A Convention to Remember
This week, the Democratic Convention begins in Chicago to anoint Kamala Harris as queen.
Hello from deep in summer. We’ve been off for a while to take a break and enjoy the summer breeze. We will be back in September with more excellent content. In the meantime, I promised to deliver some of my writing and here it is. Eventually, this will only be available to paid subscriptions only.
This week the Democrats descend on Chicago for 2024 Democratic National Convention that runs from August 19th to August 22nd. It official crowns the party’s nominee. When the Democrats held their convention in Chicago in 1968, it didn’t turn out well. Special guests speakers include the Obamas, the Bidens and the Clintons (these two are like herpes, you can’t get rid of them).
And of course, this is not only a pivotal, but a historic, nomination. I wrote about this and more in my (updated) Hill Times column, which basically argues why Kamala can—and possibly will—win.
Kamala Harris has entered the chat
There is now a responsibility on white liberals, moderates, and centrists to practice what they preach, and vote to save democracy.
OTTAWA—Anyone else exhausted from living in unprecedented times?
On July 21, United States President Joe Biden unexpectedly did the expected: he bowed out of the presidential race, and then endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris. She will be the first Black woman and first South Asian presidential nominee in American history. Since Biden’s cataclysmically rancid debate performance, his tragedy of an interview with George Stephanopolous, and an ignominious humiliation of a NATO speech, Democrats were running scared—but not before gaslighting the public, trying to convince us that what we saw we didn’t see, and telling us “it was a bad night.” However, the Democrats can’t complain about the predicament in which they find themselves. The party establishment knew that voters had concerns about Biden’s fitness for at least a year.
No one should want to be the first—and certainly no Black woman. The amount of technology-facilitated gender-based violence will skyrocket from already-high current level. For Harris, running for president in a post-COVID environment will be more vitriolic than the last time she ran in 2019. And that vitriol will seep into the mainstream—especially the rancorous vernacular—threatening the safety of Black women, specifically, and BIPOC women, generally.
Would America vote for a Black woman? Yes.
You may be surprised to hear this from me, especially since I have no faith in the goodness of white people when it comes to race, and analogously, no faith in the goodness of men when it comes to gender. However, I do believe whiteAmerican centrists will vote for a Black woman. And there are a few reasons for this:
They have no choice. White America has been scolding Black people—like they always do—to vote for Biden because democracy will die under Trump’s authoritarianism. Now it’s their turn to vote for a Black woman to save democracy.
Unlike previous generations, millennials don’t lean more conservativeas they age. According to the Financial Times, “having reached political maturity in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, millennials are tacking much further to the left on economics than previous generations did.” Millennials became the largest generation of voters in 2020, and their representation will continue to grow in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center. Two generations—millennials and generation Z—have overtaken both generation X and baby boomers.
As the backbone of the party, Black women have already begun to organize. On July 21, tens of thousands of Black women participated in a Zoom call for the presumptive Democratic nominee. The organizers are part of Harris’ sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, the oldest Black sorority in America. They raised $1.5-million just off that call.
The money, honey. Harris is breaking fundraising records with zeal. The Associated Press reports, “In total, Harris’ team raised more than $81-million in the 24-hour period since Biden’s announcement” in both small and large donations—from the grassroots to corporations (blame Citizens United). AP described the details of her financial reach, where “888,000 grassroots donors made donations over the previous 24 hours; more than 500,000 were making their first contribution of the 2024 campaign cycle.” Promising, as she’s anointed by the donor class, prominent Democratic politicians, and the grassroots. Hopefully this will galvanize the party.
Turnout. Evidently, Harris has excited the Democratic base, which will ostensibly affect turnout. No one was excited about Sleepy Joe.
Age. Trump is now the old man trying to smatter words together, creating incoherent speeches.
The Democratic Party is already framing Harris as the prosecutor going up against the criminal. They can’t say she’s not tough on crime, having exploited non-violent—sometimes innocent—prisoners to keep them in prison to fight California wildfires. As California’s attorney general, Harris championed a truancy law that prosecuted the parents, disproportionately negatively affecting BIPOC and poor parents. As prosecutor, she has been accused of withholding potential exculpatory evidence from the defence. In fact, as described by the New York Times, she has had a troubling habit of turning “legal technicalities into weapons so she could cement injustices.”
The memes, fancams, and TikToks have already begun, turning Harris’ presumptive nomination into a cultural moment. Their social media game is brilliant.
Voters are used to Blackness at the top job. There is a generation that grew up seeing a Black president and First Lady, normalizing Black people at powerful levels of government.
White women will rally around Kamala because they know their bodily autonomy is on the line.
One question, however, remains: will America elect a woman?
Now that Harris has entered the race, the American election can now be characterized a choice between young and old, the past and the future, and the North and the South. This is an election of the white electorate, one that has been impressive and regressive as the pendulum swings from one election to another. In other words, there is now a responsibility on white liberals, moderates, and centrists to practice what they preach, and vote to save democracy. White Republicans are locked into their cult leader, so we know which way that wind is blowing. The question is: will white moderates choose democracy over the benefits of their whiteness?