This is my favorite video that has happened in the history of American election cycles.
I was already going to vote for Kamala Harris — and with more enthusiasm than I’ve had since Obama — but now I’m going to enthusiastically cast my vote because I like her! I relate to her! It speaks to me on a cultural level where I can look at the White House and see my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers. “Get something sweet” is such a touchstone in my life that signals so many things, from the propensity to show care through food to the guilt-sharing of “I probably shouldn’t be eating this, but if you do it with me, then we can burden the load together.” I agree with about 85% of Kamala’s policies, but the excitement to vote for her is solely based on who she is as a person.
Trump voters also vote for him based on who he is as a person, the Orange Cult of Personality. Since around 2015 when it became impossible to ignore what a terrible human being he is, Democrats have implored Republicans to look past who is he is and focus on what he says, what policies he promotes, how unfit he is to hold a position in government. Almost a decade later, and it is still impossible to sway a Trump voter with facts. They just like him, because they see themselves in him (as deplorable as that is) and they want to be able to relate to the person in the White House who will bully people they don’t like. Regardless of his tax plans to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, regardless of his tendency to relax regulations to make it easier for corporations to function while harming the public with tainted meat, regardless of his relationships with foreign dictators that place America’s secrets on the table as a bargaining chip for his personal ego, Trump’s cult is sticking with him because they refuse to see any of that. Even before Trump, Conservative men were famous for saying they want a President they could have a beer with.
So is it hypocritical for the Democratic Party to embrace their first Social Media Candidate riding a wave of popularity based on memes, giggles, and confections? Yes it is, and I do not care. Further, I have never cared about hypocrisy in politics because in the post-truth era of journalism, reporting, and political discourse, facts no longer matter and I want to win by any means necessary. Let’s break this down into some truths you have to accept first before you wrap your arms around the hypocrisy of playing the game the way Republicans do.
Most people are not smart.
Democrats have an arrogance problem. There is a streak of elitism that runs through the party because Democrats have the thinkers, the progressive policy makers, the people who can more clearly see the way forward. Liberal policies push the country forward, boost the economy, and improve the lives of the greatest numbers of people. However, in as much as the trickle down theory of economics is a complete fantasy, so is any trickle down theory of intelligence and education. Your average Democrat is no more astute, intuitive, or well-read on policy than your average Republican. The difference between Republican and Democrat isn’t intelligence, it’s empathy. One side believes you should only care about yourself and those in your tribe, and the other believes you should care about all people. Republicans aren’t voting for bad candidates because they’re dumb and Democrats aren’t voting for better candidates because they’re smart. Neither side can explain policy, history, or theory. They can quote talking points and sound bytes that have been selected by those in control of the ecosystems where they live and receive information. Both sides only spit out what has been fed to them by their algorithms.
So if we first let go of the idea that Democrats are somehow more informed on the issues, we move on to…
Media is Conservative.
Where are the liberal equivalents to these two spins from past week:
Fox News has been the number one cable news channel for the past 22 years. They have 50% of the viewing audience locked up, and this is before you dig into the wider network of print and web outlets who take those stories and push them even faster around the country. Even though Trump scheduled a private event, against the rules of Arlington Cemetery, the entire Conservative Party has bought into this lie that there was an event scheduled that Biden declined to go to out of disrespect for our veterans.
Both Politico and CNN have Leans Left scores from AllSides. And yet, CNN wasted airtime having a white woman ask a woman of color to defend her Blackness in response to the rambling criticism of a proven racist, and when she rightly refused to do so, Politico positioned the story as an evasive tactic, playing straight into Republican talking points. And these two outlets are supposed to be on the Left side of the political spectrum!
We can dig further. Let’s look at the top internet outlets for news according to the Press Gazette’s ranking for 2024: CNN, the NY Times, and Fox News. AllSides.com uses a scale to measure partisan bias that goes from -4 (Extremely Left) to +4 (Extremely Right) with 0 in the middle as the Center.
- CNN, Leans Left, -1.3
- NY Times, Left, -2.2
- Fox News, Extremely Right, 3.88
Fox News is three times as Conservative as the top result, and almost twice as Conservative and he second, which makes sense given the factually incorrect stories they are willing to run with. However, anyone who has spent more than ten minutes reading the news online has seen the Right-leaning spin coming from multiple stories pushed by both CNN and the NY Times. Politico, with its Republican sheen painted over Kamala’s refusal to go back and forth about her race, scores a -1.20 from AllSides. If that passes as leans left, then the entire ecosystem is cooked. There is no equivalent to Fox News on the Left, pushing out conspiracy theories and half-truths that will be picked up and integrated as part of the mainstream narrative by outlets that are on the other side of the aisle. Fox News is not running stories about Donald Trump that have been painted with CNN’s brush to spin the story in Kamala’s favor, but CNN is all too happy to carry the banner for Fox News in order to cast Kamala in a negative light.
So if we are now in agreement that people are not that bright and the media is not that reliable, we come to my last point.
Changing someone’s mind is an exercise in futility.
If you are not educated enough to understand the nuances of your position and you are immersed in a media environment where you are being fed headlines that support whatever position you have decided to take, then I cannot change your mind regardless of how many facts, charts, and resources I send your way. Sure, there are a handful of people here and there who will digest new information and come to a different conclusion, but on the whole, an election cycle does not push people from one side of the line to another. Elections are about pushing people from the couch into the voting booth.
Since the goal is to convince people to actually vote, we have to look at what motivates people. The Right motivates by fear, and it works like a charm. They feed their base a 24-hour cycle of imagined catastrophes: men in women’s restrooms, illegals raping their daughters, a godless nation where teachers turn their children gay, CHICAGO CHICAGO CHICAGO, and so on. The Left can’t motivate by fear because the party is too diverse and the different factions of The Big Tent are afraid of different things that are often diametrically opposed to each other. They do what they can to stoke the fears of another Trump Presidency, but that’s not enough to get people off the couch. Detailed policies don’t move people, because if they did, Elizabeth Warren would have been President. Astute observations about an unfit opponent don’t move people, because if they did, Hillary Clinton would have been President. Intelligent rebuttals to Republican talking points aren’t enough to move people, because if they were, Pete Buttigeig would have been President.
Democrats only have two options: walking the tightrope of appeasing Conservative Moderates while not offending Younger Radicals to the point where they will abandon the race, and building a cult of personality out of the Republican playbook.
Barack Obama was not qualified to be President. He swept into the White House on the strength of some real good speechifying and a cult of personality built on a Young Black Man bringing some much needed cool energy to Washington. Biden squeaked his way back into the White House because the Conservative Moderates desperately craved some stability after a global pandemic and a domestic disaster of an orange menace. Kamala doesn’t have the relative benefits of being the first non-white person for President or of saving the country after four years of tumult. But she would be the first with Big Mom Energy, and she’s leaning into it to endear herself to the public enough to pull people off the couch who want to see their cool auntie in the White House.
Look. Policy is important and I encourage everyone to pay attention to what Kamala Harris says, to what Donald Trump says, and to decide which of those policies are a better fit for you. However, I refuse to feel guilty — in any way! — for supporting Kamala’s team for taking a page out of the Republican playbook of personality to push this woman up the polls based on sweet treats, a cackle, a two-step, and some Gen Z memes. We live in a country where facts don’t matter. I’m tired of Republicans being the only ones who understand that and then take that understanding to play the American public like a violin. If you’re not on that page, then I don’t know what to tell you.
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