Just like that irritating little kid we all knew in our childhood, Donald Trump likes calling people names. So the morning after the vice-presidential debate during which Kamala Harris rang rings around his running mate Michael Pence, Trump called her “a monster and a communist.”
As a closet racist and an outright hater, it must have killed Trump to see this Ms. Harris taking his boy to task on the absolutely dreadful job that his administration did in fighting the coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 7 million Americans and killed well over 211,000.
And that was only the beginning, because she went on to completely dominate the evening with her superior take on every other issue in the debate.
Truth is, for any proper thinking political observer, Vice President Pence a former radio host, chosen by Trump the sinner to entice an evangelical base, was never expected to pose much of a threat on the debate stage to the charismatic and highly accomplished senator from California.
Not surprisingly, Pence a hapless former radio talk-show host who lost twice to a Democrat while trying to win a Congressional seat in Indiana in 2006 and 2008, tried to bully the two women on stage with him that night, Harris and moderator Susan Page of USA Today, by continuously disregarding time limits and occasionally trying to interrupt Harris as she trashed the deficiencies of the administration that he was a part of.
Of course, time and time again during the evening she had to put him in his place, admonishing him with a terse: “I’m speaking Mr. Vice President…” the way every Black mother speaks to a petulant child before she becomes dangerous.
Remarkably, inspite of Harris’ debate dominance, so many commentators in mainstream media chose to downplay what was obvious. Some of them resorting to the usual gender-related criticism about her facial expressions or her attitude, others were taken by Pence’s discipline (!!) and stick-to-itiveness of the nonsense that he was parroting.
But those of us who know the truth, know that Harris’ performance at the debate had very little to do with Pence or his conservative cohorts, and all to do with giving America a glimpse of the woman who would be president in time to come.
You see, when in a few weeks she and Joe Biden grabs the presidency from the insufferable Trump and Pence duo, it inevitably places Harris on a seemingly clear path to occupying the White House.
Shouldn’t be a big deal because she does have the political acumen to go with the job as the first Black woman to become the attorney general of California, America’s most populous state, the second Black woman elected to the US Senate and the third woman on a presidential ticket.
But there’s no telling if America is ready for Harris as president.
Still, Joe Biden will be 78 years old when takes the oat of office next January and as of this week in October, COVID-19 is still rampaging across the states with devastating consequences on old people (except Trump) so it’s not unlikely that he can become incapacitated along the way.
What the 56-year-old Harris showed on the stage with Pence is that she has come a long way since her own shaky campaign for president last year. She showed that she is more poised and articulate, she has better control of the issues and certainly presents herself to be better prepared to take on the flaky mostly white men who continue to hold the levers of political powers in the US and beyond.
Probably that’s the reason why Donald Trump is so fearful of her.
Egbert Gaye
