Harris Picks Walz
Let the disappointment begin
Ah well. How sad. A great opportunity missed. Kamala picks Straight White Male (SWM) Tim Who for her running mate. She should have picked Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This is a rare moment of great change in our politics. As Naomi Klein laid out in her classic The Shock Doctrine, when a moment of great change happens, wise/crafty leaders take that opportunity to jam through as much change as possible. Don’t change a little, change a lot.
Harris could have had a ticket of two women. AOC is there. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is right there, practically neighbors with with Midwesterner Walz. Muslim U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is there. Harris could have really blew some minds by choosing Tlaib.
But Harris wasn’t bold enough to put two women on the ticket.
Nevertheless, if she jut had to have a white male from the Midwest, she could have had Pete Buttigieg.
- Mayor Pete has more national experience than Governor Walz, having served as Biden’s Secretary of Transportation for the last four years, and having run for president in the last election cycle. CORRECTION: Wrong again! Walz served six terms in Congress. Well I told you I never heard of him before!
- He is considerably younger than Walz, at 41 years old vs. 59 for both Walz and Harris.
- His name recognition is much higher than Who? Walz.
- Mayor Pete is sharp as a scalpel.
- He is better looking that Walz, for god’s sake!
- And — oh yes — he is openly and proudly gay. (But not fou-fou gay. Very straight-appearing gay. Very acceptable to the electorate. A favorite guest on Fox News!)
But Harris wasn’t bold enough to put two DEI persons on the ticket.
Hell, Walz is 6 feet 8 inches tall! He makes the miniscule Harris (5 feet 2 inches) look like a Barbie doll. (Yes, Barbie dolls can be Black. Or Indian. Are they doing mixed-race Barbies yet?) At least Mayor Pete, a full foot shorter than Walz, would help Harris look a bit taller. A rarely-violated rule in presidential races is that the tallest candidate always wins. Trump is 6 feet 3 inches — Kamala needs all the help she can get in the height department!
CORRECTION: Walz is only Trump’s height, 6 feet 3 inches. I am leaving the error in the preceding paragraph because it is funnier that way, but I fixed the chart below. Thanks to commentor Arluke for catching the hallucination.
Exceptions to the tallest-candidate rule:
* 1976: Jimmy Carter (5’10") defeated Gerald Ford (6’0")
* 2000: George W. Bush (6') defeated Al Gore (6’1") (but that’s barely a difference, and anyway, Gore won the popular vote)
* 2016: Tiny Hilary Clinton (5'4") won the popular vote over Trump (6'3")
Let me be clear: I love Kamala Harris, as a person and as a presidential candidate. I love her energy. I love her joy and her self-confidence. I love that she breaks the mold of SWM presidents. I like her politics. I love how she is going to whip Trump’s ass in the election. Then she and I will laugh together as Trump is sent to prison for his many crimes.
I love Tim (Who?) Walz, as a person and as a politician, from what I’ve learned about him in the last few days. I love his joy, his sense of humor, and his Big Dad energy. I love the liberal policies he has driven in his state.
I just don’t love Walz as Harris’s running mate.
Granted, if we must have a SWM on the ticket, Walz seems to be a good one. I’m just sick of SWM running this country. And I am sick about the opportunity missed.
But I knew from the start that I was going to be disappointed. Barak Obama taught me that. Obama was so fine with his exciting rhetoric of Hope and Change. But then he didn’t even fight for universal health care. He tried to bargain away Social Security. He committed war crimes with his illegal drone assassination program. After Obama, I stopped listening to politicians’ flowery speeches. Now I judge them only by their actions. I gave up all hope in the Democratic party.
(I am registered Green, but I vote Blue no matter who.)
So I never got my hopes up about Kamala, as much as I love her and and I am delighted watching her trouncing Trump. She’s not a radical progressive. She’s no Bernie. She’s a cop. She’s a believer in the status quo.
Harris will support some liberal issues, such as a woman’s right to choose and election integrity, but we cannot expect bold, radical action from her. Just look at her V.P. pick. We can expect nothing but more of the same. Good, solid decisions, but not the kind of bold action we need to turn around our world in crisis.
If I may quote (i.e. plagiarize) the great Medium writer Michael Campi (here), in a Harris-Walz administration:
- There is going to be no significant or even marginally significant legislation passed if they get into office.
- By every rational metric, they are going to fail in a spectacular fashion.
- There will be no relief for the millions that are suffering because of an ongoing pandemic.
- There will be no relief for the criminalized homeless.
- There will be no relief for the increasing percentage of the population that can no longer afford their rent or mortgage.
- There will be no relief for the ever-growing numbers of people who are being affected by natural disasters.
And let’s not forget that the Biden-Harris administration has been responsible for plenty of unsavory shit like the Mexican border asylum ban, record high fossil fuel production, and I won’t even get into the Israel/Palestine issue.
But it doesn’t really matter. I know what happens next: The Kamala/Walz ticket is going to win, obviously. However, when the next election cycle rolls around in four years, the climate change situation will be so bad that the then current administration will — rightly — be blamed and voted out. (Assuming the country is still functional enough to even hold an election.)
Kamala is a one-term president, and what comes after is hell on earth.
What’s a little disappointment in the meanwhile?
