Gatestone Institute - by Daniel Greenfield - November 11, 2024 - America Failed Kamala

 

America Failed Kamala by Daniel Greenfield  •  November 11, 2024 at 5:00 am Americans had the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris. And we had failed to live up to her. [A]s Michelle Obama told us, we were not good enough for her. Perhaps one day we will be. And Harris, along with Hillary Clinton, can wait in the wings, sipping chardonnay and listening to selections from Oprah Winfrey's book club until we show that we are ready for them to finally come and save us from ourselves. Decades may pass. Even centuries. But surely one day Americans will finally be ready for a completely inept president. Herds of angry liberals wander the aisles of organic supermarkets and wonder how millions of people could have ever put their selfish economic interests ahead of a presidential DEI hire. America's selfish founders put their desire for cheaper tea ahead of the glory of being ruled by a mad king who talked to trees, and their unworthy descendants want cheaper eggs and beef more than they want to listen to a woman of the right race who speaks in word salads. It cannot be that Harris failed. DEI hires can never fail, only be failed. Nothing is ever their fault, only that of the systemic racism of the electoral college, the legacy of oppression in Berkeley and the unfair double standard of being expected to state coherent policy positions. Or to put it more succinctly, Harris and [Nikole Hannah Jones of the revisionist "1619 Project"] are awesome and America sucks. It would have been kinder for Democrats, Republicans and squishes of no particular political denomination not to reward Harris or ten thousand other DEI hires who fill academia, politics and corporations with positions they are unqualified for to avoid appearing bigoted. Bigotry is not only refusing to hire people because of their race, but also hiring people because of their race. Biden made no secret of choosing Harris because he had promised to pick a black woman. Americans refused to hire Harris to run the country just because she was a black woman. Whites, blacks and Latinos of all ages and sexes did the right non-bigoted thing by Harris. But nothing in Harris's life had led her to expect to be judged on merit rather than on her identity. Americans had the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris. And we had failed to live up to her. As Michelle Obama told us, we were not good enough for her. Pictured: Harris gives her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2024. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) "Is America ready for that? Are they ready for a woman of color to be President of the United States?" Kamala Harris asked a month before dropping out of the 2020 primaries. Five years later, the consensus is not that Harris wasn't ready, but America still wasn't. "Kamala Harris didn't lose, America did. As a nation, we collectively failed her," John Pavlovitz, a liberal Christian blogger, damned. "This election was not an indictment of Kamala Harris. It was an indictment of America," Cosmopolitan columnist Jill Filipovic argued. Americans had the opportunity to elect Harris. And we had failed to live up to her. "By every measure, she has demonstrated that she's ready," Michelle Obama had warned at a Harris election rally. "The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?" We were not ready.