Harvey Weinstein and Steven Spielberg’s Black Men are “Soulless Monsters”

BY ISHMAEL REED

 DECEMBER 29, 2023
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When I informed some prominent Black men, among them Academic and Media stars, that convicted serial rapist Harvey Weinstein was co-producer of the musical version of the recently released film, “The Color Purple,” they were shocked. A couple disputed my report. I directed them to Bloomberg News, which reported Weinstein’s involvement. Was Alice Walker aware of his involvement? What about feminist Marsha Norman, who wrote the book for the musical?

Alissa Wilkinson writes in The New York Times,Dec. 19,2023:

“… while this adaptation at least gives the men a little more humanity than previous versions, they still come off as basically soulless monsters. Hollywood movies are ill-suited to this kind of material, and the whole thing inevitably suffers as a result.” I was surprised to see this comment by a Black woman. Until now, those who object to Steven Spielberg’s interpretation of Alice Walker’s novel–her script was rejected in favor of one written by Menno Meyjes, a Dutch screenwriter and film director–have been dismissed as Black male malcontents led by me.

I got in trouble with the Purple Cult when I said on the “Today Show” that the film was the kind that was made about Jews in Nazi Germany. That’s because I attended a lecture presented by the San Francisco Holocaust Museum, which compared the similarity between the way the Nazis depicted Jewish men and how Black men are shown in  American films.

I was supposed to talk about my novel, Reckless Eyeballing, but one of the Today Show’s programmers, a Black woman, ambushed me with a debate about “The Color Purple.” My debating partner was journalist Clarence Page, who boasted about flying around the country defending the film. My book was not discussed. When I asked why, the programmer said, “WE DIDN’T GUARANTEE THAT YOUR BOOK WOULD BE MENTIONED!!!” I wondered whether St. Martin’s Press ever complained to NBC. They flew me in and paid for the hotel, ground transportation, and meals so I could talk about my book on the show.

After my appearance on the Today Show, I was threatened with a boycott by white feminists led by Prof. Emily Toth. When I arrived at the site of the boycott, the University of Louisiana at Baton Rouge, I was told that the boycott collapsed because, when questioned, none of the women had read my books.

I’m cited as one of the few Black men criticizing Spielberg’s interpretation of Ms. Walker’s novel in Jump Cut, a film magazine. In the magazine, Prof. Jacqueline Bobo said that I called “The Color Purple” “a Nazi Conspiracy.” Wrong. In two articles, I’m the villain: in The New Republic and The Village Voice, where I’m not only a misogynist but a homophobe; in The Nation, I’m just a misogynist. A hatchet job on my novel, The Terrible Twos. was commissioned by Elizabeth Pochoda, who got her job there because she knew Philip Roth. In two books, In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece, by Salamishah Tillet–she makes light of Walker’s association with Holocaust denier David Ickes– Tillet repeats the Jump Cut lie. In Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965-2000, edited by the late Valerie Boyd, I’m also the heavy.

In a Ms. magazine article by Barbara Smith, whose scholarship is even worse than some of my other critics, I was cited as the ring leader of those who dissented against the film “The Color Purple.” At the time, Ms. was financed by a white patriarch group, Lang Communications. The other magazines and books where my comments are rendered falsely are owned by patriarchs. When The Village Voice dumped on me, it was carrying ads for  Backpage.com, where men could make dates with underage girls. The ads didn’t seem to bother the feminists who had editorial positions. A Black feminist told me that the Voice’s feminist editors were constantly goading her to attack Black men.

In the Boyd book, Ms. Walker even repeats a scurrilous rumor about my late mother, Thelma V. Reed, who wrote as well as Ms. Walker but didn’t have a powerful patron, like Gloria Steinem, whose connections to the CIA, according to Harriet Fraad, have never been clarified. (Check out my mother’s memoir, Black Girl From Tannery Flats.)

In an important, overlooked interview with author Cecil Brown published in The Massachusetts Review, Toni Morrison says that Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, would have been forgotten without Gloria Steinem’s promotion. My mother was a working-class woman who raised four children, all achievers. Single-handedly, my mother organized two strikes in Buffalo, New York, that improved the working conditions of Black women. Not once did my mother have a conversation with a horse.

The fact that the Purple cult would take a swipe at my mother shows that they are not to be crossed and play for keeps. None of those magazine and book editors fact-checked the statements made about me by The Purple Cult. Profs. Jacqueline Bobo and Salamishah Tillet have yet to answer my emails offering corrections of their false comments about my position on “Purple.” Victoria Bond’s editor, Chloë Schama, refused to print my letter challenging Ms. Bond, who repeated the Jump Cut lie that I called “Purple” the result of a Nazi conspiracy.

