What it takes
First in a series
Last week was a week.
You’ll notice that, although politics is part of the remit of this newsletter, I’ve largely shied away from talking about it, especially when it comes to the utterly interminable Democratic primary. I’m sure I could give you a ton of cogent reasons why, but it essentially boils down to two things:
There’s a ton of other places you can get political coverage, if that’s what you’re looking for.
I generally believe that this is a great opportunity not to have A Take™. Especially given the massive size of the political hot-take industrial complex.
Number Two, especially, really hits home. I firmly believe we’d be better off if people generally hesitated to offer up takes and paused to think — hard — before dropping bombs. Yes, it’s a vain hope, but we can dream of a better world, right?
From time to time, though, commentary is warranted. Last week was one of those times, because we’re now getting into the final stretch of the pre-primary period, and the Democratic primary got rocked. On top of that, for the third time in American history, a sitting president is going to be impeached.
Like I said: a week.
For what it’s worth: I’ve worked on five presidential campaign cycles (1992, ‘96, 2004, ‘08, and 2016). Not only that, I’ve worked in different capacities on those campaign cycles, doing things as diverse as field, ops, tech, advance, and political outreach. My perspective is unique, because my experiences saw the practice of politics change radically.
How radically? In 1992, the cutting-edge technological tool that people buzzed about was an toll-free number — Jerry Brown’s hotline number, which until recently, still worked, nearly 30 years later! The Internet, as we know it, didn’t exist; there was one cable news network. Fox News and MSNBC didn’t launch until the mid-’90s.
To quote J.K. Simmons: I know a thing, or two, because I’ve seen a thing, or two.
Last Wednesday, Kamala Harris made an extraordinarily brave and difficult decision.
Difficult, because at one point Harris was certainly a front-runner; her kick off rally was a fantastic piece of political stagecraft, and she could’ve crafted an extremely compelling case for herself. Brave, because she could’ve kept running, but it would’ve meant going into debt, and she chose not to do that.
It says nothing good about how the Democratic pre-primary has gone that the most diverse field of presidential candidates ever is now essentially winnowed to seven: not one, but two billionaires, four septuagenarians, and the 30-something mayor of a city smaller than Boulder, CO. All of them: white. We can draw the smallest of comforts from the fact that two of these seven people are women, at least.
This is ridiculous. Honestly? It’s fucking embarrassing. And more than that, it’s demoralizing. I’m not entirely sure how we’re supposed to argue for Black and brown voters to vote Democratic when we’ve essentially culled all the black and brown candidates for president before a single goddamn vote’s been cast.
Look, I get it. Policy matters, and as Tressie McMillan Cottom points out in this thread (read it!), Harris wasn’t…great at explaining why deeply progressive voters might want to support her, given how problematic some of her previous positions were.
Slate’s Julia Craven got at this same failure, pithily explaining it as a failure to stick her landing:
Harris’ campaign, in its opening stages, was animated by identity and justice. Her early poll numbers suggested that Democratic voters were indeed receptive to a black woman candidate (even if that woman, in the long run, wasn’t Harris). But after that first burst of momentum, she failed to stick her landing. Voters were never able to figure out who she was or what particular problem facing Americans she cared about most.
That lack of definition has followed Harris throughout her career. Going through her record is akin to doing backflips down a football field. As district attorney of San Francisco, she refused to impose the death penalty against a 21-year-old who killed Isaac Espinoza, an undercover police officer. She supported reforming the state’s three-strikes law, declined to seek life sentences for people whose third strike was nonviolent, and created the “Back on Track” program—a reform-minded initiative that placed first-time drug offenders, many of them young people who were just trying to make rent or feed their families, into college apprentice programs instead of jail.
At the same time, she supported a city policy requiring law enforcement officers to hand undocumented juvenile immigrants over to federal immigration authorities in the event of an arrest for a felony—regardless of whether they were actually convicted of a crime. This was in line with the tough-on-crime campaign she ran against incumbent District Attorney Terence Hallinan.
And yet: visual representation matters. It matters that a Black/South Asian woman was on that stage, vying for the presidency (even if it’s to be president of a fast-decaying empire). It matters that, for a minute, Julián Castro and Cory Booker were on that stage, and that five women were on it. It matters that Andrew Yang is on that stage, even if you don’t agree that he’s a serious candidate.
