I think as President, you sometimes have to make tough decisions, sometimes quickly, and sometimes with less info than you would like. It takes charisma, wit, leadership, intelligence, and a ton of energy amongst other traits be the most powerful person on the planet.
I’m not really pretending I have any of those things. I was near the bottom of my class at college and Sleepy Joe is a pretty accurate nickname – both because I put my audiences to sleep and because I am a little slower than I used to be and enjoy naps. From time to time I have what’s known as bluster – I lie about my class rank in college, number of degrees I have… but I think everyone, at this point, knows I’m not running the show and won’t be when I’m in office either.
That’s one of the reasons the voters are very concerned about the VP pick. Take Karen Bass, for example.
She got pretty unlucky with her first name. The internet is full of “don’t be a Karen” memes so she is a sitting duck for jokes about her.
But there is also some concern over her love for Fidel Castro.
Fidel Castro. During his five decades of rule, he set up a repressive society for virtually everyone in Cuba. He indiscriminately denied people basic freedom, dissidents were beaten, jailed or killed – including journalists – and the poor medical and economic conditions for his people were never a concern. It was a complete dictatorship that pushed people to risk their lives to defect or traverse difficult waters to escape to the USA.
Four years ago Karen Bass said Fidel’s death was an incredible loss for the Cuban people. That would be like telling a woman with a black eye and broken arm seeking help at a battered women’s shelter that it’s too bad her husband wasn’t around to help her.
At the time, Karen didn’t live under a rock. She had been to Cuba many, many times. She had seen first hand the conditions of the people.
So, while most saw Castro’s death as a glimmer of hope – the possibility of the end to the repression and fear that Fidel wielded… the news of his death was met with sadness by Bass? For the Cuban people? She knew the situation there for forty years, intimately. And, she chose to Tweet that his death was a great loss to the people of Cuba anyway.
But now, four years later, she says she wouldn’t make the same post again. She understands that it was hurtful to the Cuban-Americans (now that she needs their votes) and understands that the human rights violations perpetrated on the Cuban citizens were probably bad and that glorifying Fidel probably wasn’t the right thing to do.
That took her forty years of study. To decide that Fidel’s death wasn’t a “great loss.”
Not exactly quick on her feet. And Cuban-Americans make up a lot of votes in the swing state of Florida. My guess? My team won’t pick her.
Because she’s a Karen. I think I used that right.
Come on, man.