Ahhh, To Be Unburdened By What Has Been
With President Joe Biden's courageous decision to step aside, VP Kamala Harris takes center stage. It's time, as they say, to take the Coconut Pill, and unite to win this election.
Hello, Friends,
Today began with me falling out of a coconut tree.
Yesterday - ahhh, innocent yesterday - I wrote an article that tied the notions of honest, if incompetent error to its contrasting sentiment, malice. I did it in the context of the global IT issue caused by the company Crowdstrike, and I thought as I wrote it, “Well, this is probably the best argument we can put forth at the moment.”
But everything has a context, and I wrote it thinking that rumors that Joe Biden was going to drop out of the Presidential contest had already been proven false.
I was, happily, wrong. I do so love when I’m wrong!
I want to say, up-front, how much I respect that Joe made this decision. It cannot have been an easy one, and some of the pressures he faced were unfair, from donors interested in their own pocket books, and from a media that craved ratings. Other pressures (Jesse says, self-preservationally) were more legitimate, coming from voters and advocates.
But Joe stepped down. Brian J. Karem, among others, draws a historical parallel to Cincinnatus. If his decision leads to Democratic victory, he will rightly be installed in American mythology as a legendary-tier hero.
For a quick breakdown of where these “coconut” and “context” and other memes come from, check out Vox’s article on the subject.
So, first, let’s talk a little bit about context.
The Context of The Primaries
In April of 2023, I wrote an article about how the Democratic party was refusing to have debates during our excuse for a primary. I cited Elie Mystal’s argument that it would provide a good warm up for Biden in terms of debating. After all, I also pointed out that Biden really didn’t do a lot of press conferences where he took questions - the fewest since Ronald Reagan, actually.
Retrospectively, it truly seems like the DNC might just have been trying to insulate people from seeing how Biden’s speaking performance actually was. The past few weeks have been a series of must-do-well interviews that didn’t always go well, and a “big boy” (their words) NATO speech that wasn’t bad, but wasn’t perfect, either.
So the context is that we had an excuse for a primary where many states like Florida and North Carolina simply canceled their primary altogether, we had no debates, and we had no real challengers because it was regarded as political suicide to challenge a sitting President.
At the start of 2024, I offered a circumstantial endorsement of Marianne Williamson for the nomination. Among my arguments were that she had a clearly defined platform easily accessible on her website, whereas Biden’s was little more than an ActBlue Donation portal. Other arguments included that she polled the highest of Biden’s challengers, given the incredible weakness of all of his challengers combined. I wanted to see her get delegates on the floor of the DNC to push a more Progressive agenda, but I had no illusion that she would win. I think she’s a good soul who wants to defeat Trump, and I wish her no ill will.
However, the context has changed.
While Harris has already received endorsements from Biden, the Clintons, numerous Senators such as Ed Markey, Representatives such as Ilhan Omar, and many, many others, there is no formal or technical guarantee that she gets the nomination. To quote Harris, she plans to “earn the nomination.”
All of this implies that there will be some from of “open convention” where Democrats will choose their nominee through some kind of process that I frankly am not sure of.
Obligatory warning: I am not an elections lawyer!
Theoretically, Biden’s delegates are bound to vote for him, but assuming he releases them, they are allowed to vote for anyone they choose. His endorsement, however, makes clear exactly what path he expects most of them to follow. And I expect most of them to do exactly that.
That path leads to a lovely place filled with coconut trees and mirthful laughter.
Time To Take The Coconut Pill
Harris is Biden’s hand-picked successor, the next in line both by his wishes and via her position, training, and Constitutional station as Vice President. She has an excellent, almost flawless narrative: She is a former prosecutor running against a sex criminal held civilly liable for rape that sports 34 felony convictions. She’s relatively young, ending the fears of running with a President who isn’t likely to finish their term, and she’s a candidate who is incredibly capable of countering Donald Trump’s madness.
