As I am typing this, I am keeping one eye on my Twitter feed, and the other on my keyboard. This might be called distracted writing.
Explainer: Just about four hours ago, I put a pro-Kamala Harris post up. Like a lot of my posts lately, it turned into a thread, because being from New Jersey, I always have more to say than I thought I did in the first place. Er, see what I mean?
The post has now been liked 22,700 times and counting, and hated just about equally. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a viral tweet, but I am sure that America is very, very sick.
If you read the tweet or thread you know I believe that Vice President Harris has been treated abhorrently by some members of the press, by elements in both political parties, and mostly the Republicans. I believe this is because she is a woman, and I believe it is because she is a person of color.
I believe some of the ire directed at the vice president, and my tweet, is just flat out misogynistic and racist. I believe some of it has been subtle.
Sam Stein, a Politico reporter, referred to the Vice President as “Kamala” in a tweet teasing to his reporting. This would be fine if Stein was the vice president’s brother, or if he had spent the previous five years referring to Vice President Pence as “Mike.”
He is not the vice president’s brother, and he, in fact, never referred to Pence as Mike. So this would be subtle, but it is also disrespectful, and harmful.
The racist stuff can be found underneath my thread and on the subsequent hundreds of quote-tweets. These are not subtle. Many of them are vile and beyond description.
You never know what will happen when you post something on Twitter, and I never expected this post to get the attention it did. I did, however, expect it would trigger people — particularly those on the Right, who I know just hate Vice President Harris.
I figured it would draw them out, and prove my point. I never figured it would draw out so much out and out hate and vitriol. Silly me, this is America after all, where people in some parts of the country dress themselves up in red on a Saturday night, and listen to a disgraced former president tell lies and spit venom at anything that happens to cross his wrecked mind.
Worse? Many of these adults bring their kids along to be entertained by the nuclear-powered blowhard.
And about the orange, carnival-barking traitor …
Some of the more “pointed” criticism aimed at me and this tweet, point to my lack of respect for Donald Trump.
Why should they respect Vice President Harris when I absolutely do not respect the disgraced former president Trump.
OK, here’s a deal:
If Vice President Harris ever ascends to the presidency, and on her way to losing her re-election bid, does not commit to honoring the results, tells dangerous, white nationalist groups to “stand by” and holds a press conference on Election Night, telling Americans that no more votes should be counted …
… If she then loses her re-election bid by seven million votes, refuses to concede defeat, brutally attacks our Capitol and our democracy, shakes down election officials, and criss-crosses the country telling Big damaging Lies all along the way, I will write a tweet about all that and tear her to pieces.
Until then, she has all my respect and gratitude for being the historic groundbreaker, and excellent role model she mostly certainly is.
(D. Earl Stephens is a published author and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can also find his work on Substack. Follow @EarlofEnough)
