If the nearly $50 million the Biden camp raised in two days is any indication, Democrats are very happy with the announcement of Kamala Harris as his running mate. The mainstream press has generally been favorable, although there were some questionable editorials like this one in Newsweek that led to an apology from the periodical, but not a retraction of the ill-formed opinion of John Eastman.
Yes, conservatives are trying to play the birther card again by claiming Ms. Harris is not a natural born citizen of the United States because she has two foreign-born parents who had temporary residence at the time of her birth in California. Eastman feebly argued that the Constitution doesn't grant birthright citizenship. Yet, if we look at our early presidents, they were all naturalized citizens, because the United States was not officially formed until after 1776. They had previously all been British citizens born in various colonies. It wasn't until Martin Van Buren that we had a president actually born in the United States in 1782, one year after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. No matter, conservatives are running with this tired old canard because they haven't figured out how else to attack Ms. Harris.
Herr Trump, whose mother was Scottish, by the way, and father a birthright citizen himself, is pushing this conspiracy theory on his twitter feed, along with letting all his friends know what an extraordinarily nasty woman Kamala Harris is for attacking Brett Kavanaugh the way she did in the Senate Confirmation Hearing back in 2018. If you recall, she brought the Supreme Court judge nominee to tears at one point. It was this cross-examination that elevated Ms. Harris to a promising presidential candidate in 2019. To be fair, Mr. Trump also pointed out how nasty Ms. Harris was to Joe Biden in the debates, when she called him out on busing, but Mr. Biden doesn't appear to harbor any grudges.
The fact is Ms. Harris is as American as anyone of us, and it is highly doubtful birtherism or attacking her prosecutorial skills is going to lessen the growing gap between Trump and Biden in the polls. As a result the President is now openly sabotaging the postal service system in the country in an attempt to sow fears that mail-in ballots may never arrive on time. His Postmaster General, a political appointee unfortunately, has even gone so far as to reclassify absentee ballots as bulk mail to further slow up the process. However, most states allow voters to download their ballots on line and mail them in first class to assure faster service. A small price to pay to make your vote count.
All this subterfuge makes Trump look like embattled Belarusian strongman Lukashenko, who is clinging to power by his fingernails at this point. The Belarusian president even went so far as to shut down the internet so that voters wouldn't see anymore unflattering stories about him on election day. Not that it matters, since the ballot counting is so rigged that he claimed he had won 86 percent of the popular vote. Protests don't seem to suggest such an overwhelming victory over his main rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has since fled to Lithuania to avoid political prosecution. It's bad enough watching our next door neighbor descend into chaos with many Belarussians seeking asylum in Lithuania and Poland, but how has the United States reached this pathetically low standard?
Well, Trump is basically trying to avoid prosecution and the only way to do so is to remain President. His primal survival skills have kicked in. He's no doubt getting plenty of coaching from his good buddy Vlad on the phone. He's been in constant communication with the Russian president since Biden emerged as the prospective nominee. Much of his tactics smack of Russian influence, which has so deeply infiltrated the conservative media that Boris Epshteyn had become a fixture of Sinclair Broadcast Company, whose syndicated news features were forced upon local news affiliates across the country until late last year. Epshstyn is one of many Russian plants in American news media, feeding conspiracy theories bred in Russian troll farms to an undiscerning conservative audience.
We knew this election would get ugly and this is just the beginning with the Biden-Harris ticket being formally approved at the virtual Democratic Convention this week. Trump still has time to dump Pence in favor of the new Grizzly Mom, Kristi Noem, as the Republican Convention is next week. The current VP seems to be sweating over the idea of having to face Ms. Harris in a televised debate. He's made it a point never to dine alone with a woman other than his wife. One wonder if this extends to debates?
Ms. Harris can chew up Mr. Pence and spit him out and it will make little if any impact on voters. Mostly, it will just highlight the stark difference between the two main candidates. One who relies on the religious conservative vote to carry him in key states, and another who is trying to reach the broadest cross section of the country by delivering on his promise to nominate a woman Vice-President.
What appears to be Biden's greatest strength at this point is that he has offered us a taste of the future in Kamala Harris. She is not the demon liberal the conservative press is trying to make her out to be, but rather a moderate lawmaker who has already shown a great deal of appeal among suburban voters, which usually make the difference in elections. In fact, this election has the potential of being a landslide, mail-in ballots or not, if the Trump campaign doesn't get its act together soon.
Instead, Trump is all over the place as usual in his tweets and press conferences, unable to stay disciplined and hoping to sow enough agitation and confusion that the turnout will be low in November and that he will be able to tip the electoral college in his favor once again.
Let the games begin!
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