~a column by Colleen O’Brien
The Democrats have been able to back away from peering into an open grave because President Joe Biden relinquished his plan to win the presidency of the United States for a second term.
As soon as he voiced his good, sad, difficult decision, he immediately presented his vice-president Kamala Harris as the ideal Democrat to go up against the Trump Party (once known as the Republican Party) for the role of the next president of us.
But a woman? What has misogynistic America come to?
Commentarians and newscasters have been mumbling on page 4 for three years that Harris had no real essence, place, notoriety, power, role in the administration. If they said anything.
But who was it who made her invisible? According to the weak mouthpieces of our country (the Press) when it comes to women, she’s spent 3-1/2 years as an invisible who’s done nothing of note and whom no one knew or cared about, when they, the Press, are the ones who make known to us who is talking and what is going on. They did not do their job.
Who would have thought she could possibly pick up the baton and lead the race against the same old snotty opposition – which would mean the far right, the leader of which seems to dislike women unless they might do something for him; and the mainstream legacy Press, which is owned by wealthy corporations who are greedy for the next tax cuts for the wealthy.
I’m sick of it – the US Press ignoring certain people and issues – as sick I was during Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency: once Hillary found herself in the position as wife of a governor, the Press was biting at her thick ankles and her bossy ways. And then along came a (probably thick-ankled) obnoxiously bossy, once-Democrat-turned Republican, self-defined wealthy person; plus the owners of the legacy Press (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) who stumbled upon their bucket of gold. The denying–everything ex-president still gets “above-the-fold” exposure. [This means he is on the front page of the New Tork Times, etc., just under the masthead banner with the name of the newspaper; as well as the first face I see on any video newsfeed on my phone.]
It is not the ladies, folks, who are weak because they have no worthy front-page words. It is the people who are told how to put out the front page who routinely ignore a woman of any kind of smarts and power, put her down if they acknowledge her existence at all, tell unimportant stories about the woman’s personality, her clothing, her ankles, her shoes, her laugh . . . and who have refused to cover her positive points, thoughts, actions, track record and on and on.
What is it about women being less-than in this 249-year United States mindset?
With any luck at all – and I’m speaking to both males and females, blacks, whites of all persuasions – we are on the road to DEI – diversity, equality and inclusion. The Trump Party likes to be coy about using this phrase; they use it as a dog-whistle – words to indicate letting in the people of color to the great American dream and how kind of them. Kamala is a person of color – she is South Asian (India) and Jamaican. The DEI phrase comes from the Left and means all people are important in this country, not just the white ones, and it means we will work to make this happen. It is not a slogan of denigration or noblesse oblige superiority, as the far right would make it.
That the ex-president lies about Harris hiding her parentage is sickening, demeaning and so blatantly not true, he makes a fool of himself.
To what end?
He knows precisely what he’s doing – performing like the Carney shill he is so that everyone hears him; in other words, to get more Press. He knows he can say stupid things, and the more untrue, the better; the meaner, the better; the louder, the better . . . because the legacy Press will jump on his story as if they’ve heard the clarion call – more readership! More money! They can make all the nonsense important, talk about it endlessly as if it’s a mystery on the one hand or just plain old ha-ha Trump, whatever it is he’s just made up. Not one of the mainstream Press has admitted that the ex-president’s unbelievable popularity is so because of their calculatedly greedy coverage of him over the last 10 years.
Even I have done this over the past decade, ranting about his idiocy, missing this schtick – that he was riling us up to distract us from his actual goings-on in the White House.
The U.S. is in a fight for its life as a democratic republic, so we have to pay attention . . . and I say, not to the legacy Press but to the independent presses*. Most of what we hear from Fox is a repeated lie from the ex-president. And most of what we have heard from the mainstream legacy Press about him over the past decade has never been refuted as a lie (although, now they do mention, here and there, that what he just said was untrue; they are kind of learning, weakly admitting, perhaps, their role in a close call with democracy versus autocracy).
And, finally, the new girl on the block – of South Asian and Black parentage – is deftly repeating the ex-president’s lies back to him as lies. How many times have I wondered why the announcer or the interviewer has not said to the ex-president when he’s calling her “nasty” or “rude” has not countered with, “But you, mister, were the first to be rude, so I am merely following your lead.”
Kamala Harris has leapt forward to her place in history with enthusiasm, vast experience, vigor and, mostly, joy. I applaud her laugh, her wit, her quickness to respond; and mostly, to her obvious love of her country – never saying our country is a place of “carnage,” as did the ex-president in his very first speech to the public at his inauguration.
It is obvious she loves and applauds her country . . . and us.
P.S. The good-news bulletin having to do with misogyny in this country: A “White Dudes for Harris” zoom meeting the other day garnered $4 million for Harris in three hours and 20 minutes. And since then, Latino Dudes for Harris and South Asian Dudes for Harris have surfaced. The rude misogyny of our past and present may be trickling away, which will make our country bigger, stronger, better . . . maybe even fulfilling the full promise of a republic of “we the people”
“The times, they are a’changin’.” And it’s time.
*Independent media, commentary, podcasts:
The 19th news; Amnesty International; The Guardian; ProPublica; The Atlantic; Anthropocene; The Independent; Not Fake News
