Kamala Harris was my pick for presidential candidate - I'm happy to see her as VP candidate. I'll agree with those who are saying that she's the palest and least black-looking of the black women under consideration, and we all know that that's a thing - people, particularly women, who have lighter skin and a mixed-race appearance tend to experience less discrimination in the workplace than darker-skinned women with natural African hair.
How that works out for her and Biden in terms of electoral calculus, I don't know. With her rather authoritarian background, she won't excite the progressive left, but will she be good enough to attract the votes? (Yes, we agree that in a rational world, Trump/Pence would lose to Biden/Person with Pulse by a landslide. We don't live in a rational world.)
Trump was an outsider. That was the point. This time he has an unenviable track record which he can only defend by lying. That may be enough for his diehard supporters but I think he’ll lose out with the swing voters.
I know that in 2016 Trump got the votes that counted in the swing States. The swing States were more attracted to the outsider. But the popular vote majority isn’t irrelevant. It teaches that State by State polls are going to be a more accurate means of forecasting than national polls. So I hope Biden/Harris has a better strategy for swing States this time than Hillary had last time. You can lose Presidential elections by putting money and effort in the wrong places.
So I hope Biden/Harris has a better strategy for swing States this time than Hillary had last time. You can lose Presidential elections by putting money and effort in the wrong places.
I'm not sure that's the case when it comes to the 2016 presidential election. Elections that large are complicated things and although it can be comforting to identify one exact thing that was done by one of the campaigns that was decisive in winning/losing the contest it's often a gross oversimplification.
Interestingly enough, the Clinton campaign's efforts in what turned out to be decisive swing states is an almost laboratory-perfect test of this proposition. In Wisconsin (where Clinton lost by 0.76 percentage points) the campaign spent almost no time or effort, running some radio and TV ads in the last few weeks of the campaign. In Michigan (0.22 pp) there was greater effort consisting of a lot of ad buys and a few late campaign personal appearances by Clinton, Kaine, and other high-profile surrogates. In Pennsylvania (0.72 pp) the Clinton campaign went all out; massive ad buys, lots of in-person campaigning, and an election eve GOTV rally featuring a Springsteen concert. Given that the same very narrow margin loss occurred in all three of these states despite the very different levels of money and effort devoted to them, the most reasonable conclusion is that the decisive factors were thing outside the control of either campaign.
her father was a college professor, an immigrant whose grandparents had been slave holders in Jamaica.
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, ( I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Harris's bio strikes me as similar to Obama's in some ways - she comes from a mixed-race background, her parents divorced when she was young, she spent a significant amount of time growing up outside the US, and she embraced her Black identity as a young adult - younger than Obama seems to have done, when she chose to go to Howard University.
her father was a college professor, an immigrant whose grandparents had been slave holders in Jamaica.
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, (I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Snopes lists this as "unproven", a bit of family lore likely learned as oral history but without documentary evidence to back it up.
There is no doubt that Hamilton Brown was a prominent plantation owner in Jamaica during the first half of the 19th century, owned slaves, and also advocated against the abolition of slavery and sought to downplay the difficult working and living conditions of slaves in Jamaica.
However, we have been unable to verify that a line of descent exists between the modern-day Harris family and the 19th-century slave owner. As such, the claim that an ancestor of Sen. Harris owned slaves in Jamaica remains unproven. If evidence emerges that verifies that line of descent, we will update this fact check accordingly.
So, pretty much like everyone else's family history if you go back far enough in time. What's interesting to me is how enthusiastically Senator Harris' conservative detractors embraced this bit of family lore as a dead certainty while taking the exact opposite position on the family lore of Harris' Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren.
Kamala Harris came out of San Francisco politics, as do many politicians successful at the state level in California, despite the fact that there a lot more people in southern California. SF politics are absolutely cut-throat, and if you can do well there, you can go far. California Gov. Newsom, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein all come out of San Francisco. In San Francisco politicians learn how to fight and how to negotiate, they learn how and when to compromise, and they learn how to get things done with people they disagree with.
Kamala Harris is tough, and I'm sure this was part of the equation when Biden was making his pick. An unbelievable amount of racism and sexism is coming her way.
I've watched her work in televised Senate hearings and I have been uniformly impressed ... She is smart, experienced, well educated and tough ... It will be interesting to see if there will be a VP debate between her and Pence (who is distinctly *lite* weight) ...
