Read on Twitter
Okay, I have now read the New York Times’ premature post mortem on the Kamala Harris campaign...
and I have a few minutes before my chicken and waffles arrive, so I’m gonna say some things.
1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/us/politics/kamala-harris-2020.html
and I have a few minutes before my chicken and waffles arrive, so I’m gonna say some things.
1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/us/politics/kamala-harris-2020.html
The first:
In this primary, like all primaries, there is but one candidate who is leading. Everyone else is trailing.
Trailing doesn’t feel good.
Pouring your heart into something and not emerging as the front runner hurts.
And people who are hurting talk.
2/
In this primary, like all primaries, there is but one candidate who is leading. Everyone else is trailing.
Trailing doesn’t feel good.
Pouring your heart into something and not emerging as the front runner hurts.
And people who are hurting talk.
2/
The meat of the piece - insiders carping about decisions and the colleagues who made them - is little different than what would be found in any trailing campaign.
Nobody raises their hand and says “Yeah, I’m part of the reason we’re trailing.”
3/
Nobody raises their hand and says “Yeah, I’m part of the reason we’re trailing.”
3/
The thing I find somewhere between unfair and deliberately malicious about this particular piece is its unsaid, uncritical acceptance of a premise only applied to candidates who aren’t white men:
They would have been leading if only they had made different choices.
4/
They would have been leading if only they had made different choices.
4/
Women candidates are ascribed vast powers to overcome the entirety of systemic disadvantages and biases *only* when they are being blaming for not overcoming them.
The media doesn’t review critically and fairly how their own conduct disadvantaged the candidate.
5/
The media doesn’t review critically and fairly how their own conduct disadvantaged the candidate.
5/
The media doesn’t take honest account of how it’s endless “electability” content is fundamentally affirming of racial and gender bias.
It doesn’t reflect on how its coverage helps ensure outcomes it then pegs solely on candidates who aren’t white men.
6/
It doesn’t reflect on how its coverage helps ensure outcomes it then pegs solely on candidates who aren’t white men.
6/
So, maybe the Harris could have done more and different. Maybe the campaign would be better positioned now.
But for the New York Times to pen a critique with nary a contemplation of the vast headwinds candidate Harris faces in overcoming even the Times’ coverage is... gross.
7/
But for the New York Times to pen a critique with nary a contemplation of the vast headwinds candidate Harris faces in overcoming even the Times’ coverage is... gross.
7/
If the media embraced women candidates - and in particular, women of color candidates - without myriad subtle and overt biases which do myriad harms, it would be less galling.
Call me when you rush to a cover a white man with the same gleeful impulse to judge and blame, NYT.
Call me when you rush to a cover a white man with the same gleeful impulse to judge and blame, NYT.
Women candidates are subtly undermined and discounted during their run...
...right up until the media divorces itself from its own role and blames the entirety of that on the candidate.
Same as it ever was.
9/9
...right up until the media divorces itself from its own role and blames the entirety of that on the candidate.
Same as it ever was.
9/9
