2:00PM Water Cooler 8/1/2024 | bare capitalism

“Pennsylvania county law enforcement officials say Secret Service is presenting a ‘misleading’ picture of Trump shooting scene” [CNN].

Democrats on race:

“From Jenner to Dolezal: One Trans Good, the Other Not So Much” [Adolph Reed, Common Dreams]. “This brings me to the most important point that this affair throws into relief. It has outed the essentialism on which those identitarian discourses rest. [Alicia] Garcia asks ‘So why don’t we just accept Dolezal as black? Because she’s not.’ But why is she not black in Garcia’s view? Well, ‘Her parents say she’s not even close to being black.’ But what would that mean — that she has no known black ancestry? Is blackness, then, a matter of hypodescent after all? But, if that’s what it is, then what politically significant meaning does the category have? Dolezal no doubt has her issues and idiosyncrasies, but, especially if the judgment of the NAACP counts for anything in the matter, I’m pretty sure I’d take her in a trade for Clarence Thomas, Cory Booker, Condi Rice, and five TFA pimps to be named later. Or would Dolezal’s ‘not even close to being black’ mean that she was raised outside of ‘authentic’ black idiom or cultural experience? But whose black idiom or cultural experience would that be? Is there really an irreducible, definitive one? If so, on which Racial Voice blog or Ivy League campus might we find it?” • Note that Kamala’s rollout of identitarian verticals: First, Black Women. Second, White Women. Third, White Men. Fourth, Latino Men.” Fifth, AAHNPI. This rollout strongly suggests an essentialist perspective. I mean, where’s the “Mixed Race” vertical? Could we have separate verticals for 1/2 White, 1/4 White, etc.? I would guess the Democrat base is essentialist (race is, after all, a box to be checked, or not checked, on an HR form). The following Mother Jones headline is on point–

“White Man Tells Black Journalists His Black Opponent Is Not Black” [Mother Jones]. • Clearly essentialist. Not Black/Indian; Black. Not “identifying as Black.” Black. OTOH, we have Axios–

“Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race” [Associated Press]. “CHICAGO (AP) — Donald Trump falsely suggested Kamala Harris had misled voters about her race as the former president appeared Wednesday before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago in an interview that quickly turned hostile. The Republican former president wrongly claimed that Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, had in the past only promoted her Indian heritage. ‘I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?’ Trump said while addressing the group’s annual convention. Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both immigrants to the U.S. As an undergraduate, Harris attended Howard University, one of the nation’s most prominent historically Black colleges and universities, where she also pledged the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. As a U.S. senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting legislation to strengthen voting rights and to reform policing.” • AP is, I would say, social constructivist, although Trump also wants it both ways (“happened to turn” is social constructivist, but “is she Indian or is she Black” is essentialist).

Of course, Kamala’s views count, too (at least from a socially constructivist standpoint). Here’s a cooking video from 2019:

The relevant frame:

Personally, I don’t care one way or the other; I’m a social constructivist. That said, what’s the theory of the case here? The Democrats — and Harris — need to make up their minds whether they’re social constructivists or, like Mother Jones, Trump, and whichever staffer named and organized the identity rollouts, essentialists. They need to pick one or the other, and stop tying to have it both ways.

Less than one hundred days to go!

First poll with Harris at the top of the Democrat ticket; Trump’s position deteriorates (and any advantage he gained from the assassination attempt has been wiped away. Nevertheless, he still leads, albeit within the margin of error. NOTE RCP used to have two pages of swing states; I always used the first one. Now there is only one, which I take as an indicator that Harris v. Trump polling is not all that widespread.

Vibe shift:

The Campaign Trail:

Kamala (D): “Harris’ high-stakes veepstakes: Fundraising powerhouses vie for VP slot” [Open Secrets]. Handy chart:

I’ve highlighted the conventional wisdom of those in the running.

Kamala (D): “Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro cancels Hamptons trip, days before expected Harris VP reveal” [CNBC]. “”The Governor’s trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee,” Shapiro spokesman Manuel Bonder confirmed to NBC News. ‘His schedule has changed and he is no longer traveling to the Hamptons this weekend.’” • So, announcement next week, apparently. And I was so excited.

Kamala (D): “The DNC virtual roll call to nominate Kamala Harris is underway. This is how it will work” [WHYY]. “Delegates to the Democratic National Convention began officially selecting their nominee for president in a process that kicked off Thursday. But unlike in past years, they are not doing so in the raucous party atmosphere of the convention floor or even during the convention itself. Instead, they are filling out electronic ballots at their homes, offices or vacation spots more than two weeks before the first delegate steps foot inside Chicago’s United Center. Vice President Kamala Harris is the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by a Tuesday night deadline. The ‘virtual roll call,’ the term used by Democratic National Committee officials, will allow Harris to claim the nomination by Monday evening. That’s just 15 days after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek a second term following widespread concerns within the party over his ability to defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump in November.” • The byte-filled room….

