Ever get the feeling someone was dodging you? You know, if you catch up with them it’s gonna get real so they never return your calls or texts. Your emails go unanswered and when you see them in the street you have to yell: “Yo muthaf**** what up, doe!?”
But they always say, “I can’t right now, I gotta do something at my grandmother’s, but I’ll get back at you.” That’s kinda what it feels like when Donald Trump dodges an opportunity to debate Vice President Kamala Harris.
The streets have only one paramount rule: Don’t say anything behind someone’s back that you’re not willing to say to their face. A violation of that axiom meant that you would forever carry the label, PUNK!
The former president seems to be showing that side of himself in avoiding a debate with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. In his campaign’s statement, he says something about how he won’t face her until she becomes the official nominee, then some other crap about Barack Obama, Marxism and political chaos.
He sounds a lot like that dude in high school rocking a Pelle Pelle leather coat, a Kangol and a thick gold rope chain, who talked big smack until he said the wrong thing to the right kid and got knocked on his ass (sorry...80s flashback).
Politically, things have been turning on a dime in this country for weeks. We’ve gone from President Biden’s awful debate which left his party shuddering, to everyone learning about the draconian Project 2025 to an assassination attempt to Biden stepping down and Harris ascending.
But Harris owned her first week as presumptive nominee: An online meeting of Black women raising $1.5 million for her campaign and a subsequent meeting of Black men almost matching them with $1.3 million were just part of the $100 million she raised in the first 36 hours of announcing her campaign.
She also had her own “Divine Nine” anointing when she spoke to more than 6,000 women attending the Zeta Phi Beta Grand Boule’ in Indianapolis; met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, clarifying her position on the Gaza conflict; and rallied the American Federation of Teachers.
Polling right now shows Harris tightening the race against Trump, doing better than Biden did against him. Another survey in Michigan shows that Trump has completely lost the crucial Black vote there
Amid all this, the Trump camp seems bowled over by Harris’ momentum. Between FOX News host Brian Kilmeade claiming that he didn’t malign the Zetas by calling them a “colored” sorority; resurfaced video of GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance referring to Harris as a “childless cat lady;” and conservatives calling her a “DEI” hire, which even former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called “stupid,” Trump apparently doesn’t have much to attack her with.
But he also didn’t when he debated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and said she was “such a nasty woman.” Even then, Trump proved that in debates, he can’t do much more than trash talk. In the recent debate against Biden, everyone paid attention to the president’s shortcomings...but if you listen to Trump, he was just as muddled and directionless.
All this to say Trump doesn’t want to debate Harris because he’s got nothing to swing with. Sure he’s got the dope Pelle Pelle and Kangol, but what else does he really have?
Inflation, foreign policy, infrastructure, and housing costs — all things that the Biden administration has had trouble with — would be legitimate topics for a debate. But Trump wants to just throw out random platitudes as if anyone new is going to be convinced.
Now that Harris has gained the endorsement of Barack and Michelle Obama, Trump can’t even claim that the former president is “holding out.” So it remains to be seen what’s holding him back. I don’t know if this is making Trump’s campaign nervous, but I’m not seeing them come with more convincing arguments. In fact, I’m not seeing them come with much of anything.
And as we said in the streets where I witnessed many a scrap: “Don’t talk about it, be about it.”
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Madison J. Gray is a New York-based journalist. He blogs at www.starkravingmadison.com