When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit and changed everything, I began thinking a lot about the Kubler-Ross model of grief, which breaks the process of grieving down into five states: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The idea is that people work through these five emotions while grieving, and can bounce back and forth between different states. I found that scale helpful when processing my own feelings—so I started applying that basic framework to everything I experience, which I think is probably very healthy and smart of me.
For anyone halfway decent (i.e., anti-Trump), I think the announcement that California Sen. Kamala Harris will be Joe Biden’s running mate brings its own complicated web of reactions. With that in mind, I present the five stages of processing the news that Kamala Harris is Biden’s vice presidential pick:
1. Excitement. Harris is the first Black woman to be on a major party’s presidential ticket! Hell yeah! I can’t wait to vote for her (… and Biden, too, I guess)!
2. Fury. Harris is the first Black woman to be on a major party’s presidential ticket? What the fuck! What is wrong with this vile, stunted, misogynist, white supremacist country that it took us until 20fucking20 to have a Black woman contending for vice president?
3. Anticipation. Remember the kids’ table at your family Thanksgiving? Well, the presidential election has its own version of this, and it’s called the vice presidential debate. And guess what, baby? That means Kamala Harris gets to square off against the homophobe-in-chief, our constipated Evangelical Ken doll himself, Mike Pence! Let’s all take a few minutes to remind ourselves just what a fierce, badass, #girlboss, #yasqueen debater Kamala is by watching her eviscerate the man who would later become her running mate:
If Harris can pick apart a member of her own party with such precision, imagine the kind of no-holds-barred approach she’ll bring when sharing the stage with the human equivalent of a none pizza with left beef, AKA Mike Pence. The VP debate is scheduled for October 7—mark your calendars now!
4. Ambivalence. Look, there’s a lot to like about Harris’ politics—particularly her more recent politics. As a senator and a former presidential candidate, she’s prioritized things like environmental justice, universal childcare, and grilling Donald Trump during his impeachment trial.
But we have to remember that Harris started her career as a prosecutor before becoming the District Attorney of San Francisco, and later served as the California Attorney General. That means her record is rife with the hallmarks of the “tough on crime” era: supporting policies that lead to mass incarceration, detaining trans women in men’s prisons, and declining to prosecute cops who killed people. There’s a reason the kids on Twitter like to call her Copmala Harris, and it isn’t because those kids love cops!
And forgetting individual candidate records for a moment, there’s also a not-infinitesimal chance that we won’t actually have a legitimate election this year. The Trump administration is intentionally bleeding the US Postal Service to death as it wages a misinformation campaign about the fake risks of vote by mail. Trump has even floated the idea of postponing the election until it’s safe to vote in person—and while he doesn’t have the authority to do that by himself, he could still use his power and influence to sabotage the election.
So while I’d love to sip coffee out of my new Biden/Harris mug in blissful ignorance for the next three months, I won’t be resting easy until 12:01 pm on January 20, 2021, assuming Biden and Harris win. And after resting easy for a day, I’ll be bracing to see just how effective and progressive the two of them are.
5. Acceptance. Ah, well, what are you gonna do? I believe conscious nonvoting can be a valid political choice, but it’s not one that sits right with me personally for an election that includes Donald Trump.
Any Democrat with a pulse for VP would have been fine, just like Joe Biden is fine, and there are aspects of Harris’ identity and politics that can drum up some genuine optimism. It’s 2020, and excitement, fury, anticipation and ambivalence are allowed to co-exist—in fact, a potent mix of strong emotions is pretty much what keeps me going right now.
And there’s one thing I think we can all agree on: Mike Pence deserves to have his ass handed to him in November.
” I believe conscious nonvoting can be a valid political choice”
Nah, that ship sailed back in 2016. There are typically two people who might win, and one is better than the other. They are never “both just as bad”. One’s not as exciting as you want, but if you just abstain or piss away your vote, you’re doing harm.
(In Oregon you have the luxury of knowing the adults will probably cover for you, but when you spend time slamming the only viable choice and convincing people in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin to do the same, you’re screwing everyone else over by putting the worse person in place.)
You can vote for someone you don’t like and then turn around and protest their actions because you know that at least you didn’t let the worse choice take office. You’re allowed. It’s OK.
Yes, Trump is the nadir of elected officials, but after enduring three terms of people named “Bush” I am over people acting like abstaining from voting, or voting for someone who tripped over the starting line, is anything but an act of smug self-satisfaction.
If white men were held to any kind of standard of anything at all Trump would be in prison. He never would have made it to even thinking about running for POTUS, let alone be the resident of the WH, so let’s dispel with the bullshit, shall we? Trump is a fucking narcissitic psychopath who is dumber than a fucking rock and has used his time in the WH to destroy everything he possibly can and steal as much money as he possibly can while spewing shit on everyone and everything like a fire hose that spews shit 24/7.
There will be no reasonable conversation about Kamala Harris because she will be expected to meet a standard set forth by white men who never meet that same standard. President Obama exceeded their absurd standards on every single metric and was still vilified and lied about 100% of the time, a nasty, racist, never ending shit spewing hate fest (led by, oh guess who, the birther himself, Trump)!!! He is lied about and vilified to this day as MAGAts continue to say he was the worst president this country ever had (not even remotely true).
Senator Kamala Harris is not going to be who everyone wants her to be. Even at her worst she is 1000% times better than anyone in the Trump/Pence crime syndicate death cult. Period. Full stop.
Trump/Pence have chosen racism and anti-trans hatred as their platform for re-election. Literally. So feel free to vote for that because Kamala Harris, selected as VP to Biden (yet another extremely imperfect white male who comes with a boat load of baggage himself) isn’t perfect and therefore must be rejected outright.
This election will decide whether the people in this country have a death wish and want to be completely destroyed or if they would like this country to continue. That’s what this election is.
Anyone believing this is about anything else is completely out of touch with reality.
On our ticket this year, we have two pieces of shit. But the other side has two much, much bigger pieces of shit on their ticket. You know who to vote for.
Unlike so many powerful public figures like US Attorney General William Barr or VP Mike Pence or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Kamala Harris is NOT the perfect candidate to run with Joe Biden Tha God to try to keep our shit hole country from becoming a “Christian” gulag. WAAAAAAAAA!!!! TEARS ON MY KEYBOARDDDDDDD!!!! I am sobbing so hard right now and Blair made me do it. I had not realized before now how MANY and how TRAGIC were Kamala Harris’ FLAWS. I am chastened, that’s for sure.