Third-person Humble Brag

~ Clarissa

Harris has somebody smart on her side. Look at the fake criticisms spread about her:

My feed is littered with this image. It’s everywhere.

This is the third-person version of a humble brag. And an excellent image for a leader to project. It would be a relief if people who understand this ran Harris’s campaign instead of their competitors who are eager to paint her as a tender wallflower incapable of facing an ounce of scrutiny and mockery routinely experienced by male politicians.

Seriously, does nobody notice a contradiction between “she’s ready to stare down Putin and Xi” and “please don’t mention she was an old dude’s mistress and tends to say dumb things in interviews because that’s mean”?

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Published by Clarissa

37 thoughts on “Third-person Humble Brag”

  2. Like I keep saying, if the GOP wants to stand a chance, they’ll keep their criticisms to things that are actually fair and reasonable: whether she continues Joe’s terrible foreign policy, for instance. Not whether she has a child or laughs funny or dated someone in her early thirties.

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    1. Why?

      I mean, seriously, why not both?

      Because policy discussions only work on the 20% of voters who actually pay attention to policy. Everybody else votes on perceived character, team affiliation, and aesthetics.

      Why would any strategy team that wanted to win, just leave that on the table?

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      1. They can go for it if they want, but it’s not always a helpful strategy. Plus it poisons the dialogue and makes politics more tawdry. A few examples off the top of my head shows how much of a waste of time and resources it is, while it reinforces the worst image of you as being unserious, mean, and gross. Not what you want if you say you want to unite the coutry.

        1. JFK would have an allegiance to the Pope than to the United States
        2. Reagan was a divorcee and his wife was a “throat goat” in Hollywood back in the day.
        3. Clinton slept around.
        4. Obama was Arab, wasn’t born in the US, and attended the church of a radical pastor. Oh, was a celebrity.
        5. Biden was a stammerer and/or a bad father.
        6. Trump had a pee tape.

        None of these made any difference than the candidate’s own character/words/actions/policies eventually did. Effective campaigns come from attacking things that can be corroborated by public character. Trump was brought down by Covid and his personal corruption and incompetence. The pee tape and Russia did nothing much than his own character did (being slavish to Putin, etc). You get the point. What does it matter whom Kamala used to date? She’s been happily married for decades since then. Her husband is happy and isn’t unaware of her past. What’s the point of using that as a campaign strategy unless something else there affects how she’d be president? What was the point of the pee tape if not for comedians and dark web people to laugh at? Did it improve the Democratic brand? Did it change one person’s life in the country?

        If anything, it reflects more poorly on the person who uses it, hence it being a losing strategy. Especially since the party on whose behalf you’re doing it just anointed someone who “schtupped a porn star” while his wife was pregnant.

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        1. It does matter whom Kamala used to date because that bloke and she engaged in egregious acts of corruption together. And absolutely, people fear that this and the fact that she never seems to achieve anything on her own merit are a sign of things to come.

          There are many of us, both in public service and in industry, who undergo regular trainings about what constitutes unethical, corrupt acts. It’s egregious to us that somebody who got her start in politics due to such open, contemptuous corruption would aspire to be president.

          I find the attempts to distract the conversation from this corruption with a discussion of the happiness of Kamala’s husband to be quite extraordinary. Who can possibly care about this dude’s happiness or lack thereof? All I know about him is that he’s extremely wealthy. So I’m sure he’s fine. While we are being robbed of jobs and opportunities by corrupt individuals who somehow manage to convince us to fixate on “sexual freedom” while they are robbing us.

          “Her husband is happy!” Seriously?

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          1. If the person Kamala used to date was important in her character, why didn’t it matter when she was DA, Senator, or VP? There you go. Again, if this is where you want to spend your energy, go for it. In some ways, it also shows that you have nothing else — like the Obama tan suit saga — which, I guess, is a good thing.

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            1. It always mattered enormously that she is corrupt. Corruption matters to people even if you seem to condone it.

              Although, I don’t think you actually condone it. I’m sure you personally are very honest. It’s partisanship that makes you adopt this double standard.

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              1. That she’s personally corrupt is not something that has been established anywhere. It’s a stretch you’re making from a personal relationship from years back, which didn’t matter when she was DA, Senator, or Veep. If you think it will now, then by all means.

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              2. To avoid going in circles, please reread the preceding discussions of Kamala’s corruption and you’ll see what has been established and what people are discussing.

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        2. I get it. I wish politics were not so tawdry! I vote on policy issues.

          I would literally vote for a giant talking sea slug, if said creature had anything useful to suggest about inflation, housing prices, the P2P meth crisis, and securing the borders.

          But that’s because I’m a really, really strange person, who utterly fails to pick up on social cues. Any competent political strategists knows people like me– looking at issues and not appearances– are going to vote for policy no matter what so they can safely disregard us, and that we are such a small chunk of the electorate as not to matter anyway.

          So… why would it make sense to focus on anything *other* than image, from every possible angle?

          I’m not saying I *like* that. I’m saying that’s how it actually works and if you ignore it, you lose.

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          1. And my point is that of that’s all you have, or where you spend most of your energy, maybe you already lost.