One of the cult members, the late June Jordan, told a radio audience that I tried to prevent the novel from being taught in public schools. That is not true; I supported the teaching of the book. She apologized.

Walker told a feminist audience that I was stalking her. No, Spielberg, who has gotten into trouble for maligning Indian and Chinese Americans in his films, is stalking Black men. The late comedian Paul Mooney said he expected a “Color Purple” on ice.

With Alissa Wilkinson calling the Black men in the movie, “Soulless Monsters,” she joins bell hooks, Michele Wallace, and Toni Morrison, who said that Black men had been singled out to take the rap for misogyny, Sonia Sanchez, and Trudier Harris, who said that when she criticized the book there was such a backlash from white feminists, she stopped talking about it. Former Black Panther Elaine Brown challenged Walker’s homophobia in The New York Times.

The portrayal of Purple critics as disgruntled Black men led by me, instead of including dissent from Black feminists, was part of a marketing strategy. Walker said I hated Black women writers. I’ve published many of them. Some of whom were little known when I published them. I’ve published Black women from England, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. My agent is a Black woman. One of my London publishers is a Black woman. My last four awards, including this year’s Hurston/Wright Foundation’s North Star award, were presented to me by organizations managed by Black women.

When asked about Harvey Weinstein’s participation, Spielberg refused to comment.

It’s bad enough that 20 percent of Black men are Trump supporters, but they are buying tickets to a movie in which they are shown as “soulless Monsters.” Isn’t that like Black men investing in souvenirs sold at their lynchings? Because he objected to the depiction of Black men by academic feminists, Tommy Curry couldn’t find work in the United States. He found a job at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

I asked him what he thought of the contradiction of Black men thrilled by a film in which Black men are portrayed as “soulless monsters.” He wrote: “The market for anti-Black misandry is as lucrative in Hollywood as it is in academia.”

Notes

The Making Of The Color Purple

Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com › news › articles › the-m…

… co-produced the movie and is a friend of Furman’s, joined as a producer. Film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein got involved, as did businessman Gary Winnick

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/steven-spielberg-refuses-harvey-weinstein-talk-spielberg-premiere-1201884429/

Ishmael Reed’s latest play is “The Conductor.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MUMBO JUMBO 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ISHMAEL REED 

How a Slave Trader’s Hymn Became a Global Anthem

BY JAMES WALVIN

DECEMBER 29, 2023
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It may seem odd for a historian of slavery to write a history of a popular hymn. In fact, the link between “Amazing Grace” and slavery is clear and fairly obvious: the author of “Amazing Grace,” John Newton,  had been an Atlantic slave trader in early life. On one voyage, Newton delivered enslaved Africans to Charleston. Two and half centuries later, President Obama sang the hymn in Charleston, at the funeral of a local cleric and his parishioners (who had been killed by a racist).

No one could claim that Obama has a good singing voice, but that event at the College of Charleston in 2015 remains an electrifying moment. The congregation of 5,000 rose to join the President and everyone present seemed to know the hymn by heart. That astonishing moment persuaded me to write this book.

I had circled round John Newton for many years. Indeed, some of my earlier books concentrated on John Newton as a slave trader. But the more I read about his famous hymn, and the more I listened to the innumerable recorded versions of it in the Library of Congress, the clearer it became that here was a remarkable historical story.

How did a hymn that was written by a slave trader-turned-English cleric, and directed initially at his humble parishioners in a remote rural English parish, become such a global anthem for humankind? Equally, how did a hymn written by a man who had doled out violence and misery to Africans on his ships, become so beloved of African Americans? “Amazing Grace” presents us with a series of overlapping historical curiosities, all of which demand explanation. How and why did Newton abandon the slave trade for a clerical career? And what importance should we attach to his subsequent role as an advocate of abolition? What precisely did Newton’s words in “Amazing Grace” mean? And why did they resonate so powerfully first among enslaved people, then among their freed descendants? Did Newton write it with enslaved people in mind? No less puzzling, what fuelled the rise of the hymn to commercial and global success in the late decades of the 20^th century – and into the present day? What exactly is its appeal today to millions of people in all corners of the globe?

I set out to answer these and other questions about that simple hymn. It soon became clear that “Amazing Grace” not only offers an interesting story in itself, but provides a remarkable insight into wider issues in the history of the enslaved Atlantic.

 James Walvin is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of York. He has published widely on slavery and modern social history. He is the author of A World Transformed: Slavery in the Americas and the Origins of Global Power.

MADAME PRESIDENT

Kamala Harris is not a liability. She may be Democrats’ best weapon
REPUBLICANS REAL FEAR

Opinion by Basil Smikle
Wed, December 27, 2023

CNN  Opinion

In a more normal world, our national split screen displaying a fractious and fragmented Republican conference, with Democrats fairly united by comparison, might have elevated President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election prospects.

