kamala

I'll be voting for Kamala Harris in the general election. Quick turnaround, considering how long this blog has been active.

I'm not excited by her policies. However, she didn't instigate a violent coup as a distraction to steal the presidency with false electors. She wasn't found liable for sexual assault. She's not obviously too old to do the job.

We can worry about electing candidates with good political platforms once the incompetent ones are out of the way.

I blame Trump's fan club for the debased way politics has been discussed in the last decade. But the class of 'centrist' commentators that simply spent the years talking around Trump are starting to let the mask slip now. I thought of myself as on the centrist wavelength because the online left and right are alienating milieus. It made sense to avoid talking about narcissists; attention is their oxygen. But if this was a rhetorical arrangement to enable Trump supporters to avoid making an intellectual case for their candidate, it's time to remove the veil. (I'm not referring to centrists that refuse to vote.)

I'm sympathetic to the critique that Harris is a cop. As district attorney, she had far too many convictions for nonviolent drug offenses. But there is still no alternative within the two major political parties. Republican talking points on small government have always been hollow when on the subject of drug policy. Convictions for sex work follow the same reasoning.

It isn't great that Harris helped to shield the public from knowing the extent of Biden's mental decline. I won't defend that. I also don't expect anything more from those in Trump's orbit, where any principle beyond loyalty would get them tossed. We already know that they would shield the public from knowledge of Trump's mental decline.

Aside from concerns that are too sexist or frivolous to address, the only remaining argument against Harris that I see is that she is a 'DEI candidate'. This phrase isn't a coherent critique. It is a way to remind partisans of where their loyalties lie.

I don't want to create my entire media identity railing for or against 'diversity, equity and inclusion', though there's money in that back and forth. To me, it makes sense to put a thumb on the scales to correct for historic injustice, IF there is planned obsolescence incorporated into the action. I don't like the left-wing view that the problems of discrimination are intractable, any more than the right-wing view that they are all in the past. Politics might be the worst realm to try to hash out these questions.

Taking a side is not as cool as sitting on the margins, hoping that both candidates lose. But I'm a dog owner. Sometimes you have to reward good behavior and punish bad.