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Math and Aftermath

"Off guard" is one of those odd phrases - unless one lives in some state of perpetual vigilance, we are, generally "off guard." And yet, how can one talk about those moments and world changing events that suddenly up end our day, our week, our lives with a sudden, crystal breaking clarity? Who knew that could happen? Why weren't we "on guard?" How did we miss that?

Already, people talk about January sixth as if what happened should have been obvious - how could you not know that thousands of hyped up, angry protestors would turn into a riotous mob, storm the Capitol, nearly do bodily harm to our Congress, take hours to stop? In the modern phrasing... "that's just math." And yet, the events of the day came at us, really, out of the blue. If anything, the days since have been coming out of shock - shock that it happened, shock that it could happen, shock that what did happen was so bad, and could have been much worse. We are, as Americans, prisoners of our cheerful societal naïveté - we may seem like the girl who knows too much and Already Did It, but often we're just the rich kids in clothes that are too mature for us, pretending to a maturity we don't really have, never entirely earned. January 6th will haunt us because, really, We Should Have Known. We're shocked that we didn't.

Personally, I have had a plan to restart blogging in earnest that got, well, a little waylaid by Christmas and the holidays... but last week was my week to settle down and back into it. And I thought I'd start with some posts about Trump in his waning days... what's it all about, what a strange time... yada yada. And then, on that Wednesday, things just blew up. I had decided to catch some of the "Arizona debate" on the Electoral College count, flipping between House and Senate C-Span channels. Things had been slow, so I'd also flipped to coverage of the "Rally" the Trumpist folks were holding, waiting for Trump when it was apparent he would speak to them live, not really paying attention to his remarks. But then the debates started in earnest, and I was flipping between Paul Gosar and Mitch McConnell when suddenly... bedlam.

I've done the "where were you" discussions of 9/11 and other historic days, but January 6th will be, I think, kind of a Next Level on that: it's not just where we were (home, mostly), but how painful, and slow, and terrifying it was to watch. Trying to figure out what we couldn't see. Realizing that our very democracy could be in peril, not really having a "Plan B" on our whole System of Government... these are not everyday discussions. Not here. Not by us. People wanted to have whole debates about What It All Meant all afternoon... but what was immediately apparent is we couldn't even have that discussion until we did something more like basic... like stop this, and get it under control.

So... it's under control. Now what?

There are a number of ways to break down and pick apart the events of the sixth; and the point, I think, is that What Happened is not one discussion. It's several discussions, all important, all with a bearing on our future, as a nation, as a people, as a Republic. That, too, is just math. No one discussion can cover all of what this is, what it means, what it will mean. Over the next week or two, I'm hoping to break down and break out some of the themes that I think will be meaningful as we move forward. It's not the blogging I intended... but Aftermath is a funny place. One I never expected to see. So here, roughly, are four areas that I think will matter as we look back on January sixth and move forward from it:

• The Mob - Trump Supporters, "the Insurrectionists," "The MAGA Crowd"... whatever we call them, whatever we thought of them before... this event changes that completely. Understanding what drove this, who drove this, their goals and beliefs, will all be hugely important, of course. Knowing their names, seeing, as we already are, the famous and the unknowns in that crowd, is a big story. I'm not sure it's entirely sunk in that we want to do this in order to isolate them and expunge them. But I think they will begin to realize that's what's happening, soon enough.
• Republicans and The Conservative Movement - The events of January 6th have enormous implications for the Right, as any have already started to note. But I think the early process we are seeing, the Anger, the Bargaining... signal that, in fact, something has died. I don't think anyone knows exactly what that means or just how it will play out... not yet, anyway. But a Republican Party that had to unwind the Trump Years anyway now has a much bigger soul to search - the Law and Order Party that enabled the Lawless in their midst, the Standard Bearers without standards... this is not a small earthquake. And it will not be neatly resolved and put away in short order.
• Security, Safety and the role of Law Enforcement - another obvious element of "how did this happen," we are bound to see months of Commissions, panels, in depth reviews and more trying to unwind the failures of the day. And this could be a healthy conversation about improving our sense of safety and yet another step towards engaging a broader conversation on Policing, generally. But... a whole lot of this could go very, very wrong. And that's not reassuring.
• Donald Trump, his family, and all the hangers-on. Impeached while Pence dithered on the 25th Amendment, events have moved quickly to sideline Trump if not remove him completely for his role in this mess... but we're nowhere near a full assessment of what 4 years have wrought, the aftermath of his lies, bullying and chaos-stirring. Nor have we unpacked the roles his family have played, or the (literal) Rogues Gallery of Accomplices, Apologists and Sycophants who also have earned their moments of deep scrutiny. "Justice" is no longer the only issue. As a nation, reclaiming our decency means looking hard at The Indecency among us. A good, hard look.

