Democratic (Party) Direction

I mean, sure, she "can" be. Does it matter if she wants to?

Of course it matters. I'm just lamenting the loss to the profession.

I've been a supporter of Kamala since before the start of her short-lived presidential run. I still think she'd make an excellent president. Whether she will ever have a shot at the office is another question.

It really is funny. Like women shouldn't have any choice over what kinds of careers to have.

I did read the Vox article. It's valid to criticize Harris for not representing the interests you care about. At least we are now criticizing her for being too good at politics, rather than a poor public speaker or saying she should stick to being a lawyer.

― felicity, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 11:21 PM (fifty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

....

ok

absolutely not going to attempt any bridge building with people who stan for kamala harris itt because it's a shallow and bad faith position from the get go. i'll save you any inkling to do any either by confirming that yes i'm absolutely sexist, there ya go.

xp oh great now we have the stock market trading expert here to profess wild skepticism about abolitionists even existing.

thought experiment - Would Harris have fared better as VP to Warren?

? yeah that may not have been me, but maybe?

thought experiment - Would Harris have fared better as VP to Warren?

― youn, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 11:31 PM (fifty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

definitely!

i did not know people here were against anyone being "put in jail". ok.

― Yerac, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 6:27 PM (four minutes ago)

I can't remember if we have a prison abolition thread, but the "abolish the police" thread is quite active if you're curious where people are coming from. Of course, reading the thread means exposing yourself to a miserable litany of heinous police actions, but it was a bit more debate-y in summer 2020

xp i was referring to you yerac, yes, and it was honestly out of line and i'm sorry, so i'm backing out of this thread for now

Even if you think playing an active role in the American carceral state is a necessity, that doesn't mean we need those people in higher office. If you've decided that putting people in prison for weed is something you can stomach to do other supposedly good things, that should be the terminal point of your political career as a Democrat.

oh yeah, i am pretty sure i have never been pro-police posting here because my go to has always been my brother was a cop and he's an idiot and it was the only job he could get. I thought map was talking about slavery which was a bit...wtf?

LOL as if there are only two choices - "Kamala Harris stan" or "Harris is anathema"

I just said it's valid to criticize Harris. Who is the "stan"?

no shade at the ILX lawyers who all seem like good folk but hey maybe no more lawyers idk? The Democratic Party is kind of eat up with lawyers. And not the good cool kind who are going to take the fight to fossil fuels, defense contractors, Amazon, etc and not, you know, take money from instead.

money from them*

A party of public defenders, labor organizers and teachers would beat the hell out of former Attorneys General, Apache pilots and commercial landlords.

I mean the law is kind of a traditional path to advancement and wealth for women and people of color who have historically been shut out of other businesses, but . . . ok.

I suppose there is a valid argument to be made that there are too many lawyers in politics in general, but I don't know what other profession is as closely related at least to lawmaking.

Val Demings, running against Rubio, released this campaign ad a few weeks ago. It's played relentlessly. I hate it. But I'm told (passive voice alert) it polls well with African-American voters, and I've no reason to doubt it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SofFXAdM_MM

The Democratic Party is kind of eat up with lawyers

TRIAL lawyers maybe. Both parties are full of lawyers, and the kind who don't practice.

Yikes that Demings ad.

yeah I know

But I'm not the target audience for such things

i think my question about the difference between prosecutor and defender was because where one may be thinking about being put in jail for things like possession, i am thinking about things like violence against certain demographics that often have enough trouble finding parties to listen or assist. That is all; that was my confusion.

Aside from questions of political purity, the other flaw in Democrats running cops/troops/natsec ghouls/prosecutors is that they don't seem to be all that successful in the end.

Well one of them is VP.

The 2006 blue wave of former CIA spooks and people who took part in the Highway of Death pretty much got torched by 2010, IIRC.

I don't exactly understand the turn this discussion took, but more generally I don't really understand personalizing things and making them about "career choices." A politician is a representative public servant and an elected official. Kamala Harris can do whatever she wants with her life, I just think she would make a poor presidential candidate, and her poor showing in the last democratic primary at least somewhat supports that.

I also don't even care that much if I like her as long as she's voting for the right things. But that's as a senator in a safe blue seat.

Oh maybe it's just the fact that women in the US just lost the right to have abortions that is making us take things a little personally.

Being VP isn't very successful, though - since the Civil War we've had one VP immediately elected to the Presidency and two total (without death/assassination). It's a dead-end job.

To me, it's so crazy how the men continue to talk over and not listen to the women in this thread. "Think about that" lol bitch please.

oh and also to clarify to map, my mind went right to abolitionists--- slavery instead of prison because I had focused on Kamala as the subject and I thought you were trying to make some odd comment about race.

