Brianland

The events of Sunday July 21st 2024 into Monday the 22nd then all the days that followed reminded me and most of us politicos of the political ‘birth’ of Barack Obama in early 2008.  Whether you experienced that on January 3rd when he won the Iowa caucus, or on the February 3rd Super Bowl weekend when will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” video went viral, a seismic change shook the country. 

I said within a couple hours of the Biden withdrawal announcement, “You watch — by tomorrow there’s going to be memes like crazy for Kamala, and in days there’ll be songs.”  And by the time we woke up Monday morning we found out she was “brat” . . . and by Tuesday Beyoncé had granted her permission to use Freedom, and by Thursday the campaign used the song to launch the campaign.

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The Sunday night of the announcement, Win With Black Women had their weekly group Zoom call — and it drew 44,000 people.  By Thursday another call aimed at white women 160,000 people and “broke Zoom” as the headlines read.

And speaking of breaking records, in the 24 hours after Joe stepped aside, the Harris campaign received $86 million in donations, the largest single-day giving in American history.  By the end of the week it was over $200 million, with 65% first-time donors, and 170,000 volunteers had signed up to the campaign.

In the weeks following Biden’s historically disastrous debate, I along with most Democrats I know slipped into an ever-deepening depression.  Not only was Joe losing, but his televised interviews to try to clean it up only made matters worse in that he didn’t know what had happened.  I reached out to several experts in senior care whom I know, including octogenarians, and they universally observed that something was wrong.  But Joe wasn’t budging.  Until Sunday.

By Harris’s first rally on Tuesday, the audience spontaneously started chanting “We are not going back” — and to me, “spontaneous” is the most important word there.  It’s the same thing about all the memes and gifs and videos people are making on their own. 

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In the entertainment biz where I spent most of my life, the industry tries to create a buzz for everything for everything from books to movies, but none of the million-dollar ad campaigns and promotional strategies can’t make tens of millions of girls start making friendship bracelets like they came up with on their own for Taylor Swift.  Madison Avenue can’t make women of all ages start wearing pink and filling movie theaters in record-breaking numbers like they did for Barbie.  Groundswells rise organically, and that’s what’s happened here from the day Joe stepped aside. 

By Monday, every Democratic state party had endorsed Harris, and by Wednesday she had enough pledged delegates to win the nomination.  A week after the announcement I saw a focus group of trump supporters who were to-a-person had fear on their faces over the enthusiasm they were seeing on the Democratic side.  And furthur, I began to receive phone calls and messages from people I haven’t heard from in years reaching out to talk about this.  People who were worried America won’t go for a Black woman were giddy about being wrong.  People who were devastated that Hillary didn’t break the glass ceiling were empowered that this time ‘we the people’ would not repeat the 2016 mistake.  And many talked about Kamala’s likability, something that Hillary didn’t really engender.  They talk about loving Kamala’s laugh as opposed to Hillary’s cackle.  They love that she can prosecute a case . . . and that she’s running against a criminal.  And they way Kamala went there in her very first speech. “I took on perpetrators of all kinds.”  Epic pause.  “I know donald trump’s type.”  Explosion of applause.

And I wanna point out something I haven’t heard anyone mention:  her mastery of ‘the pause.’

As a performer I have studied it and practiced it for decades.  It’s one of the hardest things to do on a stage with an audience of eyes staring at you.  Non-performers have no idea how hard it is — where a tenth of a second feels like a hour, and the irresistible temptation to jump in and start speaking again.  Master comedians can do it.  Steven Wright comes to mind.  The entertainer I’ve seen pull it off like no one else is Taylor Swift.  She can stand there and let a wave roll through an entire stadium before saying another word.  And Kamala Harris is probably the most gifted at this skill of any politician I’ve ever seen.

She also clearly wins the old “Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?” contest — and she’s an absolute master performer in front a mic.

And in the More Good News Department:  the Biden campaign staff was already rocking it with creative ads and rapid-responses, and they’ve all shifted to Kamala, and what they’re creating is next level.  Check out this ad, one week into the campaign . . . 

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Her mother was Indian-American and her father’s Jamaican-American.  Her husband is Jewish, and she’s in a loving blended family.  That the sitcom “Modern Family” became one of the most popular and award-winning shows this century is a sign that America is not as afraid of unconventionality and diversity and some would like us to think.

Her name is pronounced “comma-la.”  She loves Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and R&B in general.  She loves to dance, and is quick to laugh.  Her and her one-and-only husband are in love and are best friends, and his ex-wife said of their family, “Since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I.  She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present.  I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

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All hands on deck for the next 3 months / 14 weeks / 90-something days.

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If you wanna read a whole bunch of political stories spanning 40 years on the trail you can check out my book Blissfully in Democracy — Adventures in Politics — 1980–2020. 

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Here’s a sister piece that preceded this one — Why I Love Joe Biden.  

Here’s a riff from the 2022 midterms — Vote Blue No Matter Who.

Here’s some tips on Things You Can Do Beyond Voting.

Or here’s a whole bunch of political stories I’ve written over the years.

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by Brian Hassett

karmacoupon@gmail.com   —  BrianHassett.com

Or here’s my Facebook page if you wanna join in there —

https://www.facebook.com/Brian.Hassett.Canada