Two things that I don't think are major parts of this story of The Aftermath? "The Media" - who do need to show that they can take up these multiple threads, organize them, and look at them seriously, and who, yes, may well fall short. But trying to pin the events of January 6th on "culpable" or "complacent" media, I think, is to lose focus on the actual people in the actual mob that perpetrated the actual riot. Similarly, none of this is, or should be, about liberals, The Left, or the incoming Biden Administration. We have our own issues, our own story, our own role to play. And there's plenty of time to look at all of that. But this, this moment of real threat to Our Democracy, and to Our Way of Life is on their side, it's their problem, and they need to do the work. We cannot do it for them. But we can move to hold them accountable to do that very work.

One more thing: Be Unafraid. Yes, these are difficult, uncertain times. We have many problems. Bad things, very bad things, may yet happen. But if the January 6th Insurrection showed us anything, it showed us most how pathetic this whole exercise was. How sad and small, how incapable, how unserious. These bullies and miscreants are not something to fear; they are people to be pitied, marginalized, and brought to justice. They do not deserve to be given the power to scare us, to haunt us, to drive us into responding to fear rather than rising to our sense of Justice, Decency and doing right. They tried to break something at the very heart of who we are as Americans, it's true. But they only win if we act broken. We are not broken. We are many. And we are strong. And that... well, that's just math. Not Aftermath.

The New "Normal"

For me, it was during Biden's press event for his new HHS secretary and various other members of his health team: there he was, taking questions, giving thoughtful answers, outlining policy proposals, laying out a possible agenda for the first few months of his term... and there, I could see it. This was what we had been missing. This could be a return to normal.

Of course, we're not there yet, and 4 years of incredible dysfunction definitely leaves a mark. Our American instinct to instantly pretend we don't remember the bad, awful things minutes, months, moments after we have passed them is more of a curse at this point than a blessing. Painful as it is, we will need to talk about What Just Happened even as we "get back to normal" or really "getting back to normal" won't be any kind of normal at all.

Throughout Trump's farcical, damaging presidency, my metaphor has been "it's like your mom married a violent drunk, brought him home and said he was going to be your new dad." Your old dad, your real dad was a kind caring person... but dysfunctional dad is a nightmare. He rants and raves, he's wildly paranoid, you quickly begin to lose sleep fretting over what could happen next, you're embarrassed when he mouths off in public... and on and on. America has accepted the thinking of codependency and recovery, the worlds of AA and Al-Anon... but still, only a minority of families have experienced the deep dysfunction of alcohol, drug addiction and other traumatic mistreatment on a daily basis in their own homes. At least... not until Trump became President.

The dysfunction of Trump, the chaos around him was destabilizing, debilitating to our national psyche in so many ways. While that was immediately apparent to some, it eluded many at first, only becoming clear by degrees. They were the people who said, "I never thought it would get this bad" or "I never imagined he would..." at some further degrading of our national discourse, or finding kids in cages, or telling people to inject bleach.There were those who woke up, suddenly and said "I can no longer be a part of this," ad left the Republican Party, their job, their family, realizing that they needed to speak up. These are all steps on dealing with dysfunction. And there are those, as there will be, who simply refuse to see, or refuse to take action. Those who say "it's just like the flu" and "I'm sure there was massive voter fraud..." because it's better to be on the side of the bully, or because they're afraid, or because, really, they don't understand how wrong and how dangerous the dysfunction is. 

I always hesitate to share too much in the way of personal detail, but a lot of that fell away during these crazy years. I grew up in a dysfunctional household, my father was an alcoholic prone to mood swings and wild late night episodes of out of control behavior. You develop ways to cope with this because you have to cope. I learned how to pretend everything was fine, to treat crazy as normal, while always fearing the worst. And I learned to survive. 

Unlike many naysayers, I always figured we would reject Trump at the first opportunity, when enough people knew they had had enough. I thought it might be impeachment - I didn't even rule out Trump resigning - but in the end, the solution we chose was the simplest: we held an election and voted him out of office. And still the dysfunction rages. Of course he would claim fraud. Of course he would try to pervert every established venue to achieve his dysfunctional ends. That's what he does. That's who he is. Yes, he has succeeded in corrupting an entire political party while attempting to achieve his warped ends, and probably the GOP is beyond saving. But it's not mine to save, or to judge. Time will tell.