Not to sound too Bolshevik about this, but I have an impatience with the lack of disciple with the American left, viz, not supporting Clinton in 2016. Not your first choice? Too bad. Are you and your republic better off today for your having sat out? Unless you were playing the long game to exacerbate conditions to prepare the way for the coming revolution, you were being petulant and irresponsible.
Harris began kindergarten in the second year of Berkeley's school desegregation busing program, which adopted busing to bring racial balance to the city's public schools; a bus drove her to a school which, two years prior, had been 95% white.[19] Her parents divorced when she was seven; she has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, neighbors' kids were not allowed to play with them because they were black.[16]
That's from the "Early Life" section. The paragraph just above it mentions that she has background in both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple.
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
I think that says more about what you read than what the coverage is like. Just about all the stories I've read include both her being the first black American woman and first Asian American (some say Indian American) on a major party ticket, and say it in the lede.
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
Probably that, for largely historical reasons, African Americans loom larger in the generalized American consciousness than Indian Americans. Specific, individualized American consciousnesses, on the other hand:
Preet Bharara
The most excited person I talked to today was my Indian mom. Because she cannot wait to vote for Vice President Kamala Devi Harris.
11 Aug 2020
For those who don't recall, Mr. Bharara was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who was fired by the Trump administration* early on. Many have felt that this looked incredibly sketchy since the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY was involved with several Trump-related investigations at the time.
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
I think that says more about what you read than what the coverage is like. Just about all the stories I've read include both her being the first black American woman and first Asian American (some say Indian American) on a major party ticket, and say it in the lede.
I didn’t say that news sources don’t mention that she is Indian-American, but that they say little about it. Most everything I have seen has mentioned that she is both African-American and Indian-American but then gone on to talk almost exclusively, when talking about her in demographic terms, about her gender and African-American ancestry.
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
Asians are the magic minority, remember? Asians, as a group, outperform every other group in schools, and Asian doctors are a classic stereotype. So an Asian getting a senior job in politics doesn't seem so important as a Black person getting it.
her father was a college professor, an immigrant whose grandparents had been slave holders in Jamaica.
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, ( I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Not sure why her ancestor's having been slave owner would matter. Doesn't change how she grew up.
Surprisingly little is said about how she is the first Indian-American (or Asian-American, for that matter) to be nominated (or she will be, next week) on a presidential ticket by a major party. What does everyone think about the significance of this?
Probably that, for largely historical reasons, African Americans loom larger in the generalized American consciousness than Indian Americans.
This. Treatment of African Americans has been one of America's original sins for hundreds of years, and it runs pretty deep. Treatment of Native Americans is another one. America is always going to be sick at the core until those are...addressed? fixed? healed? balanced?
her father was a college professor, an immigrant whose grandparents had been slave holders in Jamaica.
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, ( I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Not sure why her ancestor's having been slave owner would matter. Doesn't change how she grew up.
No it doesn't change how she grew up and it doesn't "matter." I was listing ways that her life was atypical compared with most African Americans and that was one of the ways. Her life has been interesting and rather unusual, is it okay to say that?
Not sure why her ancestor's having been slave owner would matter. Doesn't change how she grew up.
No it doesn't change how she grew up and it doesn't "matter." I was listing ways that her life was atypical compared with most African Americans and that was one of the ways. Her life has been interesting and rather unusual, is it okay to say that?
As noted previously, given the prevalence of rape in slavery it's not uncommon for the descendants of slaves to have slaveholding ancestors. It may even be more common than not, rather than being "atypical".
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
I was remembering the argument about the “rust States” in 2016 re the ground game. That’s different to ads and promos. It’s about getting the votes out. That requires time, money, motivated local organisation.
But I’ll check the comparative stats if I can find them.
her father was a college professor, an immigrant whose grandparents had been slave holders in Jamaica.
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, ( I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Not sure why her ancestor's having been slave owner would matter. Doesn't change how she grew up.
No it doesn't change how she grew up and it doesn't "matter." I was listing ways that her life was atypical compared with most African Americans and that was one of the ways. Her life has been interesting and rather unusual, is it okay to say that?
Why would it have been atypical? Someone who is 1/8th white would still be thought of as non-white in the US.
No it doesn't change how she grew up and it doesn't "matter." I was listing ways that her life was atypical compared with most African Americans and that was one of the ways. Her life has been interesting and rather unusual, is it okay to say that?
