Democrats are blaming Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris on all the things from faux information that immigrants have been consuming American home pets to Elon Musk’s alleged manipulation of his Starlink satellite tv for pc community to intrude with voting-machine counts. I’ve my very own principle: Harris made the deadly mistake of abandoning the one factor that even her worst enemies should agree she had going for her: the “politics of pleasure.”
Harris was the cheeriest, the laughing-est and positively probably the most photogenic candidate ever to run for the U.S. presidency — till she wasn’t, and that was what killed her.
There was that situation of New York journal that ran proper after Harris secured the Democratic nomination on Aug. 5. On the duvet, Kamala sits atop a large coconut (a nod to an aphorism of her India-born mom), rocking a pair of stilettos and searching, effectively, simply nice. “Welcome to Kamalot” blared the headline, above extra photographs — Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney, Beyoncé and even Joe Biden (yeah, proper) — cavorting in jubilation. Different media adopted swimsuit with comparable disquisitions on the sheer pleasure her marketing campaign radiated. Coconuts, vibes, brat summer time — what extra may you ask for?
This was good, as a result of Harris was a little bit weak on a few of the different attributes which may make a superb president, resembling realizing specifics about heavy-duty points like inflation, the border and overseas coverage. The Washington Publish in 2021 reported complaints from earlier than she was vice chairman that she would persistently “refuse to wade into briefing supplies ready by employees members.” Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t in control for powerful interviews. So she blathered issues to Oprah Winfrey like “the liberty to be who you might be and simply be.” Some accused Harris of being “lazy” — and amongst that “some” was Trump.
That was unfair. As conservative commentator Steve Sailer identified, Kamala Harris is at coronary heart a fun-loving sorority woman (Alpha Kappa Alpha at her alma mater, Howard College), who loves most of all to do enjoyable issues together with her sorority sisters. Black sororities are a little bit totally different from different sororities in that they emphasize group solidarity and lifelong affiliation a bit extra, however they’re nonetheless sisterhoods: repositories of femininity. Go to the web sites of Harris’ AKA and, say, a non-HBCU sorority resembling Kappa Kappa Gamma. You’ll see the identical issues: fairly colours, good graphics and images of elegant younger ladies hugging one another in cute garments.
And that’s Kamala Harris. She at all times appears terrific: elegant and tasteful, excessive heels with the pantsuits, no Angela Merkel clodhoppers for her. I like her jewellery, particularly the necklaces. She likes to cook dinner. And he or she likes to show that sunny smile and infectious snicker onto whomever she’s with. What she doesn’t love to do, perhaps, is pore over boring binders of coverage papers and U.S. code sections. Who can blame her?
Harris jogs my memory of my very own late, expensive mom. Mother learn Stendahl within the unique French, however her principal pursuits consisted of garments, fixing up the home and connoisseur delicacies (her cassoulet was to die for). Later in life, she went to legislation faculty. A pal requested one in every of my sisters if my mom was a feminist. My sister stated, “No, she simply needed to put on Armani fits to courtroom.” My mom practiced legislation for 5 years, then went again to dinner events and redecorating the lounge.
Someday between August and November, Harris swapped out the enjoyment in her marketing campaign technique to run on concern. Trump is Hitler, the way forward for fascism, and, most of all, abortion. Why did she do this? Abortion is miserable! There was the lugubrious advert during which Julia Roberts informed ladies their husbands would by no means understand how they voted, and the opposite advert during which a physician knowledgeable a husband over the cellphone that his spouse would die if she didn’t have the process. The adverts have been ineffective in any occasion. Most girls for whom abortion entry was a urgent situation have been already going to vote for Harris.
In the meantime, as Harris was drifting down the enjoyment y-axis, Trump’s pleasure line was rising steadily, usually at Harris’ expense. There was his McDonald’s fry-station caper, poking enjoyable at Harris saying she’d as soon as labored at one of many chain’s shops. The rubbish truck he rented after Biden had known as his supporters “rubbish” — hilarious. The Al Smith Dinner: 28 minutes of stand-up throughout which he merrily roasted Democrats whereas serving to elevate a report $10 million for charity. Harris didn’t even present up (she did provide a video, nevertheless it wasn’t the identical).
When Harris gave her concession speech on Nov. 6, on the Howard campus in Washington, author Meghan Daum commented on X that it was “probably the most relaxed I’ve seen her. She appears relieved.”
And he or she undoubtedly was. Kamala Harris has spent her whole profession turning on the attraction and saying regardless of the powers that be in her celebration needed to listen to, regardless of how absurd and awful-sounding to everybody else: free trans surgical procedure for jail inmates, for instance. Now, she will sit again and be her true self, as girly-girl and womanly-woman as she needs to be.
Charlotte Allen writes continuously for Quillette and the Washington Examiner.
