Peg

“…I've seen your picture. Your name in lights above it. This is your big debut, it's like a dream come true. So won't you smile for the camera, I know they're gonna’ love it, Peg…” Peg…Steely Dan… There are similarities, but even the great Donald Fagen couldn’t see into the future and write a song about Kamala Harris. Kamala has pretty much checked out of her Vice-Presidential gig, and is campaigning for president, full time. A veteran of the sharp elbows of San Francisco politics, she was offered an opening, she took it and never looked back. Make no mistake about it, President Joe Biden was getting physically frail, and his mental acuity was suffering, but he didn’t want to leave. Joe Biden was removed in a palace coup, albeit a “soft coup”, but it was a coup. Democratic leadership all the way through Nancy Pelosi, and up to Barrack Obama, understood unless they wanted Donald Trump in the White House, radical action was not only required, but required quickly. But there’s a minor issue that no Democrat wants to talk about-nobody likes to get 86’d out of a bar, and I wonder if there’s a little animosity on Joe Biden’s part, and if it runs all the way to his loyal VP…Why choose Kamala Harris? There’s several reasons- (1) She was the sitting Vice President, and while she hadn’t accomplished much, she hadn’t made a lot of enemies (2) She had near perfect west coast, liberal credentials and was on solid ground with progressives (3) She was female and it would bring a surge of female voters to election day (4) She’s mixed race, and would solidify the black vote. Black folks are the infantry of the Democratic Party, and no Democrat can get elected without the black vote, and their “get out the vote” skills-they wrote the book on it (5) There wasn’t time enough to run an open, party-wide primary (6) There wasn’t anyone else perfectly positioned, and vetted, to step in. Dems, who were having nightmares about Trump back in the White House, breathed a collective sigh of relief when Biden stepped down, and a nationwide celebration of Kamala began. Apparently, no one remembered that her time as a US Senator and Vice President wasn’t exactly earth shattering, but the celebration continues for the perfect candidate. I hate to argue with multi-million-dollar TV personalities, college professors, and political pundits, but I see things differently. It’s never been about Kamala Harris, a marginal candidate, or what she brings to the table, she was quite simply in the right place at the right time. She was put in this position not by her political skills and leadership ability, but by fate, and an on-going cultural and political shift in this country. We’re not the same people, or the same country, we were eight years ago when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in a presidential election. We’ve gone from being a majority slightly right of center country to a majority slightly left of center country. In 2024, around 8 million Gen Z’ers will turn 18 and be eligible to vote. Around 3.3 million Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers will die. The new balance of power in business, finance and media will become younger and more international as it pushes older voters to the side, and re-engineers the world in their view. Electronic media, the internet, chat rooms and the easy availability of international travel make the world less threatening to the younger generation, more interested in climate change, abortion rights and student loan forgiveness than the southern border. Having grown up and gone to school in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, environment increases their laissez faire attitude about race, language and religion. They’re too young to remember 911, but they watched Jan 6th on their iPhone. Trump, MAGA and racial voting are heading into their final presidential election, and to some degree, they’ve already reached their shelf life in the 2024 election. I have no idea if Kamala Harris will be a good president, or a bad president, realistically no one does, but it’s a given that, as they say, “…history waits for no man…” This country is changing, new kids are going to be running the show, and for an old fart like me, it’s going to be “interesting” to watch (see, I found a place to use “interesting”)…