Instead, he faces downward spiraling poll numbers amid a fixation over a handful of issues that I consider relatively ancillary, among them, the public hand-wringing over his age.

Discussions about whether at 81, Biden is too old to be president, have fed a rancorous debate about the qualifications of his vice president and 2024 running mate Kamala Harris. Biden’s second-in-command, a former US senator and California attorney general, is being dragged down by a barrage of tropes, the kinds of chatter that many women and racial minorities frequently confront in politics.

Much of the tiresome chatter within the Washington beltway in recent months has tried to raise doubts about Harris’ readiness to lead, should she ever be called upon to step in for Biden.

Sadly, some Democrats may be culpable in allowing those narratives to gather steam. That’s especially unfortunate because the nitpicky critiques have only served to obscure the public’s appreciation of what has been a highly successful administration.

Some within the party have complained that Harris is endangering the odds for victory at the ballot box next year. As some Republican trolls suggest that a vote for Biden could be a vote for Harris, who is 59, opponents of the president think they can attack him by aiming barbs at her.

In reality, Democrats have no reason to soft-peddle their support for Harris. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll put Harris out front and center during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Not only is she not a drag on the ticket, but Harris may prove hugely instrumental in helping clinch a victory in next year’s presidential race. Happily, the Biden campaign seems to finally be coming around and embracing smart ways to make the best use of Harris’ talents and impressive resume. She might just be the party’s secret weapon heading into the 2024 election.

Yes, it’s true that Harris is underwater broadly with voters, as is Biden. A Los Angeles Times average released this month showed that 39% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 55% had an unfavorable opinion, roughly in line with the president’s numbers.

But a New York Times/Siena College polls of battleground states released in November showed that Harris was considerably more popular than Biden among nonwhite voters and voters under the age of 30, segments of the American public whose support is indispensable if the president is to win reelection.

The campaign seems to be fully aware of that: The White House announced this week that Harris will be taking the lead in the administration’s messaging on abortion, which many see as one of the issues most likely to motivate women, young people and progressives to the polls.

And a lot has been said about Biden’s flagging support among Black and brown voters in recent polling. With Harris campaigning by his side, and out on the stump on her own, Biden will have a somewhat easier challenge getting Black voters and voters of color to come home on election day. At a time when the support of people of color is softer than it has been in some time, Harris’ value cannot be overstated.

Her appeal to non-White voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, may in fact be her greatest value to the party’s 2024 prospects. Harris is a woman with Indian and Jamaican parentage who intentionally rooted herself in the Black community by attending Howard University and joining the first black Greek-letter sorority in the nation. Many voters of color are only too aware of that background — and celebrate it.

In contrast to pundits who seem determined to see her as a liability, I’ve been saying for some time that she should be given a stronger public platform as a way of highlighting her successes. After all, a veep who is seen as competent, capable and ready to lead can only be a good thing for any presidential ticket.

But it’s not just about the competence that she exudes: More Americans than ever view themselves with an intersectionality that will soon no longer need the validation of a White male leader to succeed. Harris has changed the permission structure within her party and among the electorate. Her outreach will be particularly important among young voters.

Biden won 60% of voters under 30 in the 2020 election and this group will be critically important again to clinching a victory in 2024. In addition to next month’s push on abortion, the campaign is ramping up its outreach to Gen Z voters on various fronts.

In September and October, Harris’ “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour took her to college campuses across eight states, in a bid to continue the administration’s outreach to this vitally important group. Harris’ portfolio of reproductive rights, voting rights and discrimination in education is tailor-made to appeal to this cadre of voters.

Another issue in her portfolio that young people care deeply about is immigration — a historically thorny topic, but one she can address firsthand. In fact, when confronted at a college campus in Flagstaff, Arizona about America’s immigration policies, Harris cited her own “lived experience” as the daughter of an immigrant mother for how she approaches the issue.

Here’s another reason for Democrats to celebrate Kamala: She is the very embodiment of what the party aspires to be — the kind of figure who inspired millions of people like me to enter the political arena. Jesse Jackson’s prime time exhortation at the 1988 Democratic National Convention for the party to embrace the country’s diversity inspired countless GenXers like me to become politically active.

Jackson’s speech also gave us a front row seat to a highly impactful phenomenon: the explosion of women candidates and candidates of color running for seats at multiple levels of government accompanied by the coded language and spurious metrics used to judge their qualifications.

The echoes of the kinds of criticism Harris is facing is all too familiar to me. Similar threads go back to Shirley Chisholm’s race for the White House in 1972, and should have been excised from our national discourse decades ago. It’s the kind of pushback that is vexing and unfortunately not all that unusual when a Black woman reaches the pinnacle of political power.