Kamala (D): “Democrats Think Their Candidate is Running for President of Online, Again” [Freddie DeBoer]. “And many seem intent on remaking a core 2016 mistake: acting as though the Democratic candidate’s job is to become the President of Online rather than the President of the United States, begging Harris to devote her campaign to memes and social media, playing to people like them instead of the middle class white retirees in Wisconsin and Arizona who will actually determine this election. Here [New York Magazines’] Jason P. Frank says that the key to victory for Harris is mobilizing ‘stans.’ Jason, what Kamala Harris needs is white independents without college degrees in swing states. Are a lot of those in very-online fan armies? I have my doubts. In fact I suspect most of the people Harris needs the most don’t know what the fuck a stan is and don’t spend any time in the spaces where stans congregate! Here Angelina Chapin credulously covers a pro-Harris Zoom call for white women, which I’m sure is a great way to reach women married to laid-off-ironworkers-turned-Uber-Eats-drivers in the Rust Belt. Here Camille Squires talks about all the enthusiasm for Harris that’s bubbling up in Harris’s old sorority. Squires writes that ‘there’s little doubt that she can count on the support of the more than 360,000 women of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.’ Well, yes, that’s true. As would Biden. I don’t think the Democrats were going to struggle to reach the Black sorority sister demographic. The weird way that a given party’s most loyal voters are often rendered the least important is another dumb element of democracy, and another fact of life. This all reflects a pitfall that pretty much everyone falls into, but which is particularly hard to avoid when your side of the partisan divide controls most of the media: playing to those within your coalition rather than those who you might be able to drag into it. All of the winking, self-impressed meme politics going on right now are useful if you want to win the day on Bluesky but profoundly useless if you want to herd many of our dumbest voters onto the Democratic party’s pasture. If Harris is going to win, the absolute last thing she should do is to run a meme candidacy like that presided over by Robbie Mook in 2016, where Hillary’s agenda took a back seat to a never-ending procession of glamorous celebrity photo ops and a wince-inducing attempt to make the candidate into America’s cool grandma.” • Clinton 2.0.

Kamala (D): “We Get to Decide What Is Possible Under a Future Harris Administration” [Ilhan Omar, The Nation]. • Not if the way Kamala made it to the top of the ticket is any indication, no.

Trump (R): “Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race” [Associated Press]. I run this again to make a specific comment on the campaign: “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” • Again, I’m banging my head on my desk because I didn’t save the very early Kamala Harris campaign brochure where she ran as Indian.

Trump (R): “JD Vance Says Trump’s Comments About Kamala Harris’ Racial Identity Were ‘Hysterical’” [NOTUS]. The headline is the reverse of what Vance said: ” Sen. JD Vance told reporters it’s ‘hysterical how much the media is overreacting’ to his running mate Donald Trump’s comments questioning whether Vice President Kamala Harris is Black.” Not “Trump’s comments”; the media. More: “‘I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris. And you guys saw yesterday, she was in Georgia, and she put on a southern accent for a Georgia audience. She grew up in Vancouver. What the hell is going on here? She is not who she pretends to be.’ When asked by a reporter explicitly if he questions whether Harris is Black, Vance said, ‘What I question is why she presents a different posture depending on which audience that she’s in front of.’” • Fair. See “Democrats on race” above. I did say I was out of the snark business, but Trump is said to be adept with nicknames. Couldn’t something be done with “Kamala” and “Chameleon”?

Trump (R): “The farmers who love JD Vance” [Politico]. “Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has had a rough week. But you wouldn’t know it from today’s fundraiser in Coalinga, Calif., where he got a warm reception from California’s farming community. California Republicans were quick to brush off his positions on ‘childless cat ladies’ — and eager to turn Democratic messaging on its head by rallying behind the embattled Ohio senator. ‘,’ said Barbara Hallmeyer, a retired high school drama teacher and a California Republican Party delegate attending the fundraiser. Vance’s greeting is a measure of Trump’s continuing grip on the farm vote and among rural voters, whom he won by a large margin in 2020, according to exit polls. But it’s also a sign that, despite worries in some quarters of the party that Vance is a liability to the ticket, key elements of the GOP base remain supportive even after a wave of negative press coverage surrounding his provocative statements.” • I don’t think “weird” resonates outside already deeply committed Democrats (and the ads in opposition write themselves).

Trump (R): “Trump Forces Out Project 2025 Mastermind” [The Daily Beast]. “His departure hinted that Heritage was shutting down its work on the initiative more than a year after Project 2025 produced its cornerstone 900-page policy mandate that came to define the MAGA movement. The manifesto attracted widespread criticism in recent weeks over its extremist proposals that would demand fealty from federal workers, promote Christian nationalism and overhaul policies from abortion to civil liberties and climate and restructure the departments of Justice and Defense, among other agencies. As the project backfired politically, Trump sought to distance himself from the group despite its naked ties to his first administration, with Project leadership boasting a number of senior Trump aides and close advisers. The source told the Beast that the rift between the Trump campaign and the Heritage Foundation was not ideological, but rather was about power and who will ultimately control Trump World and make staffing decisions in a possible second Trump administration.” • “Came to define the MAGA movement’ in whose eyes?

Corsi-Rosenthal Box still going strong:

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The following is Greenhalgh’s “lay summary” of the Lancet piece:

“Long COVID – a dystopian game of pinball” [Trish Greenhalgh, Independent Sage]. The deck: “Prof Trish Greenhalgh explains the findings of her recent comprehensive Lancet review of Long Covid.” Brilliant extended metaphor: “Long COVID is a real condition whose complex biological basis is beginning to be understood. The sequence of events that makes COVID-19 into a protracted (and quite possibly, lifelong) illness in some but not all people is a bit like a dystopian game of pinball. An unlucky ball hits a series of key buffers, buzzers and bells, triggering a cascade of further events… [T[hese changes flip off additional cascades of biochemical messengers (‘supplementary pathological mechanisms’), which, in health, contribute to keeping the body in balance…. [T[hese microscopic changes in genes, molecules, proteins, cells and micro-organisms produce various kinds of organ damage…. [T]hese organ-level changes lead to the well-known symptoms of Long COVID described in the second paragraph above. . But . You didn’t get that when you had COVID-19? Lucky you. The ball of your initial infection missed a few vital targets. But that doesn’t mean you’re immune from Long COVID for life. Your next infection could light up the whole machine.” • Yep.

“Long Covid Defined” (“Sounding Board”) [NEJM]. Interesting to read on conjunction with Greenhalgh. Here is their definition, which does come in the form of a Figure: