See updates through August 23, 2024, at end of post.
If you cherry pick your evidence, you can paint Kamala Harris however you like.[1] I’m seeing—and being awfully annoyed by—an awful lot of people doing just that. There are a number of fallacies involved here and I’m not even remotely interested in parsing all of them.
It’s clear that Harris and the Democrats, seeing that Joe Biden was too unequivocal in his support for genocide in Gaza, are relying on “constructive ambiguity” to avoid taking a clear position on the matter, and thus to avoid losing the votes of people on either side. It’s a wholly frustrating situation, but frustration is not evidence. Nor is any selective observation of that evidence.[2]
And nor, with Biden still in office until January, is the vain hope that “our votes” are “our only leverage to stop the genocide.” In a false ‘democracy,’ there is no such leverage: Biden is an enthusiastic supporter who belongs in the dock at the International Criminal Court right along with Binyamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli political establishment.
With Harris, we simply have uncertainty. I don’t like that uncertainty even one little bit. But a false certainty is worse.
With Donald Trump, there is no such thing. “The other guy is worse” has morphed into a choice between a known evil—Trump— and an uncertain evil—Harris—hardly an improvement on the “lesser evil.” My condemnation of an institutionalized false dichotomy, the two-party system, can only be exceeded by my condemnation of a one-party system. It is what we have.
In a better—anarchist—world, people would reject constitutional oligarchy, political parties, any rulers at all—especially including faux ‘democracy.’ This is not the world we have, nor is it one we are likely to have. Time to point to yet another fallacy: The naturalistic fallacy is about conflating what should be with what is.
“Never again,” no matter how earnestly said, is clearly yet another example of the naturalistic fallacy. And I doubt there is a species in the universe more self-destructive than homo sapiens. Which is why we can’t have anarchism.
I am enormously critical of conservatism both for its authoritarian and ideological proclivities.[3] I see here, yet again, that some folks on the left indulge their own ideological proclivities. I am not impressed.
And I am especially unimpressed when the outcome would certainly be rule by ignorance, delusion, and bigotry. I’ll choose uncertainty—Harris—over that certainty—Trump. I won’t do so happily, even if Harris is, on other issues, more progressive than Biden. It is the only path I see forward.
Update, August 20, 2024: I had already accepted that Joe Biden will not be altering his policy on Gaza. On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, protesters attempted to display banners demanding Biden stop the genocide. These attempts were aggressively suppressed.[4] Suppression is not discussion. It is not negotiation. It is not in any way civil. It is, in its essence, a decision that the protest is illegitimate, that the grievances will not be addressed. None of this should be even remotely surprising.
It's clearly an awkward point for Kamala Harris, who earlier suffered opprobrium for her “I’m speaking” response to protesters.[5] And we still can’t read her views into this—she is, if anything, less culpable than on that occasion, and she still has to walk a fine line to win the votes of the pro-genocide faction[6] amply in evidence at the convention.
It remains my unhappy intention to vote for Harris.
Update, August 21, 2024: What will Democrats do if Donald Trump wins this November? Looks like business as usual,[7] for a party that has so often seemed so desperate to lose.
Update, August 22, 2024: This is getting pretty hard to swallow: “The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli hostage being held in Gaza, were invited to speak at the DNC on Wednesday,” but “Palestinian Americans have not been granted a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention despite pleas from pro-Palestinian delegates.”[8]
Update, August 23, 2024: Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president last night. It’s the same old crap[9] about bipartisanship and, worse, support for genocide.[10]
[1] David Benfell, “We still don't know where Kamala Harris stands on Gaza,” Not Housebroken, August 10, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/we-still-dont-know-where-kamala-harris
[2] David Benfell, “We still don't know where Kamala Harris stands on Gaza,” Not Housebroken, August 10, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/we-still-dont-know-where-kamala-harris
[3] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[4] John Allsop, “Behind the security perimeter at the DNC,” Columbia Journalism Review, August 20, 2024, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/dnc_protests_israel_gaza_war.php
[5] Toluse Olorunnipa, Kelsey Ables, and Yasmeen Abutaleb, “Harris responds to Michigan rally protesters: ‘I’m speaking,’” Washington Post, August 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/07/kamala-harris-rally-protesters-palestinian/
[6] David Benfell, “We still don't know where Kamala Harris stands on Gaza,” Not Housebroken, August 10, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/we-still-dont-know-where-kamala-harris
[7] Scott Wartman, “What will Democrats do if Trump wins? The Enquirer asked Ohio convention delegates,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 21, 2024, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/08/20/what-democrats-at-the-dnc-said-theyd-do-under-a-trump-presidency/74766642007/
[8] April Rubin, “Democrats refused to give Palestinian Americans DNC speaking slot,” Axios, August 22, 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/08/22/dnc-palestinian-american-speech-denied
[9] David Benfell, “The 'Lesser Evil,'” Not Housebroken, August 23, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/the-lesser-evil
[10] Toluse Olorunnipa and Tyler Pager, “Harris makes case for ‘new way forward,’ attacks Trump in DNC speech,” Washington Post, August 23, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/22/kamala-harris-dnc-speech/