Why would it have been atypical? Someone who is 1/8th white would still be thought of as non-white in the US.
For a lot of U.S. history someone who was 7/8th white would still be thought of as non-white.
The Establishment was the enemy. Hillary was an Establishment Democrat.
Irrelevant. Trump, despite being batshit crazy, is establishment.
Economically, yes, Trump is establishment. But I think what people mean when they say he's not establishment is that he's an outsider as far as the political establishment goes. IOW he didn't rise to power via the usual channels in DC or state capitals. He basically went from Manhattan landlord to TV show host to president with no stops at city hall, state capital, congress, or a military barrack. That gives him a very different public image than someone like Hillary Clinton, or indeed anyone has served as president.
That Trump was elected, much less nominated, much less taken seriously when he anointed himself as POTUS *candidate*
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
The Electors are instructed to vote based on which candidate wins in that state ... I think that Nebraska is the only state that does the sensible thing -- awards electoral votes proportionally rather than *winner*take*all* ...
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
Perhaps something is lost in cultural translation, but “I’d vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate” basically means “I’ll vote for Biden no matter who he picked as his running mate.” It means there’s no one Biden could pick that would keep her from voting for him.
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
Yes, I forgot he may not be known outside the U. S. Jerry Springer is a creepy talk show host who was once mayor of Cincinnati. Saying I would vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate was like saying I would vote for him if Hitler was his running mate. I actually thought of saying that but I figured someone would tell me that Hitler couldn't be his running mate because he was dead. Croesos would have a link.
Because, if I know anything it's that there's nothing too small and petty to pull out of a post and make issue of. After all just look at how we are now talking about the percentage of blackness in Kamala Harris because I thought her Jamaican heritage was a little bit different than the typical African American with her most recent roots in the southern states.
I also know that we can have long threads where we pick apart the entire careers and all surrounding gossip associated with candidates like Joe Biden, but apparently Kamala Harris is off limits. It may be time for a woman to be president but evidently not yet time to treat her with the same scrutiny as any other political candidate.
Doesnt matter, Trump will get a 2nd term. Thanks to the anarchists and rioters.
The verminous trump barely made it last time. With his record of corruption and incompetence growing every day, there is no possible way for him to pull it off again legitimately. If all goes as he deserves, his second term will be a jail term. I can hardly wait to hear Kamala Harris debate Pontius Pence. Exciting times!
From Facebook. Against the "she was a DA; she is beyond redemption" argument:
It’s a little bit too convenient for white folks to develop a capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist society, with capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist systems, and then ensure that the only way for oppressed people to be financially secure and attain any level of power or influence is through the maintenance of these systems; only to flip the script once an oppressed person nears a pinnacle of power and use their ability to learn and play the game against them.
I haven't seen any "she was a DA; she's beyond redemption" stuff, but whoever wrote that seems to have missed the fact that this downtrodden, oppressed person has already achieved some huge pinnacles of power and may soon be in one of the top positions in the entire world. This reminds me of the people who complain that the press "bullies" Trump. You can't bully someone who has more power than you. Harris is a U. S. Senator and he's still claiming she's being kept down and oppressed by meanies on the internet. As if.
I haven't seen any "she was a DA; she's beyond redemption" stuff, but whoever wrote that seems to have missed the fact that this downtrodden, oppressed person has already achieved some huge pinnacles of power and may soon be in one of the top positions in the entire world. This reminds me of the people who complain that the press "bullies" Trump. You can't bully someone who has more power than you. Harris is a U. S. Senator and he's still claiming she's being kept down and oppressed by meanies on the internet. As if.
Obama was the president, but still faced the same prejudice that other, non-political black people face. Systemic racism doesn't end when a brown person gets into the system. Granted, Harris and Obama do not face the same level of oppression that a poor black person does. And, because of power, they do have privileges that most white people do not. But they colour of their skin is still a factor.
Also, if a person has gone through all that shit when they were younger, that doesn't magically disappear. We are, at least in part, our past as well as our present.
--Hmmm...I think you *can* bully someone with more power than you, as a way of getting your own power back and maybe some revenge.
--As to mt's FB quote: I think the writer is saying that KH *has* learned to play the game, and she *has* achieved some power that way. And some (white) people don't like that, because they don't expect anyone not like them to play the game successfully, and don't want Those People to play at all.
--The press *can and do bully*, but I don't think they're actually bullying T. He just can't cope with questions and disagreements.
