Of course I don't blame voters for Kamala Harris's loss.* But if I'm being honest with myself, I do blame you. You know who you are. You're the voter who voted, worked, persuaded against Kamala Harris knowing that it was either her or Donald Trump-- knowing that Donald Trump was a fascist-- as a way to demonstrate your superior disapproval of the choice, especially if you did absolutely nothing in the primary to improve that choice. And especially if you savor the thought that your purity vote was superior to my dutiful, nose-holding obligation. You went into the election with open eyes, knowing Kamala Harris was sub-optimal but that Donald Trump was a menace. You had one job on election day, and you chose to punish the system rather than dirty your hands with a choice you couldn't be pleased with yourself to make. She lost because of you. More importantly, she didn't lose because of you. She didn't learn anything from your withholding. You'd like to think your vote was a lash. It was a wet noodle. You were no help at all.
You and I rightly blame Joe Biden for enabling Israel's genocide for a full year and counting but you were in a punishing frame of mind. I hate to remind you but Joe Biden wasn’t running any more. We obviously have an irreconcilable difference about the usefulness of presidential politics. We both agree Presidents are not where it’s at, and yet I can’t escape a feeling of responsibility about who wins an election to what is still for now and for the foreseeable future one of the most powerful and tragically consequential offices on the planet in a contest between a seriously evil and fucked up fascist and a run of the mill characterless careerist. You should at least be sorry she lost because we will never know how much of a difference to what’s left of Gaza (which is over now by the way) a different outcome would have made. You don’t understand: I feel I chose better for Gazans than you did. And now we will never know how right or wrong that feeling is. Donald Trump could surprise us. He could force Netanyahu to step down and go to jail, the aid and offensive murderous weaponry from the US to stop, the cease fire to be permanent, hostages to be released on both sides and Gaza to be rebuilt and life repaired for Palestinians, and if he does, I will be convinced I was wrong and that the outcome of yet another stupid presidential election between two type-A American assholes really didn’t matter. But we both knew going into election day that Trump’s going to help Israel finish the job.
True we didn't know what Kamala Harris would do. While she gave a bellicose speech at the convention, I had hopes. My hopes were based on a couple of things. I understood that Kamala Harris as Joe Biden's DEI Vice President had had virtually no say in his Gaza policy. What's more, I understood she, alone among White House officials, reached out to a Palestinian American who had lost 150 family members in Gaza with condolences before she was put at the top of the ticket, the same man who Rashida Tlaib took with her to shame Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke in front of Congress. I understood Kamala Harris as nominee skipped Benjamin Netanyahu's Congressional address unlike the shameful number of AIPAC-bought democrats who sat there and applauded Bibi's odious speech like circus seals. So that already got my false hopes up. I also heard rumblings about negotiations of her team with the Undecided folks in Michigan. She in spite of her bellicose speech at the convention, did voice acknowledgement that cease fire and Palestinian self-determination are among what an end to the conflict must look like. My understanding about Kamala after she was put at the top of the ticket, after all the buzz and excitement died down, was that her solitary goal was getting elected. I understood she was keeping policy vague on purpose. Toward the end of the campaign I heard that she was focused on sticking to the right of center in an effort to overcome the assumed demographic strikes she had going against her.
Now I grant I could have been wish casting but to be honest, this is the bottom line about what my hopes were for a Harris presidency: The two possible winners of the election were Trump, a known anti-muslim fascist pig or Harris, an unknown smart lady from California. Those were the 2 outcomes.† Trump had a record, a history and a promise of anti-Palestinian Pro-Israel aggression. Harris was basically an unknown. I did not believe her when she said she would do nothing differently from Biden--- my belief was she would say anything to retain the support that Biden had and even stand next to a war criminal to increase it. I did not believe that in the office she would be immovable, and certainly not as immovable as Trump. I wanted to increase the chances of a movable president because to me at a minimum that was a way I could have a say in one of the most likely ways that the genocide would stop. Do you have any other ideas? I have asked for weeks what is the alternative and never heard an answer from anyone who refused to play the president game as their way of punishing Joe Biden (even though he was no longer on the ticket). What anti Democrat people don’t seem to get is that some of us – I’m guessing many if not most of us voted for Kamala for the sake of Gaza. Is it possible we would get our hopes squashed? Of course. We’ll never know now. But even a shred of relief for Gaza would have been an improvement. If Harris got Gaza aid, food and medical supplies and personnel that would be an improvement. I never heard from anyone who refused to grant that Gaza’s chances were better with Harris than with Trump how to effect an end to genocide without her.
I know you can say she said she would do nothing differently than Biden. I don’t give a shit what she said. Politicians lie all the time. I give a shit what she does as president. Again, in my view peace for Gaza was largely going to go through the Oval Office. (How the fuck else?) If it was going to go through the oval office at all, it was only going to go through Kamala Harris’s oval office—not through Donald Trump's. That was my thinking. I don’t understand why that is so hard to see.
To anti-demoncraps, Kamala not winning serves her right. To me it is the death of Gaza. Do you see how differently we experience that? To you it’s sort of ha ha, she lost! To me it’s the end of Gaza. I don’t need you to see her loss that way. Believe me it has to be better for you not to. But that’s the rawness of the nerve the topic has for me. Laugh if you want to. In my ridiculousness, I still feel pain and mourn for Gaza. (You could console me by showing me how this outcome is better for Gaza. What’s *your* fucking plan. I’m not holding my breath.)
~~~~~~
* If the vast majority of voters are innocent lambs, they were shepherded away from the muddled unknown shepherd with the screwy technique sprung on them at the last minute and toward the lunatic pandering shepherdings of the more familiar peril they knew. Still, while it's no wonder the innocents were lost due to what appears in retrospect to have been an incompetent gambit on the part of Harris's team, not all voters were so innocent. The twisted irony is that those voters who knew better but refused to play the duopoly game on election day (and I reserve a special animus for the single-issue influencers who encouraged voters not to stain themselves with a vote for less harm) are more deluded about democracy than those of us who played along. They actually thought their votes could count in this absurdly disempowering system. I will grant it took me 13 elections to finally figure out that Election Day has nothing at all to do with Democracy or choice. It has to do with mitigation. If democracy happens at all, it's in the primary, which this year, everyone skipped.
† I know I sound like a broken record with the "2 possible outcomes" speech, but I can't help but feel that this reality is an instrumental part of what's missing for voters who knew better who nevertheless preferred to indulge in a luxury vote for nothing when the time came.
No comments:
Post a Comment