For leaders of color in the public and private sectors, everything from their speech, clothing and mannerisms are scrutinized. Women in particular navigate a male dominated construct of leadership and stereotypical views of femininity. These pressures also force many Black leaders to decide between race-conscious and race-neutral policymaking with a tendency toward incrementalism that drives more skepticism of motives. For Kamala Harris to have risen to historic heights in our nation, any notion of weak political and substantive bona fides should be outright dismissed.

Given what a potentially important asset she is, one can only ask why she has been so underappreciated and underrated? Criticism of Harris by detractors who question her value on the Democratic 2024 ticket has not abated, despite the increasingly prominent role she has played in the Biden re-election campaign in recent months.

Republicans, only too happy to exploit this opening, can cause irreparable and long-lasting damage — and that wouldn’t just hurt Harris. The Democratic party, and its election prospects in 2024, will suffer if the party doesn’t defend her more forcefully.

Even as Harris ramps up her outreach to Gen Z voters, it seems more than likely that she will face an enormous challenge: unhappiness from some young voters about the administration’s position on Israel. The issue thus far has proven to be a divisive one for the party, as she works to help unify fractious elements of her party, the president’s change of tone on the war notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, the vice president can offer an aspirational economic message to these young voters whose enthusiasm is blunted by an inability to financially plan for their future. It’s not a panacea, but it is an important overture and a lot is riding on her success.

The 2020 ticket of Biden and Harris stemmed the reclamation and retribution movement of Trumpism. The president may be equally important as a transitional leader bridging an old and new electoral coalition. And his administration can tout achievements from investments in infrastructure to increased funding for transportation to reductions in prescription drug costs. These have been bolstered in no small part by the vice president’s contributions.

Democrats must embrace what Republicans have long feared: that this vice presidency is not just about advancing Washington’s parochial policymaking interests. It is also about a bridge to the party’s future, helmed by one of the most unfailing party leaders there is — a Black woman.

Editor’s Note: Basil A. Smikle Jr., PhD, is a professor and director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute of Hunter College – City University of New York. He is also a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.



Is Dubai Harris the Kamala everyone has been waiting for? Will she convince doubters?

Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY
Wed, December 27, 2023 

WASHINGTON — When a temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war collapsed, Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, pulling aside sheiks, generals and powerful Middle Eastern leaders.

When she was done, she emphasized the Biden administration’s staunch support for Israel’s right to defend itself after the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage. But she also made clear Washington’s mood had shifted as the civilian death toll surged.

“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” Harris said, raising her right index finger as she delivered the sternest U.S. warning yet to Israel about the Gaza offensive.

"As Israel defends itself," she said. "It matters how."

For more than a century, the one cardinal rule for America's vice presidents has been: Don't get in front of the boss. Had Harris? No, instead, this was the moment the White House united behind her, listened to her concerns about Gaza’s body count as the war roiled global opinion and the Democratic base.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is sworn in during the 2021 presidential inauguration of Joe Biden at the U.S. Capitol.

Harris’ remarks that day, her command of the room, were a glimpse of the politician whose potential seemed unlimited just four years ago but whose image and presidential prospects have together dimmed under the intense scrutiny that followed her ascent to the second-highest office in the land.

Her supporters chalk it up to sexism, racism and unfair media coverage of the first Black woman to serve as vice president. Harris’ detractors point to her tendency to laugh through uncomfortable situations and sidestep direct questions with rambling answers. Others can’t seem to get a read on who she is.

Whatever the case, on this aspect, much of America seems to agree: Harris has an uneven record and is not ready to claim the mantle of party leader. More worrisome, are the criticisms that she lacks foreign policy experience and isn’t fit to step into the Oval Office if Joe Biden’s presidency takes an unexpected turn.

At her October stop at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, sophomore Andrew Baxley, who chairs the school’s College Democrats of America chapter, asked about steps the administration is taking to secure reproductive rights − low-hanging fruit for the former California attorney general.

Baxley actually wanted to ask Harris about knottier topics such as Biden’s decision to allow construction to move ahead on a section of border wall. That did not fly.

The White House advertised the campus appearances as moderated conversations; it didn’t disclose the extent to which the events were scripted. Students were asked to submit questions on abortion, gun violence, climate change, voting and LGBTQ rights. They held a Zoom prior and rehearsed the rundown.

On the day of the event, Harris answered Baxley’s question. Her response drew applause, but Baxley was unsatisfied as he watched Harris handled, scripted and managed in ways that undercut her image as a leader. It was not the same Harris – the unfettered Harris – that wowed a global audience in the UAE. With the election 11 months away, and the presidency on the line, the deciding factor could be whether voters think Harris could really do Biden's job. Sending Dubai Harris to American swing states could be exactly what the ailing campaign needs.