The dysfunction doesn't end when mom decides to throw dad out, or when dad finally, eventually goes. I say that from experience. The dysfunction starts to end when we - each of us, all of us - stand back and assess the damage. When we sort out what happened, and why, and learn from the experience. It can take months, or years, and even a lifetime. The first step was defeating Trump's reelection. The next step is removing him. And neither one should be thought of as the last step. This is just the beginning. I'm not sure we, as a nation, still fully appreciate that January will only be a start. Not an ending.

It is heartening to see Biden calmly and effectively assume control. It's a relief seeing the competent, professional team he is assembling, and resume the sense that official entities may get back to the business at hand, and not the whims of paranoid narcissist who lies all the time. It's nice to come home and not be worried that there's no dining room furniture because dad has thrown it onto the lawn and set it on fire.... but, I kind of had you there, for a moment, right? Life was better when you didn't know how that dining room furniture thing felt, wan't it? Well... welcome to the new normal. It's a lot like the old normal, except for that lingering sense of unease. 

 

 

This Year, To Save Me From Tears, I'll Give It To Someone Special...

I didn't intend to go quiet on blogging for over six months... but then, I didn't exactly plan on a global pandemic on top of what was already a disastrous presidency either. Life is funny that way. Things don't always work out as planned.

Like so many, it has been a tumultuous year, one of those years that underlines you will end a year not in the place you started. When we started I was mainly concerned about what we could do to make sure we had a better President. Now, that's kind of a distant second to figuring out what steps will be best to
protect the life of my 85 year old mother.

She's fine, and we're coping - which has definitely been the saving grace of all of this. And we did our part in supporting and pushing for what is now, ultimately, the start of a Biden era, the era many of us didn't know we wanted going in, but seems like the only option after all that's happened. Who knew Joe Biden's mix of unspectacular competence and lack of ego would suddenly be superpowers? The very things that, for years, had made him not quite a star among Democrats - the guy who with good ideas but just not quite enough pizzazz to be President - suddenly became not just the best answer, but pretty much the only answer. There will be time enough to lament various aspects of Biden - he wears his flaws as openly as his strengths -  but his calm, effective, and competent manner of showing up and doing the work is very much the right thing at just the right moment.

Its all over but the shouting... and goodness, what shouting. Trump was never going to leave quietly or rationally, and like everything in this 4 year tragicomedy of massive errors, knowing that this would go badly is still not the same as going through it. "Coup" or not, "challenge to democracy" or simply desperate attempts to get your way... Trump remains, to the (very) bitter end a Tyrant of the Toy Shop whose tantrums could be checked, if only the Republican party had a competent grown up to step in.

But they didn't and they don't and we continue to reap the whirlwinds, such as they are. As I write, we await word from the Supreme Court that they will (likely) turn away the last gasp lawsuit of the Texas Attorney General whose "pandering for pardons" gambit had to be sufficiently Texas sized to break through. Ken Paxton's lawsuit will be laughed out of court, but with sufficient seriousness to all but guarantee his Christmas wish of a pardon broad enough to make his federal investigations go away. And like so many of these upcoming pardons, it raises the interesting question of "how you can be pardoned for something you said you didn't even do?"

But of course, we will be living in Trumpworld until midnight on January 19th, a fantasy world where criminality is just a dressy outfit at the Grifters Ball. These terrible people, and their awful ways are just part of how life is, for now, anyway. We shall see what the new era, the return to decency looks like come next month -- and not a moment before. But when we do, I suspect a lot of what has been quietly put up with, not talked about, or not brought to justice, will likely face a comeuppance. I know, it doesn't look like that now. Not yet, anyway. But part of why Trump lost -- and despite our "it was too close" anxiety, was pretty much inevitable -- was how much of this indecency was simply unsustainable. Short of walking into stores, opening the registers and simply putting the cash in their wife's purse, how much more could we pretend was just acceptable? 

