I was initially unimpressed by an opinion piece written by Trevor Loudon over a month ago, titled “The Rainbow Coalition Re-visited: Why Kamala Harris Will Be The Democratic Presidential Nominee.” It immediately turned me off by the first few sentences, which claimed that “President Donald Trump need[ed] to refocus his energies on Ms. Harris because she will be very hard to beat.”  It seemed insane to me that (once again!) a junior senator with even less national political experience than Barack Obama had at the time when he was running against Hillary Clinton, could beat the president. But after watching the last Democratic presidential debate, I re-read the article and began to reflect.

Ever since the election of Donald Trump, it has become obvious that the citizens of the old American Republic and the subjects of the new American Empire can no longer coexist. We are now two separate nations with a profoundly different understanding (or lack thereof) of liberty and justice for all. This is a fact that can no longer be ignored or denied. For many like me, the current occupant of the White House is that final defender who stands as a Commander-in-Chief for the old Republic. He is that line in the sand. I voted for Donald Trump not because he was running as a Republican or a real conservative; I voted for him as someone running against opponents who stood for something radically different.

For those who remember how Barack Obama seemed to come out of nowhere to win the Iowa Caucuses in 2008, Mr. Loudon’s three points about why he expects Kamala Harris will be the nominee should be given a bit of thought. The line of reasoning following the points is my own. Despite Harris’s disastrous performance during the September 12th Democratic debate and her low poll numbers, bear in mind Obama’s disastrous debate performances and low poll numbers at this point in 2007. At few of the debates, he was a laughingstock who, at times, could barely form a coherent sentence to rebut anything put forth by Hillary Clinton or John Edwards.

1. “Expect to see Kamala Harris rise to the top if the Democratic Party”.  

This sounds preposterous. However, at the same time, there are a couple of facts that cannot be disputed. The first fact is that after Obama, blacks will never come out in droves to vote for the Democrat running for President of the United States unless they see someone who looks like themselves on the ticket. Peter C. Meyers, of City Journal has written an excellent report on how Black Lives Matter activists have been working quietly behind the scenes to push this mentality to maturity and credibility with new generations by creating a bona fide educational K-12 movement focused on race activism.

In addition to the NAACP, munificent funding is coming into various BLM chapter organizations (yes, they now have local chapter organizations around the United States) from various teacher’s unions. According to one of the writers of the Teaching for Black Lives textbook used at various BLM school programs, “the ultimate objective is to catechize the nation’s students, from kindergarten through high school, in BLM’s race-based vision of the world.”  Many minority students who were just entering high school during the height of the BLM movement are now eligible to vote or will be by the 2020 general election.

Piggybacking onto this is another fact that cannot be overlooked. That is that blacks are not policy voters, they are social justice voters. Democrats know this and have found that this reality must be part of the formula that they must use to win elections, and they must never let go of it. It won them the presidency in 2008 and 2012, and it almost worked in 2016.

The Democrats will never be able to put forth a run-of-the-mill white candidate again if they want to win the presidency. Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 made this fact clear. Political buzzards like Jorge Ramos of Univision also know this, which is why he was featured so prominently as a moderator at the last debate speaking Spanish and promoting “Latinese” issues to an audience at a historically black college. From now on, at least one person on the Democratic presidential ticket must be black or Hispanic, preferably both nominees. If not, the Dems lose the election.  

In a Washington Post article, Phillip Bump uses the research of several political scientists to put forth his analysis. Using exit poll data from 2016,  he states that 12% of white voters who went to the polls for Barack Obama in 2012 backed Donald Trump four years later, and 11% of black 2012 Obama voters stayed home in 2016. Donald Trump was able to make an economic case to the white voters, but Hillary Clinton was not able to make a social justice case to the black voters. According to the graph below from the same article, starting with the eight presidential election cycles going back to 1976, it was 2008 and 2012 that brought out the highest number of black voters.

Source

As Kamala Harris refines her public speaking skills and finds her domestic and foreign policy footing, the Congressinal Black Caucus (CBC) will hail her as the rightful heir to the Obama legacy. And without fail, the millions of  blacks whose consciousness belongs to a collective hive mind will mimic the demands of their representatives by falling right in line.

Nota bene: The CBC are also now the official gatekeepers for all social justice causes, not just ones concerned with blacks. They are the cultural intermediaries through which the petitions for justice for other maligned groups are heard. Once the supplications have been considered and deemed worthy, the various classes of “people of color,” “non-binary genders,” and the “sexually inclusive” will get to hitch a ride of the coattails of the Civil Rights struggle. They will all make a spectacle of themselves at next year’s Democratic National Convention as they sing, with locked arms, “We Shall Overcome.” The less ragged and more mainstream looking members of Antifa will provide cover by acting as their Praetorian Guard.

2. “Look to see much of Bernie Sanders’s support base eventually fold into the Harris machine.”

We have already seen this once, so it’s quite plausible that we will see it again. In fact, Bernie supporters who reluctantly gave their support to Hillary Clinton in 2016 might run to the polls in 2020 to support Kamala Harris. Since Bernie has made climate change and race equality two of the most significant issues of his campaign, why shouldn’t his supporters flock to a black woman to help him put his money where his mouth is?

Kamala Harris knows that the supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are gold. But she is smart to not make a play for them too quickly. Her transparently disingenuous praise of Robert Francis O’Rourke and his desire to turn the United States into New Zealand via an all out gun grab at the last debate was smart.  First win over the few supporters of the married with kids white cisgender male candidate, who doesn’t have a chance in Hades of winning the nomination because he ostensibly represents everything that the Democratic Party now “disavows,” before making a play for the supporters who will really matter. If on the other hand, the white Warren and Sanders supporters prove sheepish by trying to have minds of their own, they will be harangued unceasingly by the blacks. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee will hold a press conference flanked by the usual suspects and a few new ones like AOC. With unsurpassed fury and the sort of righteous indignation that she had on reserve for Corey Lewandowski during his congressional testimony, she will threaten hexes onto any white progressive who even thinks about not voting for Kamala Harris.

3. “Watch as the Hillary Clinton machine and money also gets behind Harris.”

If Hillary Clinton has learned anything from her nomination loss to Barack Obama and her general election loss to Donald Trump, it’s that Americans don’t want her as their president. She probably already senses that most Americans will not want Elizabeth Warren either. Even with reports that Senator Warren is soliciting advice from Hillary, your guess is as good as mine as to what that advice is and whether or not she will take it. Also, now that Senator Warren is polling as the Democratic front runner in Iowa, President Trump has plenty of time to destroy her. For Mrs. Clinton this all probably feels like déjà vu.

Despite an almost five decade political career that has been mired in one controversy after another, Hillary Clinton must secure her legacy by ending her career on a most magnanimous political note. Throwing her support behind a white woman who lied about her ethnic heritage to gain an advantage for a spot at an Ivy League, especially in light of the recent college admissions scandal, is just not happening. Again, Hillary already knows that Donald Trump will make mincemeat out of Elizabeth Warren. But given Kamala Harris’s race, making mincemeat won’t be so easy. Best to go with the candidate who can cry sexism and racism once President Trump goes on the attack.

I still have reservations about Mr. Loudon’s proposition. As it stands right now, Kamala Harris has no chance of getting the nomination. However, she has months to clean up her act; and after the results of election night 2008 and the racially divisive climate that those results created, I no longer trust the voting integrity of many in this country. Donald Trump has also taught me to take absolutely nothing for granted in politics. It wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning after election night 2016 that my tears of anguish turned into tears of joy. It’s politics, so anything can change in a New York minute.

Photo credit: Mark Warner