THE KAMALA HARRIS-TIM WALZ ANTIDOTE TO HATEFUL FAITHFUL POLITICS

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2024

August 15, 2024

Little Rock, Arkansas

There have been countless – meaning too many to count – articles, interviews, speeches, and sermons about the toxic content and character of Trump-MAGA policies that are widely viewed as supported by people who identify themselves as “religious conservatives,” “evangelical Christians,” “values voters,” and “Christian nationalists.” Vice President Kamala Harris presented the antidote to what I have termed “Hateful Faithful” politics on Tuesday, August 6, by her selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

 Tim Walz is a 60-year-old white man. He was born in rural Nebraska, joined the Army National Guard at age 17, served 24 years, attended state college on the GI Bill, became a public-school social studies teacher, and is married to a public-school teacher, Gwen Walz, They are joyful parents to adult children (a daughter named Hope, and a son named Gus) who were born thanks in vitro fertilization (IVF).  

On August 6, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz presented the message about what I term the antidote to Trump-MAGA policies and politics. It is the politics of love, justice, freedom, and joy. It is the politics of inclusion, liberation, and cultural competence. It is politics based on the power of love, not the love of power.

In less than a month, diverse constituencies have leaped to embrace and support the Harris candidacy for President.

Black Women for Harris.

Black Men for Harris.

White Women for Harris.

White Dudes for Harris.

Republicans for Harris.

On August 14, there was even a Zoom gathering of Evangelicals for Harris.

Independently and collectively, these and other constituency groups are becoming a frontline antidote to Trump-MAGA-Project 2025 politics and polices of hate, fear, greed, violence, lust for power, and notions of U.S. empire. The optics are refreshing as the Haris-Walz campaign heads to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention and official designation as the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President of the United States in the 2024 general election.

The Harris-Walz campaign is doing much better than political pundits expected, let alone hoped. Political polls show Harris leading Trump in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and almost even with him in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. Fundraising records have been surpassed. People are eager to volunteer. Enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket is high.

Yet, Vice President Harris will face what may be the first major test of her political leadership in Chicago in what will be a sizeable contingent of pro-Palestinian activists attending the Democratic National Convention. They are not pro-Trump. They are Democratic voters who support Palestinian survival, legitimacy, self-determination, security, and sovereignty, and who demand to be heard during the convention.

They lament, abhor, and detest the fact that 40,000 Palestinians have been starved, bombed, shot, and otherwise slaughtered by Israeli Defense Forces since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

They lament, abhor, and detest the fact that the Biden administration blocked resolutions presented to the United Nations Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, release and safe return of all hostages, and immediate efforts to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

They lament, abhor, and detest the fact that the Biden administration supplies the weapons that Israel uses for what independent observers recognize as genocide and collective punishment of Palestinians.  

In Chicago, these protestors will not be mollified by the pageantry of a national political nominating convention. They will not be disregarded or dismissed as a distraction. They will be prophetic faces and voices challenging Harris and the Democratic Party about the “elephant in the room.”

·       The United States supports an ongoing genocide in Gaza where 40,000 men, women, and children have been slaughtered, and where schools, places where people worship, life support systems, and dwellings have been ruthlessly bombed.

·       The United States has been the biggest and most enthusiastic supporter of what the International Court of Justice recently determined was 56 years of collective punishment, apartheid, land theft, and settler colonialism by Israel against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank since 1967.

·       Beginning with President Harry Truman in 1948, Democratic and Republican administrations have sided with Zionist leaders in Israel and pro-Zionist people in the United States against the interests of Palestinian self-determination, liberation, and sovereignty.

Vice President Harris will not be able to ignore these protestors, nor should she try to do so. She will need to do more than acknowledge their presence.

Above all, Harris must show that although she is Vice President and obliged to defer to President Joe Biden concerning global affairs (including Palestine and elsewhere) until Biden leaves office in January 2025, she – unlike Biden and his predecessors since Harry Truman – will not disregard mountain-sized horrific realities concerning Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and the Palestinian quest for sovereignty, self-determination, and political and territorial security.

Harris must demonstrate political, cultural, and geopolitical competence and empathy concerning Palestinian liberation, self-determination, justice, security, and sovereignty that Biden, Trump, other politicians in both major parties, and U.S. media outlets plainly lack.

Donald Trump and his advisors may hope that pro-Palestinian delegates to the Democratic National Convention cause Kamala Harris to stumble, or at least lose some of her appeal. I hope that Harris will meet this challenge with insight, discernment, empathy, cultural competence, and intellectual clarity (strengths that Trump plainly lacks).

That does not require Harris to present sweeping policy views about Palestinian liberation, self-determination, and justice during the Chicago convention. Harris knows that Joe Biden is President until January 20, 2025. Current woes concerning U.S. support to Israel result from Biden’s leadership.

The task facing Kamala Harris in Chicago is to convince Democratic delegates, including pro-Palestinian activists, to give her the chance to lead in a different and better way. Doing so will be further proof that there is an antidote to the Trump-MAGA-Project 2025 politics of the “Hateful Faithful.”

I hope U.S. voters decide to take that antidote.