I mean the law is kind of a traditional path to advancement and wealth for women and people of color who have historically been shut out of other businesses, but . . . ok.

for Big Law, and I’m talking the kinds of*

love your posts itt thread, felicity! and Yerac's also!

same

That is true. A danger of painting in broad strokes a profession so large as the legal profession and picking and choosing moments is to unintentionally reinforce the structures of power.

Unintentionally, but still reinforcing.

To be clear, I think it is fine to criticize Harris and wish for Democratic leadership that is a little less fascist. I just thought some of the criticisms here were facile, underinformed, and would not be/were not historically leveled at similarly situated white men. TO point that out does not make one a "stan."

Also, wtf at having a go at a female poster for engaging in stock trading? Like we can't have abortions, at least let us make some money.

A danger of painting in broad strokes a profession so large as the legal profession and picking and choosing moments is to unintentionally reinforce the structures of power.

But you were doing this by assigning virtue to a profession by dint of those who participate in it? That's been the base of your whole argument!

For what it's worth, I'm not making broad strokes about the profession of the law, at least in this thread— I'm just saying that Kamala Harris' career has been partly based on harming women and minorities, particularly racialized sexual minorities like trans Black women who do sex work.

How common is it for a Democratic Senator, Governor etc to be a former prosecutor? I know Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo were both AGs but I feel like they were more known for going after fraud and financial crime. and also Cuomo sucks.

Clinton was state AG, Kerry and Klobuchar were local prosecutors

Maybe there is something to the idea that Harris gets unfairly singled out for being a prosecutor, although Clinton and Kerry are a long time ago now and attitudes have changed. I also think the whole “she’s a cop” thing was partly the product of running against a genuinely more left candidate who was fairly popular.

That's been the base of your whole argument!

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Tuesday, July 5, 2022 6:50 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think you are seriously confused about normative and descriptive values.

If by "assigning virtue" you mean do I think pointing out that a woman who has chosen to enter politics as a career and has done it arguably "successfully" may be a more appropriate direction for Democratic leadership than a woman who is a career academic that you just decided should be in politics, then I guess so. I do believe in women having agency over their lives.

Have fun with your straw women arguments. Just don't assign them to me.

I know Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo were both AGs but I feel like they were more known for going after fraud and financial crime. and also Cuomo sucks.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, July 5, 2022 7:02 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Spitzer and Cuomo were "more known for" some other things.

Many white male prosecutors have gotten a free pass into higher office but the same people who supported those white male prosecutors don't care that Harris was one. I have my doubts that anyone who changed their twitter bio to 'COPmala' has a kind word to say about Clinton/Kerry/etc..

You could point to someone like Larry Krasner (except for tabes, who also hates Krasner IIRC), but I haven't seen 'draft Krasner' movements taking shape. Elect progressive prosecutors and leave them there IMO.

If by "assigning virtue" you mean do I think pointing out that a woman who has chosen to enter politics as a career and has done it arguably "successfully" may be a more appropriate direction for Democratic leadership than a woman who is a career academic that you just decided should be in politics, then I guess so. I do believe in women having agency over their lives.

Have fun with your straw women arguments. Just don't assign them to me.

― felicity, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 9:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t think you mean this in bad faith, but that seems like such a bizarre misunderstanding of table’s point, which is about what the politics of being a prosecutor represent and not about “agency.” I don’t see how arguing about who would it wouldn’t be well suited for certain political positions could ever deny a person agency.

I took table's point exactly as he made it: a gross exaggeration and distortion of my postings. If he wants to engage with my actual postings, I will return the favor.

man alive, how is this hard to understand?

You have in this thread three American women of color talking about a fourth American woman of color who is currently the Vice President of the United States and the President of the United States Senate. table's suggestion for a better Democratic party direction is a fifth American woman of color who admittedly has expressed zero interest in thrusting herself into the white-hot cauldron of national politics (and its attendant scrutiny). That last bit is what I mean by "agency." Why on earth would table think he should decide that a woman should go into politics to serve his interests? It's insulting.

Can't a woman of color choose not to go into politics, and can't a woman of color discuss Harris' political prospects on this thread seriously without having to fight off a cartoonish "reverse Uno" attack? It's silly, really.

My understanding is that Tabes isn’t suggesting that Ruth Wilson Gilmore should get into party politics, it was just a way of saying that their values are closer to Gilmore than to Harris.

If I’m asked who I would choose to play the 4 for the Mavericks next season I would say Giannis. This is unrealistic but it doesn’t seem like suggesting that he be forced into the job.

I didn't realize we were playing fantasy sports picks here. My bad.

I’m no longer engaging with your “arguments” because they don’t make any sense and seem to be more about turning me into a sexist boogeyman.

On top of that, you seem to be willing to forgive the reprehensible aspects of Harris’ political career simply because of her identity. Forgive me, but I don’t care that the boot on the neck of my sex worker friends is owned by a Black woman, and that anyone could view the world this way is positively baffling to me.

I’m not going to talk to you or address you after this post. Enjoy your time here table-free.