Ron DeSantis Keeps Walking Into Kamala Harris-Shaped Rake
It's so much fun to watch!
Here’s the latest update on Vice President Kamala Harris’s now daily pantsing of Ron DeSantis. Florida’s future former governor and current failed presidential candidate had challenged Harris to a duel debate over Florida’s African American history curriculum, the one that suggested enslaved people picked up valuable job skills for the benefit of Mr. Slave Master.
If DeSantis were a reasonable person — even with that face — who possessed an ounce of political savvy, he’d immediately stop feeding his disastrous “It’s Hip To Be Enslaved” news cycle, and I think Harris graciously declined the debate offer because she didn’t want to take advantage of someone’s obvious mental incapacity. It’s just not polite. LOL, no, seriously, she’s probably thrilled to help DeSantis dig his political grave. It’s her civic duty.
Tuesday afternoon, Harris addressed the Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention in Orlando, and during her speech, she deftly relegated DeSantis to the loathsome ranks of Holocaust deniers.
“Right here in Florida, they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” she said. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates, and now they attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in a politically motivated roundtable.”
She really shines here, better than she’s been in years, frankly. She repeated a successful line from a past speech — “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us” — but it feels natural. She doesn’t let up on reminding people what DeSantis has said in his words. He smugly minimized the brutal impact of slavery on the enslaved.
“Well, I’m here in Florida, and I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact. There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”
The vice president is not interested in debating the “merits” of slavery with some flat-Earth racist.
Harris also understands that refusing to even say DeSantis’s name is more potent than mispronouncing it, as he churlishly does with “Kamala.” (It’s also a good rule to never debate someone whose name you can’t even pronounce correctly.)
“We will not stop calling out and fighting back against extremist, so-called leaders who try to prevent our children from learning our true and full history,” she said.
Damn, that’s good. Her speech writers have definitely upped their game.
If DeSantis’s humiliation wasn’t complete, fellow Florida man Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted in response to his debate challenge, “Imagine being desperate enough to be thirsty for a Kamala visit.” Gaetz is a scumbag but I’ll grant him a “touché.”
Just a few days ago, Politico had run a piece suggesting Harris wasn’t a Beyonce-level draw with the Democratic donor class that’s mostly old white men for reasons that are illegal to teach in Florida. Now Harris is shoveling dirt over the remains of DeSantis’s presidential aspirations. That should open some wallets.
[Politico]
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You wrote about her speechwriters upping their game, SER, and I had the thought, "Where do you recruit a speechwriter anyway?"
And that thought led me to poets and playwrights. Oratory is a fucking skill, man, and while I recognize that political speech is its own genre, it need not sound like dead white men to be great. One of the best reads of my life was Indian Oratory (Collected by Vanderworth, IIRC). If I had to get a speechwriter, the first person I'd beg to work for me is Sharon Bridgforth (https://sharonbridgforth.com). Now, I'm fully aware that the voice she has rehearsed, the voice she has practiced, the voice that comes so naturally to her is not a voice that would come naturally to me, but oh, that talent! If she couldn't write for a given politician, you'd want her to be the entirety of the hiring committee for the person who would be your head speechwriter.
Frankly, I'd pay a lot of money to listen to a Harris speech written by Bridgforth. That's a collaboration that couldn't do less than knock the walls down.
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And if you're one of the many millions of people who haven't read Bridgforth's Bull-Jean stories, YOU GO DO THAT RIGHT NOW. GO!
Rudy Giuliani calling Jack Smith an "unethical lawyer." OMG, I may laugh myself silly today.