I haven't seen any "she was a DA; she's beyond redemption" stuff...
I have. On a few websites in the general neighbourhood of the Bernie Bros. Similar attacks, and from the same sorta quarters, were also made against the First Nations Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former Crown prosecutor who was Canada's attorney-general, when she publically contradicted her own Liberal government over a scandal some time last year.
The Establishment was the enemy. Hillary was an Establishment Democrat.
Irrelevant. Trump, despite being batshit crazy, is establishment.
Economically, yes, Trump is establishment. But I think what people mean when they say he's not establishment is that he's an outsider as far as the political establishment goes. IOW he didn't rise to power via the usual channels in DC or state capitals. He basically went from Manhattan landlord to TV show host to president with no stops at city hall, state capital, congress, or a military barrack. That gives him a very different public image than someone like Hillary Clinton, or indeed anyone has served as president.
That Trump was elected, much less nominated, much less taken seriously when he anointed himself as POTUS *candidate*
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
The Electors are instructed to vote based on which candidate wins in that state ... I think that Nebraska is the only state that does the sensible thing -- awards electoral votes proportionally rather than *winner*take*all* ...
Not quite. Two states use what is called the Congressional Electoral Method in which each congressional district in the state gets to select one elector for that district. Two of the electors, though, will be decided by the total vote of the state--Maine has done this since 1976 and Nebraska has done this since 1996. https://www.fairvote.org/maine_nebraska
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
Yes, I forgot he may not be known outside the U. S. Jerry Springer is a creepy talk show host who was once mayor of Cincinnati. Saying I would vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate was like saying I would vote for him if Hitler was his running mate. I actually thought of saying that but I figured someone would tell me that Hitler couldn't be his running mate because he was dead. Croesos would have a link.
Because, if I know anything it's that there's nothing too small and petty to pull out of a post and make issue of. After all just look at how we are now talking about the percentage of blackness in Kamala Harris because I thought her Jamaican heritage was a little bit different than the typical African American with her most recent roots in the southern states.
I also know that we can have long threads where we pick apart the entire careers and all surrounding gossip associated with candidates like Joe Biden, but apparently Kamala Harris is off limits. It may be time for a woman to be president but evidently not yet time to treat her with the same scrutiny as any other political candidate.
Thank you and others for clarifying.
You have still not said for whom you will vote? Will you vote for Biden? Your attitude strikes me as very similar to the actions of one Phil Cleary in our 1999 referendum on becoming a republic. Rather than concentrate on this main issue, Cleary argued for a particular model on the choice of a president in any new republic. Little Johnny Howard, then the pro-monarchist prime minister seized on this dissension in the republican ranks and won his way. So over a minor point, we're still a monarchy.
The Establishment was the enemy. Hillary was an Establishment Democrat.
Irrelevant. Trump, despite being batshit crazy, is establishment.
Economically, yes, Trump is establishment. But I think what people mean when they say he's not establishment is that he's an outsider as far as the political establishment goes. IOW he didn't rise to power via the usual channels in DC or state capitals. He basically went from Manhattan landlord to TV show host to president with no stops at city hall, state capital, congress, or a military barrack. That gives him a very different public image than someone like Hillary Clinton, or indeed anyone has served as president.
That Trump was elected, much less nominated, much less taken seriously when he anointed himself as POTUS *candidate*
I'd vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate. I don't hate Kamala, I just read Politico's 55 "Things you should know about Kamala Harris," and about half the things sounded good and half bad. She just wasn't my first pick and seeing the media fawn over her with pieces that look more like campaign ads than informative news is a bit hard to take.
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
The Electors are instructed to vote based on which candidate wins in that state ... I think that Nebraska is the only state that does the sensible thing -- awards electoral votes proportionally rather than *winner*take*all* ...
Not quite. Two states use what is called the Congressional Electoral Method in which each congressional district in the state gets to select one elector for that district. Two of the electors, though, will be decided by the total vote of the state--Maine has done this since 1976 and Nebraska has done this since 1996. https://www.fairvote.org/maine_nebraska
I knew about Nebraska, didn't know about Maine ... Makes more sense than *winner*takes*all* IMHO ...
The Electors are instructed to vote based on which candidate wins in that state ... I think that Nebraska is the only state that does the sensible thing -- awards electoral votes proportionally rather than *winner*take*all* ...
