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August 12, 2020

Yesterday, Joe Biden made it official: His vice presidential pick is Kamala Harris. Jamilah King, who has been covering Sen. Harris for years, zeroed in on what Harris brings to the ticket:

Harris offers that rare combination of relative youth (she’s 55) and real experience in public office. And it’s this experience—once a liability—that makes her uniquely positioned to speak with authority on how and why law enforcement has been at odds with Black communities. There’s also one more reality that can’t be discounted: She’s a Black woman of Jamaican and Indian descent, once deemed “the female Barack Obama.” In these times of hyperpartisan bickering and a ratcheting up of the culture wars by Trump, identity and representation matter. Don’t forget it’s also this life experience that she’ll bring to the position—one that should, and will, inform policy.

And though it was widely expected that he would select Harris, the Trump campaign seems to have been relatively unprepared. Tim Murphy took a look at the initial press releases from the Trump campaign and they aren't great!

In its incoherent response to Harris, the Trump campaign is merely echoing its incoherent response thus far to Biden. The campaign has spent much of the summer running ads attacking the former vice president for being soft on crime. Biden, they charge, will surrender American cities to radical mobs and defund the police. “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” the ads say. The scary images that flashed on the screen, of course, depicted Trump’s America, which the rest of the world considers so scary US citizens are currently banned from Canada. Except…the Trump campaign is also running ads highlighting Biden’s role in drafting the 1994 crime bill. The law “destroyed millions of Black lives,” Trump’s ads say.

Taken separately, Trump’s criminal justice–themed messaging has a certain logic. His campaign wants to win back white independents and moderate Republicans who over the past four years have been abandoning the party, particularly in suburbs. And, because in the president’s mind, it is always New York City in the 1980s, he’s convinced that the way to do it is through racist appeals about crime. But his campaign also wants to depress turnout among Black voters and young activists and believes that one way to accomplish that is to sow doubts about Biden’s commitment to reform—something it tried against Hillary Clinton in 2016. But running these messages at the same time, and even in the same sentence, simply telegraphs the unseriousness of the effort: After three and a half years in office, with 82 days until the election, the only strategy Trump can truly commit to is not having one.

And if you're curious how the president himself responded to the selection, the answer is...bad. As Abigail Weinberg details:

Taking a softball question from a New York Post reporter, Trump resorted to playing his hits: calling a woman in a position of power “nasty.”

“She was extraordinarily nasty to Kavanaugh,” he said. “She was nasty to a level that was just a horrible thing.”

Besides being explicitly sexist, Trump’s focus on the Kavanaugh hearing was a non sequitur. The Post reporter had lobbed him a question about marijuana and Harris’ record on prosecutions—easy bait that Trump ignored.

But the fun didn't end there. Today, Trump was back at it with, in the words of Inae Oh, "a generous serving of the racism and sexism we’ve long seen from this president."

Elsewhere, Rebecca Leber dived into Harris' climate record:

Her addition to Team Biden will focus a new spotlight on an issue Harris has championed in the Senate: addressing the racism of environmental pollution.

While climate change has grown in importance to Democratic voters in recent years, so has drawing the connection to racial injustices. We’re only now starting to reckon with a long history of white environmentalists and leaders chronically overlooking this crisis. And the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown Americans, is making the stakes clearer than ever—and makes addressing the pollution in these communities all the more urgent.

And Kevin Drum noted one group that is thrilled with the selection: Silicon Valley.

How do you feel about the pick? Jazzed? Less than jazzed? 

See you on the flip side,

—Ben Dreyfuss

Trump’s Campaign Can’t Figure Out How to Attack Kamala Harris

Is she a cop or antifa? They have a decision to make.

BY TIM MURPHY

BY JAMILAH KING

Trump ramps up the racism and sexism after Harris makes history

BY INAE OH

Trump's biggest problem with Kamala Harris? She was "mean" to Brett Kavanaugh.

BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG

Kamala Harris will make sure racial justice is a key part of Joe Biden's climate agenda

BY REBECCA LEBER

I’m a New Dad Scared About Pandemic-Era Day Care Safety. There’s Only One Expert I Wanted to Call.

Emily Oster has become a pop-oracle for all things kids, COVID, and how to survive parenting in 2020.

BY AARON WEINER

Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack.

SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE

62 Years Later, the Most Iconic Photo in American Music Inspires Celebration and Recreation

The power of a single photo to galvanize generations of artists has never been more clearly captured than in the one taken 62 years ago today on the sidewalk of 126th Street between Fifth and Madison, in New York City. It’s the most immortalizing image in American music. On August 12, 1958, 57 musicians got together for an extended reunion that doubled as an Esquire cover shoot. Titled “A Great Day in Harlem,” the photo features legend after legend, their collective creativity giving the moment its timelessness. To celebrate, the Billie Holiday Theatre and a production group are inviting artists to reimagine the scene.

The new photo, happening today at the Black Lives Matter mural in Bed-Stuy, will be called “A Great Day in New York.” “We find ourselves at the beginning of another civil rights era,” organizers wrote, adding that artists should wear masks for the recreation. For a powerful behind-the-scenes look at the 1958 moment, catch this video.

Who’s in the original? In nonalphabetic order: Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Hank Jones, Pee Wee Russell, Stuff Smith, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Pettiford, Red Allen, Buster Bailey, Jo Jones, Benny Golson, Roy Eldridge, Art Farmer, Milt Hinton, Sonny Greer, Bud Freedom, Gene Krupa, Eddie Locke…and many, many others. Here’s the photo and here’s the video. Recharge shouts and more to recharge@motherjones.com.

—Daniel King

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