From Zero To Hero In 36 Hours

The Astonishing Rebirth of Kamala Harris

Hi Folks. I’ve had a very strange few days, as have we all. Yesterday I spent the entire day writing a long complicated piece about what a Kamala Harris candidacy would mean for Democrats’ chances of stopping Donald Trump.

It was one of those pleasing days of writing where one just gets lost in the ideas. Even the extreme heat that my little window AC can’t quite protect me from, didn’t bother me much. I was off in the research, the reasoning, and the intuiting. And just the tactile pleasures of making the sentences that tell the story.

I started the piece by describing an outdoor concert I’d attended in North Hills Saturday night. A crowded joyous affair, where everybody was singing along with the bands, cooling their feet in the pool, and being together with friends. It wasn’t stated as such, but they were all doing what they could to shake off the sense of dread that’s been following concerned Democrats around since President Biden’s debate debacle.

Ever since that fateful night in Georgia, my liberal friends had been riding a roller coaster through the dark. One by one, politicians and movie stars and donors had been stepping up to the metaphorical microphone, and beseeching their wounded leader to hang up his sword and shield.

And of course the previous weekend had turned the volume up with the attempt on Trump’s life, and all of the panic that that added. And then the Republican Convention had dominated the news for a week. The Red Hats were fired up to the max. And strangely NPR had decided to broadcast the whole weird wild jamboree.

For my progressive friends, there has been no relief for weeks. And no respite from the inner turmoil. What to do? What to do?

How does a person who’s voted for a president, and been pleased with his tenure, know what to do in such a situation? Mostly I had seen two things on friends’ social media for the last few weeks. Staunch defenses of President Biden, and complete silence.

At the outskirts of the music, Saturday night, I had several quiet conversations about what would likely be Joe Biden’s next move. All of these friends know that I have disavowed party politics and don’t intend to vote in this election. Our conversations were mostly me listening to people who were truly baffled as to what moves could be made.

But these were almost furtive exchanges. There was an unspoken determination at this gathering that politics not be discussed.

Remember, on Saturday night there was no indication at all that Joe Biden was about to step aside.

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Then on Sunday morning, Alexia and I visited a non-denominational church where we have ties. She’d been asked to do a guest sermon, and I was invited to sing a couple of songs. It was International Dharma Day. ;0) And the two of us were tasked with commenting on that.

I was proud of Alexia as she talked about the need to see humans looking back at us across any and every ideological divide. She ended her sermon by reading the lyrics to a song by John McCutcheon, called Christmas In The Trenches. It’s a brilliant retelling of a true story. A spontaneous Christmas Truce between British soldiers and their German ‘enemies’ during World War I.

I’d heard that song sung many times. But sitting there in this hippie church, hearing the words without music, carried on my dear friend’s voice, I fought back tears. I’m fighting them back now just thinking about it.

As she finished, and after I’d finished my songs, the congregants who were present, passed around bread to break, and then whoever wanted to, shared their thoughts. The election was not mentioned.

Until one fellow who had come in late took the wireless microphone and told us all that Joe Biden had dropped out of the race.

Only one gentleman commented on that news. He’s a rather angry fellow, and his concern was about an expectation that racism would soon rear its ugly head.

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And that was the first time all weekend that I’d thought very much about a Kamala Harris campaign. Truly, on the night before, our whispered conversations barely mentioned her.

The mic went back to the pastor, and she wrapped up the proceedings with no further comment about our political situation. We all chatted as we stacked chairs and cleaned up the snacks and coffee, and then all of us left. If anybody was talking about the vice president, I didn’t hear it.

Hers has been an almost invisible tenure as VP, hasn’t it? Of course the Biden style of governance was not a showy affair. And for at least the last 18 months, every political news story was once again centered on Donald Trump.

Somewhere, Kamala Harris was doing something, but we almost never heard from her. We almost never even heard about her.

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Alexia and I left that church and walked to a nearby pub. We sat at a round table near an open screen-less window. All of the windows were wide open. The cool breeze arrived from the ocean just a few hundred yards away, and washed through the big open space. A young DJ played soulful joyful music. Our waitress was sassy and sweet, and the food was delicious and filling and reasonably priced.

Other groups of people ate and drank and laughed, and I did not hear a single reference to the news we’d just heard at the church up the street.

We lingered long, and talked as endlessly as we always do. Some of it touched on politics and most of it didn’t. It was a fine day.

But eventually we went home and back to the world, and I logged into my collection of news sources. Of course they were all blowing up with the news. By then it had been announced that Biden was endorsing Harris.

And money was POURING in!

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I don’t want to criticize the Vice President, but let’s be frank. She’s never been a greatly beloved figure. There was always the sense here in California, that she’d risen up through the ranks of a political club that’s more about the Sacramento-San Francisco-Silicon Valley corridor than it is about the rest of the state.

