You’ve done a really good job, as the premise developed, at speaking to several things I’ve been writing about extensively regarding this “electability” conundrum. My writing has been largely around Kamala Harris — not by design, I didn’t set out to make the case for Harris with the first piece — but the more I’ve gotten into the weeds having heard some nasty boys tell me quite bluntly of their misogyny and racism from their dark space behind a keyboard, the more clear it is to me that something insidious is happening here.

And the deeper I’ve gotten, the more inclined I’ve become to make a case based in fact to push back against her detractors who are spreading misinformation and half truths about her actual record, without ever being remotely honest about their motives. Trust me, the comments I’ve gotten on these articles pretty clearly illuminates some secrets these people — mostly men — prefer to keep. And per usual with these boys, none of them are as clever or as expert at dissembling as they think they are. They all share Donald Trump’s “big brain,” and we’ve all seen how big that “tool”actually is.

One of the things about Harris, in particular, that irks those boys is that she is an attractive and a “cool” enough gal that she can reflexively make them look like the tools they are the way only a sharp girl can,

“He reminds me of that guy, you know, in the ‘Wizard of Oz’… when you pull back the curtain, he’s a really small dude.”

It is exactly that sort of take down by a good looking woman— by a black woman — that makes weak men lose their shit. It is also why Trump knows that she might just “demolish” that whole nonsensical narrative about how it will take an old white guy to scorch his ass. She’s just better than he is.

I haven’t gotten over the way Hillary Clinton was treated over the decades, and I’m pretty sick of the way I’ve been marginalized as a professional woman over the years, so this thing with the guys trolling Kamala Harris has become personal. Especially given that Harris — unlike Clinton — doesn’t have all those decades of Bill-related baggage to drag around. So there’s really nothing to obfuscate the base, foul smell of race and gender bias that’s wafting through the cyber sphere.

There is one issue that I think is a bit of a cheap shot, though, a device you used to get into a good piece, that really was not called for: when you are making a case about “white male privilege” in public discourse, Beto’s a bad example. And certainly a bad example on this subject. Beto and I are from the same place. While it may be true that he is getting some degree of a “pass” on his language in the gun debate, it ain’t a lot. And most of his community — male and female — articulate themselves this way. I do. Beto’s a good guy, and you need to remember that whatever privilege you are perceiving or projecting onto him to make your larger argument won’t keep those crazy motherfuckers in Texas from taking a shot at him or his family. Where we come from what he is doing is creating grave personal risks for him, and he knows it. He’s actually been threatened with gun violence from a member of the state house.

White male privilege won’t stop a bullet, let alone an AR.

So please keep in mind that just because you personally don’t know the guy, it’s not really okay to make him the object lesson when he’s really not THAT guy. You certainly have more than enough examples of men who ARE that guy without choosing a decent man who is a better ally than adversary.