The Media is Bashing Kamala Harris
The media is subtly but consistently accusing Kamala of shortcomings that are either nonexistent or only minimally significant
By
David Gottfried
First, a Brief Blast from the Past illustrating that Political Satire was Once Charmed with Wit and Grace:
I think Hitler once said that if one tells a lie often enough, pretty soon people will believe it. For example, from the late Sixties on, Republicans repeatedly said that crime was always worse in big, liberal cities because liberals were, allegedly, lax and permissive about crime. In fact, the actual records of state governments show that the murder rate, through most of the post war era, had been at its highest deep in the heart of right-Wing Dixie, in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, and not in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc. But public opinion is not derived from reality. It is spun by propaganda and the myriad, mindless bullshit of the media. For example, for about three decades, allegedly liberal Johnny Carson poked fun at New York City and its supposedly inveterate propensity to be chock full of criminals, and he probably helped Richard Nixon become President of the United States.
In any event, the sloppy, silly, overrated media is doing it again and its disinformation is directed against Kamala Harris.
Many talking heads and bullshit-pushers claim that Kamala Harris is not telling us what she stands for. In today’s New York Times, Ross Douthat accused Kamala of artfully and deceptively gaining an advantage with a “joyfully policy-light” style of campaigning.
I have two big problems with this accusation. First, it is not true. Second, whether a candidate spells out his policies in detail is eclipsed in importance by another issue: Whether a candidate’s statements have any credibility at all.
The Media Faults Harris with not Discussing her Policies in Detail, but it ignores Trump’s propensity to utter whatever garbage pops into his petty, prejudiced, pigsty of a mind.
For example, Donald Trump constantly changes his professed views, and it’s not only because he endeavors to be the human embodiment of a weathervane, heeding the prejudices and myths adored by the mostly moronic electorate. After all, he has no views other than his deep-seated belief that he is something along the lines of the Second Coming.
Trump’s flip-floppiness is not only apparent on abortion, something he favored when he was, in his delusional mind, a “hip” swinger and man about town in New York.
(Trump once said that he endured the equivalent of what our soldiers suffered in Vietnam because his sexual escapades gave him anxiety about getting AIDS. If he thinks snorting coke in Studio 54 is like getting your balls blown off by a land mine in the Mekong Delta or the Iron Triangle, he should have been thrown into a padded cell ages ago.)
Trump’s opacity regarding issues extends to economics, and I wish the media would focus on that because opinion polls consistently show that most Americans think Trump would be superior to Kamala on the economy.
For example, in the beginning of his 2016 campaign, Trump, while trying to curry favor with poorer whites, and attempting to distinguish himself from his challengers for the republican nomination, was sounding very New Dealish on economic issues. Among other things, he said that he was in favor of increasing social security payments. Of course, he jettisoned that idea after he realized that although he could thoroughly subvert the Republican Party on foreign policy, making it ditch its Churchillian adamance on national defense in favor of a sick yen to imitate Vidkun Quisling (A Big Shot in the Norwegian government and military who helped Hitler take over Norway in 1940), he could not alter the penny-pinching, scrooge-like essence of the Republican malediction.
The talking heads and blabbermouths of the chattering classes are lying when they claim that Kamala is vague on details.
Do you remember what Donald Trump said about health care and what he would do about it.
Since 2015, Trump has made only one proposal regarding health care. He pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Commonly called Obama Care). And what, pray tell, will his health care proposal contain ?
He has told us that it will be “beautiful,” “wonderful,” and “perfect.” He has said it will give us more coverage and cost less. (He fancies that like Jesus he can make 5 loaves of bread completely and comfortably feed 5000 people) He has told us that his health plan will make us very healthy. (Of course, he knows in advance that none of his new medicine will amount to mistakes in medical practice, such as the mistake of treating women, with morning sickness, with thalidomide, a drug which caused thousands of horrendous birth defects.1
Trump has never told us how his health care plan would be financed, whether it would supplant Medicare and/or Medicaid, and of course he won’t tell us what it will cover. But Kamala, the wise, old dolts tell us, is too damn vague about her plans and proposals.
In fact, Kamala has been very detailed. She has, for example, proposed changes in our tax policies which would curb the might of the super-rich. For example, tax law currently provides that if i) A buys a stock for 1000 dollars, ii) at the time of A’s death it is worth 10,000 dollars and iii) 5 years after his death, A’s son sells it for 20,000, A’s son will only have to pay a tax on the appreciation of the stock since A’s death. Under Kamala’s proposal, people earning or having assets over a certain floor (I don’t remember the exact amount) will have to pay tax on the appreciation of the stock since A bought it. Similarly, many capital gains are not realized, e.g. a stock is bought for 1000, rises to 10,000 and is not sold. Individuals can get loans for the appreciation of the stock, and the money received in the form of these loans is not taxed. Kamala has endorsed proposals which would tax those loans. This was discussed in the New York Times, but the great American herd does not read the New York Times, and they know only the scant shit pebbles of news propounded by the networks and cable, and although the internet provides tons of information, most of the people I know use the internet to gobble-up porn. (Incidentally, Kamala has raised tons of money, and, unfortunately, her corporate and affluent donors have been working on her to retract her progressive taxation proposals.)
The Media Consistently Disseminates Half-Truths About Afghanistan which Obscure Trump’s Infamy
The media has relayed, without comment or criticism, Trump’s attacks on Kamala regarding Afghanistan, condemning Biden’s decision to withdraw and deploring the disorganized manner of the withdrawal. During our withdrawal, 13 United States Soldiers were killed.
However, why does the news media consistently tell only half the story ? Why don’t they tell the part of the story which underscores Donald Trump’s grotesque failures in foreign policy.
Yes, we withdrew from Afghanistan. But the man, the vile man, who decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, was none other but the orange fiend in chief, Donald Trump. During the presidency of his royal heinousness, Donald Trump, the United States entered into an agreement with the Taliban, the criminal gang which fostered and protected Osama Bin Ladin, to turn Afghanistan over to the Taliban. Biden, in withdrawing from Afghanistan, was merely implementing an agreement the United States had already, unfortunately, accepted, If Biden had not withdrawn, the U.S. would have been deemed a party which reneges on its agreements and whose word could not
be trusted.
I knew a thalidomide victim. Among other things, his wrists were about three inches from his shoulders. He told me that when he was four years old, he cried himself to sleep for having been born.