It's been a hard year. It's been a gross, atrocious 4 years of living the nightmare of this presidency. And while the way out of this will not be a sudden snap of waking up... I do suspect that the transition will be more of a whiplash than we can see from here. There is, of course, the last stages of disease and death we have yet to face before, hopefully, the vaccines and a real public health operation help us, finally, get past the pandemic. But there is a sense, calmly, of order being restored. With each announcement, every press appearance, Joe Biden reasserts the power of a presidency most of us remember as the Real Thing. And slowly, steadily, even sadly, the farce of Trump returns to its rightful place -- on the fringes, a sideshow for true believers and sycophantic saps too proud or too bitter to admit that, yet again, they've been had.

Last Christmas, for my family anyway, it was barely a Christmas. We had health issues, and work/life balance to contend with. This year, like so many, we are trying to create Christmas, and find a Christmas spirit, early and brightly. This year really is becoming a season of light - literally, all over town, all over America. Decorations are going up. Tress are coming out. This year.. to save us from a pandemic, we are trying to make Christmas actually special. And really... isn't that reason enough to have at least a little bit of hope?

We're Done Here

As if anyone needed more evidence, surely Donald Trump's foray into the science of "sunlight and disinfectant" as potential treatments for COVID 19 were proof enough of the problem he poses as President.

But last week's disaster is really the culmination of six weeks of lasting proof that Trump is more or less done proving he's simply too incompetent to continue as President.

I'm not saying "it's over" or even confidently asserting victory in November - that, despite their complacency, is the actual work the Biden team will have to do to get this thing wrapped up. What am I saying, though, is that we should all simply move on from engaging with the ridiculous discussion of whether Trump's presidency has been anything other than a disaster form start to finish.

One of the reasons I stepped away from blogging obsessively about Trump as President is that from Day 1, it was clear there just weren't enough synonyms for "incompetent." From his failure to staff up appropriately (dozens of White House roles and thousands of Executive Branch positions have simply gone unfilled), to the disastrous appointees he has had to repeatedly replace (More cabinet secretaries than there are in the heavens, the revolving door of "Communications Director"), Trump established in short order that he was not and would not be up to the task of being President.

It's a failure that covers every level, every standard, every notion of what it is to be President. His conspiracy theory obsessed, petty mindset meant that from the start he failed to provide the necessary (and customary) approach to politics of trying to work with both sides of the political divide. This stymied even reasonable suggestions that he could construct some worthwhile legislation (infrastructure week, how we miss you) to advance his own stated priorities. Instead he has exercised a ham handed, largely unsuccessful approach to do just what Republicans attacked Barack Obama for - ruling by executive fiat, trying to manhandle the regulatory state, and refusing to submit to even basic oversight.

And what domestic policy was there to speak of, anyway? His promised wall amounted to a small project of fence construction, a spot of refurbishment, and years of ill will as he attempted to seize miles of private property along the southern border (almost entirely unsuccessfully, and very likely striking the death blow for "government taking" libertarians have craved, but big business GOP interests, like builders, have opposed). While Trump has made a practical mess of immigration and set back environmental regulation by 30 years, these efforts have at best been scattershot, and have forged unlikely coalitions of opposition that could have lasting impact. While Trump drove through a horrendous tax package that eviscerated the corporate side of federal taxation, inaugurating a stock market bubble it took the pandemic to burst, the scorching deficits and laughable economic policies he produced have largely underlined that the "business acumen" he supposedly brought to bear as President was a dreadful stew of failure, financial idiocy and seventies era thinking that never worked to begin with.

Trump ignited so much passionate opposition and resistance to his plans and policies that the nation saw more dramatic protests in the space of weeks after his taking office that normally take years. Millions of women protested. Charlottesville blew up in ugly chants of racial and ethnic hatred. Thousands turned out at international airports to protest the draconian and misbegotten "Muslim ban." And in short order, thousands of neophyte activists, organizers and candidates had built a powerful new network of political strength that destroyed Republican control of the House of Representatives, returned Nancy Pelosi to her key role as Speaker, and up ended the political dominance of the GOP in numerous states as Governorships and state house dominance evaporated overnight.

On foreign policy, Trump's approach wasn't just quixotic: it was haphazard, incoherent and foolish. Trump lurched into conflicts with NATO that called into question the fundamental organizing principles of our entire postwar approach to diplomacy. His romancing of Putin and the Russian state was clearly motivated by venal self interest. His dalliance with North Korea and Kim Jong Un was dangerously shortsighted and irrelevant. And his middle eastern policies simply made no sense - a misunderstanding of nearly every geopolitical imperative of every actor in the region that left death, destruction and chaos in the wake of everything he touched.

Trump, of course, has no sense of personal responsibility, no moral compass and no shame. Trying to indict him on his failings doesn't just result in defensiveness it ignites a storm of invective and blame shifting that reflects childlike notions of behavior and comportment. Bullying. Childish name calling. A tyrant of the toy shop with literally no supervision, Trump would surely be a master of corruption and pillaging of his office, if only he knew how. From ham handed moves to personally profit from government largesse, misusing the pardon power to clearly thwart thorough investigations of previous acts, Trump would love to abuse power, but lacks the cleverness to even try to hide it. And while impeachment may not have resulted in removal from office, the stain of the process - never mind the desperate kitchen sink maneuvering to save him - will not only follow him, it may very well presage the implosion of the party that decided protecting him at all costs was safer than simply admitting the litany of errors that got him to the most powerful job in the land. At this point, the likely loss of his reelection effort may not simply be a rejection of him and his failings, but a broad based thumping that recasts the Senate majority and leaves the remaining GOP a shell of itself, incapable of ever reconstituting in its current form.

On top of all of this, then... comes a pandemic of unthinkable proportions that has upended nearly every aspect of every American's everyday life. It took a week to puncture Trump's economic bubble, a week more to destroy the international oil market, and six weeks of dithering to force a public health response to a crisis Trump treated, initially, as yet another political enemy he could simply slogan out of existence. No president is as uniquely unsuited to this disaster as Trump has been, and the failed response, every day, at every level, is testament to how completely he has managed every bit of federal executive power into meaninglessness. Plan? What plan? Tests? What tests? Thorough reporting and clearly measured progress? You must be joking. It's not that anyone could have predicted this (though some did) or that so many things were caught so underplanned and under prepared (clearly, they were). No, the "secret sauce" of American ingenuity has been that, often almost miraculously, our leaders rise to occasions where failure seemed the only option. Trump is, as much as anything, simply proof that we may well have run out of miracles. Because what we failed to appreciate is that it's not miracles. It's competence. And decency. And the capacity of all Americans to come together in difficult moments, knowing we can and should do what's right and what's best, inspired by the commitment of our leaders. Trump is, literally, none of that. 

And here we are. The noise making, perpetual generating anger machine of the right still wheezes along, making mountains out of molehills, trying to turn Tump shit into Shinola, but no amount of lipstick will dress up that pig. Americans - the people who exist as a nation built on an idea, not an identity - believe in the upbeat and the story of success. Failure is not an option. We tend to look away from failure, to try and ignore the stench of a thing as it collapses and dies. The final months of the GW Bush presidency (remember when he was the worst?) were an obvious exercise in "let's not even talk about how bad this has gotten" as we focused on the bright, shiny promise of the Obama to come. I suspect that, come this summer, that's the real story of the unwinding of Trump, even as a farce of MAGA hats and shrill complaints animates the public discourse. Don't engage, don't even start with them... look away. It may, like a train wreck, be hard to look away. But it's wrong to enjoy, too much, watching a thing as it dies.

There's no "I wonder if he can salvage this." At best/worst, Trump can maybe manhandle the whole process of elections in a pandemic to his advantage; I genuinely doubt that will work. Even if he tries, there's just no getting around it: what seemed unthinkable - whether "he can't be that bad" to "there's no way he'll win it" to "you can't really believe he's lying now" - has all been proven out. You can't say you don't know. You can't wonder if it will somehow be different. We can, yes, choose to have more of this. But i have to say... I think we're done here.

Rich Man's Fugue (The K-Harris Remix)

Newly elected to the Senate, Kamala Harris has, not surprisingly, garnered outsize attention as a potential presidential hopeful. She is a high profile presence at Senate hearings. She frequently uses social media to highlight her positions and concerns.

It's not surprising that there's been some negative feedback as well as positive.

What is surprising is both how Harris has shot to the top of these - generally premature - discussions, and how much her presence has ignited rage within the smoldering remains of Bernie Sanders failed campaign for the nomination. In these dog days of the disastrous Trump presidency, Twitter has become the angry outlet for many to rage post their political (and other cultural) hot takes. Stories and memes take off and reverberate at a speed so rapid, the descent into ugliness can be head spinning, outrageous... and yes, frightening. What may well have been intended as a casual effort to pump up Harris' name recognition and presence, has morphed into both a debate how candidates of color are seen and how the left can find consensus at a moment when ending this Trump farce is so paramount.

And all of that is kind of secondary to what prompted me to write this.

