The Washington Free Beacon posted a hilarious hitpiece on Vice President Kamala Harris this morning. It’s a three-reporter byline, featured prominently on their website, and heavily promoted by its editors.
Their big scoop: HARRIS LEFT HER JOB AT McDONALDS OFF HER RESUME. PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!
Yes, for real.
These dipshits are doing GOTCHAS by digging up Harris’s post-college and law school resumes and pointing out that she left off a few weeks working the deep fryer between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University. This hard-hitting investigation is just asking questions about why the Vice President didn’t mention the McDonalds gig when she applied to be a summer law clerk at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in 1987. Instead, she included stints at Charles Schwab, the FTC, a senate internship, and clerking at a law firm.
I don’t list my high school/college part time job on my professional resume either. It isn’t that I’m assumed of where I worked, or it didn’t happen, it’s just that it feels like small potatoes and not relevant to when I’m applying to a new job in my field.
But if you’re the kind of person who achieved everything they ever did because of Daddy’s connections, that won’t seem obvious to you.
It goes beyond that and… if played “well” this could actually be effective.
For decades, the idea was that Democrats are out of touch hoity toity college kids who don’t care about The Working Man™. That has grown much less effective because… college debt is a massive issue because so many millennials went to college. And the republican candidates are all silver spoon kids who never worked a real job in their entire lives.
But if they can keep consistent pressure AND keep trump or vance or rfk from ever talking? Kamala will eventually have to acknowledge things and there is no “polite” way of saying “My work at McDonald’s was a summer job that had no bearing on my professional career”. Because that means:
All of which is obviously nonsense. But Biden and Kamala (and to a lesser extent Obama) have been pushing the straight up facts that Democrats are better for the working class. And this potentially undermines it.
I think we are “fine” in that the republicans will just switch back to carrying jizz cups sooner than later. But this definitely has potential to be one of those “How the hell did THAT impact an election?” moments.
"I, like so many Americans, worked in a fast food service job. Unlike so many Americans I was able to pursue a career in the field my degree was in, which is an opportunity not given to far too many of our younger citizens. While pursuing those opportunities I tried to focus my resume on the achievements most relevant to the jobs I was applying for. Only after working in law and politics for years did I see that a dozen things needing your immediate attention with a constant time sensitive to-do list was a bit more relevant than those hiring managers would have been able to see. " Then some chatter about not expecting her time working there to come up as an attack, since resume writing and a job not aligned with your aspirational career are pretty normal occurrences, and not knowing that is kinda weird.
I don’t think it’s too hard to politely say that McDonald’s was not the career she was aiming for. It’s basically an acknowledgement that her parents weren’t rich and hiring managers get picky about resumes. Which is honestly a relatable narrative to a lot of people.
if her resume is anything like any of the well-made mid-career resumes I’ve seen then she’s probably left off a lot of experiences, and she can simply handwaved it with a line like “I didn’t list X law clerk internship or y legal work at a corporation either because they aren’t as relevant as the jobs I chose to list” and move on
“So not even being a law clerk is good enough for her?”
Of course she didn’t list everything. But when you are manipulating people who are basically expected to list EVERYTHING in a webform because otherwise they have a gap and get flagged? Or young professionals who still have some of the “character building” jobs because otherwise they only have school and internships?
Empathy is at an all time low. In large part because of The Algorithm putting everyone in their own content bubble where everything reinforces everything (which is often a persona created by influencers but…). So anything that does not match a person’s worldview is not just cognitive dissonance, it is a straight up lie.
Again, I think we are fine and this will be “tan suit” level stupidity. But there is definitely a path toward making “the daughter of rich academics” into a snob who “looks down on” everyday people because she is just better. Which also ties into the republican led effort to vilify any and all academics.
And its important to understand the “reason” behind various attacks. Because some are just straight up stupid. And some are stupid until they aren’t.
I don’t put my fast food experience on my resume, it was 25 years ago, but I have brought it up in interviews to talk about team work and pressure, and to demonstrate that I’ve been learning and improving for 25 years.
Same here, a lot of the experience I got in customer service jobs is very relevant for talking with business users in my profession, so it’s worth bringing up in interviews, even if it doesn’t feel appropriate to list it on my resume as job experience.
I think this type of attempt at a gotcha just shows that right leaning websites/people are grasping at straws when it comes to trying to cut down Harris.