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that subdivide their electoral votes by Congressional District. Of course that means their electoral vote distribution is subject to the same kind of gerrymandering as their Congressional Districts. Whether this is more fair than a winner take all distribution is left to the reader.
I haven't seen any "she was a DA; she's beyond redemption" stuff, but whoever wrote that seems to have missed the fact that this downtrodden, oppressed person has already achieved some huge pinnacles of power and may soon be in one of the top positions in the entire world. This reminds me of the people who complain that the press "bullies" Trump. You can't bully someone who has more power than you. Harris is a U. S. Senator and he's still claiming she's being kept down and oppressed by meanies on the internet. As if.
Quite a bit of stuff in the news on Harris' prosecutorial record, eg. Barbara Boxer has made critical remarks, as has some law professor in SF. The main complaint being, it seems, that she was indifferent to police brutality and supportive of overly punitive measures.
Personally, I don't think this hurts the Democrats, and, in fact, probably helps. There are usually more votes to be lost by being seen as soft-on-crime than by being seen as soft-on-cops.
*Possibly*, IMHO. But not reasonably, IMVHO. Unless maybe he'd inherited a lot of wealth that was due to slavery, and he'd never done any good with it, and hadn't publicly distanced himself from that part of his heritage.
If we're all judged for things our ancestors/relatives did...
Twilight’s ‘if’ needs to be read as ‘even if’ not as ‘if only’. I dare say if we’d heard her words spoken the tone of voice would have made that clear.
Yes. Like saying, "Hell, *yes*, I'd vote for Biden, even if he had that creepy talk show host as VP: the situation is that serious, we've got to keep T from another term, and I'm that friggin' desperate".
*Possibly*, IMHO. But not reasonably, IMVHO. Unless maybe he'd inherited a lot of wealth that was due to slavery, and he'd never done any good with it, and hadn't publicly distanced himself from that part of his heritage.
If we're all judged for things our ancestors/relatives did...
I was drawing attention to the fossicking around in Harris's ancestry for something objectionable, which would be much more objectionable in a white person, and I totally agree that judging people by their possibly unknown about ancestors is ridiculous.
Someone doing it with me might well find that my mother's father's family once held an enormous number of shares in sugar, and that they lived in a house paid for from the dividends. I don't know this, but I wouldn't be surprised, and I daresay that anyone who might regard that as a stain on the family escutcheon would be delighted to know that they lost their money and their house through some badly advised investments. I think they would be wrong to make a point about me based on it.
I think much worse was a comment I read about Obama, that his blackness wasn't as bad as if he had the taint of slavery from an American black person. How long does that taint last? And shouldn't it taint the slaver rather than the enslaved?
To people who are that lost in prejudice, I doubt the taint ever really goes away. And they may not believe slavery was wrong at all, at least if *their own people* weren't slaves.
I've heard of people who are prejudiced against African Americans, but not (as much?) against Black people from Africa. As in coming across African tourists in the US, getting ready to be awful, finding out the people are from Africa, and sending them on their way.
Comments
This seems to me a somewhat jejune remark given that rape was fairly widespread under slavery.
How that works out for her and Biden in terms of electoral calculus, I don't know. With her rather authoritarian background, she won't excite the progressive left, but will she be good enough to attract the votes? (Yes, we agree that in a rational world, Trump/Pence would lose to Biden/Person with Pulse by a landslide. We don't live in a rational world.)
Trump was an outsider. That was the point. This time he has an unenviable track record which he can only defend by lying. That may be enough for his diehard supporters but I think he’ll lose out with the swing voters.
I know that in 2016 Trump got the votes that counted in the swing States. The swing States were more attracted to the outsider. But the popular vote majority isn’t irrelevant. It teaches that State by State polls are going to be a more accurate means of forecasting than national polls. So I hope Biden/Harris has a better strategy for swing States this time than Hillary had last time. You can lose Presidential elections by putting money and effort in the wrong places.
I'm not sure that's the case when it comes to the 2016 presidential election. Elections that large are complicated things and although it can be comforting to identify one exact thing that was done by one of the campaigns that was decisive in winning/losing the contest it's often a gross oversimplification.
