Opinion: Harris' economic speech lacked anger and racism. What's wrong with her?
Harris' thoughtful rhetoric on the economy does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless!
Rex Huppke
USA TODAY
Comrade Kamala Harris gave an economic speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, and let me tell you, it was light on the two things I demand out of a serious leader: rambling stories that have nothing to do with the economy and rabid xenophobia.
Harris wasted my time by using her speech to detail a plan and vision for the American economy, promising things like a middle-class tax break for more than 100 million Americans that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s lives; working with builders to add 3 million more homes to the market, bringing home prices down, and helping first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down payment assistance; and doubling the number of registered apprenticeships while eliminating degree requirements for federal jobs.
Oh yeah? Well, what about the damn battery-powered boats that keep sinking and the people getting eaten by sharks, huh? What about the fact that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has told me, and Fox News host Sean Hannity has confirmed, that America is a dystopian, third-world hellhole and the only way to fix it is to yell “TARIFFS!” as loud as possible?
What, Madam Vice President, do you have to say about the late, great Hannibal Lecter? No answer? It figures.
Harris' economic speech may have had details, but Trump's had anger
Shortly before Harris took the stage in Pittsburgh to speak with highly suspicious clarity and compassion, Trump was in North Carolina showing REAL AMERICANS how it’s done.
Trump, under a banner that read "JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!", showed us his plan to boost the economy by being mad that former President Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize, promoting his nearby golf course and suggesting that the Iranians want to kill him because he might harm their furniture-export operations.
“All of your furniture-makers are going to come back and come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before,” Trump said. “They’re mostly gone. They're all coming back. This is why people in countries want to kill me. They’re not happy with me. It is, it’s a risky business. This is why they want to kill me. They only kill consequential presidents, remember that.”
Right on!
So Harris can stay focused and complete a sentence? So what?
Trump continued to masterfully demonstrate how a real he-man leader stays on topic: “I will end the chaos in the Middle East quickly, and I’m the only one that's gonna do this. We have never been so close to World War III as we are right now, we are so close. I will be sure that World War III will not happen, I’m the only one who can say it, won’t happen. But you’re very close, and that will be a war like no other because I always say it’s not going to be two army tanks, two tanks, which by the way our country wants to convert to electric, I’m not going to let that happen. They want electric tanks. They don’t work well. The battery size is so big you’re going to have pull a trailer behind the tank, can you believe this, they want electric tanks, they don’t care, they want to have a nice, free, beautiful for the environment as we blast our way through countries. These people are crazy, they’re crazy.”
Correct. Harris can stand there all she wants and “discuss actual policies” while “not sounding like her brain fell out of her ear” and “appear to care about people other than herself.”
Harris spoke with compassion. And that makes me very angry.
She can say things like: “I remember being there when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Cooking meals for her, taking her to her appointments, just trying to make her comfortable, figuring out which clothes were soft enough that they wouldn’t irritate her, and telling her stories to try to make her laugh. I know caregiving is about dignity, it really is. And when we lower the cost and ease the burdens people face, we will not only make it then easier for them to meet their obligations as caregivers, we will also make it more possible for them to go to work.”
That kind of thoughtful rhetoric does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless!
Trump gives us specific details about made-up immigrant stories
Trump caused the hate circuit in my brain to light up during his Wednesday speech when he said: “But Kamala should have closed the border years ago and we wouldn’t have hostile takeovers of Springfield, Ohio; Aurora, Colorado; where they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over apartment buildings, they’re taking over real estate, they’re in the real-estate development business, congratulations. ... In that case people from Venezuela, young street gang members that were sent here by the Venezuelan government.”
The fake news media will tell you that’s all nonsense, but it sounds exactly like a fever dream I had the other night after spending 17 hours watching Fox News, so I believe it’s absolutely true.
Fox News didn't air Harris' speech, but it showed some of Trump's
And speaking of Fox News, I know from watching that network that Harris is a complete mystery candidate who never gives any details about her policies and economic vision. So, did Fox News cover Harris’ speech Wednesday afternoon, when she gave details about her policies and economic vision? No. It wasn’t even mentioned on the network’s X account while the speech was going on.
That makes perfect sense to me. Real Americans have better things to do than listen to a liberal speak rationally about the economy. We’ve got to worry about electric tanks and immigrants with massive machine-gun-type equipment coming to take over our apartment buildings and who we are going to get irrationally mad at next and which of Trump’s golf properties that we can’t afford to visit is the best.
You know – the stuff that matters.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 381178007/