Chicago Tribune editorial: ‘Kamala Harris should have thought more of her fellow Americans’ a complete mischaracterization o Harris campaign

 Chicago Tribune editorial: ‘Kamala Harris should have thought more of her fellow Americans’ a complete mischaracterization o Harris campaign

 

The Trib is aghast Kamala Harris decided against selecting her first choice, Pete Buttigieg, as her running mate because he is gay. They falsely use that decision to demean her judgment and obsession with identity politics.

 

Everything the Trib posits is nonsense and Monday morning quarterbacking. The nonsense is claiming Harris ran a campaign based on identity politics which includes Democratic belief that “the American electorate is filled with racists, antisemites and homophobes, even the swing voters who obviously mattered the most to Harris from an electoral point of view.” The Trib Editorial Board clearly did not spend much time, if any, analyzing Harris’ campaign content. Having followed it closely it was clear identity politics were a non-element of her voter appeal. What she focused on were bread and butter issues, domestic justice issues, inequality issues, health care issues, climate change issues among others that are of vital importance to every voter, swinging or static. Time for the Trib to stop repeating the scurrilous Republican meme that Democrats demonize straight white folks to promote every other voter segment.

 

The Monday morning quarterbacking assumes Pete Buttigieg would have been a better VP pick than Tim Walz, and that Harris’ pick reflects her grievous misunderstanding of the electorate. Bunk. VP picks historically have never been a deciding factor in the outcome. Knowing that, VP picks are simply based on one likely to have least negative effect. That’s purely a political decision, not related to an obsession with identity politics or character.

 

A better Trib postmortem on Harris should have zeroed on her refusal to break with Biden’s wholehearted support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. That cost Harris millions of Biden’s 2020 voters. As a leader in the peace community, I can attest to that understandable phenomenon.

 

Any editorial deconstructing Harris’ overwhelming loss should shed light and add value. The Trib’s editorial focused on imaginary identity politics and Harris’ character does neither.

 

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn