Running low on freelancing projects so I figured I’d waste my time with a little speculation. The current political zeitgeist seems to be that it’s Kamala’s race to lose by virtue of the abortion issue and not being Biden or Trump. Polling is only just now starting to trickle in, but assuming she’s got the edge right now, how does it go wrong? Here are some scenarios:
- She picks Josh Shapiro as her VP and loses Michigan. Shapiro might help her lock in Pennsylvania, but he also “stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine,” as David Klion writes for The New Republic. That might be enough to lose the support of Michigan’s significant Arab-American population and hand it to Trump, which is a big deal as many of the Democratic roads to electoral victory run through Michigan.
- Republican lawsuits gum up the ballot. While legal experts have generally dismissed the possibility that efforts to challenge Brandon’s dropout and swap to Kamala, this wouldn’t be the first time that such experts have been caught with their pants down on significant legal rulings. Even if these lawsuits don’t go anywhere, they could depress turnout by causing confusion and enabling the spread of misinformation in swing states.
- Trump forces J.D. Vance off the ticket and gets a VP with more rizz. Ironically, this would open the GOP up to the type of litigation from point 2, but with actual legal credence since the nomination process is complete. Might still be worth it since the dude seems to be a charisma vacuum.
- Kamala calls someone a honkey or cracker on a hot mic and white moderates freak out. This is my just for fun, pretty much. But like, what if?
Thoughts??
By pandering to the 2016 micro aggressions discourse people saying “coconut could be a slur” or having whoever is today’s equivalent of Lena Dunham speak at the convention, or leaning too much into “yasss queen” stuff that is more about worshipping the candidate than centering the policies they support. The Republicans currently wield the mantle of being really annoying and weird, Kamala would do well to not help libs reclaim it. Also, just no more smugness as a response to Trump’s wacky shit. Hillary was too into that annoying Colbert Report era “I think therefore I am liberal” winky snark. She kept doing it in the debates and it lent itself to no good sound bites, just a feeling of condescension while general voters thought Trump’s panicked tone at the least matched their anxieties.