"KAMALA HARRIS!"

 “KAMALA HARRIS!”

I supported Kamala Harris for President in 2019 and 2020, before she suspended her campaign.  Now, she becomes the Democratic nominee for President, a dramatic turn of events that no one expected on the morning of July 21.  I had called for Joe Biden to step down several times this year, but as July came to a close, it seemed as if he would stay on.  Then came his announcement on July 21 that he would not seek re-election, and that stunned so many people.  He endorsed Kamala Harris, and so much Democratic energy and money flowed her way – people had hope again that Donald Trump could be defeated.  

I supported Harris in 2019 for many reasons, the chief of which was how she handled herself in the US Senate, especially when she questioned white men.  I remember that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Senator Harris made him nervous because she came at him from her prosecutor’s background.  She seemed ready to take the next step, and although it was delayed 5 years, she now has taken that step.  I hope that there are some white men who will not be intimidated by her, because she will need some of our votes.

Harris has hit the ground running, and so far she has shown remarkable dexterity, insight, and presence in front of a crowd.  Though I am loathe to say it, Trump does have presence in front of a crowd, but I am glad to say that Kamala Harris demonstrates some of that same presence, if not more so.  She will definitely need it, because in order for her to win the Presidential election, she will need to sway some white men in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina.  She does bring a maturity that she has seemed to lack in the past, but even on her worst days, she has already shown more maturity than Trump has ever shown.

Despite Trump’s glaring flaws, many people classified as “white” (especially white men) still support him and will vote for him.  I don’t understand this, but I am gaining some clues from the knowledge that by 2040 at the latest, there will no longer be a majority racial classification in the USA.  Those of us who identify as “white” feel the presence and the power of “the other” in the American system of racial classification in a way that we rarely have known in American history.   And, for many of us, it is not a good feeling.  We hope to stave it off as long as possible, and for us, Trump seems to be the ticket to purchase our whiteness to remain in power, long past the day when we cease to be the majority in the country.  

Yesterday I preached at Smyrna Presbyterian Church in Conyers, GA, and the epistle lesson was Ephesians 4:1-16.  It is called “Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians,” though many scholars don’t think that Paul wrote the letter.  Whoever wrote it, in this passage, Paul urges the “newbies” in the faith (the Gentiles) to live a life worthy of the calling into which they have been called.  He lists the traits that comprise this higher life:  humility, gentleness, patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  In case anyone thinks that Paul means people who are passive and hesitant, he has already noted that he himself is in prison because he disturbed the peace.  He urges the newbies in the faith to stand fast and to mature in the faith, so that they are not like immature people who are “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

I noted in my sermon that Trump seems to be one of those deceitful people who are highly creative in their desire to win people over by their trickery.  Trump, of course, is stirring and riding the wave of  the powerful stream of white supremacy and now white grievance, and many white people seem to have drunk the kool-aid.  I am hoping some of them will see Kamala Harris as a breath of fresh air, as someone who has some integrity and who is not trying to win people over by deceitful scheming.  Harris has already re-set the Democratic ticket – maybe she can also reset the American scene, polluted as it has become with the Trump and white grievance vitriol.  Trump has been nominated for President three times in a row by the Republicans, so we are in a dangerous time.  Let’s pray that Harris is able to defeat Trump (and let’s practice what we pray), because if she is not able to defeat Trump, we face an apocalypse similar to the Civil War in our life as a nation.