Interestingly enough, the Clinton campaign's efforts in what turned out to be decisive swing states is an almost laboratory-perfect test of this proposition. In Wisconsin (where Clinton lost by 0.76 percentage points) the campaign spent almost no time or effort, running some radio and TV ads in the last few weeks of the campaign. In Michigan (0.22 pp) there was greater effort consisting of a lot of ad buys and a few late campaign personal appearances by Clinton, Kaine, and other high-profile surrogates. In Pennsylvania (0.72 pp) the Clinton campaign went all out; massive ad buys, lots of in-person campaigning, and an election eve GOTV rally featuring a Springsteen concert. Given that the same very narrow margin loss occurred in all three of these states despite the very different levels of money and effort devoted to them, the most reasonable conclusion is that the decisive factors were thing outside the control of either campaign.
That's not an attack line in Trump's world -- it is the highest praise.
I researched that a little more after your post. It was her father who had written that his grandfather was a slaveholder of a large plantation and I had assumed he was one of the many black plantation owners in Jamaica, ( I was just thinking that meant she came from a wealthy family and that it would make her ancestry rather opposite of many black Americans.) However the grandfather in question is listed as Irish so you may possibly be right about that crime being in their line of ancestry, there's always that chance in anyone's history. Her father names his grandmother who was daughter of that man, without any hint of that sort of thing and there is no indication that her father disliked his grandfather.
Snopes lists this as "unproven", a bit of family lore likely learned as oral history but without documentary evidence to back it up.
So, pretty much like everyone else's family history if you go back far enough in time. What's interesting to me is how enthusiastically Senator Harris' conservative detractors embraced this bit of family lore as a dead certainty while taking the exact opposite position on the family lore of Harris' Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren.
I've watched her work in televised Senate hearings and I have been uniformly impressed ... She is smart, experienced, well educated and tough ... It will be interesting to see if there will be a VP debate between her and Pence (who is distinctly *lite* weight) ...
Hillary *did* win the popular vote.
That's from the "Early Life" section. The paragraph just above it mentions that she has background in both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple.
I think that says more about what you read than what the coverage is like. Just about all the stories I've read include both her being the first black American woman and first Asian American (some say Indian American) on a major party ticket, and say it in the lede.
Probably that, for largely historical reasons, African Americans loom larger in the generalized American consciousness than Indian Americans. Specific, individualized American consciousnesses, on the other hand:
For those who don't recall, Mr. Bharara was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who was fired by the Trump administration* early on. Many have felt that this looked incredibly sketchy since the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY was involved with several Trump-related investigations at the time.
I didn’t say that news sources don’t mention that she is Indian-American, but that they say little about it. Most everything I have seen has mentioned that she is both African-American and Indian-American but then gone on to talk almost exclusively, when talking about her in demographic terms, about her gender and African-American ancestry.
Asians are the magic minority, remember? Asians, as a group, outperform every other group in schools, and Asian doctors are a classic stereotype. So an Asian getting a senior job in politics doesn't seem so important as a Black person getting it.
This. Treatment of African Americans has been one of America's original sins for hundreds of years, and it runs pretty deep. Treatment of Native Americans is another one. America is always going to be sick at the core until those are...addressed? fixed? healed? balanced?
No it doesn't change how she grew up and it doesn't "matter." I was listing ways that her life was atypical compared with most African Americans and that was one of the ways. Her life has been interesting and rather unusual, is it okay to say that?
As noted previously, given the prevalence of rape in slavery it's not uncommon for the descendants of slaves to have slaveholding ancestors. It may even be more common than not, rather than being "atypical".
But as Springer is not his running mate, for whom will you now vote? Or will you not vote at all, or vote for a minor party candidate, and make it easier for Trump to get back in*?
And good on the media for giving her good publicity.
*Knowing that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate but rather for the Electoral College.
I was remembering the argument about the “rust States” in 2016 re the ground game. That’s different to ads and promos. It’s about getting the votes out. That requires time, money, motivated local organisation.
But I’ll check the comparative stats if I can find them.
Why would it have been atypical? Someone who is 1/8th white would still be thought of as non-white in the US.
For a lot of U.S. history someone who was 7/8th white would still be thought of as non-white.
That Trump was elected, much less nominated, much less taken seriously when he anointed himself as POTUS *candidate*
The Electors are instructed to vote based on which candidate wins in that state ... I think that Nebraska is the only state that does the sensible thing -- awards electoral votes proportionally rather than *winner*take*all* ...
Yes, I forgot he may not be known outside the U. S. Jerry Springer is a creepy talk show host who was once mayor of Cincinnati. Saying I would vote for Biden if Jerry Springer was his running mate was like saying I would vote for him if Hitler was his running mate. I actually thought of saying that but I figured someone would tell me that Hitler couldn't be his running mate because he was dead. Croesos would have a link.