Backstage at the college event, Baxley tried asking Harris his other question. An aide shooed him along.

Baxley felt shortchanged, unable to walk away with a positive opinion of Harris. “And I feel as though, had I been able to really have a more personal connection with her, and possibly speak more in depth with her, that could have been possible.”
The role of the VP ‘sucks most of the time’

Harris' allies have been warning the White House about the severity of her image problems for years.

Part of the issue stems from being number two when she was always a number one, used to accumulating a series of firsts as a Black woman and of South Asian descent: district attorney of San Francisco, California attorney general and U.S. senator. Harris blazed trails, forging her own path and making up her own mind.

Early on, she had to get in line with Biden’s agenda, a quirk of the job that has caused her remarks to frequently come across as stilted. Harris’ positions as a candidate were to the left of Biden's on many issues, and she was not helped by White House assignments that were a poor fit for her skill set.

Biden’s tasking of Harris to solve the root causes of mass migration to the southern border in 2021 was especially egregious. The most experience that Harris had dealing with Central America prior to the arrangement was arresting and prosecuting human and drug traffickers. She would inevitably be compared to Biden, who, perhaps unfairly, had himself been charged with playing migration 'bad cop' by former President Barack Obama.

The test led to a major setback. So, Harris allies pushed for more public appearances in places like South Carolina, in front of voting blocs that are prone to like her.

In early December, Beaufort County Democrats gathered for a gala on St. Helena Island. The function’s speaker was Congressional Black Caucus Chair emerita Joyce Beatty, on behalf of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign.

Beatty pushed aside remarks that Biden’s aides had given her to read and began to riff about the duo’s record with gusto. The Ohio congresswoman told attendees she had recently challenged one of Harris' Democratic detractors to name the last 20 people who’d held her job.

“The vice president’s job sucks most of the time,” Beatty told the crowd to laughter.

President Barack Obama walks with California Attorney General Kamala Harris, center, and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, after arriving at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, on Feb. 16, 2012.

Vice presidents run the risk of being too good at their jobs and getting accused of trying to outshine their bosses, she explained. “The role of the vice president is to do what the president tells them to do,” Beatty said.

It was not always this way with Harris. Obama complimented her as brilliant, dedicated and tough. She won a U.S. Senate seat in 2016 on the same night the country elected Donald Trump.

Harris’ supporters are still in awe of how she hammered future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Among Harris’ die-hard fans are John Glover. A retired IT manager from St. Helena Island, he spent nearly five decades in Berkeley, California, where Harris was raised.

Glover, who turns 80 in January, has a photo of himself standing with Harris as his cellphone background. The picture was taken when she was campaigning for president in 2019.

“I fell in love with her the first time I met her,” he said.
Authentic Harris appears behind closed doors

Riding an adrenaline high after three days of meetings with Asian-Pacific leaders, a more authentic version of Harris was on display at a campaign reception in Piedmont, California, in November.

Her comfort was palpable in a room filled with dear friends and top donors. Together they laughed. They clapped. Harris’ amiable husband, Doug Emhoff, introduced her.

Harris turned her gaze to a small group of reporters standing at the back of the room.

“When people want to talk about the polls, on and on about the polls, let me tell you: Everything we have accomplished is highly, highly popular with the American people,” she said.

Biden and Harris had been hit with a wave of negative surveys that showed them losing to Trump and saying that they were in trouble.

Even now, as her vice presidency has stabilized, she has not entirely restored her credibility, although she has done a better job at making the role her own.

Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California, with Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, present Rules Committee report, during the Democratic National Convention Sept. 4, 2012 in Charlotte, N.C.

In South Carolina, Lynn Lotz, a Hilton Head Island resident, said Harris “was given tasks that she should not have been given early on, because I think that put her a step back instead of moving her forward.”

“I don’t think she had the support behind her that she needed,” said Lotz, who met Harris at a Democratic convention in 2019.

The vice president's political opponents, such as GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, have turned Harris’ failures into campaign attacks, deriding her more incoherent comments as word salads.

“Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to know where up is. And we’re there. The one thing I don’t think we can survive is a President Kamala Harris,” Haley told a Bluffton, South Carolina, crowd in late November.

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota who is challenging Biden for president, came under scrutiny last month for repeating critiques he said had been shared with him that Harris is incompetent. He later apologized and suggested that Harris should be running instead of Biden.

Anne Moncure, 67, a retired health care facility administrator from Beaufort County who hoped Democrats would come up with an alternative to Biden this year, doesn’t think Harris is up to the task of commander-in-chief. The role of the vice presidency, she says, should be a mentored one.

“How is Biden preparing her for the role?” she asked.

