What just happened to Kamala Harris is ridiculous
Last night Kamala Harris and MoveOn’s Karine Jean-Pierre were on stage at a public event when someone from the crowd rushed the stage, attempted to accost Harris, and began delivering some kind of grandstanding political rant. Jean-Pierre physically put herself between Harris and the stage-crasher at a time when she had no way of knowing how ugly the guy’s intentions might have been, and her act of heroism prompted her name to deservedly trend atop Twitter for half the night. But this crap has to stop.
In the immediate term, we need to find out why this was allowed to happen last night, and we need to learn from it going forward. Did the on-site security simply fail to act when the time came? Did higher-ups put the on-site security in position to fail to begin with? It’s not about who’s to blame; it’s about making sure this doesn’t happen next time. And we know there will be a next time, because this isn’t the first time.
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primary race, we saw people crashing the stage while candidates were speaking to the public, and trying to push their own message instead. This time around there are about six times as many candidates, which means more events, more back-and-forth, and more of this idiocy. I’ve seen some pundits posting profiles today of the guy who accosted Kamala Harris, but I haven’t bothered to read them. I make it a policy not to reward these types, whether I agree with their positions on the issues or not.
If you don’t like a politician or candidate, you should try your best to make them afraid of losing the election. You have no right to try to make them afraid for their physical safety. Let’s make clear to these stage-rushing idiots – and the media outlets who give them attention – that such antics will not be rewarded going forward. That said, feel free to reward Karine Jean-Pierre for her brave actions by following her on Twitter.
