By MICHAEL DAVIDOW, Radio Free New Hampshire
“The most important thing right now is to unify our country. We must not only ensure that Donald Trump does not get re-elected. We must further ensure that his brand of politics is repudiated and relegated to the dustbin of history. His contempt for truth, his existential self-centeredness, his inexhaustible sources of bile—these things have brought America to the precipice of despair. I have always believed in bipartisanship. No party and no set of theories can pretend to have all the answers. We all benefit from the marketplace of ideas and we all benefit when we respect and trust each other. For that reason, I have nominated Mitt Romney to serve as my vice-president. Mr. Romney’s character and fundamental decency are exactly what this country needs.” No, that didn’t happen.
“We need to move forward. We can’t just repeat the past. Our modern era faces new challenges which require new approaches. We need someone who fights not just for herself, but for her ideas – ideas that are meant to advance the great American values of prosperity for all, not just a chosen few, justice for all, not just the rich and mighty, and fairness for all, not just the elite. For these reasons, I have chosen Elizabeth Warren to be my running mate.” Hmm. Didn’t get that one either.
Well, Joe Biden has chosen this year’s winner of the John Nance Gardner Bucket of Warm Spit Award, and it’s Kamala Harris. Completely buckling under to the unveiled threats of his so-called most enthusiastic supporters, he dove down deep into an amazing talent pool that had at least three or four people in it, and he came up with her.
She is a lifelong prosecutor, so she is good at being morally superior to murderers and rapists. She is of color, more or less. Her father was Jamaican, her mother was Indian, and she herself is a millionaire several times over, so she has about as much in common with the African American experience as Barack Obama did.
She doesn’t have kids, but when she was thirty years old, she had a lengthy affair with Willie Brown, who was twice her age, and who ran the California legislature back when cronyism was still a big business out there, so he got her a couple of high-paying state gigs to help her along.
She has been a United States senator for around three years. She is from San Francisco, America’s most insufferable city. Yeah, she’s fine. Whatever.
(And by the way, we are not allowed to criticize her for being “ambitious,” because that is against feminism. Not sure if we are allowed to distrust her for being a self-involved empty suit who has never advanced any cause other than her own — but probably not.)
Let’s hope that these people surprise us. Let’s hope they grow into their tasks. Let’s hope that the problems they must solve are big enough, that the very process of trying to solve them will force these people into becoming better men and women.
Reading the news this week made me hungry, anyway, so I called up my old friend Chloe Schlagobers to ask where she wanted to go for dinner.
Moi-meme: Hi, Chloe! Let’s get something to eat.
Chloe Schlagobers: Hi Squirtle! I am also starving. Let’s try this new restaurant! It’s Covid-friendly!
MM: Okay. What’s it called?
CS: It’s called Uncle Joe’s Day Old Pizza.
MM: Gosh. Sounds lousy. It sort of sounds like the person who makes the food doesn’t really care about how good it is, so long as he can sell it to people who have no real choice. It also sounds like he doesn’t really want any repeat business!
CS: No, it’s great! Everyone loves Day Old Pizza. This is what happens. They take some pizza and they let it sit around for a while. Sometimes it’s on the counter and sometimes they stick in the fridge. Then, when you’re good and hungry, you eat it!
MM: Do they warm it up first?
CS: Yes, but in a microwave. [makes a face.]
MM: Was the pizza any good to begin with?
CS: Not really. It was just sort of…. pizza.
MM: I dunno, Chloe. I don’t think I want Day Old Pizza. Aren’t there any other options? At all?
CS: The only other place that’s open is Bob McFascist’s Rancid Dog Food All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.
MM: Wow. Okay then. Let’s go get some pizza.
CS: I’m getting the pepperoni. It actually has no pepperoni. Someone already ate all the meat parts.
Michael Davidow is a lawyer in Nashua. He is the author of Gate City, Split Thirty, and The Rocketdyne Commission, three novels about politics and advertising which, taken together, form The Henry Bell Project. His most recent one is The Book of Order. They are available on Amazon.
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