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            1. Lost what, though? I don’t support either candidate. They are both weak, bumbling, and won’t give me what I need.

              Maybe Kamala will at least choose a good veep, then she’ll have one over Trump. I’m hearing she’s looking at some serious people as running mate.

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            2. Of course, but in order for it to be any other way, we would have to restrict the vote to people who can pass tests of civic literacy and some fairly basic cognitive standards.

              I don’t think anybody’s ready to advocate for that.

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              2. As Clarissa can possibly attest, other democracies have no problem requiring proof of citizenship prior to voting. In the Great White North, we are mailed a card identifying the closest polling site and the dates and times of it plus that of advance polling sites. There, you are required to show photo ID or be personally identified by one of the polling clerks before bring given a ballot. There are typically two clerks at each table checking ID and providing and marking off each numbered ballot. They are usually members of the largest two parties in the most recent election and work 12 to 14 hours for a pittance..

                After the poll closes, those clerks collect, sort, and count the votes;, once both clerks agree with the count they both sign the results, and the deputy(returning officer?) at the polling site exams the result record and signs it. The ballots are placed in a cardboard bos and sealed with paper tape down that box and all three sign across the tape and kept for any legal doubts about the result. Basically the whole record is legal evidence in court. Representatives from any political party can be identified as an observor and is then legally allowed to overlook but not disturb all of that process.

                Now I have worked at several elections and trust me: if any of the crooked shyte we all saw at your election in 2020 ever happened; the Oueen;s Cowboys would have been called, grabbed the greasy buggers, and hauled them away in handcuffs ;-D

                sorting a segment of

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              3. I should have mentioned that the results are typically on the television news within minutes after the polls close, possibly in hours for with scattered districts, and very few legally challenged results ever go to court. That is the beauty of paper ballots, it is hard to cheat ;-D

                ,

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    2. I agree that it would be great to see substantive criticisms of both candidates. I’m very tired of the unending “where’s Melania?” conspiracy theory, the barrage of memes and jokes about Trump’s hair and weight, the litany of “he schtupped a porn star”, etc. There are many substantive criticisms of Trump that could be made yet nobody is making them. Now the Dems have attached to some fake called Project 2025 or something like that which is the new QAnon and similarly boring. As for actual things that exist and matter, nobody cares.

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      1. At the federal level, anybody who has a realistic assessment, and a plausible exit strategy, for the current inflation crisis, and putting a lid on the flow of synthetic meth has my vote. Those two things together are nuking quality of life and future prospects for more than half the country, right now.

        At the state level, anybody who has some realistic strategies for addressing completely absurd housing prices, has my vote (and yes, it’s an inflation problem but there are lots of individual stopgap strategies, particularly in my state, that’d help immensely: STVR regulation, tax hikes for housing that’s not your main residence (vacation homes, rental properties, and the crazy amount of straight-up empty housing that’s being held by absentee owners as “an investment” because tenants are too troublesome to deal with), review and streamlining of permitting for new construction…

        At the local level, anybody who has a realistic assessment, and a plausible exit strategy, for the current homeless/methzombie crisis, has my vote.

        Nobody wants to talk about any of it, at any level.

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  5. They can go for it if they want, but it’s not always a helpful strategy.

    Why do you, Anonymous, definitely not a conservative/republican, care so much that the GOP is using “unhelpful” strategies? Shouldn’t you be elated? Would you prefer that they use helpful strategies to beat your party in november?

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    2. I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m not American. But I’m a keen observer of its politics. Using racist or sexist attacks will not get anyone victory. And if it does, it will make me even more disgusted by the country. I don’t think I’m alone.

      in any case, I can’t make anyone do anything. I’m only here to participate in a conversation. Americans will do whatever they think necessary and the world will move on.

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      1. Using racist or sexist attacks will not get anyone victory.

        Can you point us to a racist or sexist attack ad commissioned by the GOP against Kamala that is concerning you so much?

        it will make me even more disgusted by the country

        Fuck off to whatever shithole you crawled out from.

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          1. Selah? Get a load of Hunter S Thompson ova hyah!

            Once again, can you point us to a racist or sexist attack ad commissioned by the GOP against Kamala that is concerning you so much? You’ve just pointed to articles that quote GOP leaders saying don’t be racist. Well, ok. Thank you for this profound TED talk.

            Where are you from?

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            1. Listen buster, don’t worry where I’m from. My work is done.

              And if you want to be racist throughout the election, go for it. I’ll be here to laugh when November is over.

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              2. Why do you need to be racist so much you need my “country” to add to your target list? That this torments you so much is too much fun to give up.

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            2. Oh, c’mon Stringer, why can’t you just take it on faith that we’re all sooper-dooper racist, more racist than anybody else in the universe ever, and so is everything to the right of Che Guevara politically? Who needs *evidence* when people are *saying* it all the time on Twitter??

              Clearly we should all just admit defeat right now and hand over our country to anons on the internet who are our self-declared moral superiors.

              (/sarc)

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  6. I’d say the guy who’s tormented is the the one who isn’t the citizen of a particular country, in fact hates the said country, yet spends hours every day trolling others over that country’s politics. Very normal, very healthy!

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