I am happy and hoping it lasts for four years

The Column: 07.26.24

I have been a very happy Democrat for the past week and I am not used to this. I’m used to reading about homelessness, hungry children, the pollution by plastics, the warming of the oceans, various daily examples of injustice and cruelty and suffering, but now, even though I am an old Episcopalian writer, I am in love, I’ve been Kamalized. The nation was sunk in depression over a contest between two old white men, one weird and maniacal, the other murmury, and we were praying for a fresh face to come onstage, but who? And then the news flash: Joe withdrew. Another flash: he endorsed Kamala Harris. And suddenly politics, which had been the same old sameness of similitude glaciating toward November 5, became a fascinating story. There was a good reason to read the paper. A smart articulate friendly woman who laughs and who smiles spontaneously and when Oval Orange came out and called her a lunatic and said she’d destroy the country, it made no sense, not even to his elderly biker fans with the white hair ropes coming out of their skulls. It only made O.O. weirder. It made me feel high. Harris vs. the Harasser starts to look like an unfair contest. She’s got a future, he’s only got a troubled past.

I am not used to feeling this way — my people expecting the worst. When happiness struck, they took this as a sign of imminent catastrophe. But Kamala looks to me like a sunny day after a year of trumpification and when she vows to eliminate child hunger in America, she is striking a chord that reverberates left and right. The right of every child to get a decent healthy start in life, no matter the iniquities or carelessness of the parents. Not even the man Senator Vance called “America’s Hitler” can argue with that. And the visual contrast between her and Herr Trump is stunning. A 16-month-old child can see the difference: Angelina Jolie vs. Thor the Avenger.

Everyone in the MAGA camp knows that their man is a first-class pompous jerk who you’d never want to go on a long car trip with. What sort of man would make his teenage granddaughter get up on national TV to say that he is a nice man? And what sort of man would find his granddaughter’s endorsement necessary? Not a nice man.

As for Joe’s 11-minute speech to the nation last Wednesday, it was his chance to tell a story and instead he reeled off a list of accomplishments like he was listing furniture consignments up for auction. no emotion, a deficit of charisma. Joe is a creature of the old gents’ club known as the U.S. Senate and so Trump is incomprehensible to him. Kamala Harris has Mr. Golf Pants nailed: he’s a crook and he’s a champion liar. Every time he stands up, he lies. When it was a contest between two old white men, Trump could sort of pass for human, but Kamala has charisma and she makes him look like an old snapping turtle. I hope she has some good writers. Trump has but they’re wasted because he can’t read. Kamala’s strong suit is her humanity, a quality that Trump never had. He stands next to his youngest son and never puts an arm around him, it’s like they never met. The kid’s misery is painful to see. Kamala is a hugger. She needs to give speeches that sound like a person conversing, not the reading of a mortgage.

I look forward to the First Woman President and wish I could live long enough to see the second and third. Why? I think the FWP could prove to be good and great in ways the MPs never imagined. I think it would be inspiring to my daughter and my great-nieces. And also, when we have a WP, it’ll mean that men are freer to make fun of women and not treat them like delicate china. I spent last week in a summer house in Connecticut with four women and their fussiness –– my God, the endless deliberations about what restaurant to go to and what to wear, meanwhile America stands at the gate of authoritarianism. When Kamala takes Doug to the White House, I’ll be free to speak my mind. The glass ceiling that prevents men from ridiculing women because they’re an oppressed group will be broken. Look out, ladies.

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