It's difficult to name the speech I enjoyed most at last week's Democratic National Convention (Michelle Obama's undiluted attack on the pettiness of Donald Trump does reverberate more consistently than the others), but I know which one I enjoyed least and kept waiting to end. That "honor' belongs to Bill Clinton.
However, since that night, I've been mulling over a number of points he made in his seemingly discursive ramble, and some of them we need to take to heart if we genuinely desire Kamala Harris to be our next president and avoid another scourge of MAGA mediocrity and Trumpian vengeance.
I found it amusing that Newt Gingrich, a contemporaneous adversary of Mr. Clinton, said the speech, though pretty good, lacked fire. Even Gingrich, the old warhorse, knew it was good. And since there was enough fire from other speakers, we (and that includes me) could have paid more attention to the man who served two successful terms as president and whose record—though sullied by moral failings—remains well above the mean.
That night, Clinton looked old—he is old—and maybe some fires have gone out, but he hasn't lost his ability to see the political landscape as it is. As columnist Charles Blow said the day after," [Clinton] is still the dean of "putting the hay down where the goats can get it"— of explaining the complex in common parlance. Clinton wasn't interested in arcane political philosophy; he wanted to tell us what we needed to know so that we could understand it. Sometimes, we goats need to find the hay without jumping through too many hoops—if you'll pardon the mixed metaphors.
Of course, Clinton's speech checked off the obligatory boxes—he thanked Biden, praised Harris, and warned us about Trump. The applause was raucous and enthusiastic, but though he went off script numerous times and spoke twice as long as he was scheduled to, he was also quietly reflective. He never pretended to forget what happened in 2016 and warned somewhat obliquely but unmistakably that reducing one's opponents to "deplorables" doesn't win elections. He knows Trump is a dolt and a dangerous one if granted power, but Clinton's warning to us was that there has to be more to a campaign than pointing out the opponent's failings. Moreover, as a recent Times editorial writer pointed out, "Joy is not a strategy." If you remember, there was a great deal of joy leading up to the 2016 election and a great deal less following it.
We need Kamala Harris to confront Donald Trump on his terms. He needs no teleprompters or scripts—and even though most of what he says centers on his grievances and his disdain for democracy, his so-called spontaneity still rallies many of his followers. Imagine Kamala Harris with that same spontaneity but with intelligence and backbone to accompany it, a candidate speaking openly and intelligently of her economic and social plans for all Americans and how she hopes to achieve them. A recent speech on affordable housing and ways it can be achieved may be an indication that joy is transmuting into policy.
Press conferences and interviews are dicey, and journalism is filled with "gotcha" reporters looking for a byline to give them a moment of fame. Trump handles these obstacles with ease—if he doesn't know an answer, he makes one up; if the truth is uncomfortable, he lies. Harris cannot afford this kind of dissembling—another obstacle in running against an inveterate liar whose followers don't care. Like all the obstacles she faces, Ms. Harris cannot simply run around them. She is capable of handling these challenges and more, and there are plenty ahead..
Kamala Harris can win by promoting and clarifying a platform, especially against a man who has never run with a platform and now finds himself running away from one. However, Bill Clinton's warnings cannot be ignored: the facts matter, even in a race against an inveterate liar.
In a sense, it wasn't Clinton but Trump who set out the hay where we could find it. Clinton just reminded us it was still there. We ignored it in 2016 and almost lost our country. We must not ignore it again.
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