Because, if I know anything it's that there's nothing too small and petty to pull out of a post and make issue of. After all just look at how we are now talking about the percentage of blackness in Kamala Harris because I thought her Jamaican heritage was a little bit different than the typical African American with her most recent roots in the southern states.
I also know that we can have long threads where we pick apart the entire careers and all surrounding gossip associated with candidates like Joe Biden, but apparently Kamala Harris is off limits. It may be time for a woman to be president but evidently not yet time to treat her with the same scrutiny as any other political candidate.
The verminous trump barely made it last time. With his record of corruption and incompetence growing every day, there is no possible way for him to pull it off again legitimately. If all goes as he deserves, his second term will be a jail term. I can hardly wait to hear Kamala Harris debate Pontius Pence. Exciting times!
Also, if a person has gone through all that shit when they were younger, that doesn't magically disappear. We are, at least in part, our past as well as our present.
Twilight--
--Hmmm...I think you *can* bully someone with more power than you, as a way of getting your own power back and maybe some revenge.
--As to mt's FB quote: I think the writer is saying that KH *has* learned to play the game, and she *has* achieved some power that way. And some (white) people don't like that, because they don't expect anyone not like them to play the game successfully, and don't want Those People to play at all.
--The press *can and do bully*, but I don't think they're actually bullying T. He just can't cope with questions and disagreements.
I have. On a few websites in the general neighbourhood of the Bernie Bros. Similar attacks, and from the same sorta quarters, were also made against the First Nations Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former Crown prosecutor who was Canada's attorney-general, when she publically contradicted her own Liberal government over a scandal some time last year.
Not quite. Two states use what is called the Congressional Electoral Method in which each congressional district in the state gets to select one elector for that district. Two of the electors, though, will be decided by the total vote of the state--Maine has done this since 1976 and Nebraska has done this since 1996. https://www.fairvote.org/maine_nebraska
Thank you and others for clarifying.
You have still not said for whom you will vote? Will you vote for Biden? Your attitude strikes me as very similar to the actions of one Phil Cleary in our 1999 referendum on becoming a republic. Rather than concentrate on this main issue, Cleary argued for a particular model on the choice of a president in any new republic. Little Johnny Howard, then the pro-monarchist prime minister seized on this dissension in the republican ranks and won his way. So over a minor point, we're still a monarchy.
I knew about Nebraska, didn't know about Maine ... Makes more sense than *winner*takes*all* IMHO ...
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that subdivide their electoral votes by Congressional District. Of course that means their electoral vote distribution is subject to the same kind of gerrymandering as their Congressional Districts. Whether this is more fair than a winner take all distribution is left to the reader.
Trump is claiming this? Citation please?
Personally, I don't think this hurts the Democrats, and, in fact, probably helps. There are usually more votes to be lost by being seen as soft-on-crime than by being seen as soft-on-cops.
*Possibly*, IMHO. But not reasonably, IMVHO. Unless maybe he'd inherited a lot of wealth that was due to slavery, and he'd never done any good with it, and hadn't publicly distanced himself from that part of his heritage.
If we're all judged for things our ancestors/relatives did...
Thanks - I am unable to see that, but I accept what you say.
I.e., that's the subtext.
I was drawing attention to the fossicking around in Harris's ancestry for something objectionable, which would be much more objectionable in a white person, and I totally agree that judging people by their possibly unknown about ancestors is ridiculous.
Someone doing it with me might well find that my mother's father's family once held an enormous number of shares in sugar, and that they lived in a house paid for from the dividends. I don't know this, but I wouldn't be surprised, and I daresay that anyone who might regard that as a stain on the family escutcheon would be delighted to know that they lost their money and their house through some badly advised investments. I think they would be wrong to make a point about me based on it.
I think much worse was a comment I read about Obama, that his blackness wasn't as bad as if he had the taint of slavery from an American black person. How long does that taint last? And shouldn't it taint the slaver rather than the enslaved?
To people who are that lost in prejudice, I doubt the taint ever really goes away. And they may not believe slavery was wrong at all, at least if *their own people* weren't slaves.
I've heard of people who are prejudiced against African Americans, but not (as much?) against Black people from Africa. As in coming across African tourists in the US, getting ready to be awful, finding out the people are from Africa, and sending them on their way.