I fell into the maelstrom of this partly as contrarian, partly in my own naivete; a somewhat blithe tweet from Harris about economic inequality for black women struck me as a reminder that many Democratic leaders, Harris included, have a challenge in presenting their concerns about an inequality that they themselves don't really live in or experience. Harris has, in fact, enjoyed a fairly comfortable existence since her youth, as the child of two successful university professors, her own largely upbeat political trajectory, and the wealth of her husband, also an attorney.

I've discussed before the tension we're currently under culturally and politically in discussing the lived experience of ourselves and others. It's of a piece with a larger issue around "expertise" and use of statistics that's complicating all sorts of political discussions, especially in this democratized age of discussions via media like Facebook and Twitter. It's not a simple matter, and there aren't a lot of easy answers, though many would like to approach these dilemmas simplistically, and with broad brushed generalizations.

Historically, Americans aren't necessarily excited by wealthy people speaking as if they are one with the common man. The most obvious example against this - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - achieved his levels of support by representing himself as standing up to, and against, members of his own upper crust social class. He was seen, in turn, by other bankers and business leaders, as suspect and untrustworthy because of his stances for workers and people in poverty. And his success as President was likely because he could thread the needle of helping those in need because of his patrician education and political savvy.

There's a long - much longer - list of millionaires and billionaires who have failed as candidates because their wealth left them seen as out of touch with ordinary folks. Mitt Romney is easily a recent failure, but you could include Ross Perot, John Kerry, and others. Americans are leery of the patrician class, those born to great wealth, handed every opportunity, who assert confidently that they know what it is to work an hourly job, struggle to meet expenses, trying to get by on barely enough. In this age of high income inequality - the worst since the Gilded Age - the problem has become more pronounced, the dissonance shrill, and the tension high.

It's also the case that getting elected to statewide office - like Governor or Senator - hasn't had the same hurdles. The Senate has long been (indeed since the founders) an enclave of inherited wealth and privilege. And it's part of why, though many Senators have tried, few have actually jumped the hurdle into the White House. Those who have achieved the goal - Kennedy, Lincoln, Obama - are men who have paired their privileged aspects with emphasis on their points of commonality with the masses. Lincoln as a hard knock success story, Kennedy as the triumph of Irish Catholic immigration, Obama as a mixed race champion for the Rest of Us.

Still, the Obama example is noteworthy given the decimation and hangover of the Housing Crisis he walked into as President. Everything from Occupy Wall Street to that campaign Sanders ran in 2016 stems from feelings, deeply held on the left, that our last President wasn't in fact in tune with the economic problems of the have nots. It is an internal tension driven in part by the strange, bifurcated coalitions both political parties have within - Business owners and less educated white voters on the right, and coalitions of minority groups combined with the educated professional class that make up the left. The "privileged few" live in both parties. And the resentment simmers all around.

It can seem unfair to question Harris, especially this early, for the sense of her personal privilege. But it seems myopic to pretend that examination won't, or shouldn't, occur... as it should occur generally in the conversations about candidates in upcoming elections. It matters because the issues of economic inequality ought to be the one we put paramount in our election choices: affordable housing, quality education for all, decent healthcare, ways out of poverty, and on and on. It matters because Donald Trump skillfully deployed class resentment and rage as his tools to achieve a slim electoral college majority. And it matters because we ought to ask, reasonably, if the long held bias of American voters isn't correct - do members of the educated, patrician class really understand the needs of those who have less?

That questions like this get lumped into the shrill, unpleasant shoutfest around questioning or challenging Harris and candidates of color more generally is understandable, but a shame. There's plenty of unpleasant aspects to the denigration of Harris in recent days - around race, around gender, and the still ugly tactics employed by the Sanders supporting left - but it's not wrong to ask if she's ready for the big leagues, for prime time, for the role as head of our national party. There are fair questions to be asked of her, or anyone else. Those who want to defend Harris (myself included) from unwarranted ugliness, have to leave room for what our politics require, a healthy, sometimes difficult, debate.

"Do something about income inequality" is, and should be, a rallying cry for the organized left. It's fair to ask who is best positioned to do something, anything - but more importantly, the right things - to address inequality and to right what is a devastating set of wrongs currently at play in American life. I'm sure Kamala Harris has a tremendous role to play in this, as do others who come from similarly successful, privileged upbringing and backgrounds. That said, I think this conversation is hopeless if those without wealth and privilege are kept from having their voices heard. These are important questions. Surely some of the most important. The challenge, it seems, is finding the balance, as it ever was. And the music plays on...

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