Candidates, fundraising — and cheap shots

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/07/2024 (527 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been a stunning couple of weeks in American politics. An assassination attempt, the decision by an incumbent president to drop out of the election race just four months before an election and then endorsing the first South Asian, Black woman candidate in the process. It’s been one headline after another.

Vice-President Kamala Harris has now stepped into the race for president, accepting the challenge and breaking new records in fundraising and support, and injecting new hope into the Democrats’ campaign against Donald Trump.

If Harris were to win, she would be the first woman president in the United States and according to the United Nations, the U.S. would be only the 16th country to have a woman as a head of government. There are currently 18 countries with women as head of state. According to the Pew Research Center, fewer than a third of UN member countries have ever had a woman leader (as of March 2024).

Canada of course has never elected a woman as prime minister, although Kim Campbell did hold that position briefly in 1993 after winning the leadership from Brian Mulroney.

In other words, this is groundbreaking territory.

Already, the misogyny has started from various camps. Harris has been discounted as a diversity hire as if her credentials wouldn’t automatically make her an obvious choice to take over as democratic candidate. In American politics, many vice-presidents do take on the role as president. Look at Joe Biden. Look at Richard Nixon. Look at Harry Truman.

But those who are quick to devalue anyone who is Black, or a woman, or simply not-a-man, have denounced Harris’s credentials with the cry of special treatment.

There’s also been outrageous racist theories that Harris can’t legally stand for the presidency because both of her parents were born outside of the country. In posts on social media that are reminiscent of the birther-debates over former president Barack Obama, some Americans are suggesting that Harris cannot run because she isn’t truly an American citizen.

She’s also been denigrated because of her laugh. Donald Trump who calls his perceived enemies by various childish nicknames has labelled her “laughing Kamala” and dismisses her as “crazy.” Other unkind words have been used as well: fruit loops, cackling, weird.

There are legitimate concerns of course. Harris has been the vice-president during Biden’s four years in the White House. Any critique of Biden’s can ostensibly belong to Harris. The White House policy on the war in Gaza. Unemployment. Immigration. That’s fair. That’s politics.

But what’s so disturbing is just how personal and debased the vitriol being slung at this woman, who has had to step in to become the winning quarterback in the Superbowl of politics (if you’ll pardon the male-centric sports metaphors).

Yet she has stepped up. Support has come in from Democrats across the nation. She’s also forced the Trump campaign to refocus.

Trump is78. Harris is only 59. Now, a man convicted of a felony will be facing off against an experience prosecutor who at one time specialized in prosecuting crimes that involved sexual violence against women and children.

As Harris said about her previous career: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.”

It is interesting to note that while Trump signalled an almost childlike glee at the ability to debate Biden in a September televised debate (any time, anywhere, any place was how he worded it on social media), he has become much more reluctant to take on that debate now. Yes, Biden was a disaster, but Harris? Why would Trump want to risk it?

This is all very preliminary of course. Trump is still ahead in the polls, even with Harris in the race. There’s a lot of work for the Democrats to do. And while it looks like Harris has the nomination, things could still change.

But for those who have been concerned about the effect on the rights of women, minorities and immigrants in the United States under another four years of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris provides a welcome respite.

It’s been a stunning couple of weeks indeed.

Shannon Sampert is a lecturer at RRC Polytech. She was the politics and perspectives editor at the Free Press from 2014-17.

shannon@mediadiva.ca