Friday Reads: The Veep Shakes Trump, Rattles Republicans, and Rolls all over them!

“I wanted to get this right, so I took my time. I have no respect for the bully pulpit; they didn’t do anything other than give themselves undeserved pats on the back. That being said, we have an election to win. Kamala 2024!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

And it is a good day!   I became part of the Vice President’s Ground Game last Wednesday!  I took a deep breath and shook off my phone anxiety.  Then, I called Georgia Voters. I’m giving my Wednesday off to do this until my birthday, which is the day before the election. I’m one of the many people delighted to see a Harris Presidency.   The Obamas were the last to join the chorus and finally endorsed Harris today.  I can tell you that this ride to victory is a joyous one! Everyone I know and follow is ready to go!

Historian Steven Beschloss made these observations in his America, America blog. “A Joyful Campaign Ahead.  With an exuberant laugh, Kamala Harris is energizing Democrats and renewing confidence about the coming election.”

Donald Trump and all the other arrogant, woman-hating Republican geniuses think attacking Kamala Harris’ laugh is a smart play. As if putting her down for her exuberance and joyfulness will reveal her to be unserious, unattractive, unfit for the job. As if a majority of Americans are not sick to death of the nasty, joyless, hateful and degrading mentality and agenda of Trump and his enablers. As if American voters—more than half of whom are women—really want to be told how to behave by a 78-year-old convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault and has made exceedingly clear throughout his life what he thinks of women.

Last Sunday Joe Biden jolted the political world by announcing that he was stepping aside and endorsing his vice president—an inspiring act of patriotism that has led to a swift and electric surge of fundraising, endorsements and delegate support for now-presumptive nominee Harris. That same weekend, the ever-degrading Trump was mocking Harris’ laugh: “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.” That was followed by calling Nancy Pelosi crazy, too.

Honestly, we should hope that he and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, keep reminding American voters how much they despise Kamala Harris for her gender and her laughter. Because it’s my view that the more they say so—including their woman-hating views on reproductive rights and marriage and family—the more that VP Harris will rise in the polls and in the eyes of voters who’ve had it with Trump’s lust for carnage and yearn to avert the grim future that he promises.

Take note of how the vice president, aware of the sexist mockery, described the origins of her laugh in a conversation with Drew Barrymore in April. “Let me just tell you something: I have my mother’s laugh,” Harris told Barrymore, who hosts a daytime television show and had just told her guest that she loves her laugh. Harris continued:

And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs…And I think it’s really important to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined by other people’s perception about how you should act…It’s really important.

Contrast that with the sour, humorless, grievance-filled Trump and his running mate who supports a national ban on abortion and who has said that he believes women should stay in abusive marriages for the good of their children. J.D. Vance is also the guy who attempted to smear Harris as one of a group of “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” (Never mind that Harris is part of a blended family and has been a stepmother for over a decade.) Do they really think that denigrating women like this is a winning strategy? Have at it and find out.

The last days have been stunning, providing a kind of joyful whiplash for all of us who have gravely worried about the state of the race and the expanding prospect that Trump was careening toward victory. The speed with which the vice president has shifted from a question to a declarative answer about how to defeat Donald Trump has been overwhelming in the best sense.

The great news is that Harris and her choice of Veep candidate can get on state ballots. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: CNN survey finds 48 states say Harris can get on ballot instead of Biden, rejecting claim switch breaks state laws.” 

The election authorities of at least 48 states, both Republicans and Democrats, say there are no obstacles that would prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from getting on election ballots if she becomes the official Democratic presidential nominee, as expected.

The findings of a CNN survey of all 50 states undercut the claims of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said both before and after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday that there are legal “impediments” in some states to a party switching presidential candidates as the Democrats did. There was not a single state election authority that told CNN Harris would face a ballot issue as the official nominee; election authorities in two states, Florida and Montana, did not respond to requests for comment, but a review of the states’ ballot access rules suggests Harris is not likely to face an issue there either.

