Setting the Record Straight on Kamala's Record
Added 2024-07-26 07:11:09 +0000 UTCOA1054
As the Democratic Party comes together around presumptive nominee Kamala Harris after Joe Biden's surprise exit, we take another look at the Vice President”s career and political record. Is she any more of a “cop” than any other career prosecutor? How will history remember this VP? What might we expect from a President Harris that we wouldn't from a second Biden term? And why did Matt just get kicked out of a library in Rhode Island? We take on all of these questions and many more in this rapid response episode, with much more to come as this unprecedented race continues to develop.
Comments
She had an incredibly good Senate voting record. I was referencing that from memory. If you check the 538 score of her in the 116th congress, she had the lowest Trump score in the entire Senate. Secondly, do you think that "non-ideological" means centrist? Her voting record was incredibly liberal. But she may still consider herself as coming from a place of concern for actual people rather than ideology. That's not a contradiction. However, I also don't find that particularly meaningful, as I kind of replied to Matt in the moment. I don't much care about people's story of how they got to their positions, so much as what their positions actually are.
Opening Arguments
2024-07-31 05:51:32 +0000 UTCPlease never again mention the 2019 GovTrack report. That report never claimed she was the most liberal senator. Yearly reports published by GovTrack were never meant to be interpreted in isolation or cited unto themselves. They were meant to be useful for tracking year over year behavior changes and within the context of other research into ideology. GovTrack retracted those reports and the founder has been repeatedly asking people to stop voting them. This has gotten so off the rails that they are desperately highlighting the coverage of the NY Post. Please be at least as good as the NY Post. That isn't a difficult standard to meet. https://mastodon.social/@GovTrack/112849087904290042 Editorially, in this episode y'all claimed she was both non-ideological and the most liberal. Even if you are talking about her voting record in isolation as being the most liberal, that means she is either ideological or the votes don't matter. Hard to claim both at the same time.
Drew Vogel
2024-07-29 16:01:50 +0000 UTCjust posted!!
Opening Arguments
2024-07-29 04:11:16 +0000 UTCGreat ep, I love the calibre of modern OA. I was shocked to hear Kamela wasn't a private healthcare shill in 2019 dem race, I had remembered her as that and really judged her for it. And I wasn't even deep in twitter spaces where I know people were very hard on her. I feel that indicates her campaign really messed up the messaging/vibes
Jess C
2024-07-28 07:01:07 +0000 UTCI understood it’s been recorded but not out yet, should be out before the end of July.
Alfhild
2024-07-27 12:06:24 +0000 UTCDidn't Thomas say there was a new gavel gavel?
Navi Girl
2024-07-27 03:55:06 +0000 UTCIt's not bad to have that as the leadoff, though ... first things first!
David in Brooklyn
2024-07-26 20:01:29 +0000 UTCI appreciated the nuanced discussion. This is something my husband and I have bumped heads on (we are both civil rights attorneys). He is firmly in the "she's a cop" camp. I understand the sentiment, 100%. Prosecutors have a lot of discretion, yes. But they also work in the confines of a broken system saturated with racism. Without getting into whether there can be such a thing as a "progressive prosecutor," I'd much rather have a decent person in the role so long as the role continues to exist. It surprised me a little bit to hear Kamala come out to a campaign event to Beyonce's "Freedom." If you haven't seen the "Lemonade" visual album (this may apply to no one): there is a powerful theme throughout regarding police brutality. Odd choice for a cop. In the video, the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown hold up photos of their sons, all killed by police, and the expressions on their faces are heartbreaking and impossible to forget. A young boy dances in front of a line of cops in riot gear. Beyonce sings from the top of a cop car in a flooded New Orleans. I can't support all of Kamala's past prosecutorial decisions. But if this represents her current stance w/r/t policing and the stance she intends to carry forward: I'm willing to let the "cop" label go.
Katie Herrmann
2024-07-26 19:32:14 +0000 UTCFollowing that kind of overwhelming advice when you are not someone who looks like most of the people who hold office is something I just feel differently about and I don't think is something that gets mentioned often. I don't know if that is because it is taken for granted or if it is because it is something people don't know.
Melissa Hall
2024-07-26 19:24:43 +0000 UTCPlease see my response to Colbin below for a full explanation but this is absolutely something I want to get into!
Matt Cameron
2024-07-26 19:21:03 +0000 UTCAbsolutely, thanks for asking. It is a subject I would love to be better educated on and it would be great to bring the audience along for that. And for clarity i am talking about a broader movement than only police/prison abolition (loll @ "only" as I read that) which includes the multigenerational project of slowly eliminating all of the major root causes of crime until we live in (I assume having read the entire written works of Iaian M. Banks) fully automated luxury communism. (joking, but also not at all)
Matt Cameron
2024-07-26 19:19:42 +0000 UTCHi I just wanted to say something else about her being a prosecutor. I am about the same age and was raised in a State Capitol and at the time the overwhelming narrative about how you got in to politics was to be a prosecutor and run for DA.
Melissa Hall
2024-07-26 18:54:18 +0000 UTCAlso, I just want to say how great it was to have an open and honest breakdown and discussion of Kamala’s record in public life with a good faith approach. This is the sort of thing that EVERY media source covering politics worth its salt SHOULD be doing this week, and yet your episode is the only good discussion I’ve seen, certainly the only one longer than 5 minutes. I learned plenty, and although she’s not perfect, you added a lot of nuance and gave me some points to argue the “Kamala is a Cop” narrative. Great show, and I truly can’t understand why more outlets aren’t covering things with an approach like this.
Colbin Erdahl
2024-07-26 18:40:23 +0000 UTCDOH Fixing it, thanks
Opening Arguments
2024-07-26 18:34:42 +0000 UTCWhen taking about KH’s ideology/lack thereof, Matt you made an offhand statement that intrigued me about not ascribing to one ideology, but seeing yourself as an “abolitionist in progress” (around 9:15). I tend to agree, and I too lack a religious or general ideological basis for policies I support. I’m curious what exactly you mean about “abolitionism” though. A quick search lead my to this Harvard lecture series (clearly The Smartest lecture series): https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wiener/programs/criminaljustice/news-events/abolitionist-politics-practices-and-horizons This overview was talking about abolishing “police, prosecutors, courts and prisons”. I’d love to hear a show diving into the details and what it would look like to do some of this (what other countries or some cities have done) I’m sure this has been somewhat covered, and was a popular topic post George Floyd, but with Matt on now, I’d love to hear your pie-in-the-sky thoughts on what a truly reformed US Justice System could look like. Or maybe find someone from the Harvard lectures who is willing to come on OA and dumb it down for us rubes.
Colbin Erdahl
2024-07-26 18:33:17 +0000 UTCTo take this a step further, I think it would be interesting to have the opposite of rapid response Friday: let patrons suggest and vote on topics they'd like to hear a deep-dive on, whether from Matt or a guest. This would especially be insightful for topics where there is a need for reform, whether that would be prosecutors, campaign finance reform, bail/pre-trial detention etc. I would expect to just have a few such episodes (or multi-part episodes) per year. But having at least a loosely planned cadence would help make sure OA gets to these topics in between coverage of current events. Note I mention multi-part episodes because I expect many topics could use a deep dive just on the current state of matters to help listeners better understand any potential reform, so such discussions would likely run long.
Why do podcasters say moron that later
2024-07-26 17:07:21 +0000 UTCI just paused the show at this point to make the same statement. Please let us get this episode!( Whenever time permits)
Drew Hickcox
2024-07-26 13:42:08 +0000 UTCMatt makes a comment that he feels that the job of prosecutor "should not exist in it's current form" ( at about 12:30 of this episode). I'd be really interested in hearing what kind of alternative form, or reforms he'd advocate. I feel like a good way to understand something is to look at other methods and forms so you can see the differences in how things could be vs how they actually are. I also think that discussion could help elucidate more why "prosecutors aren't cops".
Despairing Radical
2024-07-26 09:53:11 +0000 UTC@thomas FYI: This has the old intro that starts with "I hate the supreme court"
Despairing Radical
2024-07-26 09:12:07 +0000 UTC
