I didn’t watch the Harris Town Hall on CNN. My friends and I were busy laughing to old George Carlin and Lenny Bruce records that likely proved much more enlightening. We heard George’s monologue about farting in school on Class Clown, which brought to mind Donald Trump’s farting in the courtroom.
One reason these old comedians are funny is that their remarks are so specific and pointed. Kamala, in contrast, often speaks in generalities, and I think generalities bore people or even turn them off. She reinforces General Kelly’s charges of fascism. Well, what does fascism really mean to most voters, especially young ones? She is vague on border issues and the environment.
As reported in the NY Times, on CNN she tended to give long, circular, winding answers to pointed questions.
Would she expand the Supreme Court? Would people who make $500,000 see their taxes increase? Would Americans pay for benefits for migrants crossing the border? How would she codify Roe v. Wade into federal law? And what about Gaza?
Her answers boiled down to: Donald Trump would be worse.
Giving direct and specific answers seems to threaten her. Shadi Hamid of the WaPo says: “I think she’s so afraid of alienating people with the wrong answers, but this can lead to the worst of both worlds, where she ends up offering answers that satisfy no one.” She punts once again on Gaza and the Palestinian disaster. She is just too cautious.
And Harris is not talking to the kitchen-table issues of working people, the constituency that used to provide the very basis of Democratic support. Have the Dems in fact written off the working class, giving them over to Trump? They would vigorously deny this, of course. But as commentator Ruy Teixera said, “Harris’s advantage among college-educated voters is more than forty points higher than it is with working-class voters. Her campaign, he felt, was targeting the ’NPR vote.’” Why is she doing this when she will get the NPR vote anyway?
And those on the Left “worry that Ms. Harris—like Hillary Clinton in 2016—is falling into a trap of banking on liberal voters without offering significant policy change.” It seems that a majority of cultural elites now are happy to support free trade and business.
When I worked for the Laborers’ Union in the ‘90s, the president asked my opinion about whether the union should endorse the proposed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) that President Clinton wanted. We discussed strong pros and cons, and the union finally did endorse the bill. Many, and not just Republicans, now argue rightly that NAFTA was instrumental in losing thousands of jobs to Mexico.
Harris offers plenty of talk about the middle class but very little on the working poor, the people who are really struggling now. In 2021 [latest data] the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 6.4 million people in the U.S. were “working poor,” those “whose incomes still fell below the official poverty level.” We now know how many of these folks will vote.
First of all she’s right in saying that Donald Trump would be worse. But more important, she’s not making the promises you’d like that would be impossible to keep. The President doesn’t have the power to change the Supreme Court or raise or lower your taxes. And the President infrequently can deliver on what they promise. What the President can do is change the political and cultural climate, which is what she’s talking about.
I am tired of this discussion. Look at her website. Listen to her. She is as specific as she can be unless she is guaranteed the other two legislative bodies (and not being hampered by a right-wing Supreme Court.) I am sick and tired of the asymmetry of this election!! He is deeply flawed with no policies articulated except for revenge politics and she is supposed to be flawless with granular polities and plans–She is offering some aspirational possibilities– An aside: Just read the NYTimes today and the back story on Trumps transition team’s plans for us (why are these things just now coming to light in print?) Forget Project 2025–the reality of his planners is frightening. While I am at it, the failure of the WAPO to endorse her despite the many column inches and articles on Trumps lies and indiscretions is sheer cowardice on Bezos part. Anyway, Trump will call foul and he has armies of people ready to overturn the popular vote and the will of the people. So get ready…this won’t be settled for months. We are all holding our collective breath. Will grumpy old white men be the problem? Again?
Yeah, WaPo and LA Times, for them it’s all about the $$. But as my thirtysomething daughter says, their endorsements mean next to nothing electorally.
But the working class votes mean a lot. This from my son:
The ultimate swing vote, in Nevada and across the country, “isn’t Blacks and Latinos,” Mario Yedidia, UNITE HERE’s national elections director, told me at Culinary’s Monday rally. “It’s the working class.”
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-10-21-can-hotel-workers-save-democrats-nevada/
Jane and Jim are missing the boat here. Of course I want Harris to win, but she is ducking the reality behind who she really needs to appeal to. I have been a longtime worker for the Democratic Party, now disillusioned by how they are reading the changes that a new politics has wrought. One who does get this is Fareed Zakaria. Read his comments today: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/27/politics/video/fareed-zakaria-take-gps-us-election-digvid. The working class is clearly changing its support, and this is a tough pill for traditional Democrats to swallow. Harris cannot win without major working class support, and her present generalities will hardly engender that.