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What Kamala Should Have Said
I’m sure by now everyone’s seen at least clips of Kamala’s Fox “News” interview with Bret Baier. Several excerpts have been replayed ad nauseum, but the one that interested me was this one:
Bret: If that’s the case, why is half the country supporting him? Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why— if he’s as bad as you sa y— that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?
Kamala: This is an election for President of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy.
Bret: I know, but ...
Kamala: It’s not supposed to be ... it is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone.
Bret: So, are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid? What is it?
Kamala: Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people. And, in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean, and belittle, and diminish the American people. He is the one who talks about an enemy within: an enemy within— talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.
Now, Kamala is currently getting credit for not “falling for” that “trap” (although it was so clumsy and obvious that I can’t really believe that anyone would have fallen for it), and I understand that she had her talking points that she needed to get out, and this was a score for her in that department. But here’s what I wish she would have said instead:
Imagine there’s a user car salesman. And he sells a lot of cars. But the reason he keeps selling those cars is because he keeps telling lies: he makes claims about the cars that just plain aren’t true. And people keep believing him, because they assume that he wouldn’t be allowed to outright lie like that. Surely, they think, surely if he were completely making shit up, someone would come along and stop him, because that would be bad. Probabaly illegal, even. So he keeps conning people into buying the cars. Now, in this situation, we wouldn’t blame the victims of this con job ... we wouldn’t say that the people buying these cars are stupid. We have to blame the conman, right? He’s the one doing the lying and cheating.
(And we could also blame the TV station who keeps showing ads saying how great this criminal is even though they know he’s lying. But that might be too subtle for a Fox audience.)
So that’s what I wish she’d said. And, I know, she needed to get her point in about the Nazi quotes Trump keeps spewing (quick, who said this, Hitler or Trump? “Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within. Then they will join us in a combined front.”*), and also there’s no way she could have gotten through an answer that long without Baier interrupting her. Multiple times, even. But, still ... that was the right answer, I think.
Beetlejuice Redux
This weekend we rewatched Beetlejuice, in preparation for watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice next week. Here are the the things I had to explain to my children:
- This movie is so old that the “little girl” in this movie is the mom in Stranger Things. (And you should have heard the gasps of disbelief.)
- Who Ozzie and Harriet were. And, looking back on it, that was an outdated reference at the time: the only reason I know anything about The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is because of second-hand stories from my parents. Not sure what Burton was thinking on that one.
- The sandworms look like they escaped from The Nightmare Before Christmas because of Tim Burton’s involvement in both.
- Why the concept of a “talking Marcel Marceau statue” is dumb (and therefore funny).
- That’s a Johnny Carson impression, which is totally wasted on the youth.
* And are you willing to admit that you only knew it was Hitler because Trump isn’t that articulate?
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