Harris was unavailable for an interview for this article.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement the president views the vice president as a "critical partner" in the successes of the administration including the restoration of America's alliances around the world.

"The President deeply values her counsel, which he seeks often, and her leadership on a wide range of issues from reproductive freedom, to artificial intelligence" Bates said.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California speaks as she accepts the nomination for Vice President of the United States, during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.

Is Harris turning it around?

For the first time in months, Biden and Harris met for a private lunch on Dec. 15. It’s a tradition that Biden began when he was vice president to Obama to help the men of different ages and lived experiences bond.

But the dynamics of the relationship between Biden, 81, and Harris, 59, are starkly different. As vice president, Biden was seen as the adult in the room to a younger president, who possessed far less experience. Harris was chosen as vice president in large measure to excite the party’s progressive base.

In recent months, she has demonstrated a keen understanding of the politics of the Israel-Hamas war and of the political peril that she and Biden face as they head into an election year in which they believe American democracy is truly on the line.

The criticisms of Harris have lessened as the White House has gotten better at utilizing her on issues that fire up progressives and on which she and Biden largely agree.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris was responsible for making abortion rights a centerpiece of her and Biden’s midterm elections platform. Supporters had pushed for her to be the one to rally Democrats, effectively marking a turning point for Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, react as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presents lawmakers with a Ukrainian flag autographed by front-line troops in Bakhmut, in Ukraine's contested Donetsk province, as he addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022.

Vice President Kamala Harris enters Michie Stadium for the 2023 Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony on the campus of U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday, May 27, 2023.

In January, Harris will embark on a nationwide tour to promote the abortion rights message. Her first stop? The battleground state of Wisconsin.

National tours have helped Harris reach a critical constituency: voters who are unfamiliar with work she did that took place during the pandemic and behind closed doors.

“I’m always wondering, why am I not hearing about her?” said Julie Raino, a 66-year-old grief counselor who lives on Hilton Head Island. “The fact that I have to look for her is really strange.”

Raino says she admired the way Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, challenged Biden during a heated Democratic primary debate, telling him she was bused to elementary school during an exchange over integration. Raino says she wants to see more of Harris.

“I really loved her when she was running for office,” Raino said. “And I thought in that debate she was amazing and she could stand up to even Biden.”

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris greets supporters at a election night rally Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 in Los Angeles.

Harris lays groundwork in South Carolina

When it was time for Biden’s team to file paperwork to appear on the ballot in South Carolina this year, it turned to campaign co-chair and former Democratic majority leader Jim Clyburn. Harris joined Clyburn in Columbia, the state capital.

Appearing before a small group of supporters, Harris called the influential Democrat a friend. “It was South Carolina that created the path to the White House for Joe Biden and me,” she told them.

Clyburn and Harris were both members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He endorsed Biden for the presidency after Harris left the race at the request of his wife, Emily. It was her dying wish.

He has since become one of Harris’ most vocal defenders. “People walk around and find reasons to criticize, and then every time she has been called to step up to the plate, she's hit a home run,” Clyburn said.

Harris has been paying more frequent visits to the state that will hold the first, sanctioned Democratic presidential primary. She has traveled there twice since mid-October. Harris made a stop at Benedict College, a historically Black university in Columbia, on another trip last February. And she has a trip planned for Jan. 6.

It's only natural she'd want to deepen her relationships in the state with an eye toward a 2028 presidential bid, activists say.

“I think that she gets it. She knows that you have to be here in South Carolina the same way Vice President Biden got it,” says Christale Spain, who chairs the state’s Democratic Party.

Harris’ own political operation in South Carolina was never tested. She shut down her financially struggling campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, a day before the conclusion of the state’s filing period.

“She still has a lot of relationships that she can still tap into when she's going back to South Carolina on the campaign trail,” said Jalisa Washington Price, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign in South Carolina and Harris’ former deputy political director.

One of Harris’ campaign stops at the time was Royal Missionary Baptist Church. Biden later came to the church in the primary. A photo of him with the Rev. Isaac Holt Jr. still hangs on the minister’s wall.

Holt says much of Harris’ political future, her ability to put together a winning coalition in 2028 to land the party’s nomination, will depend on the rest of Biden’s tenure.

“It’s going to be a tough one. I don't think it's going to be a gimme. I don't think it'd be automatic,” said Holt, 70. “But she's in a better position right now than anybody else.”

Potential rivals, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are already signaling they might challenge her. She must convince voters that she's uniquely suited for the job.

Baxley, the college Democrat, said he’s leaning toward Newsom but hasn’t counted out Harris – yet.

Losing to any of the Republican candidates in this election could be a dealbreaker.

