After a brief midsummer hiatus, John and I are refreshed and ready to go. This week, we’re talking Kamala Harris, the first black woman to become the presumptive nominee for president. And her blackness is on our minds—not whether she “is” black but how she articulates her blackness, how she attempts to define it, and whether it will have any electoral repercussions.
John, drawing on our experience of Obama’s presidency, hypothesizes that a Harris presidency won’t improve our national discourse on race, just as Obama’s didn’t. Everyone know I’ve got my problems with Obama, but I can’t deny his intelligence and ability to think on his feet. I don’t think Kamala can measure up to that. Still, part of me wishes I could get excited about her, but I just can’t. Perhaps inevitably, she’s being criticized for code switching, but that’s something many, many people do—and not just black people! Two white “affinity groups” had strategy and fundraising calls in support of Harris—you can only imagine how much grief a “White Dudes for Trump” call would have gotten. Tim Walz, Harris’s VP pick, has gone on the offensive against Republican “weirdness.” Democrats are taking his lead—the days of “when they go low, we go high” seem to be over.
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1:05 John: A Kamala Harris presidency won’t improve the discourse on race
9:12 Glenn: Kamala Harris is no Barack Obama
14:44 Why Glenn just can’t excited about a Harris presidency
18:07 Ground News
20:40 How Kamala measures up to Obama under the spotlight
23:07 Kamala’s code switching
25:50 Building the black political persona
33:51 White Ladies and White Dudes for Kamala
40:39 Are there white Sonya Masseys?
45:55 ACTA
48:03 Walz’s war on “weird”
48:14 The Dems get their hands dirty
55:48 Trump’s near-death experience that wasn’t
Recorded August 9, 2024
Links and Readings
Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Trump’s on-stage interview before the National Association of Black Journalists
NYT story about Trump’s alleged helicopter ride
John McWhorter – Is Kamala Harris the Next Obama?