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It's one thing to say she had a problem making racists and sexists happy; it's quite another to say that she foresaw a problem making homophobes happy and so she solved it.
Unless her aim was to sprinkle some controversy into the book to generate publicity for her talk show tour, I have no idea why she mentioned Buttigieg in that context. This was answering a question nobody was asking until she went on about "well clearly I couldn't have a gay guy as my running mate".
"Why couldn't you?"
"Gimme a break, it was hard enough trying to persuade the American people to vote for me because duh, it's me, how the heck would I get them to vote for a gay on top of that? Er, not that there's anything wrong with being born that way! Just... nobody is gonna vote for you except those freaks in California, and there's not enough of them to swing it despite our best efforts".
I honestly think Harris's chances at becoming POTUS in 2029 would've skyrocketed (to single digits) if her book and her interviews had that tone.
This is why Newsom is trying to emulate Trump on social media. That tone, if you can pull it off, has a certain brash appeal. "Look, I know you're not dumb, despite how the rest of this shower talk down to you. You know and I know we politicians are a bunch of chancers. But lemme put my cards on the table here: you vote for me, I won't screw you over. Some shit won't fly, you gotta accept that, and I can't do it for you. But listen, bud. Those elites hate you and they hate me. So together, we can give those fancy-pants elites a poke in the eye, and don't you wanna see that happen? C'mon, I know you do!"
I actually did get a really good laugh out of his most recent Trump parody, which makes me hate myself just a little bit for liking anything out of Newsom's stupid mouth, but yeah, it works.
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