I am happy and hoping it lasts for four years

The Column: 07.26.24

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I have been a very happy Democrat for the past week and I am not used to this. I’m used to reading about homelessness, hungry children, the pollution by plastics, the warming of the oceans, various daily examples of injustice and cruelty and suffering, but now, even though I am an old Episcopalian writer, I am in love, I’ve been Kamalized. The nation was sunk in depression over a contest between two old white men, one weird and maniacal, the other murmury, and we were praying for a fresh face to come onstage, but who? And then the news flash: Joe withdrew. Another flash: he endorsed Kamala Harris. And suddenly politics, which had been the same old sameness of similitude glaciating toward November 5, became a fascinating story. There was a good reason to read the paper. A smart articulate friendly woman who laughs and who smiles spontaneously and when Old Orange came out and called her a lunatic and said she’d destroy the country, it made no sense, not even to his elderly biker fans with the white hair ropes coming out of their skulls and the armload of tattoos. It only made O.O. weirder. It made me feel high. Harris vs. the Harasser starts to look like an unfair contest. She’s got a future, he’s only got a past.

I am not used to feeling this way. My people made a habit of expecting the worst. Good fortune only made us warier. But when Kamala vows to eliminate child hunger in America, she is hitting a solid major chord that reverberates left and right. The right of every child to get a decent healthy start in life, no matter the iniquities or carelessness of the parents, not even the man Senator Vance called “America’s Hitler” can argue with that. And the visual contrast between her and him is stunning. A 16-month-old child can see the difference: Ava Gardner vs. Thor the Avenger.

Everyone in the MAGA camp knows that their man is a first-class jerk. What sort of man would make his teenage granddaughter get up on national TV to say that he is a nice man? And what sort of man would find his granddaughter’s endorsement necessary? Not a nice man.

I hear rumors that Joe Biden’s people want him to be honored at the Democratic convention and as an 81-year-old man myself, I respectfully disagree. Joe is history, just like me and O.O. and a lot of other guys. Joe’s 11-minute speech to the nation last Wednesday was a dreadful disappointment, a laundry list of accomplishments, no emotion, just bragging. The only good thing about it was that he seemed reasonably alert and it was 11 minutes long. Whatever the opposite of charisma is, Joe has got it nailed. No, the DNC belongs to Kamala Harris and she and her man should make an entrance every night of the convention and walk up to the family box to a standing O. She’s the star now. Maybe Joe should give a speech but it should be about her, not him. Right now, she is his legacy. On the big night, after Kamala gives her acceptance speech, as the crowd rises to cheer and her husband and her stepkids and relatives come out, Joe and Jill should join them for the big hurrah. And then he should go back to the Oval Office and do his job while she flies around rallying the troops.

I hope she has some good writers. Trump has but they’re wasted because he can’t read. Kamala’s strong suit is her humanity, a quality that Trump never had. He stands next to his youngest son and never puts an arm around him, it’s like they never met. The kid’s misery is painful to see. Kamala is a hugger. She needs to give speeches that sound like a person conversing, not the reading of a mortgage.

I look forward to the First Woman President and wish I could live long enough to see the second and third. Why? I think the FWP could prove to be good and great in ways the MPs never imagined. And also, when we have a WP, it’ll mean that men are freer to make fun of women, their obsessions, their kinks and severities. Right now only women are free to make fun of each other. When Kamala takes Doug to the White House, some jokes that were considered sexist will now be funny again. I look forward to that.

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