Harris embodies the antihesis of Trumpism
The white racist reaction to Barack Obama's presidency had convinced me that it would be a generation before another black man or woman had a chance at the presidency. But life comes at you fast. Biden's sudden and historic withdrawal from the race and Harris' ascendancy have almost played like a reaction to the reaction.
I think there's been a pent up demand for someone who could telegraph competing vision to Trumpism. After the media and institutions like the FBI did everything in their power to destroy Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions ("But her emails," and Comey's extra-legal arias about her supposed misdeeds), we tucked in our tails and went with the old white dude, the tried and true. Don't rock the boat. Steady as she goes.
But things aren't steady. There's a storm front (pun intended) out there and surviving it requires extraordinary measures. We sensed that, but we feared doubling down. And that was the point. Racist authoritarians work to sow sufficient fear of further retrenchment and violence that the opposition dare not mobilize.
The extraordinary political circumstances that put Harris at the top of the ticket shattered all conventional wisdom. Biden's slippage, culminating in his debate performance, became a metaphor for the lax, shuffling response to Trump's threats and criminality. The press is tongue-tied before him, judges stumble and stare slack-jawed instead of imposing the law on him, politicians rhetorically tip-toe instead of kicking hard,
Harris immediately embodied the antithesis of Trumpism, and it's heartening to see there was such a thirst for it.