It is likely that had the captain of the Titanic paid more attention to his elementary school science lessons, one of the most tragic seagoing episodes of all time might have been averted.  After all, only one ninth of an iceberg is visible above the surface.  A full 89% lurks dangerously below.  Captain Smith may have skirted the above-the-surface portion of the killer berg, but the larger segment lurking below did him in, along with about fifteen hundred other unfortunates.  Among the casualties were real estate magnate John Jacob Astor IV and mining millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim.  Good luck alone gave the unsinkable Molly Brown a nickname that would label her for the rest of her life.

Political talking points are not unlike the part of an iceberg visible above the waterline.  Every candidate for office knows their talking points.  However, a candidate capable of leading a great nation must be in command of the rest of the narrative, the eighty-nine percent of the story unheard during the sound bites relentlessly hammered in radio and television ads aimed at the voting public.  The part beneath the surface.

Using that criterion, the contrast between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could not be greater.  Donald Trump can talk for hours about almost any subject.  He may be prone to braggadocio and hyperbole, but he knows his stuff.  Most importantly, he can argue the positives and negatives of any law or regulation up for discussion.  He knows them top to bottom.  You won’t ever see him stumped on policy issues.  Fact-checkers who label him untruthful or mistaken are more often than not found to be the ones in the wrong.  Trump knows his platform in every detail.

Contrast the former president with Kamala Harris.  Granted, she does know her talking points.  She had a middle-class upbringing.  She worked at McDonald’s.  Trump is bad.  Trump is a fascist.  Trump lacks only a funny mustache to be that terrible German from the ’30s and ’40s.  But if she is pressed on any policy issue beyond those talking points, she has nothing to offer but more anti-Trump blather, repeating the same anti-Trump nonsense.  Oh, yes, and also that cackle.

She has no choice but to return to her talking points, because they are all she knows.  She proved it at the conclusion of her Fox News interview with Brett Baier.  Rather than explain any part of her plan for America to the viewers, as Baier had pressed her to do throughout the session, she told them to go to her website, and they would be rewarded with eighty pages of her platform.  Of course, if asked to explain or defend any policy in those eighty pages, she would revert to ant-Trumpisms and throw in a bit about bringing us joy and a middle-class opportunity economy.  She might even promise to use her connections to provide a McDonald’s job to all who want one.  If you’re unfortunate enough to be incarcerated, she will get you a sex change operation if you so desire.  And then we’d be blessed with another cackle.

The world we live in is far more dangerous than the northern Atlantic was at the time of the Titanic sinking.  It is not a cackling matter.  Let’s be sure we choose a leader who knows what is beneath the surface as well as what is in plain view.  Let’s choose a leader who will allow us to be as unsinkable as Molly Brown.  Cackling Kamala is not that leader.  Donald Trump is.

Bill Hansmann is a dentist and dental educator with over fifty years in the profession.  He continues to teach and write political blogs and semi-mediocre novels while living with his wife and cats in Georgia.

Image via Pexels.