“I'm looking for a strong Democratic candidate, and if she loses in 2024, that's kind of my statement on President Harris,” Baxley said.

It’s a heavy burden for a vice president who would face more far-reaching political damage if the Biden-Harris ticket fails.

But as Harris herself has said, now is not the moment for that conversation.

Vice President Kamala Harris takes a photo with supporters after speaking during a vaccine mobilization event at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Monday, July 12, 2021.

UK

Opinion

The Guardian view on a second Trump presidency: things could only get worse

Editorial
Thu, 28 December 2023 



The great spectre haunting 2024 is the threat of Donald Trump triumphing in November’s election. A second stint in the Oval Office would have grim repercussions for the US and the world. He dominates the Republican race for the presidential candidacy, while recent polls showed him beating Joe Biden in five of the six key battleground states, and besting the president on issues including the economy and national security. The Biden administration has overseen a striking economic recovery in tough global conditions, but voters don’t feel the improvement. The president’s handling of the war in Gaza is alienating core supporters. He inspires little enthusiasm.

Democrats point out that there’s a long way to go and that November’s off-year election results point to a brighter picture. Mr Trump faces a dizzying array of legal cases, though the most significant may not move to a trial before the election. While they boost the belief of diehard admirers that he is being persecuted, some supporters say he should not stand if convicted. It’s not impossible that he might run from a prison cell.

Mr Trump is already teeing voters up to declare a Biden victory fraudulent again. Election officials have been bombarded with death threats. Convictions for the January 6 storming of the Capitol were welcome and necessary, but his supporters remain armed and dangerous.

What would Mr Trump’s return to the White House mean for America and the world? Nothing good. For all the volatility of his presidency, he delivered on key pledges for his followers: his supreme court appointments led to the overturning of Roe v Wade. Authoritarians don’t improve with power: quite the opposite. Mr Trump’s first term began with “alternative facts” about his inauguration and ended with the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. His recent statements make 2016’s inflammatory rhetoric look almost mealy-mouthed. He declared that he would be a dictator, though only on “day one”, because “I want a wall and I want to drill, drill, drill”. His language is not merely racist but echoes the invective of Nazi Germany: immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, while “communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs” are “vermin”.

Sycophantic state

What is truly alarming this time is not merely that he has declared his intentions loud and clear, it is that his backers have drawn up action plans to implement his talking points, and that he faces fewer political, institutional or legal constraints. “You cannot count on those institutions to restrain him,” said former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who fears that her country is “sleepwalking into dictatorship”. Ms Cheney is a rare exception to the rule that Republican politicians have ultimately fallen into line even when they briefly balked at his extremes. A re-elected President Trump would benefit from a more compliant Congress (though there’s speculation that Democrats might win back the House while the GOP takes the Senate). And having set out his stall, he could claim a mandate from the people.

He would not appoint those who might thwart his will this time. “The lesson he learned was to hire sycophants,” his former chief of staff John Kelly observed. He boasts that he would “dismantle the deep state”, clearing out career employees and replacing them with appointees he could fire at will. Intimidation – siccing his base on those who impede him – would always be an option. He has suggested that Gen Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, deserved to be put to death.

Legal challenges to his policies would face a harder path – the supreme court now has a conservative supermajority, with three Trump appointees, and he similarly stacked lower levels of the judiciary. He is preparing plans to turn the power of the state against opponents and critics, and boasting of “retribution” for those who hindered his attempt to steal the last election. He has warned that he would urge his attorney general to indict any political rival even without known grounds, saying: “I don’t know. Indict him on income tax evasion.” His associates have reportedly begun drafting plans to deploy the military against civil demonstrations – as he wanted to do against Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. One would hope that military leaders would oppose this. But it would be complacent to assume that.

Politics of hate

On the international front, the battle against global heating would be struck a catastrophic blow. A second Trump presidency would clearly be good for Vladimir Putin and bad for Ukraine and Nato, which the US could well leave. Mr Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy puts himself first, and has only the most narrow and short-term conception of US interests. Allies such as South Korea are already contemplating their own nuclear deterrents. He would seek to hammer China on trade again, and Republicans would encourage him to go further on other fronts, but his admiration for autocrats might allow him to come to terms with Xi Jinping on some issues – notably, Taiwan’s future. Overall, his ignorance, arrogance and erratic nature could be as damaging as his pursuit of specific goals.

The far right around the world would be emboldened by his victory. Mr Trump is in large part a symptom of our times, but he has encouraged and enabled others in his mould at home and abroad. The social fabric has been damaged by a style of politics in which hatred is the organising principle. Anti-Asian hate crime surged following his racist rhetoric about the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu”. A defeat for Mr Trump would not in itself be sufficient to defeat Trumpism. But it is necessary.

