose we hold them to that standard instead of dismissing it out of hand. Maybe we'll get somewhere.
I’m embarrassed to be white, because that means I share common ancestry with these friggin fools.
I'm reminded of when in high school this guy said he was ashamed to be white. This was in 1971, my Junior Year. I said I'm not ashamed to be white. I had nothing to do with slavery, nor the atrocities going on the the South and in big cities throughout the United States. I continue to fight for the rights of black and brown Americans.
The four biggest reasons VP Harris lost her race were:
Biden didn't keep his promise to be a bridge to the next generation;
misogyny - the Bernie Bros still refuse to vote for a woman and the Christian right still believe women should be in the home;
racism - white women voted overwhelmingly for abortion rights but still voted for the Felon and too many Latino men believe the Democratic Party are strictly for Black Americans;
the Felon lied about everything, as he always does, and 10,000,000 stayed home.
What I see is that most people know so little about the situation in the Middle East that they can only process it through emotion--not with the added weight of history, the contingencies of stability in the area at large, and their own biases. All that yelling directed at Biden and Harris in the past two years has been divorced from the reasons for why U.S. relations with Israel and a Palestinian state evolved the way they did, and divorced from the volatility of circumstances that continually change.
Americans, and particularly the vocal ones, pick up on a black or white issue and hammer it into the ground, regardless of the myriad repercussions outside of the goal they want to attain. They don't even know why they want to attain it--just that they do, and by god, you'd better give them what they want, or they'll be mad at just one or two scapegoats. "I just won't vote, so there!"
The quote from Brandolini is so accurate!!
White people are angry with Black people who are no longer in charge. They are afraid to direct their anger at the White people running the country now. They share this befuddled reasoning with their MAGA counterparts. Blacks and Latinos do not control this country yet Whites want to blame them for the problems created by the White ruling class.
"Some" whites. Come on. Some of us are white and Latino. Some of us don't give a crap what color people are. I literally can't believe this country still keeps this argumentative ball in the air after all these years--after taking this land from another race of people. Grow up, America.
So absolutely true. People who feel entitled to attack others who have worked tirelessly to improve our democracy should just Shut Up.
Like my dear mother taught me, If you don’t have anything nice to say, just keep your damn mouth shut.
That is, Shut The F..k Up.
What an excellent line: “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” In my tradition, there's a story about a pillow whose feathers were scattered. The moral of that story was that you can't put the feathers back in.
"Troubling mix of racism, misogyny and cowardice".
Thanks, you nailed it.
Thanks also for sharing Harris's responses. A stand up fighter. Proud of my vote for her.
I am not a black woman so I don't know what that's like but I imagine being angry at (or taking anger out on) Kamala Harris is a bit different. So I disagree here. Kamala Harris rose above and was doing well given that she came in late and the process was aborted. Maybe the anger is about Biden too, mixed in. Perhaps being black ( or identifying as) and being a woman was a bridge too far for some voters. Obama won twice after all. Race is not not an issue.
Trump claims he won overwhelmingly, but he did not. Many people sat home or went with Trump for one (astonishing) reason or excuse or another ( vulnerability, ignorance). But now, KNOWING what the vote for Trump brought, the anger is more about the Democrats. Don't try to make sense of it- this double standard. Democrats were and are supposed to save us from this scourge. Democrats expect their elected representatives in Congress to deal with this- even if they don't hold the power. We have not been used to fighting ground up.. want it all done for us as we lay waste our own powers getting and spending, complaining about quotidian issues as we lose our democracy. Maybe the anger is a good sign, just misdirected. Next step is to get into the fight. That is democracy at work... while we have it.
I agree about Democrats being perceived as saviors (by us); I, too, expected a resistance leader to emerge from those in office now and, yes, emeriti too. This article by David Brooks, while not perfect in its reasoning, made me realize that our way out of the Trump problem is to make it not a political party problem but a democracy problem. We need a leader drawn from outside the party elites who is not acting as a Democratic operative--far from it.
Authoritarianism changes the lives of every American resident; it's not Republican or Democratic. Look at the R Party right now. It has no power. It cowers in the face of one man--a man who will dies soon and who is controlled by other people who want to seize power. We need a leader who can speak for all Americans and rally us to prevail over Donald Trump's march of unelected minions, who are really pulling his strings.
Who will lead us? Most of us can't do it, but I'll bet Barack Obama knows some stellar organizers. We need a leader now. We'll wholeheartedly join in the resistance. Take a vacation after that book tour, Kamala. Or get out in the streets with us.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/autocracy-resistance-social-movement/684336/?gift=Mdw5_R3Xgh3-ik45bq5z12eseH-BdtmxQxcg935Z4GI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I don't think we imagined that things would be this bad, so outrageous on a daily level- really there are no words for the astonishment I am sure many feel... the disbelief. We have never seen anything like this assault on the foundations of our social contract, our democracy of nearly 250 years, with its ups and downs and it's glory days. There was/is so much so many of us could feel good about, about how we are doing something difficult: growing a multicultural liberal tolerant democratic society. And yes we have our shame as well- as a country. But we have never before seen the fast paced dismantling of our government, the Executive using the Congress both houses and practically owning the Supreme Court. We are 10 months into this " monster thing" that has been moving quickly like a thunder and lightining storm over us. We are just getting our stride resisting. The Republican shell that the MAGA party owns now HAS the power.
Only we can stop this if we work together.. against fear, complacency, nihilism, despair, negativity, selfishness.
The yin and yang of this is that the more THEY do to destroy hurt and tear us apart, the more we wake up to the call and fight back, the more this hurt reaches. People will realize that this is not about the usual partisan differences. It's about the ground we stand on. This is a plague that destroys its host..a cancer. If we allow it. The MAGA make no sense, they have no future here even after Trump but they will continue take us all down only if or until we stop them. History teaches...
Hopefully this will not last too long- but as long as it takes.
Best Wishes
With you, friend. You really expressed the astonishment of seeing all that our predecessors worked for and all that we have lived for destroyed. My father came to America from Cuba before the revolution and could never go home again. I never thought I would see that day come here. See you on October 18th!