Rahm Emanuel is coming home
I read a CNN story by the excellent political reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere about Kamala Harris this morning, and wanted to ask The Warning community about it. Here is the key point:
Top aides and people close to Kamala Harris have divided over whether she should head home to run for California governor in 2026 — and it all comes down to whether they believe she could win the Democratic nomination for president in an expected competitive primary in 2028.
Some believe a repeat run, after quickly improving her reputation and raising more than $1 billion over her surprise 100-day race, should be hers for the taking. Others worry that in a longer campaign, against some of the other major Democratic contenders who already sat out 2024 in deference first to Joe Biden and then to her, Harris might fizzle out and follow her loss to Donald Trump with the humiliation of being rejected by her own party.
The governor’s race, meanwhile, looks like a lay-up: Harris was elected statewide three times and served 10 years combined as state attorney general and US senator, and when asked by CNN, several major candidates made clear either directly or through aides that they would likely step aside if she got in.
What do you think?
Meanwhile, Ambassador Rahm Emanuel is completing four years of exceptional diplomatic service in Japan, where he strengthened the national security of the United States.
The United States had the right man in the right place for the last four years. The former Chicago mayor, congressman and White House chief of staff excelled at diplomacy in a nation with a culture that is as complex as any on Earth.
His accomplishments were significant, and are too many to list, but three are worth noting.
First, he led and fostered important reconciliation initiatives between two vital US allies: Japan and Korea.
Second, he played a vital role in increasing defense readiness across the Pacific by persuading multiple allies that peace is preserved against the Chinese dragon through strength, and specifically, naval power. He achieved real results with real commitments.
Third, he demonstrated fierceness, confidence and tremendous skill at confronting Chinese propaganda using the bully pulpit of his office and intellect.
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel has recently sat down for some interviews. He said something that is extremely important, which no other Democratic leader has managed to convey in an interview with The New York Times’ Bret Stephens:
“What started as two wars in two theaters is now one war in two separate theaters,” he says of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. “We need to ensure that it does not expand into a third theater.”
How soon might that happen? I mention 2027, a year that’s often seen as China’s target date for reunification with Taiwan, if necessary by force.
“I think it’s actually 2025,” he answers.
What Emanuel has in mind are Asia’s other flashpoints, including along the 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea, where Russia is “poking” Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, “to do something” and where South Korea’s president briefly declared martial law, and also in the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines are coming to blows over Beijing’s illegal maritime claims. Unlike with Taipei, to which America’s obligations are deliberately ambiguous, with Manila and Seoul our defense commitments are ironclad.
That could mean war for the United States on multiple unexpected fronts.
Emanuel has benefited immensely, it seems, by spending four years almost 6,000 miles away from American shores.
First, he played no part whatsoever in the debacle that resurrected Trump.
Second, his view of the world, including America, has been expanded by the benefit of a new view, new experiences, a new education, and new success.
When I look down the road, there are many qualities that are going to be called upon to defeat the MAGA movement and the abuses to come.
First among them are toughness and a fierce intelligence. The next Democratic president will be able to function extemporaneously and effectively under extreme pressure, without a teleprompter, and hit hard with a combination of truthfulness, humor and conviction. These are the qualities of winning. Those qualities should be embraced and not shouted down.
Rahm Emanuel made a point in a recent interview with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein that is of the utmost importance for those people lost, dazed and confused by Trump’s ascension:
Look, I think there’s two seminal moments that explain the last 20-plus years in American politics. One, the Iraq war, where the American people were deceived into a war of choice. We lost thousands of young men and women. Thousands of young men and women are maimed for life. And we spent a trillion dollars in a failed endeavor and a war of choice. And we’re lied to, and nobody — and I mean nobody — is ever held accountable.
Six years later, the financial industry, housing crash, near depression, people lose not their lives like in the Iraq war, but they lose their livelihood, their homes.
So you have people losing lives, livelihood, and the elite and the top of the society totally unaccountable and never act like they did anything wrong. People out of the foreign policy establishment — they’re on boards, institutions, universities, bankers yelling for their bonuses, and the American people are fed up.
And then you fast-forward through Covid, and I think that what happens is the Democrats go — in the prior years, President Obama, the ’06 elections, etc. — from anti-establishment to the establishment and the elite, with the whole way we dealt with Covid, the way we dealt with science and talked to people.
And I think that is a deeper current. It’s unique to the United States.
Rahm Emanuel, all the way from Japan, sees something clearly.
There is more, of course — 40 percent of the country exists with $400 cash or less for an emergency, 5.6 million households are unbanked, 7.2 million children are hungry, and more than 81,000 have died of opioid addiction over the last year in America — but the 21st century and America’s decline were authored through those events, as well as the decisions that precipitated them.
More than anything else in this moment, I think there is a lack of imagination for what is coming, and how far the proverbial ship of state is heading out into unknown blue water. At the exact moment when lines should be drawn, and plans for opposition be laid, there is nothing.
What comes after Trump is renewal — or worse. It is that simple.
Isn’t it time to stop singing the same old song?
A great test for the country lies ahead. More than anything else, it needs someone who can speak clearly, honestly and intelligently about how we got here, and how we are going to get out of here.
The ability to articulate that better days are ahead, while fiercely resisting the coming abuses, corruption, and ultimate economic meltdown that will wreak havoc on the lives of the people who voted for it.
Ahead, there is misery and trouble. Appeasing it, studying it, observing it, running from it, and ignoring it won’t work.
The Democratic Party faces many questions.
Common sense suggests that the first one should be: who is tough enough to face Trump and not flinch, while also not saying something out of touch, really stupid or very weird?
Whatever it is that Rahm Emanuel might do next, his sights should rest higher than chair of the DNC. Though it’s broken, someone less talented can fix it. The problem that the party faces isn’t going to be fixed in Washington, DC.
As to the question of Harris winning in 2028, I do not believe it is possible for a woman to become President. There are forces who vote who will prevent it: male and female conservatives and evangelicals who believe in a patriarchal society; misogynists who are increasing in numbers in men under 40; men and women who advocate for the “trad wife” movement of keeping women at home; and lastly old-fashioned sexists who cross cut through all male demographics and seem to be increasing, too. None will have a woman President and all will prevent it.
“Top aides and people close to Kamala Harris have divided over whether she should head home to run for California governor in 2026 — and it all comes down to whether they believe she could win the Democratic nomination for president in an expected competitive primary in 2028.”
I wouldn’t vote for Harris again! She had two opportunities and failed. Not to mention, republicans could use the last two campaigns against her; there is certainly enough material. Additionally, Harris made a lot of mistakes, but mostly came across as indecisive; which shows weakness. Furthermore, she made several amateur blunders, like refusing to separate herself from Biden, and refusing engage in serious attacks.
And quite frankly, just like Biden and Obama, she can’t articulate economic policy in layman’s terms. It should have been easy given Trump’s mostly idiotic tariffs; yet, she couldn’t break through, because she knows little about how the economy works, and is even worse at trying to articulate economic policy that she does understand, and it definitely shows.
We need more dynamic fighters, not more of the same homogeneous political rhetoric, and talk about justice and equality and civility. We are WAY past civility moving forward. The next election is a zero sum game, and I want new blood willing to fight to the death, and take names. IMHO!…:)