We may be counted among the millions of American citizens who are ecstatic with the choice of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee in the next Presidential election. We are grateful to Joseph Biden for his sacrificial and patriotic act of withdrawal from the race and designation of his Vice President as the replacement. Mrs. Harris is, without doubt, a worthy successor to a Chief Executive to whom all American citizens are, or should be, indebted for a half-century of notably fine political performance dating from the time he qualified on record as the youngest Senator through his designation as the oldest American Chief of State. An excellent performance exemplified the past three years of his last term regarding the dire subject of the pandemic to infrastructure, the economy and employment, debt relief and assistance to the elderly in purchasing medicine, reduction of onerous student debt, support of NATO and Ukraine, and many humanistic accomplishments.
Unhappily, Biden’s bright star performance lost public celebrity because of his disappointing performance at the Presidential debates at which he appeared tired and lackluster leading many to the summary conclusion that he was no longer fit to oppose the boisterous, aggressively neurotic, and demagogic Donald Trump. His sacrificial and patriotic selection of Kamala Harris as the successor nominee for President was enthusiastically celebrated by Democratic voters, including ourselves. This writing thematically concerns our perception of the human dynamics involved in such change.
We include ourselves among the millions of mainstream American citizens, who have become more pragmatically confident of Mrs. Harris’s ability to defeat the anti-American, would-be autocrat, the felonious Donald J. Trump.
It would not be radical to declare that American citizens, universally, are regular consumers of televised and cinematic presentations of the human persona. To be theatrically effective, fictional characters are presented in familiar stereotypical roles. Heroic, assertive executives and lawyers, devout and taciturn men of faith, stern Captains of ships, wide-eyed romantic teenage girls, narrow-eyed tightlipped, cigarette-smoking criminals, devout face-lined farmers, cigar-smoking crooked politicians, heroic, startlingly handsome leading men, grieving widows, and on it goes. The casting directors, recognized in the final credits, perform an important role in assuring that each actor selected for his respective role, complies visually and otherwise, with the traditional representation of his assigned category of role.
Unfortunately, these familiarized “cinematic” stereotypes seem ubiquitously applicable and often judgmentally determinative in actual life. Dedicated people, charged with the selection of suitable applicants for such matters as executive promotion, hiring sales public representatives, and other public roles, are thus, unjustly prejudged to the extent of the interviewer’s previously acquired theatrical stereotypes. Manifest harm is created by such artificial standards, leading to erroneous outcomes. In truth, there is no archetypical visual, physical, or other concomitant (viz., height, voice pattern, style of dress) reliably predictable of character or capability.
It may be instructive to chronic Bible readers to recall the apocryphal words of Moses (Exodus), “I am not a man of words, for I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue.” It is a matter of universal agreement that Moses represents the paradigm for all subsequent prophets to follow. One wonders at the nature of his public perception would be in today’s Hollywood-Roku-tainted America.
Until the moment of his painful and disconcerting flub at the publicly eventful debate, President Biden was deservedly recognized for a cornucopia of significant accomplishments as a sitting President. In our view, he likely maintained the same capabilities irrespective of his disappointing television appearance.
In any event, Kamala we love you; knock the block off that orange ogre!
-p.
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