It matters because, right now, there are kids watching watching these debates who come from historically marginalized communities — communities that the Democratic Party claims to fight for. There are Black and Latinx and South Asian and Asian American and Pacific Islander kids who right now can see someone like them on that stage — at the same time that an entire political party is engaged in exercises to deny them not just that opportunity, but the very idea of seeing themselves as full members of the American experiment.
And now that’s done and dusted, thanks to the fecklessness of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
I’m a huge believer in Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. In simpler words: some bad things happen not because of people having bad intentions, but because they did not think it through properly.
In this case, the DNC didn’t think through its debate qualification methods properly. And it wasn’t because people didn’t raise the alarm, either. There were a ton of folks, myself included, who intuited that making one of your two bases for debate qualification the number of individuals donating to your campaign did two things, neither of them good for campaigns:
it was distortive and distracting, because it forced second-tier campaigns to focus on a meaningless task (gathering individual donors) as opposed to what they should’ve been doing to be and remain viable (building out field organizations in the first four states).
Meaningless, because being a donor to a campaign doesn’t denote support for that campaign.
I don’t know how many emails and texts I got this past summer from candidates like Kirsten Gillibrand and Castro and Steve Bullock and whomever absolutely pleading for just a single solitary dollar just so they could qualify for the debate stage. And it was all meaningless. Meaningless, because it took away time and energy from talking with voters in the first four states, and focused it on raising insignificant sums ($1!) from people outside those states that couldn’t possibly help build campaign infrastructure.
In fact, I suspect that running those campaigns actually cost the campaigns money, even if the “payoff” was qualifying for the debate. And what kind of payoff is it when you only get three or five or seven minutes total to state your case on a debate stage?
In any event, this is just so emblematic of how ossified and unimaginative the Democratic establishment is. Basing debate qualification on how many donors you have is just such a myopic thing to do, and ignorant of how you actually build a campaign. Not that money matters; it absolutely does. But it’s not the only thing that matters, and yet, that’s the only thing that DC Democrats give a damn about.
Which is how we’ve wound up with not one, but two billionaires running for the nomination of a party that ostensibly claims to care about the travails of working people. What a tragicomedy.
Hit the stacks
The title of this edition comes from the totemic Richard Ben Norton book, which you can buy here. It’s perhaps the best single book written about presidential politics ever, and I reread it regularly. (Indiebound link)
If that tickles your fancy, you should buy Brad Koplinski’s Hats In The Ring, which is a collection of interviews with presidential candidates. The interviews are actually fairly well done, and Koplinski does an excellent job of getting answers from people who aren’t exactly the most open to talking. (Amazon link, I’m sorry!)
If folks are interested (let me know?), I’ll add other recommendations from my library.
Links
Here’s a solid look at why Pete Buttigieg’s surging in Iowa. (Mother Jones)
If you’re wondering why outlets like Current Affairs and Jacobin are going after Elizabeth Warren, Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna explores that question here. (POLITICO)
Trust me on this one: read it, then read it again. (New York Times)
A fascinating look at the best-selling singles for every decade back to 14,000 BC. (Twitter/YouTube).
Finally, a personal note:
One of the reasons I started this newsletter is because I wanted to be accountable to people, and because I wanted to share my struggles, in the hopes that other struggling people realize they’re not alone.
The holiday season is tough for a lot of people, myself included. If you’re single, like me, and estranged from your family, this time of year is just…not fun. You’re hearing songs about being with family and loved ones and kissing that Special Person™ underneath the mistletoe, and you can’t see yourself in any of that.
I know I can’t.
It’s very easy to slip into feeling that you don’t matter, that nobody gives a damn about you, and that you don’t exist for other people. I know this, because I’ve been there. I’m there right now, at times.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting this, and I hope that if this is the case for you, my admission of this helps you feel less alone. I also want you to know that, even if I don’t know you, I care about you. I love you for who you are, in all your ineffably jacked-up ways.
Look, I’m under no illusions here: the world is a lonesome place. The breadth of connections we have, assisted by technology, does not result in depth; rather, it’s the opposite.
But know that I’m here for you, and if you need someone to tell you that you matter, and that you’re loved, let me be that person.
If you need anything, feel free to reply to this email. If you have a friend or acquaintance whom you think is struggling, feel free to forward them this newsletter.
I love all y’all. Take of yourselves, and each other.