Kamala Harris's Anti-Wokeness Moment in the Presidential Debate
The Smallest Gestures can say so Much
Most are still marveling at Kamala Harris’s decision to shake Donald Trump’s hand at the beginning of Tuesday night’s Presidential election debate. It was a powerful moment that seemed to predict the outcome of the debate from the beginning.
Kamala Harris won the debate convincingly.1 Even most Republicans acknowledged.
But for all her good lines and great comebacks as well as the restraint she demonstrated when Trump insulted her, lied, and uttered crazy, perhaps the most momentous part of the debate was the handshake at the beginning.
I’m not sure anyone expected a handshake, let alone a handshake that she would initiate. And with good reason.
Donald Trump, who has bragged to others about sexually assaulting women and found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll, is generally known as a creep. He also is known for using a strong handshake to physically pull others off-balance and intimidate them with his presence.
In one of the mock debates in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s top advisor, Phillippe Reines, who played Trump, had in one instance attempted to give her a friendly but unwanted hug (one of the many possibilities considered for how he might behave to prepare Hillary Clinton for the encounter).
With a great distance between the podiums, walking over to him to extend her hand required a deliberate and affirmative effort from Kamala.
Yet, Kamala went over anyway and pleasantly introduced herself (the two had reportedly never met in person before).2
Trump, thrown off by the gesture as much as anyone watching on television, begrudgingly shook her hand. If he yanked her hand to show dominance like he’d done many times with foreign leaders, she didn’t show it either. Trump likes to intimidate and bully others. It’s part of his persona. Yet, he couldn’t here.
In that moment, she owned her own power.
She demonstrated that she was completely unafraid of Donald Trump. There was nothing he could say or do to her that would harm her. Because if you are afraid of someone, you don’t deliberately walk over to that person from 20 feet away to try to shake their hand when you otherwise would not have to.
And for the tens of millions of Americans watching, they knew it. It set the tone for the whole debate.
Kamala also showed her lack of fear in a very feminine and effective way.
Although society has greatly advanced, sexism still unfortunately exists and women candidates for office (of both major parties) face numerous sexist double standards. Women candidates are often boxed in, subjected to negative stereotypes and then penalized by voters when they try to overcome it. A woman who attempts to show her strength can be unfairly labeled as “angry”, “pushy”, and “aggressive”.
Before the debate, I wondered about how this dynamic would play out. How many debate watchers assumed Kamala was afraid of Donald Trump? How could Kamala successfully prove otherwise without alienating voters or making herself look foolish?
Joe Biden demonstrated his lack of fear of Trump in a 2020 debate by asking him at one point during his non-stop interruptions, “Will you shut up, man?”3
Everyone watching that debate knew that Joe Biden was unafraid of Trump. He had brought out his inner Whitey Bulger. But many watching probably also wondered whether there might be an actual fistfight on the stage between the two men.
Was Biden ready? Was Trump enough of an angry maniac?
Instead, Biden showed no fear. And Americans saw Trump for the coward he really is.
The point was made.
There was no way that Kamala Harris could do what Biden had done. But if anything, she found an even more effective method than Biden and one that squashed other sexist attitudes about her.
While it shouldn’t be this way, as a woman, Kamala has a higher burden to show that she is capable of running the most powerful nation in the world and standing on the world stage.
It’s not particularly fair but some voters were asking questions like:
Can Kamala stand up to foreign adversaries?
Is Kamala going to be afraid of foreign tyrants?
Might Kamala Harris cower against aggressive leaders of allied nations who have different ideas than we do and bend to their will?
Will Kamala be afraid of standing up against aggressive male leaders from the corporate world or labor union bosses when it comes to implementing economic policy they might not fully agree with?
Does she need a “chaperone” as all these Republicans on social media seem to be insisting?
Now, supporters and male feminists like myself can shout “NO!” at all these questions until we’re blue in the face, but it might not make a difference.
For anyone who watched the debate, however, they saw her demonstrate that the answer to those questions is a resounding NO.
Beyond demonstrating her lack of fear, she sent an even more important message to many voters with the handshake.
She’s not woke or a believer in cancel culture. She will be a President of all Americans, not just those who she agrees with ideologically. Moreover, she will be a President who is willing to consider alternative views to her own pre-existing ones.
The handshake is a naturally egalitarian gesture.4 A handshake is not something you would normally extend to a person who disgusted you.
There are many good reasons actually to not shake Donald Trump’s hand. I’m not sure that I would shake his hand if I ever met him in person. That’s because he’s a genuinely bad human being who is a criminal, a cheat, and a threat to our democracy. The damage he has done to this great country in the last 10 years is incalculable.
However, imagine an alternate universe where, among other things, Donald Trump had not kidnapped children from their parents at the border, knowingly infected people with COVID-19, instituted a Muslim Ban on his first day in office, cheated people in business, or joined an insurrection to overturn the 2020 election results to install him as President.
In this scenario, he’s just a loudmouth, obnoxious, right wing asshole.
There is a small but vocal minority of ultra woke progressive social justice warriors - often dominant in academia, DEI departments, social media, and college campuses - who would still not shake Donald Trump’s hand.
These are the pseudo-intellectuals who wake up in the morning looking to find things that will offend them, thinking up ways to allow themselves to claim victimhood status, or looking to find the secret bigoted meanings in any comments they can.
“So, now you’re complimenting me? For my accomplishments? I’m triggered!”
Recently, in his article Progressives need to learn to take the W, Centrist writer and thinker
described these kinds of left wingers as “so dependent on outrage as their motivating force that they recoil against any positivity that might sap that wellspring of anger.”For them, it’s quite simple. Trump is part of the straight white male patriarchy that continues to perpetuate societal inequity, systemic racism, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and institutional sexism. Therefore, he’s evil.
With their voices amplified, they have turned off a lot of voters from the Democratic Party.
And Trump has used them and their rhetorical excesses to his political benefit. When confronted with a bad act he has committed, he can dismiss it as something that is made up by those who hated him already merely for holding unpopular beliefs.
When the same news outlets reporting on his crimes are also producing news articles on the secret “racist roots” or “inherent white supremacy” of square dancing, detached houses, vanilla ice cream, and Betty Crocker brownies (among other things), many voters loyal to Trump simply tune out.
More importantly, there are also voters who see through it but are not necessarily voting against him. These voters know Trump is bad. They might not vote for him at all. However, they question whether they would be any better off being governed by someone who adheres to wokeness.
This is especially true of many in the business world who understand how bad Trump is but worry about Kamala’s potential economic policies. She can propose nice sounding sound bytes on taxes and tote the endorsement of successful billionaires like Mark Cuban.
But if push came to shove on economic policy, would she listen to businesses, large and small? Or would she simply demonize them, dismiss them as wrong, and carry on with whatever she wanted?
These voters are left asking, will Kamala be their President too?
With one small gesture, she demonstrated that the answer is YES.
If she’s willing to shake Donald Trump’s hand, she would be willing to shake yours.
In that regard, one small gesture not only contributed to Kamala Harris’s dominant debate victory but may have helped her win the election in November.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/harris-and-trump-shake-hands-during-first-interaction-at-presidential-debate-219035717890
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-history/article/egalitarian-greetings-the-social-spread-of-the-handshake-in-urbanizing-britain-17001850/4E9E162C09AA3E93DE6595AF0B47510B