Yes, she is a Black Woman of Indian (India-Indian, not Native American Indian) descent. Yes, she will face racist and sexist attacks against her. Guess what? Black Women have been the backbone of the Democratic Party in recent years. They deserve to be represented - and the idea of skipping Harris over in favor of…Who? Probably some random white guy?…Is unconscionable. From a position of pure self-interest, where the ethics of honoring Harris’ achievements is ignored in favor of the “What If’s,” the fact remains that skipping her over would shatter the Democratic coalition. You’d be lucky to get 30% of the vote in that situation.
But we want affirmative cases to vote for candidates, right?
Twitter User Kaylan_TX created a list of Harris’ accomplishments. Among them: Passing critical tie-breaking votes for essential legislation; visiting our foreign allies in NATO and learning about our foreign policy situations, especially with regards to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; went to Guatemala and Mexico to work on immigration policy; and launched multiple mental health initiatives, both for veterans and civilians alike.
Let’s look at some of her pre-existing positions. And, remember, no candidate is perfect.
- For one thing she and I strongly agree on, she opposes the death penalty. While she did maintain a sort of “case by case basis” approach to it, which I disagree with, I’m hoping that by now she’s decided she won’t do it at all.
- She supported the slashing of $150,000,000 from the LAPD in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
- She has, over her career, shifted her views on cannabis consumption towards legalization with regulation. I don’t know the details, but it seems she’d like to see it regulated similarly to alcohol, which is a more dangerous drug, anyway.
- She wants to tax stock trades in order to pay for education. I’m in.
- She has said she is open to the abolition of the Electoral College, which is a huge plus given how Bush v Gore turned out, to say nothing of the 2016 election.
- She supports gun control.
- She fought hard to reunite families torn apart by the Trump Administration’s family separation policy.
- She co-sponsored the Equality Act, something us Queer folks might just care about.
- She called for a ceasefire to the Israeli genocide in Palestine in March of 2024. Not perfect, I know, but better than many others.
And there’s much more you can read at the above Wikipedia article, including details I may have missed. Hey, I’m doing this report pretty much off the cuff, so, yeah, forgive me my sins.
For those of you who might be curious where I stand, as if it isn’t obvious by this point? I support Harris. I think she’s the right person to take over in this critical moment, and she has my full and enthusiastic support, and endorsement
As To Who Her VP Should Be…?
Who the hell knows?
The conventional wisdom and internet memeing has simply been “Straight White Man.”
The arguments seem to swirl around picking successful governors of swing states: Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Josh Shapiro of Pennslyvania, or, breaking the straight white man mold a bit, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. This would almost certainly lock up their state, and many of them poll pretty well overall.
I’ve heard good things about all three of them, but I don’t know enough about them to have much of an opinion as to who would be best and why.
There’s also talk about bending the meme a bit and appointing Pete Buttigieg as VP. While I have my reservations about him given his anemic response to the East Palestine disaster, he’s one of the few Democrats I trust to go on hostile territory like Fox News and absolutely bitch-slap the Fascists with reality on a regular basis. When it comes to messaging - a thing Democrats sorely lack - he would be an outstanding choice. Depending on polling and other factors, this is possibly the most likely outcome. Plus, as a millennial who has seen war first-hand and lived through the consequences of 9/11, he would be intimately understandable to my generation and might be able to bring many of us into politics, since a lot of us are kinda jaded, here.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the meme pairing of Harris and Bernie Sanders. It would make a certain amount of sense. It would indicate Harris’ commitment to Progressive ideas, it would unite the party in a way it hasn’t been in decades, and it would leave a capable old war-horse as back up just in case something atrocious happened to Harris. After all, it’s not like Bernie’s done anything recently to make us question his mental sharpness, unlike Biden and Trump have. It’s fine to have the old war-horse as a backup, even if we don’t want them running the country right off the bat.
We shall see.
Overall, I feel extremely confident that we can win.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a former hyperlocal journalist and sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.