Is The Left Reading The Wrong Room?

Alex Vickery-Howe asks the question that may define the 2024 US Presidential election.

This article can have only one title. It’s the question that keeps me up at night. I’ve posted it here so I’m not alone in my rising sense of panic, and we can all breathe into paper bags at 3am together.

Ever since President Joe Biden was rolled by Hollywood and swiftly replaced by Vice-President Kamala Harris, the prevailing orthodoxy – indeed, the only ‘acceptable’ opinion – is that this is a wonderful change, the Republicans under an increasingly aggressive and erratic Donald Trump have been blindsided and outplayed, and everything will swing to the Left come November.

Cynics the globe over are finding their hope again. Even Bill Maher is celebrating.

But the Left tends to confine itself to a very small, very compliant room. America is a diverse country; those 50 states are far from united.

My first article for this publication discussed the passing of Barry Humphries and his likely legacy; a complex and loaded issue at the time of his death. The article was prompted, in part, by a comment from the director of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival who claimed Humphries failed to ‘read the room’ on contemporary social issues.

I never think a funeral is the best time to discuss politics, unless it’s Thatcher’s, so I tried to write about Humphries from a balanced perspective and take in the whole of the man… the good, the bad, and the glamorous. Even if I was inclined to join the pile on against the latest celebrity to fall afoul of the human language, I don’t think ‘the room’ should ever be used as a justification. Whose room? And who’s invited? My room isn’t the same as yours. It certainly isn’t the same as Trump or J.D. Vance’s room.

The phrase ‘read the room’ is problematic… but, then again, the word ‘problematic’ is problematic too. All of this word salad is served up to protect likeminded people from voices of dissent and fortify subcultures where collective opinion becomes ‘fact.’

Don’t get me wrong… Trump is clearly mentally impaired. Biden’s frailty is nothing on Trump’s despotism. What’s more, unlike the slurs against Biden, Trump’s decline is supported by medical professionals. There’s a big difference between public sentiment and professional evaluation.

Scattergun accusations of “Alzheimer’s” hobbled President Biden and it would be hypocritical if the media didn’t apply the same lens to Trump now. He’s off his rocker. He’s rambling. Accordingly, the Don’s attacks against Biden have backfired perfectly and his skin has never been thinner. There is absolutely no doubt Trump is losing the plot.

I recently suggested that the Republicans would be looking for a schoolyard nickname to throw at Kamala. It hasn’t taken long for Donald Trump to settle on this gem: “She is mentally impaired.”

As I said at the time, the new slur would be a reflection of Donnie himself. I may accept a baby jam doughnut for seeing this coming, but I’m hardly Nostradamus for predicting that a bully will always behave like a bully.

There have been numerous collective statements and petitions from experts, and people like me who have experience with losing loved ones to dementia, pointing out the many, many obvious signs of true cognitive impairment that Trump has been exhibiting for a very long time now. The same is not true, and never has been true, of Vice-President Kamala Harris… just as the same is not true, and never has been true, of President Joe Biden.

Commentators and politicians are not medical experts. Whining doesn’t give you a degree. Well, not yet anyhow…. Biden has been a brilliant president. His record captures a healthier, greener and more prosperous America; nevertheless, popular opinion has little to do with empirical fact, so Kamela has no choice but to distance herself from a successful administration. This won’t help her in the key swing states.

I failed Business Maths at Glenunga High. I’ve said this before. I don’t think I can be trusted to count a dozen eggs without a calculator. But I do know, as many commentators have confirmed, that this race won’t be decided by George Clooney, it won’t be decided by ‘coastal elites’, and it won’t be decided by the Left’s room. It will be decided by the people of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. I’m not confident that Harris will win that audience over. I’m bright, I’m cheerful… but I’m not confident.

I’m a pragmatist. You have to be pragmatic when you’re dealing with the potential rise of idiocracy in the most militarily powerful nation on earth. Pragmatism means looking coolly at the situation, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

My pragmatic brain reluctantly tells me J.D Vance may be onto something. He’s reading another room, and he’s reading it well.

Trump’s team got it wrong. Obviously, Tim Scott was the wiser choice for VP. I actually believe Trump would’ve won by a comfortable margin had he chosen Scott. Even so, Vance is in touch with the working-class people of America. He lacks the common touch in conversation, as Hayley Joel Osment has captured so skilfully, but he knows his audience and knows what they need.

“The American people can’t pay their grocery bills on platitudes,” says J.D. “American people are smart, and Kamala talks to them like they’re children,” says J.D. “Fentanyl overdoses harm communities,” says J.D.

This is a potential Vice-President who understands class politics. His rhetoric, slick and robotic though it may be, captures the neglect of America’s working poor. Studies indicate that poverty is linked to loneliness, but do you know what else poverty is linked to?

Poverty.

It has been many years since any candidate has been willing to admit that there is class neglect in America. The Democrats aren’t confronting this. While Tim Scott should’ve been Trump’s VP, Vance is not quite the disaster the Left thinks he is. In rooms we may not be welcome in, people are listening to his defence of working-class people and his characterisation of Kamala as all slogan and no substance.

It rings true.

Personally, I don’t care if people are politically correct or not. I’ve met people who are scrupulous and censorious in that regard but that hasn’t stopped them from being small, spineless, vindictive, backstabbing cowards. Not that I’m bitter.

Likewise, for America’s working poor, the politics of identity markers and of support for the middle class might not be as compelling or as persuasive as blue state advisors imagine. The Left needs to reflect on itself critically, embrace compassion and nuance, and return to factual discourse. If not, the Right and the Far-Right will continue to grow stronger.

We have Leftist teachers saying, “gravity is a Western construct.” How can a sane person respond to that? We have Leftist teachers saying, “theoretical writing enforces the white patriarchy”. We have Raygun lecturing about herself on taxpayer funds.

Again, don’t get me wrong… I’m still a tree hugging pinko greenie at heart, but we’re in fantasyland now. When we abandon class welfare in favour of champagne grumbles, we leave ourselves open to jeering, to sendup, and to the exploitation of the other side.

In the absurdity of the 2024 race, a rich property mogul and a Silicon Valley tech bro are the heroes of the proletariat. That is mad, and that is absolutely the Left’s fault.

I still believe in the promise of progressive government, but I don’t see many other progressives living up to their stated values. I see a lot of weasel words. A LOT of performative empathy. But if you suggest, as J.D. has, that working class people are being repeatedly kicked in the teeth, the room goes quiet.

The one Presidential debate we saw between Trump and Harris was disappointing. Kamala won. No argument there. Well, at least one loopy pastor would like to blame ‘witchcraft’ for the result, but, generally, it is understood that the Vice-President carried the day. The disappointment lies in the arguments presented.

Trump was lying like the lunatic he is, proving himself unfit for office as he punctuated each and every meandering sentence with “…like very few people have ever seen before”. (Yawn)

He was a floundering loser, falling back on the racism of his slum lord days and trying, with transparent desperation, to tie the moderators’ questions back to immigration, immigration and immigration. All he had was “people pouring into our country” on a hollow repeat. (Another yawn).

Kamala called him out on his many failings… Trump saying “we did a phenomenal job on the pandemic” was nonsense given the death toll and the public morgues. His “tough on crime” catchphrase was funny, with the Vice-President reminding everyone that Trump himself is a criminal.

She shattered him on the economy.

She looked wryly amused by him.

Kamala called him out on his immigration obsession and his inability to stay focused on much else. She even suggested that people watching could attend Trump’s rallies to witness this obsession firsthand. Sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me, but Kamala’s taunts landed easily and hit Trump where it hurts… right in the ego.

Her line of the night was pointing out that Trump was “handed four hundred million on a platter and then filed for bankruptcy six times.” That’s when Trump pivoted to people eating pets. Remember when I said he was cognitively unwell? Watching the debate footage again, I’d now say that was an understatement.

In Springfield, Ohio, there are no credible claims of dogs and cats being eaten… although it’s where Freddy Krueger lives, so anything is possible.

If Trump wins, it will largely be by raving about immigration and hoping people are racist or fearful enough to believe him. Crime is not rising in the US due to migration. Guns in schools might be an issue though. Just maybe.

Trump claiming people – specifically, people named Vladimir – were afraid of him was absurd. Domestically, Americans certainly do have a reason to be afraid, because Trump rules over an angry mob and he has demonstrated his willingness to unleash them. He’s like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast but with a grandad bod.

Internationally, however, nobody fears Trump. Nobody respects him. Does anyone seriously think Putin worries about Trump’s ‘keen and sharp’ mind? Or that Kim Jong Un frets about Trump’s ‘4D chess moves’? It’s impossible to type these rhetorical questions without chortling.

Trump somehow blaming Nancy Pelosi for the violent mob that wanted to kill Nancy Pelosi was… an interesting take. If anyone believes there’s any truth to that senility, we all need to have a serious conversation about global education standards. The attempted coup of January 6 was all due to Trump’s wounded pride. That, and that alone, is what people killed and died for.

Finally, there was birtherism 2.0 as Trump questioned his opponent’s heritage. This howler hung over the debate. Another low. Or, at least it would’ve been a low… if the dogs and cats thing hadn’t dribbled from his jowls.

The Don lost in a landslide and his temper couldn’t take it, so he threw a wobbly. It was pathetic. But…

J.D. Vance did much better. He understands that the working poor can be weaponised on behalf of his running mate, and his composed performance against a folksy but flustered Tim Walz may have closed the gap. If Vance is reading one room, and the Left is reading another, then someone more mathematically inclined than me should be running the numbers to see which room is ultimately bigger.

We know Biden commanded the biggest room. He won a record-breaking 81 million votes… the most ever won by a US Presidential candidate. We don’t know how big the room is that Kamala Harris currently commands, or if that room is comparable to what even a weakened Biden might’ve filled. It’s Schrödinger’s room. It’s a J.J. Abrams mystery box.

This brings me to the hard part. Kamala thrashed Trump, for sure, and she is easily the best candidate in this race… but did she make a convincing argument for her own presidency?

Not if you’re a progressive.

Kamala talked about the middle class – is anyone on the Left talking about the working class? Do Democrats even know they exist?

Kamala talked about her love of guns. Two words: Sandy Hook. Two more words: Alex Jones. Add a retching noise.

Environmentally, neither candidate is great. Kamala’s defence of fracking was sad to sit through. Trump’s ranting against solar while claiming to be “a fan of solar” was a self-contradictory mess. Climate change should be a leading issue. The hurricanes aren’t tearing through America for no reason. Not to mention the flash floods in Spain. I want progressives to do better.

On animal rights, who can say? Haitians were never eating your pets, but J.D. doesn’t like ‘cat ladies’ and RFK was beheading whales while Kristi Noem was shooting dogs, so… tell me that’s not bloody weird. I’m not sure the Democrats are the party of Bambi and Peppa Pig, though. I want progressives to do better.

On abortion, Trump was strong. I don’t agree with his stance at all, and his lies about babies being “executed after birth” were as appalling as they were batshit crazy, but his rhetoric was clear, and he stayed on topic. The issue has been taken over by the states and Trump is correct in his assertion that many Americans do believe that is the right course. I don’t believe it, for a millisecond, and few progressives would… but we’re standing in a different room. It’s a tragic outcome for women, particularly young women economically trapped in conservative states, and yet it’s a decision that mainstream Republicans stand by.

The Democrats will struggle to overturn that decision via Congress. Trump was correct about that too.

We shouldn’t be here. For years, the Democrats blithely believed Roe v Wade was safe. It wasn’t. They didn’t fight hard enough. I want progressives to do better.

Trump was voted out, despite the election lies and the attempted coup, and the Democrats had an opportunity to prosecute their case – both in the literal sense of actual legal cases against a career criminal, and in the political sense of making an overall case for why Trump was an abysmal failure in and out of office, and how his terrible choices ruined American lives. They failed. I want progressives to do better.

A candidate who loves firearms and fracking, and fails to see the real economic disparity of her country, is not, in my view, an ideal choice. But Kamala Harris is the only choice. The only sane choice. I would love to see the ex-District Attorney rise to the moment and take the mobster down.

My concern is that the room is small, and the room is characterised by self-congratulatory ignorance. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? In 2016, Trump didn’t read the room; he rewrote it. Leftists thought we’d be dancing. It didn’t go the way we thought it would. Our predictions were blinkered, and they were smug.

Like Vice-President Harris, I’m exhausted by the same tired old rhetoric. I’m exhausted by the same tired old man. Trump is dull. Trump is pitiful. He’s not worth writing about anymore. I’m stepping back until the votes are in and hoping the room won’t be lonely on election day. The question on this header will keep circulating in my brain, until then…and I’ll keep breathing into that paper bag.

As I cut myself off from the noise, I cross my fingers and try to manifest the morning when we all look back on this ridiculous period of history… and, like George W. Bush at Trump’s inauguration, shake our heads and say: “That was some weird shit.”

Still, my gut tells me our room is smaller than we believe it is, and November may surprise us in a scary way.

Hollywood shanked Biden… now the working-class people will pass judgement. This has always been their election.