Johnson, a lawyer, said on ABC News Sunday that “it would be wrong and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these state rules for a handful of people to go in the backroom and switch it out because they’re – they don’t like the candidate any longer.” He said on CNN Monday that “in some of the states, there are impediments to just switching someone out like that.”

But experts on election law say that is not true, since the Democrats never named Biden as the official 2024 nominee or submitted his name to the states as their 2024 nominee. And election authorities around the country have now confirmed – telling CNN or saying in public statements that Harris will not face any obstacles getting on their ballots if she is formally chosen as the Democratic nominee next month.

The 48 states (plus the District of Columbia) whose election authorities have said the official Democratic nominee will not have ballot issues include the seven states with the closest margins in the 2020 election, which are widely considered the key swing states again in 2024: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. The 48 states also include the 15 states where former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, had his highest share of the vote in 2020.

Johnson’s office did not respond to CNN’s requests to identify the “impediments” he claimed some states have.

One of my favorite things to listen to on the news the last few days is the profuse use of the word “weird” to describe the Republican ticket.  Its association with J.D. Vance is hysterical because he and his policy suggestions are weird. This is from ABC News.  The story is reported by Julia Reinstein.  “Democrats’ new line of attack on Republicans? ‘You’re being weird’. “I think it’s really elegant in its simplicity,” one Democratic strategist said.”

Democrats have recently begun adopting a fresh new line of attack on Republicans: quite simply, calling them weird.

In a press release Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign responded to an appearance by former President Donald Trump on Fox News.

Under a bulleted list of “main takeaways” from Trump’s appearance was one that quickly captured the public’s attention: “Trump is old and quite weird?”

The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”

After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to. … These are weird ideas.”

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also picked up on it. In an X post on Thursday, he shared a clip of a 2021 speech by Sen. JD Vance, in which the now–Republican vice presidential nominee said Americans without children should not get “nearly the same voice” in elections as those who do have children.

“This is quite weird,” Schatz wrote. “Like, a very very bad idea, but also weird. And presumably, unpopular.

The Former Guy’s Campaign is stumbling and bumbling. His usual nasty labeling is not working. The choice of JD Vance puts attention on Vance.  I think he’s not going to stand for that very much longer. This is from the Guardian. “Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Hatred will continue to ooze from the right. Pay attention – because that bigotry isn’t just talk, it’s Republican policies.” The analysis is provided by Judith Levine.

Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party.

Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, called Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a Michigan rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, social media posts showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned.

Popping up again are rumors circulated in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US.

Far-right blogger Matt Walsh and former Fox host Megyn Kelly suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump tweeted: “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!”

While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, proclaimed that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.”

Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain added. This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country.

And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her laugh, from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”.

This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him.

Margaret Sullivan writes this in the Guardian. “The media is already failing in its duty to fairly cover Kamala Harris. Sure, Harris deserves scrutiny. But she doesn’t deserve smears and stereotypes amplified by journalists and pundits addicted to clicks.”  I have been more selective about whose coverage I watch these days and which newspapers I rely on. You may have noticed this in my cites recently.

It’s going to be ugly, that much is already clear.

In the few days since Kamala Harris began her 2024 campaign for president, the media has shown us where some of their coverage is headed: no place good.

Both the rightwing and traditional media are making some predictable blunders. Add in the swill that circulates endlessly on the social media platforms, and you’ve got a mess.

Take, for example, the recent coverage of a Republican congressman’s smear of Harris.

“One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Tim Burchett of Tennessee said on CNN, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion” to claim that she was ascending because of her race, not on merit. “Her record is abysmal at best.”

An NBC headline was one of many to hand a giant megaphone to this racist trope: “GOP Rep Tim Burchett calls Kamala Harris a ‘DEI vice-president’.” Plenty of others did the same – parroting and thus amplifying the slur.

Some news organizations added a fig leaf to their coverage, like the Tampa TV station whose headline read: “GOP representative called Harris a ‘DEI hire’: what does this mean?”

