The apprentice
Why the hell does Kamala Harris have to prove anything?
Imagine you’ve studiously worked your way toward the top job at a company. You’re smart, qualified, and experienced. But there’s a final obstacle: a blowhard nepo baby who once all but crashed the place yet feels entitled to return. And—get this—it’s not up to him to prove himself. Instead, you have to convince people you’re worthy.
I ignored the presidential debate back in June because, you know, I figured nothing would happen. Oops. I won’t ignore tonight’s faceoff between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but the chatter heading into it is two parts infuriating, three parts insulting, with a gallon of double standards.
Back in 2016, it was hard to watch Hillary Clinton face Trump without thinking he simply hadn’t earned his place on the stage. On one side was someone who—irrespective of your view of her personally or her politics—had devoted decades to public service, from first lady of a state and the nation to a Senator and Secretary of State. At the time, some even declared her the most qualified person ever to seek the country’s highest office.
On the other? A guy who blew $400 million-odd of his dad’s cash, couldn’t even make money from owning casinos, oversaw multiple business bankruptcies, was a “businessman” in fantasy only before playing one on TV, actively encouraged conspiracy theories about the nation’s first Black president, and—it turns out, to the surprise of precisely no one—was a criminal and sexual assaulter.
Yet there they were, in split screen, presented as equals.
The cognitive dissonance will be repeated tonight, with Harris—the sitting vice president, former senator, former California attorney general, and former prosecutor—facing Trump. It’s seems self evident that he doesn’t deserve to be on the same stage, at least if the bare minimum criteria for high office is a love of country and a desire to help others. Yet Trump will be there, in his suit too big, his tie too long, his face too orange, and his brain too addled.
And not only does Harris have to prove she’d make a better president—it seems Americans either demand competence or overlook it entirely—but she squarely needs to demolish Trump. Anything less than eviscerating him will be seen as a draw, which will in turn be seen as a lousy performance.
It’s not fair. Never has been. But Harris has to play this game because apparently four years of constant chaos and self-dealing which culminated in the cratering of the economy and hundreds of thousands of needless deaths isn’t enough to convince a plurality of the country that maybe Donald Trump doesn’t deserve to be elected again.
“Former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris enter the homestretch of the campaign in a tight race, and with their only scheduled debate looming on Tuesday, Ms. Harris faces a sizable share of voters who still say they need to know more about her,” the New York Times reported on Sunday.1
I’m not advocating we elect people blindly, especially to the office of the most powerful person on the planet. But why the hell does anyone “need to know more about her”? The choice in this election was always binary and that’s even more true following the decision of President Joe Biden to drop out. It’s competence or chaos. Democracy or despotism. Coherence or incontinence.
And even if—and it’s a gargantuan if—you think policy rules supreme and you can ignore character, what’s Trump offering? Here’s the full text of his now infamous (and finally, after nine years of kowtowing, much mocked) response when asked last week whether he would commit to making child care affordable and, if so, the specific legislation he would advance:
“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.
“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”
Calling it a word salad is an insult to vegetables. It’s incoherent gibberish, yet entirely on brand.2 Anyone paying attention knows pretty much any question Trump gets generates this kind of response—you’ll see it in spades during tonight’s debate, along with his usual insults (especially because his opponent is a Black woman. He will have been warned to watch what he says but it’s a fair bet he’ll crack at some point). The problem? It doesn’t matter. His mental, moral, and ethical unfitness is now firmly baked in.3
“Donald Trump says something crazy or vicious almost every time he speaks,” the Atlantic’s David Frum said. “It’s his nature, but it’s also a political strategy. The flow of half-demented, half-depraved talk energizes those who enjoy it—and exhausts those who are horrified by it. The mainstream media cannot report every outrageous remark, or they would do nothing else. Even those shocking comments that do get reported tend to make just a blip. The next day, if not the next minute, Trump is telling another lie or vilifying another public servant or issuing another threat. Yesterday’s shocker is soon crushed beneath today’s, and then tomorrow’s, until it’s ancient history.”
Harris isn’t so lucky. Every word of every sentence tonight will be sifted for slip-ups or inconsistencies. The press will demand she account for why a position has changed, as though critical thinking and the capacity to evolve is somehow a sign of weakness. And heaven forbid if she snaps or does anything that gives a big chunk of the American electorate the excuse to decide she’s emotional or angry.
Again, it’s not fair. In a meritocracy, Trump would be behind bars and Harris would win in a landslide, leading the country with grace, competence, and the interests of the American people uppermost in her mind. Yet that’s not the world we live in. Grab some popcorn and try not to cry.
Far be it from me to edit the copy of a newspaper I’ve only ever written one not-very-good article for, but shouldn’t this be: “Former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris enter the homestretch of the campaign in a tight race and, with their only scheduled debate looming on Tuesday, Ms. Harris facing a sizable share of voters who still say they need to know more about her”? Comma in the right place, people. Active, people.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Part of the heart of this answer—as best I can deduce—shows Trump’s long-standing and astonishing utter ignorance of how economies work. He still thinks tariffs are free money—that America has been a sucker for not slapping tariffs on countries such as China because, in his mind, it forces other countries to pay more and has no negative implications for the United States. While I wasn’t exactly a model student when I got my economic degree .. um, no. That’s not how it works. At all.
Trump tries to brand his meandering, old-man gibberish as deliberate, calling it “the weave.” “I’ll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together,” he said last month. I await the American Medical Association rebranding incoherent ranting in line with this obvious fact.
Note: The image on this post is by Shelby Tauber of Reuters.
A note about whatever this is …
After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.
Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.
Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.