“The Kamala Conundrum. How Identity Politics Just Got Icky for Democrats” by Daniel Guss
After Biden's debate debacle, Democrats suddenly favor a rich, white, hetero male who cheated on his wife. Sound familiar?
Equality matters. Whether on race, gender or anywhere else, equality matters. Preparedness, accomplishment and merit matter, too.
We are equal to Dodger Shohei Ohtani as humans, but he is on the baseball field because he optimized his talent with preparedness, because of accomplishment and because of merit.
It is an imperfect concept, though.
We are also equal to Eric Garcetti — ugh — but he got to be mayor because of an unsavory and codependent relationship between government, media and nepotism. Eventually, market forces caught up with him, the LA Times and us.
Life is like that.
Which leads us to today’s subject, The Kamala Conundrum.
In the immediate aftermath of last week’s presidential debate debacle between incumbent Joe Biden and his predecessor and possible successor Donald Trump, Democratic-inclined talking heads sang from the same dubious libretto.
You couldn’t avoid some of it, like Trump lied about everything, and Biden only told the truth.
A subtler message went like this:
Biden must drop-out of the race
Gavin Newsom is our guy
Kamala who?
Suddenly, those talking heads whose every fifth word is historic! when it comes to the growing influence and visibility of groups previously viewed as disadvantaged, have suddenly never heard of it when it comes to vice president Kamala Harris.
Like her or not, Kamala Harris is an undeniably historic! political figure.
She is female, Asian and Black. We were reminded of this as she reached District Attorney, Attorney General, Senator and Vice President. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is historic! too, as the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president.
But the talking heads must have had a collective factory reset when it comes to Harris as the obvious, logical and ideally situated candidate to replace Biden, should he die, quit or is otherwise deprived of the delegates that he won.
Their fixation is on California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been nutting in his knickers knowing that this day would come, pun intended, despite insisting he isn’t running a shadow campaign while simultaneously running the state into the ground.
Question: Who doesn’t see the irony of Democrats casting aside Kamala to salivate over a wealthy, white, hetero male who cheated on his wife with his then-appointments secretary and wife of his campaign manager?
Answer: Anyone who chooses to not see it.
Newsom didn’t see any of us as equals during the pandemic, whether on beaches, in public schools, with respect to vaccines or at The French Laundry. And then there’s his substance abuse problem…
Oh, wait, here’s the dutiful media, cleaning-up things, often years later due to the aforementioned unsavory and codependent relationship it has with politicians.
Clean-up on aisle 9!
Listen, I hear you.
Any port in a storm, and Storm Watch ‘24 is a doozy.
I saw Newsom on Bill Maher earlier this year and I get it. He can look you straight in the eye and lie, but some find him appealing, as did Maher, who gazed at him with a schoolboy’s crush.
But pay no mind to California losing a Congressional seat due to its population exodus. Newsom da man, right???
Well, make no mistake, their shoving aside Kamala Harris within minutes after the debate does permanent harm to claims about equality in the future by putting it in mothballs today.
Isn’t that right, fawning media?
Anyone who buys the insidious rumor that Kamala Harris would rather run to be the next California governor instead of the first female president, may want to seek counseling, like Newsom did… but “didn’t, really.”
But the counseling that they might need is for the self-delusion that they stand for equality.
Let’s wrap on this thought.
Considering what Newsom has done to California, on what planet does anyone believe that he could beat Trump, at least to the point of shoving Harris out of the conversation minutes after the debate ended?
What will happen if Newsom becomes the nominee, loses to Trump and people wonder whether Harris could have won, but wasn’t given a chance?
Sip on that for a bit.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, won the LA Press Club’s “Online Journalist of the Year” and “Best Activism Journalism” awards in June ‘23. Last month, he won its “Best Commentary, Non-Political” award. He has contributed to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)