There was a more responsible way to go. USA Today, for one, brought helpful context in a piece headlined: “DEI candidate: what’s behind the GOP attacks on Kamala Harris.” It did a good job of explaining that this phrase is all part of the right’s anti-“woke” culture wars. “DEI has become GOP shorthand to impugn the qualifications of people of color who ascend to positions of power and influence.” The reporter quoted the author Mita Mallick noting that the DEI label is an attempt to “discredit, demoralize and disrespect leaders of color by labeling them ‘diversity hires’ – or otherwise misappropriating the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion as thinly veiled racist insults.” You come away with greater understanding.

Some insults are even more transparently racist, as when the perpetual liar and propagandist Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News in order to trash Harris: “She does not speak well. She does not work hard. She should not be the standard bearer for the party.”

These stereotypes, painting a woman of color as unintelligent and lazy, echo well-established white-grievance themes, causing the author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian movements, to warn: “Propagandists know that you should build on existing prejudices when introducing a new hate object or theme.”

Some commentary wasn’t racist but just pointless – as when Katy Tur asked, on MSNBC, if Harris was the kind of person voters would want to have a beer with. The “likeability” question certainly seems to come up for women candidates more than men.

It’s a familiar election-cycle cliche, but the former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob didn’t find it harmless. He posted his disgust: “I want a president who won’t turn our country into a fascist hellscape. I’m not auditioning barstool partners.”

So, this is obviously going to get more heated and weirder as the next 100 days unfold.  Here are some things that I’m looking out for.  First, are we going to know more about Trump’s booboo that’s still wearing its Kotex?  This is from Time Magazine.  “What We Do and Don’t Know About Trump’s Ear Wound”  This is another one of Trump’s braggadocious weirdness that’s like a lie.  He did not take a bullet for us.  He most likely caught a piece of shrapnel.

Trump’s ear wound from an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13 quickly became a symbol of solidarity for many of his supporters, and a grim reminder of political violence in the U.S.

But new comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday indicated there’s much the American public still does not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump and his former White House physician have said it was caused by a bullet.

The former guy is incapable of telling the truth.  I don’t even think he recognizes it.  He just makes things that make him feel good about himself and then repeats them incessantly.  Will J.D. Vance be removed from the ticket for being too open about his weirdness and upstaging Donald in media coverage? This is from Matthew Chapman of Raw Story. “Trump will ‘blow’ J.D. Vance ‘to smithereens’ rather than be upstaged: ex-aide.”  How many Scaramuccis will he last?

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has a big problem, former Trump administration communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told CNN’s Boris Sanchez Thursday. He is constantly at risk of overshadowing former President Donald Trump himself.

And that is a dangerous thing for anyone in Trump’s orbit to do, he warned.

This comes amid reporting that Trump is already regretting his choice of Vance, which he made at a moment when he felt that he had already locked up the race and didn’t think he needed a running mate who balanced the ticket pragmatically.

“Given that vantage point that you’ve had into Donald Trump, how do you think he’s absorbing these comments by J.D. Vance about ‘childless cat people‘ and the sort of blowback that he’s gotten on social media and elsewhere from women notably, a subset of voters that Republicans haven’t had the most success with?”

“What made Vice President Mike Pence successful as a vice presidential candidate is he understood President Trump’s personality,” said Scaramucci, who became a sharp Trump critic after a catastrophic and brief 10-day stint in the administration.

Any questions to add?

So, have a great weekend.  We can breathe easier but we must also work harder. I have two friends–one from here and one from Minneapolis–addressing and writing notes to votes with postcards.  The number of us grannies on my Zoom phone bank retraining and calling was amazing.  There were also a lot of grandpas too. You can also just ensure your family and neighbors get out to vote and encourage them to use mail-in and early voting if it’s available. GOTV work is just really empowering and it keeps you away from the stressful stuff. I’m doing as much as I can to save my daughters and my now 3-year-old granddaughters from a Donald, J.D., and Project 2025 nightmare!  Just send out information on that all over Social Media!  Everything helps!

What’s on your reading and blogging list?