The Democrats cannot campaign only on the threat that Mr Trump poses. They must speak to broader concerns too. But focusing on the likely consequences of his re-election is critical to ensuring that voters understand the choice they are making – including by not voting, or by backing a candidate other than Mr Biden. Think of the way that the voter backlash against the destruction of abortion rights was essential for Democrats in the 2022 midterms and has been evident in ballot measures more recently, with voters opting to preserve or expand access.

Of course, Mr Trump might not be able to fully implement his nightmarish boasts in office. But he would do more than enough. Drive off a cliff and you might live to tell the tale. But you can’t count on survival – and you can be certain of damage. The US, and the world, cannot afford a second term for Mr Trump.

Opinion

Yes, Ukraine can still defeat Russia – but it will require far more support from Europe


Jack Watling

The Guardian
Wed, 27 December 2023 

Photograph: Yakiv Liashenko/EPA

Here is one fact that sums up the gap between the promises that Kyiv’s European partners have made to Ukraine and the reality. In March 2023, the EU made the historic decision to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. But the number that has actually been sent is closer to 300,000. For all the rhetorical commitments to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion “for as long as it takes”, Europe has largely failed.

The price of this complacency is already being paid in Ukrainian blood. According to the armed forces of Ukraine, over the summer of 2023, Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery shells a day and managed to degrade Russia’s logistics and artillery to the point where Russia was firing about 5,000 rounds a day. Today, the Ukrainians are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds daily, while Russian artillery is reaching about 10,000. Artillery isn’t everything, but the disparity speaks to Ukraine’s relative shortage of materiel, evident in other areas such as the number of drones it can field.

Russia is likely to be able to fire about 5m rounds at Ukraine in 2024, based on its mobilised defence production, supply from Iran and North Korea, and remaining stocks. Despite the flippant observation – often made by European officials – that Russia’s economy is the same size as that of Italy, the Kremlin is producing more shells than all of Nato. Meanwhile, Ukraine is unlikely to see any significant increase in supply for some months. This will cede the initiative to the Russians. The Kremlin believes it can win by 2026, and so Putin is in no mood to negotiate or back down.


It does not have to be like this. Earlier this month, the Estonian Ministry of Defence published a white paper detailing the levels of military equipment required to make Ukraine’s defence sustainable and for it to pursue the liberation of the occupied territories by 2025. The Estonians costed the requirements, showing they were well within the bounds of possibility. The issue is not money, but competence in delivery. If the steps to implement these measures are not taken, Ukraine will lose.

Ensuring Russia’s defeat in Ukraine is feasible, but it requires some important steps. First, Ukraine will need a steady supply of weapons to be able to blunt Russian attacks over the first half of 2024. This will require plenty of US support, but also increasing supply from European Nato members, whose backing will be critical as the US election looms in November. Many of the munitions provided since the beginning of the war were purchased from the international market or drawn from stockpiles, and investment in European production has been slow. But as stocks run out, sustaining Ukraine’s war effort depends critically on increasing Europe’s manufacturing capacity.

Second, it is essential that Ukraine corrects the mistakes that led to its failed counteroffensive in 2023. Improving the training of its troops must be the top priority. During the second world war, British forces considered 22 weeks of infantry training the minimum before a soldier was ready to join a unit, where they would then carry out collective training as part of a battalion. Ukrainian troops are lucky to get five weeks of training, while collective training is rarely carried out above the scale of the company. European Nato must expand and extend the training support provided in order to give Ukrainian units a wider tactical repertoire, and more importantly expand the scale at which the army can command and synchronise operations.

Persistent inflation and economic shocks, like the disruption to global shipping from Houthi missile attacks in the Bab al-Mandab, mean that among European countries, making a long-term economic commitment to Ukraine will be a domestic political challenge. But that is to ignore its potential upsides. Investment in defence production, rather than relying on purchases from abroad, comes with significant levels of domestic industrial investment and with the potential for expenditure to be recovered through increased tax receipts.

There are good security reasons to invest in domestic production, too. A failure to do so now could leave European leaders needing to deter a fully mobilised Russia without stockpiles or the capacity to replenish them. Meanwhile, a simultaneous escalation in the Indo-Pacific in 2025 could cause the US to shift a range of critical military capabilities – aerial refuelling, logistics, air defences – to deter China, leaving Europe significantly exposed.

For Ukraine, the immediate future is one of several months of hard fighting without critical resources, while endeavouring to regenerate the combat power that was expended over 2023. But Europe can determine what the second half of 2024 and indeed 2025 will look like. This is a war that can be won. The recent successful strike on the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk in harbour, protected by layers of Russian defences, shows how Ukraine can make effective use of the equipment that it is supplied with. But European security must not be squandered by more complacency.

Jack Watling is a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute