Election 2024: Image World (8)

Master Class from ,la

The temptation to give Kamala Harris advice on how to handle Trump in their September 10 CNN live debate proved irresistible to many. Out of an abundance of modesty I held myself back, because it seems just a tad patronizing to offer this remarkably competent and accomplished woman any top-of-the-head suggestions.

Instead, I prepared myself to learn a lesson: How the first Black/Asian woman candidate for President, the first Black/Asian woman Vice-President, and a seasoned prosecutor handles a felonious, predatory, lying traitor. Though I’ve got twenty years on Harris, that seems appropriate, given that I have already decided that I will cast my vote for her to head our government. I figured I had more to learn from her than she did from me.

I’m glad that I checked my presumption, though I admit to some trepidation about watching it live, given Joe Biden’s scarily poor showing against TFG just a few months ago. But Harris quickly hit her stride, proceeding to deliver a beatdown that brought to mind Muhammad Ali towering over the supine Sonny Liston. Harris simply chewed Trump up and spat him out. Her performance will get studied for decades to come, as a classic in political rhetoric.

No point to recapping it. Highlight excerpts abound. If you didn’t watch it live, you can see the whole thing here. (You’ll find a transcript here.) The most cogent post-debate analysis I’ve seen came, not unexpectedly,  from Lawrence O’Donnell  — a scathing takedown of the legacy media’s chronic disregard for Harris, on his MSNBC show The Last Word.

There are many memorable images of Harris during the debate, but the enduring visual impressions are of her looking squarely at the camera (and thus at the viewer), looking squarely and confrontationally at Trump, and laughing — the last, most explosively, when he delivered his ridiculous assertion about Haitians eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

The enduring visual impressions of Trump include him glowering, ranting, smirking, and — most tellingly — avoiding looking directly at Harris.

However, there’s a visual aspect of the debate presentation that has gone largely unremarked yet deserves some attention. In advance of the debate Trump won a coin toss that allowed him several choices; he elected to give the final closing comment. That allowed Harris to opt for standing on the right side of the stage — which put her on the right side of the split screen as well.

For various physiological reasons, the right side of the TV screen draws more attention than the left. Here’s the explanation:

In general, eye dominance goes along with handedness. In other words, lefties’ left eyes are more likely to be dominant, while righties’ right eyes are likely to be dominant. … Research shows 70% to 90% of people have the same dominant hand as eye, while 10% to 30% have cross-dominant hands and eyes. Between 85% and 90% of the population are right-handed. This means the right eye is most commonly dominant.

Right-eye dominant people tend to pay closer attention to what’s happening on the right-hand side of whatever’s in their field of vision. As a result, with Harris on the right side of the stage and the split-screen closeups, most viewers’ eyes would automatically remain on Harris even when Trump was speaking. Thus, setting aside the content, voice, and tone of their verbal presentations, Harris’s posture, gesture, body language, and facial expressions would outweigh Trump’s.

In short, Harris and her team selected the position of maximum visual strength and control of the media context — an extremely savvy decision. Watch any portion or clip with the sound turned off to verify the impact of this choice on your experience of the proceedings.

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They’re Eating the Cats

The viral rumor of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating pet dogs and cats (and geese) qualifies hands-down as the weirdest of the debate’s memorable moments. It’s a xenophobic, racist trope with a long history. In a desperation move, Trump introduced it as his debate performance spiraled out of control. Since then he and, especially, his running mate JD Vance have variously amplified, embellished, defended, and otherwise promoted it, despite the complete absence of any supporting evidence, the recantation of the woman who started it on Facebook, and its emphatic refutation by the relevant authorities in Springfield.

You’ve probably read about it, so I won’t go into details. The rumor, and its debunking, have evoked an assortment of memes, of which this has become my favorite: The Kiffness – Eating the Cats ft. Donald Trump (Debate Remix).

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Three Images to Remember

For me, the most indelible image of the DNC has become Tim Walz’s son Gus crying while pointing to his father and shouting “That’s my dad!” as the governor accepted his party’s nomination for vice-president.

It would have remained just one of a dozen convention highlights, I think, had the wingnut right not immediately targeted this neurodivergent teen’s demonstration of filial pride for their concentrated scorn, derision, and general cruelty. They tried desperately to walk that back as soon as their mockery went viral and met with massive condemnation, but they couldn’t undo the damage they’d done. Certainly that image wasn’t planned to make their viciousness and amorality plain for all to see, but it set in motion the law of unintended consequences, to the benefit of the forces of light.

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Rarely does a cartoon hit me like this one did:

Created by San Francisco-based artist Bria Goeller for satirical clothing company WTF America, it shows Kamala Harris striding forward and to the left while casting the shadow of Ruby Bridges on the wall behind her.

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For the story of the making of this image, click here for an article in the Los Angeles Times by Erika D. Smith. The image dates back to 2020, so obviously I missed it when it first appeared. But Harris’s nomination has made it more relevant than ever, bringing it back to widespread distribution, which it more than deserves.

Goeller appropriated the image of Bridges painted by Norman Rockwell for a 1964 Saturday Evening Post cover, converting it to a silhouette while retaining its iconic quality. In Photoshop, she combined it with an instantly recognizable image of Harris. Apparently its concept came not from Goeller but from the director of this clothing operation.

I’m old enough to remember when, in my teens, Bridges integrated the New Orleans school system, and when, shortly before I turned old enough to vote (at 21), that Rockwell cover got published. So this has special resonance for me and, I would assume, for my demographic cohort as well. But Rockwell’s illustration — untypically charged politically — embedded itself in the national consciousness. So I don’t think it needs captioning. A remarkably eloquent work of visual art.

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Shepard Fairey, who designed the classic Barack Obama “Hope” poster back in 2008, has contributed a Kamala Harris follow-up as a contribution to her campaign:

You’ll find his explanation here. Worth a read.

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Fourth Estate No More

Consider it the Fourth Estate no more. The legacy media today is Fox News’s Peter Doocy all the way down. Witness CNN’s hapless Dana Bash regurgitating MAGA talking points in her embarrassingly silly questions to Harris and Walz during their first post-nomination sit-down interview on August 29. (That’s the full transcript. You can watch it here, in three installments.)

Sidelining the legacy media and letting them howl and whine and flop around makes their ineptitude and irrelevance and bespoke bias clear. The Harris-Walz campaign’s clear message to the Trump-fluffing press: You don’t pull our strings, and you don’t run this show. Not now and, once we take office, not ever.

That takes brass balls.

I would advise Harris and Walz to go a step further, by setting up an interview or press conference for a university-based local TV channel that has serious collegiate student journalists ready and willing to ask trenchant questions with serious follow-ups and simultaneous fact-checking. Guaranteed to blow up the internet, and put the legacy media to shame.

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Here’s what we need from legacy media journalism: “Colorado Journalist Kyle Clark Holds Masterclass in Moderating Debates.” That’s how you handle the Gish gallop and Brandolini’s law …

And this. Prior to the July 31 event many questioned the appropriateness of the invitation, but I think the decision to provide Trump with a platform at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference proved correct. As was the decision to have his questions come from a trio of Black female journalists: ABC’s Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Kadia Goba, and Harris Faulkner of Fox News. (Yes, I’ll include Faulkner in that category, though in truth she’s just another of Murdoch’s Trump-fluffers).

Headline-grabbing and attention-getting it may have been, but a disaster for Trump on every level, immediately referred to as such by talking heads across the spectrum, with the term “dumpster fire” also widespread. It certainly drove a nail into the coffin of his campaign. There’s no coming back from the blatant misogyny and racism of that event; clips of it immediately went viral. (You can watch the whole train wreck here.)

So those involved in the NABJ panel — those who approved it, and those who conducted it — effectively stripped Trump and the Trumpublican Party of any pretense about where POC stand in their eyes. That ship has sailed. Trumpists have shown everyone who they are, and we should believe them.Those involved in this panel also presented a master class in how journalists should handle thugs, bullies, and fascists — by relentless insistence on getting straightforward answers to pointed questions. These journalists actually drove Trump off the stage — with the whole world watching. To the best of my knowledge, no panel of white journalists has ever achieved that.

Setting aside the responses of MAGA-hats, who will believe whatever they’re told, this event did not benefit Trump in any way. To the contrary: It weakened him and his party, to such an extent that debate finally swirls over his continued viability as a candidate. Yet, unlike Biden, he has to stay on. Primarily for the sake of his own ego and safety from imprisonment. But also because, practically speaking, if Trump steps down that leaves the Republicans with … furniture-lover JD Vance.

So I consider this event a complete success for the NABJ. I think, once the dust settles, that others will say the same.

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Extra Anchovies

Fun fact about Kamala Harris: When Pres. Joe Biden called to tell her that he was ending his campaign for reelection, thus passing the torch to her, he called her at at the vice president’s residence on the grounds of the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. She promptly buckled down to work with her staff, she order food for them all:

“The menu was salad and sandwiches for lunch, and pizza and salad for dinner. The Vice President’s pizza came with anchovies, her go-to topping.”

Harris orders anchovy pizza.

Having devoted an early feature of The Nearby Café to the subject of anchovies, I can say that, all else aside, if she didn’t already have it she would have gotten my vote right there.

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George Conway — ex-husband of “alternative facts” innovator and relentless Trump-fluffer Kellyanne Conway — has founded The Anti-Psychopath PAC, which puts out great videos, billboards, and other anti-Trump material. Check them out here.

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