Encouraging Noises

Right after Joe Biden announced he'd picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate this week, I got a text* from a dear sweet friend. Just for context, she's the type to have gotten out of this blog game way back in about 2006, like all the other sensible people. She was a little perturbed as she is a left-lefty living in a VERY red state and the choice of a Californian for the national ticket (and a Bay Area one, no less, so probably OK with the gays and other stuff they hate down there in the Civil War Second Place Club) didn't seem like the most strategic pick as far as the electoral map goes. At this point, for Trump to be competitive in California, COVID would have to suddenly become instantly fatal inside all Whole Foods stores before November.

As an actual Californian who has voted for Kamala Harris a few times now,** I'm decidedly fine with the pick. But I said to my friend: the old paradigm of picking a running mate to "balance out the ticket" geographically went out the window when Arkansas Bill picked Tennessee Al back in 1992 and then won. The days when creaky old dudes like Lloyd Bentsen get propped up to get a shot at the big time just because of the accident of their location are pretty well behind us by now. It's certainly not the case that Bush II plucked Dick Cheney for the No. 2 job because he needed to shore up the crucial Wyoming vote. And by the way, that's written exactly, literally as I mean it: the Wyoming vote.

It goes deeper than just the aesthetics of the "balancing" pick, though. At this point, there's no more crystallization or consolidation of abstract or speculated-upon news ideas driven by events. It certainly seemed*** like there were turning points, die Wendepunkte, where all the consternation and chatter around a thing became recognizable as stakes, settling into the minds of the public and driving out all the white noise of the troublesome Undecided Voters from the polling signal. Choosing a running mate for a presidential nominee certainly seemed like one of those events.

The trouble now is: how many Undecided Voters actually still exist? Are there a lot of "hmm, I dunno, maybes" where Trump is concerned? Dude is just out there openly saying "I will kill the post office to keep you from voting" now. Harris has been the designated running mate for about 24 hours now and he's already rolling out the tried-and-true open racism that got him here during the Obama years. He's what mathematicians call a known quantity, though certainly less algebraic and more gelatinous. But defined in scope and virulence. Like COVID, but with intent. As if COVID was in charge of responding to COVID.

It really does feel like we're living in a post-inflection-point world. Not post as in "the inflection point already happened" but as in "we don't really do that shit anymore." In the short term we can see polls that say people like Harris well enough, sure. And she can expertly give a pretty good speech to a pandemic-mandated crowd of no people. But this year, there won't be any optics of momentum, partly because we're not allowed to participate and partly because Trump is opting out of them after we all laughed at him following Tulsa, when his voice echoed in that mostly empty arena and then he murdered Herman Cain. And amongst the voters already strapped to their pre-chewed media feeding outlet of choice, consideration isn't really on the table. If anything there may be some more splintering as certain idiot lefties decide Kamala lacks radical bona fides or committed racists on the right who might have considered ole white Joe are a hard pass on the lady who is two not-white things at the same time.

The convention is next week (I seriously just learned/realized this yesterday) and I'm not looking for or expecting any kind of polling bounce. There will be retrenchment, doubling down. Which seems like a good idea when Biden is consistently up 8-12 points. No movement is good movement! But one still suspects somehow Trump makes this a squeaker. It doesn't seem likely, but there's a difference between an Undecided Voter and one who shoots at census workers. You think that type is going to participate in any pre-election poll? Nah, man, that's how they mark you for indoctrination. Next thing you know they can trace everywhere you go and try to make you where a mask. And then where would we be?

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*Actually it was a Facebook Messenger message. I was not going to mention it at all just to keep the facebook web spiders away from this blog en route to eating my thoughts, but then I figured there's nothing I can do to keep them from knowing everything about me anyway at this point. So fine, I figure I'll just invite them in, so I can at least tack on a "go fuck yourself, Zuck" for good measure.

**And only once by automatically fraudulent mail-in ballot.

***Caveat lector: these are anecdotal observations based on my perception when I was younger, less experienced, and measurably more stupid.