Kamala vs. Harris

[Mike]

I've long believed that our culture does women a disservice by referring to male leaders most often by their last name and female leaders by their first name. A little misogynistic microaggression, as it were. And I still believe that as a general rule, but I just saw a woman who explained that this is a conflict between my sense of social justice and Kamala Harris's choice of branding.

So while my notion may be true in general, there are plenty of counter-examples such as Bernie or Beto... or Kamala, where a campaign leans into a first name as a branding choice. I think in Hilary Clinton's case, she would have preferred to be referred to as Senator Clinton or Secretary Clinton or just plain Clinton, and using her first name was a tactic by the opposition to be microaggressively demeaning. But in Kamala's case, I feel like she's embraced the first name thing and it definitely plays big in her branding. Saying "Harris" just feels odd.

[Phoebe]

So far they seem to be following a successful strategy of jumping right on top of anything Trump tries to use against her. So when he and a bunch of other Republicans deliberately mispronounce her name, even going so far as to say it doesn't matter how it's pronounced and he was told he could say it the other ways, the Harris campaign comes out and proudly puts Kamala's name on a celebratory banner.

So far the Trump campaign strategy has been to terrify us with a horror movie clown VP and then ramble on to an audience of Black journalists about Ka Ma La (different each time but always tripping over it to emphasize that he thinks it's weird) a "sudden" "Black". I don't think it's a winning strategy so no matter how disgusting it is I'm glad he's showing us exactly who he is all over again. A racist to the core who campaigns fundamentally on being a racist.

[Kyle]

This is more evidence that the GOP thought they had it in the bag against Biden (and they really did) and now they don't know what to do with a candidate that can beat him. This is also what happens when you surround yourself with sycophants and family that won't tell you "no."

[Mike]

I think Trump is the GOP's biggest liability in their effort to attack Harris. Yes, their lines of attack aren't the strongest: she's a leftist, she's not black enough, she has a bad laugh, she's a DEI hire, etc. But some of those could make headway with moderate/undecided voters if presented correctly. But they CAN'T present them correctly, because all of it has to filter through Trump, and he can't stay focused and coherent enough to deliver any message with subtlety and/or nuance. He also keeps failing miserably in any situation where people who are critical of him get to ask any questions.

[Phoebe]

I imagine Trump and team have calculated that the "not voting for a racist" people are lost to him already, so if they keep the media churn focused on his latest outrage it distracts from other issues. Nor will the media coverage EVER stop normalizing his vileness! He benefits so much from it. Like that interview with the NABJ... the headline or sound bite everyone heard was "false question of Harris's racial identity" but it was so much worse than this.

(I'm just going to post the transcript so you can see.)

[Phoebe]

Some of this is wrong - for example, "rabbit" should be "rabid" and sometimes where it says "Interviewer" it's actually Trump speaking.
But it's horrible.

https://singjupost.com/donald-trump-spe ... ranscript/

[Phoebe]

"Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who turns 100 on Oct. 1, said, "I'm only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Saturday."