She’s never really been seen as a particularly Californian person. Politically, she was helped along the way by her sometimes boyfriend Willie Brown, when he ruled the California Assembly. For many years, it was common knowledge that Brown was the power behind the scenes in The Golden State.

But again, all of that power was 400 miles north of us. And California’s national power was largely concentrated in two deeply entrenched female senators. They were automatically re-elected every time they ran. They didn’t even stoop to debating their opponents. Especially the ones who came out of LA and Orange Counties.

Kamala Harris was not popular as an Attorney General, and when Barbara Boxer handed off her senate seat to her, the SoCal competition, congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, never stood a chance.

It felt like what it was. It was an appointment. Boxer had decided that she was finished and that it was high time that California sent a woman of color to Washington. So they lined up the needed endorsements and made the deal. Kamala Harris was in with the in-crowd, and there you have it.

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Again, I don’t want to criticize Kamala Harris personally. I’m just noting why there has been no particular hunger to see her ascend to the highest levers of power. Not in California. Not anywhere.

In the 2020 debates, she took the opportunity to corner Vice President Biden, and to paint his past record on Civil Rights in such a way that made him look ‘racist adjacent’. And, since he’d already promised to pick a female VP, when it came time for a diversity hire, Harris had more diversity to offer than say, Amy Klobuchar.

That whole caper seemed more than slightly opportunistic, if not downright manipulative.

Harris has been, justly or not, pegged as unlikable. And due to a number of her word-salad statements that were picked up and passed around by online wags, she was sort of ‘disappeared’ for most of the last four years.

I wrote about all of this and a lot more in the massive piece I wrote yesterday.

But when I headed for bed last night - Monday night - I noticed the strangest thing on my social media feed. Now this vaguely unpopular, largely off-grid figure was being cast as a nearly divine savior.

Zero to Hero in 36 hours.

The meme makers must have spent even more time thinking about her than I did Monday. Casting her as a Civil Rights hero. An angel of righteous womanly vengeance. Clearly a reinvention of Kamala Harris is afoot. Who knows what parts of it will stick? But there’s certainly a lot of energy in the air.

Now, those friends who were deeply depressed last week and clinging to Biden like they would to a cherished pet on his last trip to the vet? Well now their spirits were soaring Phoenix-like from the ashes.

It was weird, alright. But aside from the over-the-top devotion suddenly expressed toward a woman I’d seldom heard them mention, I was happy for them.

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One of the things that came up in each of my quiet talks Saturday night with Biden supporters, was how he could leave while saving face. How he could turn the embarrassment and sorrow of his failing faculties into a satisfactory exit.

Now we know which option he’s chosen. He’s chosen to pass the torch directly to his VP, rather than send his party into a hectic, but possibly productive search for a real Trump-beater. Now those likely candidates can hope for nothing beyond a possible back-seat in Harris’s buggy.

Biden has decided that his last act as presidential candidate is to personally choose the person who will now have to beat Donald Trump or lose to him. I have a hard time applauding him for taking that decision upon himself.

For now, I will try my damnedest to be happy for the happiness of my friends.

But I won’t stop worrying.

Over the last few weeks, a number of good friends swore their undying allegiance to Joe Biden. These were the same sorts of loyalists who swelled his rallies in the wake of the bad debate.

The folks who were doubling down. Extolling the virtues of Joe’s administration, and comparing it to what hell they imagine Trump will rain down upon us all. They repeatedly asserted that four more years of Joe Biden would be infinitely preferable to four more years of Trump.

I tried gently to remind them that if they wanted Joe’s legacy to live on, and his programs to bear fruit, Trump had first to be defeated. That seemed obvious to me, but some of these overwrought Biden supporters had trouble processing this.

It’s not enough to promise that you’ll continue to rule wisely, even if everybody believes you. You first have to win re-election. And almost nobody in the know thought Joe could do that.

Who among us is confidant that Kamala Harris can break Trump’s momentum and hold his MAGA army back when they try to storm the gates? Which hotly contested election did she win?

Anyway, I’ll hold off for now with my more analytical look at this situation. Everything’s shifted so radically since this time yesterday. Much of it’s pointless now.

So I’ll turn from politics to what Alexia and I do best. There’s a show coming up next Saturday, and we’ve got seats to fill. Songs to sharpen up. Food to prepare. If you’re in SoCal we’d love to have you. I’ll attach the flyer below. We’ll need your RSVP by Thursday noon so we can have enough food and drink for all.

We don’t go in for political proselytizing from our stage. Your politics are your business. We’re only interested in your humanity.

I wish that we all weren’t so distracted. But I suppose that at least something has been settled. And I have a pretty strong faith in this country’s ability to survive crazy times.

Thanks for reading -Dave