Jim Newton

Itasca

Everybody thinks they know why Kamala Harris lost the Nov. 5 presidential election. Maybe they’re right, but could we be overthinking this? It wouldn’t be the first time.

After the 1999 Columbine shootings, one news show discussed what kind of person would commit such a crime. After several minutes of psychological conjecturing, one panelist wondered if it’s possible that the shooters were just rotten people. The answer, of course, is rarely that simple, but how refreshing it was to hear someone express what I wanted to say out loud.

When INXS vocalist Michael Hutchence committed suicide in 1997, one Chicago columnist concluded that the singer was a jerk. Insensitive, I thought, but how many times have we been manipulated into sympathizing over a rich celebrity who decided to end their life instead of working things out?

Pablo Picasso, frustrated over art lovers incessantly analyzing his paintings reputedly said, “Sometimes a tree is just a tree.”

Harris and Walz could have done better. But what about an electorate that reinstated a 34-time felon who tried to overturn a fair election, was found liable of sex abuse, repeatedly invoked dictator yearnings and admitted to journalist Bob Woodward that he downplayed COVID’s health threat? Democrats, it has been suggested, should look in the mirror.

Maybe all voters should do that.