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Notes -
I watched the Harris speech this morning and wrote down some scattered thoughts. My apologies if any of them don't make sense without having watched, I was just typing a few things up as I watched.
Nice outfit - fairly warm while still professional.
When she mentioned going to Illinois, there was a small cheer, when she mentioned Wisconsin there was a much larger cheer. No one likes Illinois, not even the people that live there.
Talking about the experience of “injustice” is in such bad taste for the child of professors. These are privileged people that found immense opportunity in the United States. I realize that the whole Democrat schtick is playing up how oppressed people of color are, but it’s ridiculous for Harris.
The phrase, “I’ve only had one client - the people” is a fantastic way to spin never having held a private sector job. Good speechwriting!
The line referring to Trump as an “unserious man” is a good line. Trump’s lack of seriousness is obvious to all but his most ardent supporters. This criticism rings as much more on point than all of the Russia conspiracy and “coup” nonsense ever could.
The claim that Trump has an “explicit intent to jail journalists” is just an outright lie.
The callback to her earlier line with “the only client he has ever had - himself” is great speechwriting. Banger of a setup and punchline. Much like the lack of seriousness jab, this rings much more true than all of the dark conspiracy stuff.
The line that the Department of Education “funds our public schools” is pretty weird. It’s not quite literally false, the DoE does spend ~$20 billion on public school funding, but total American school spending is nearly $1 trillion and the vast majority of it is state and local money. Are people under the impression that school funding is a big thing that DoE does or is it just a bit of rhetoric?
Referring to abortion as “decisions of heart and home” is an interesting tactic. Abortion is a huge winning issue for Democrats, but it’s so frequently referred to with euphemisms rather than in the most literal terminology. I’m basically entirely on the same side as Democrats on the issue, which makes it more interesting to me that it tends to come with alternative phrasing rather than just saying what they mean.
Shoehorning every issue into “freedom” requires some downright Orwellian twists. Abrogating the constitutional freedom of the right to bear arms is inverted to “freedom to live without gun violence”. A massive regulatory state creating arcane rules for everything from flow of showerheads to the powertrains of vehicles becomes “the freedom to live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis”. I think the framing probably works for people on that side of those issues though.
Claiming that the recent Senate border bill was the “strongest in decades” is a lie. HR 2 from 2023 passed the House and was much stronger but was unacceptable to Democrats. I do understand that this one has become an accepted truth among Democrats though, so it probably plays pretty well. Continuing to push this one requires a fully complicit media, but she can safely rely on that.
The Israel line is politically palatable, but also pretty hollow. Israel has a right to defend itself, but the Palestinian people will get freedom and self-determination - OK, what’s that look like? As near as I can tell, Palestinian self-determination selects Islamist leaders. Islamist leaders want dead Israelis and the land returned to Palestinians from the river to the sea. You can’t solve this problem if you’re not addressing reality. Someone has to actually lose.
Overall, it was a well-delivered speech that tacks towards the middle on most issues. While I am personally not impressed by teleprompter speeches, her tone and clarity were both quite good. Simply being energetic and eloquent is a good look. If I were a Democrat strategist, I would feel good about the speech and consider it a positive step towards victory.
The man got shot in the head and, after standing up, started chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" He gave up a very cushy real-estate and media career to do that. The man is incredibly serious. I reject the implication that people like Joe Biden or Mitt Romney or whoever are serious because they speak calmly. If this is the common verdict across the political spectrum, it's the opinion of a weak electorate that values deeply silly traditions about how politicians are supposed to act.
Counterpoints:
Love him or loathe him, the man is famous for hurling juvenile insults at his opponents and going off on weird random digressions about whatever crosses his mind. I think "unserious" is a perfectly valid adjective to describe such a man, regardless of what you think of his politics. You can describe him as such without questioning his bravery or the sincerity of his patriotism. "Serious" does not imply "speaking calmly": fire and passion have their place in politics. But I don't think it's too much to ask for a politician to be able to string a coherent sentence together.
Name an American politician who qualifies as "serious". Hillary Clinton? Mitt Romney? Bush? Jeb? Obama? We have clown politicians who speak idiotic childlike cliches because they are stupid and silly people.
Trump can't speak in coherent sentences? Trump is the only man alive today whose every utterance is taken seriously. Nobody will remember anything about Kamala Harris two years from now, except that Trump called her Komrad. The man is one of the funniest politicians alive, he is a poet, the way he speaks has literally changed the way we speak the language. Bigly! This is a tired cliche. Please consider how Trump regularly speaks to crowds of tens of thousands of people without teleprompters or notes, and this has made him the most powerful man in the world.
A serious politician is Lee Kuan Yew, who could speak to his nation like adults about controversial issues directly. A serious politician is Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke at something above a third-grade reading level. A serious politician is Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping, or Shinzo Abe. Calling Donald Trump an unserious politician -- compared to who? -- Kamala Harris! -- lmao! -- is an isolated demand for rigor. The woman who won't sit down and do any interviews, because when she talks, she explains that democracy, that's when the people, being the people, brcause the people, they have the power, and that's why it's so important -- when this woman speaks, as a rationalist, I listen!
FWIW, I don't think Kamala is a "serious" politician (or person) either. The absurdity that she's the current sitting VP and presidential nominee - and her campaign up to this point has been primarily focused on how "brat" she is rather than any substantive policy position - honestly, it's rather sickening.
Agreed. What has been worse is seeing my progressive close friends just become so nakedly and smugly political about it.
I've literally seen men I've known and respect for 10 years bragging about how stupid republicans are because they don't like being called 'weird.' It's just.... horrifying.
I was honestly on the fence about voting for Trump, but after seeing the start of this Kamala presidency and the reactions to it among people in my life, I am much more heavily leaning towards him.
Yeah, this election has brought out the worst in the left the way 2016 brought out the worst in the right. The growth of the ‘weird’ meme is just… weird. I said it when the ad came out and I’m saying it now: I don’t understand why the attack is landing, and why conservatives aren’t content to just laugh it off for the dumbassery it is.
But also, it’s just bullying. It’s puerile. And unlike Trump’s puerile bullying, it’s directed at the masses, at a large group of faceless people, not public figures. It has more “47%” or “bitter clingers” or “basket of deplorables” energy than “Ted Cruz’s wife is ugly” energy. I don’t like a lot of the bullying Trump does, but other than his views on illegal immigrants (which even Scott defended as more balanced than was reported), I don’t remember him bullying the masses.
Is this all about Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment, which wasn’t even made during the campaign? Did this piss off the childless cat ladies so much they went scorched earth?
I'm not sure it's new, so much as it's a new target. Prop8 Discourse was very broad and very ugly. I agree it's emboldened, though; it used to be lawn signs or bumper stickers, with a lot fewer calls to go out and apply them to other people's stuff before 2016.
((And that's not limited to the left; the right's fascination with sticker graffitti is just following the leader, but it wasn't something I'd have expected in 2016.))
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