US, CLAUDIUS: We're pulling for Candidate Harris now!

MONDAY, JULY 22, 2024

How to pronounce her first name: As of Saturday morning, two famous fictional persons headlined the White House campaign.

The Democrats were going to nominate Lear. The Republicans had already nominated Agamemnon, lord of men.

In the Iliad, Agamemnon is the warrior / commander who stands anointed by God. He holds the royal scepter which tracks back directly to Zeus. 

Despite his endless emotional meltdowns and his propensity to explosions of rage, this establishes him as "lord of men" among the poem's Achaeans.

Starting in Book 1 in this poem of war, his explosive rage and his emotional breakdowns drive large parts of the action. Highly capable seasoned lieutenants—especially Nestor, the seasoned charioteer—keep intervening to rescue him from his madness, his lack of stability.

As of last Thursday night, the GOP had nominated Agamemnon, and he had accepted their nomination. It was widely believed, within that party, that he was under the special protection of God—even of "our lord and savior Jesus Christ," or so five friends had scored the matter on the Fox News Channel.

As of last Thursday night, the GOP had officially chosen Agamemnon. As of Saturday morning, we Democrats still seemed to be saddled with our own King Lear.

At age 81 (and with 82 fast approaching), it had become fairly clear that his faculties were now diminished. Also, it seemed fairly clear that a fairly substantial attempt had been made to keep this news from the public. 

This apparent effort started coming undone with his disastrous performance at the June 27 debate. But as with the fictional king who once raged across the moors, it seemed that our candidate might not be able to recognize the basic facts concerning his personal and political situations.

Yesterday afternoon, President Biden withdrew from the race. At this site, this leaves us praying that Kamala Harris will build a winning campaign.

Tens of millions of our fellow citizens disagree with our assessment concerning this year's election.  Needless to say, they have every right to their views. They remain our neighbors and friends.

That said, we ourselves are hoping that Candidate Harris will prevail. Surely, though, there is one point on which we can all agree:

Can we all agree on one point? Can we agree that the time has come when we comically hapless human beings should learn how to pronounce this candidate's first name?

Kamala Haris has been vice president of the United States for almost four years now. In 2109, she wrote a book in which, among other things, she explained how to pronounce her name.

The book was called The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. As you can see in the publisher's excerpt, one of those truths was this:

An Excerpt from The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris

[...] 

This book is not meant to be a policy platform, much less a fifty-point plan. Instead, it is a collection of ideas and viewpoints and stories, from my life and from the lives of the many people I’ve met along the way.

Just two more things to mention before we get started:

First, my name is pronounced “comma-la,” like the punctuation mark. It means “lotus flower,” which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater, its flower rising above the surface while its roots are planted firmly in the river bottom.

And second, I want you to know how personal this is for me. This is the story of my family. It is the story of my childhood. It is the story of the life I have built since then. You’ll meet my family and my friends, my colleagues and my team. I hope you will cherish them as I do and, through my telling, see that nothing I have ever accomplished could have been done on my own.

Perhaps a tiny bit whimsically, Harris started by telling us the people how to pronounce her first name. Given the blinding stupidity of our discourse, this basic lesson remains largely unlearned today, even at the highest levels.

How stupid is our American discourse? How childish are many of the major players within our American discourse?

Concerning the childishness and the stupidity, please consider this:

As of the summer of 2020, Senator Harris had been chosen as the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president. At that point, it occurred to some observers that we the people should possibly learn how to pronounce her first name.

To her credit, Kate Sullivan gave it a try. In August 2020, she published a column for CNN's web site which appeared beneath this headline:

It’s ‘comma-la’: How to pronounce Kamala Harris’ name

Sullivan tried to let everyone know how to pronounce that name. Given the childishness of some of our nation's "thought leaders," she might as well have tried to catch the wind. 

Knowing how to pronounce that name was hard! It's also p[osisble that some major players didn't much want to be bothered.

One week later, Steven Petrow wrote a column on the same subject for USA Today. Petrow pushed a bit harder than Sullivan had. For our money, he may have gotten a tiny bit huffy.

Still, he too laid out the basic facts. Headline included, his column started like this:

Kamala Harris' name isn't difficult to pronounce. There's no excuse for getting it wrong.

I’m a pretty chill guy and I know my last name isn’t the easiest to pronounce, like many immigrant names. I appreciate it when people ask me how to say it and I’ll tell them, it’s “PEH-trow” not “PEE-trow.” Often I’ll correct someone who mispronounces it—once or twice, maybe a third—always with a smile. But if they continue to call me “PEE-trow,” it’s pretty obvious that that they’re either not listening or just don’t care. Either way, it’s a sign of disrespect.

Speaking of disrespect, the Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson got hot under the collar last week when Richard Goodstein, a Democratic strategist, corrected his mispronunciation of Sen. Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee. Goodstein explained to Carlson that Harris’ name “is pronounced ‘comma'—like the punctuation mark—'la.' Comma-la.” He added, “Out of respect, for somebody who’s going to be on the national ticket, pronouncing her name right is actually kind of a bare minimum.”

Carlson, whose name is easy to pronounce because it’s both familiar and Anglo-Saxon, didn’t take it in stride and respond with, “Thanks for letting me know that.” Instead, he volleyed back, “So what?” and then lashed out saying, “So I’m disrespecting her by mispronouncing her name unintentionally?”

"So what?" Tucker replied. Last week, there he was, in Milwaukee, hobnobbing with Agamemnon in the person of Donald J. Trump.

For our money, Petrow was perhaps a bit huffy all through the course of his column. He adopted a bit of the scolding tone which has become a distinguishing characteristic of Blue America's tribal culture—a cultural characteristic which has almost surely caused substantial political harm.

That said, Petrow captured the petulant, childish reaction of one of our nation's major thought leaders at that point in time. There was Carlson, in effect defending his right to mispronounce Harris' name! 

As of last Saturday morning, there were two unelectable candidates in the race—their Agamemnon, our Lear. One of the two has now left the race—but can Candidate Harris prevail?

Also this! Given the sheer stupidity of our culture, will multimillionaire TV stars ever be willing and able to correctly pronounce her first name? 

We start today with that utterly silly point. As the week proceeds, we'll move on to matters which are a bit more substantial.

As we do, we'll be thinking of two other fictionalized historical figures. We'll be thinking of the Roman emperor Claudius—and we'll be thinking of Livia, murderous grandmother to this Roman god.

Robert Graves explored these historical figures in two acclaimed novels of the 1930s—I, Claudius (1934), followed by Claudius the God (1935). 

In 1976, the BBC adapted the novels in a major, 13-episode TV series. In this country, the series became a very big deal when PBS aired it as part of its Masterpiece Theater franchise.

The series portrayed a thoroughly novelized public discourse—a discourse in which the people of imperial Rome were fed a never-ending series of novelized accounts of the actual power plays controlling access to the imperial throne.

In real life, Claudius, who spoke with a persistent stammer, "was the fourth Emperor of the Roman Empire, from AD 41 to 54." What was his grandmother like in real life?

We can't necessarily tell you that! But in the fictionalized narratives penned by Graves, Livia liked to poison her rivals. Perhaps more strikingly, she was skilled at misleading the public about the power plays which determined control of the throne. 

Fictitious stories drive much of our discourse today. In that sense, we're all Claudius now!

Our candidate's challenging name to the side, these fictitions come from all major sides. Even as we seek the best ways to root for our new candidate, we'll examine some of these fictitions this week.

Tomorrow: Sandra Smith and her own lying' eyes