The Perfect Candidate

There is something special about Kamala Harris

You just have to figure out what it is for yourself.

She really is the perfect candidate:

zero depth, adjustable identity

You're black? She's is, too.

You're Caribbean? She is, too.

You're Asian? She is, too.

You're Indian? She is, too.

You're a mom? She is, too.

You don't have kids? She doesn't either.

The people have spoken, and last week former President Barack Obama called Vice President Kamala Harris to tell her. His endorsement of her run for the presidency was captured in a short video documenting the candidate’s reaction. “Although you called for an open process,” said Obama, “and you know, Democrats have, have put in place an open process, it appears that people feel very strongly that you need to be our nominee.”

But without a primary, without a popular referendum, without even the open convention that Obama was rumored to favor, how did the people make their will known, and strongly? Was it social media influencers? Mass rallies across the country? Media chronicling the excitement surrounding a Harris candidacy? No, it was nothing like that. Obama is the people. The people are Obama.

The endorsement was more than five years in the making. Obama had long wanted her in that spot. Their families are old friends. Like him, Harris is progressive, multiracial, physically attractive, nominally hip, a child of academics—in other words, according to Obama-friendly media, she’s a “female Barack Obama.” He directed donors to support her 2020 presidential campaign, Capitol Hill sources told me at the time. More billionaires, 47, backed her campaign than any other candidate’s—with Obama strongholds in Hollywood (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) and Big Tech (Reid Hoffman, Laurene Powell Jobs, Craig Newmark, etc.) leading the way.

Obama got her the vice presidential nod even when she was forced to drop out of the primary race after hitting just 3 percent in the polls. Jill Biden objected—Harris had called her husband a racist! The First Lady’s reported recent tantrums show that even after four years, she never fully grasped the arrangement the party had made with her husband. Biden was just an imperfect placeholder for Obama, and it was only a matter of time before the superior avatar would be slotted in.

He the People How Barack Obama ended normalcy in American politics
by Lee Smith July 29, 2024

You might want to read the whole piece. You might not agree with all the details, but there are certainly a lot of details to consider.

The truth is that an American political faction is employing third-world tactics—surveillance, censorship, election interference, political prosecution, and political violence—to put the United States under the thumb of a single party led by a man who in his mind has become the people.

A manufactured candidate?

It took about five minutes after Kamala was foisted on a class of political professionals and party veterans who openly disdained her until that moment to realize she was a kind of lab-grown next generation politics bot.

Kamala might just be successful and usher in a new regime of retarded, vibes-based politics where politicians are memetic spectacles, have no platform, make no promises, hold no opinions, but are explicitly aligned with (and captured by) this or that set of powerful interests who will be the ones actually doing politics opaquely out of public view. This arrangement worked well with Biden except that he reminded everyone of death and dementia every time they looked at him and he was nostalgic for organized labor. The trick was to find someone with the superficial surface appeal of Obama but who was 40 IQ points stupider, more cynical, and who had no thoughts of their own.

HE'S NOT WRONG

The legacy media NPC grovel fest https://t.co/lGcYoDas62

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024

So, how do we keep this election about real issues?

I keep hearing that Kamala's campaign is off to a great start and she has transformed into a better candidate than anyone expected. And yet Kamala hasn't done or even said anything. She hasn't had a clever moment, a great speech, an innovative policy idea. She hasn't had substance or even style. The "transformation" is happening entirely and solely in the media. Kamala is the same Kamala she's always been. What we've witnessed is the media figuring out a new branding strategy in real time.

Who, exactly, is running the administration?

And which reporter will ask Kamala some in-depth questions about Biden's mental acuity?

Joe Biden climbed back up the stairs of an airplane he wasn't supposed to be on, as Kamala Harris and the Secret Service watched in disbelief. He clearly has no idea where he is or what he's doing. h/t @ianmSC pic.twitter.com/O82qcXyRzu

— @amuse (@amuse) August 2, 2024

Weekend

Be careful if you live in farm country:

Amazing footage showing how a medium-sized colony of Amish can entirely devour a barn in less than 12 hours pic.twitter.com/0LvEFlWYb5

— Olaf Falafel (@OFalafel) July 28, 2024

Not Amish

Weekend fun pic.twitter.com/1PHNcbzxUq

— The Best (@ThebestFigen) January 30, 2024

Music

In 2011, Japanese telecom company Docomo created one of the most beautiful adverts we've ever seen.

A giant xylophone in Kyushu playing Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" with a wooden ball rolling down its keys.https://t.co/VCjlM7oqdV

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 28, 2024

Instrumental

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, July 27, Things fall apart

Things continued to fall apart at the Olympics and elsewhere.

Britain is coming apart at the seams
Weeks of unrest have revealed tensions, anger and a collapse in social trust that can no longer be ignored.

Oilfield Rando:

Just imagine a junkie career criminal named George just died and it'll seem a lot more acceptable for some reason

I'm sorry, but we established the precedent that an aggrieved group is allowed to burn and loot without consequence when a perceived outsider takes the life of one of their own.

I won't be bothered if "far right" Englishmen tear that entire island apart

The famous teacher Miss Snuffy recommends two books to help British parents help their kids psychologically.

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:05 AM

| Access Comments