2024-07-22 22:18:41
But the journey to this place has been fraught with difficult questions, especially in recent months.
Four years ago, the one-time candidate for the Democratic Party nomination would have received the party’s praise. in 2024 In July, Harris found herself in a much more difficult position, as she was part of an embattled candidate’s campaign, and her chances of getting another term depended on Mr. Biden’s performance.
24 hours after the failure of the debate, K. Harris chose strong loyalty to J. Biden.
The vice president spoke on CNN, MSNBC and at a campaign rally. She defended her political partner’s achievements and attacked their rival, former President Donald Trump. “We believe in our president, Mr. Biden, and we believe in what he stands for,” she said at the rally. Harris has not wavered as a new source of support in the Democratic Party thrust her into the spotlight and critics pressured Biden to withdraw.
Still, it’s a second chance at a presidential campaign for the first woman, as well as the first black and Asian American, to hold the vice presidency.
Despite the fact that in 2020 While she has struggled to attract voters and her approval ratings have been low as vice president, Harris’ supporters point to her pro-reproductive rights, appeal to black voters and experience as a prosecutor who would run against a now-convicted felon and that she could properly perform the duties of commander-in-chief of the army.
“I think she’s been instrumental in addressing major issues like voting rights and immigration reform,” Nadia Brown, director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Georgetown University, told the BBC. “She was also Mr. Biden’s most influential deputy on abortion access and outreach to black communities.”
How K. Harris Became Vice President
Just five years ago, Harris was a senator from California hoping to win the Democratic nomination for president.
She began her career at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and in 2003 She became the San Francisco District Attorney, the chief prosecutor, and was later elected the first woman and the first black person to serve as California’s attorney general, chief legal officer and law enforcement officer in America’s most populous state.
She earned a reputation as one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party and used that momentum to win the 2017 election. would be elected California’s junior US senator.
However, in 2020 her presidential aspirations were unsuccessful. Her masterful debate performances weren’t enough to make up for her poorly worded policies.
Her campaign died less than a year later, and it was Mr. Biden who brought the now 59-year-old candidate back into the national spotlight by adding her to his team.
Gil Duran, 2013 who worked as K.Harris’ communications director and criticized her candidacy for the presidency, called it “a big turn in the fortunes of Kamala Harris.”
“Many people didn’t think she had the discipline and focus to rise to the White House so quickly … even though people knew she had ambition and star potential.” It was always clear that she has raw talent,” said G. Duran.
During her tenure at the White House, Harris focused on several key initiatives and contributed to some of the most publicized achievements of the Biden administration.
She embarked on a nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour advocating for women to have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. She pointed to the harm done by abortion bans and called on Congress to restore Roe v. Wade protections after the Supreme Court’s conservative justices in 2022. abolished the constitutional right to abortion.
K. Harris set a new record – the most votes for a tie in the history of the Senate by a vice-chairwoman. Her vote helped pass the Deflation Act and the American Rescue Plan, which provided funding for COVID-19 relief, including stimulus payments. Her tie-breaking vote also confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
However, she also struggled to gain widespread popularity among Americans, and she received criticism from all sides.
Despite her left-wing views on issues such as same-sex marriage and the death penalty, she has repeatedly faced attacks for not being progressive enough for some Democratic voters. “Kamala is a cop” was a common comparison in 2020. during the election campaign.
Biden also called on Harris to lead efforts to address the root causes of migration, as record numbers of immigrants have entered the United States through the Mexican border, and opponents say she has not made enough progress. But in recent weeks, as speculation has mounted about Mr. Biden’s chances of winning in November, she has gained new support.
The many identities of K. Harris
Harris was born in Oakland, California to two immigrant parents, an Indian-born mother and a Jamaican-born father. Sosa’s parents divorced when she was five, and she was raised primarily by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist.
She grew up with her Indian heritage and visited India with her mother, but Harris has said her mother embraced Oakland’s black culture and included her two daughters, Kamala and her younger sister Maya.
“My mother was very conscious of raising two black daughters,” she wrote in her autobiography, The Truths We Hold. “She knew Maya and I would be viewed as black girls by her adopted homeland, and she was determined to make sure we grew up to be confident, proud black women.”
Her biracial roots and upbringing mean she embodies and can tap into and address many American identities. In parts of the country that have undergone rapid demographic changes large enough to change regional politics, she sees a symbol of aspiration.
But she described her time at Howard University, one of the nation’s most famous historically black colleges and universities, as one of the most important experiences of her life.
Lita Rosario-Richardson met Kamala Harris while studying at Howard in the 1980s, when students would gather in the campus courtyard area to chat and discuss politics, fashion and gossip.
“I noticed that she had a sharp sense of argument,” she recalled of the young K. Harris.
They were drawn together by their penchant for spirited debates with township Republicans, their experiences growing up with single mothers, even the fact that they were both Libras. It was also a politically formative period.
“(Ronald) Reagan was president at the time, it was the apartheid era, there was a lot of talk about the ‘trans-African’ issue and the Martin Luther King holiday,” Rosario-Richardson said.
“We know that as descendants of enslaved people and people of color who have come out of colonization, we have a special role to play, and education gives us a special position in society to make a difference.” This, she explained, was a philosophy and a call to action that was part of Mrs. K .Harris’ lived university experiences.
But Harris also works easily in predominantly white communities. Her early years included a brief stint in Canada. When her mother Sh.G.Harris got a job teaching at McGill University, Kamala and her younger sister Maya went with her and studied in Montreal for five years.
Harris says she has always felt good about her identity and refers to herself as simply “American.”
in 2019 she told The Washington Post that politicians should not be pigeonholed because of their skin color or ethnicity.
“My thought was: I am who I am. I’m fine with that. You might have to figure it out, but I’m fine with that,” she said.
A witty member of the Debate Club
From her early days, as her friend L. Rosario-Richardson testifies, K. Harris displayed the skills that allowed her to become one of the few women to overcome obstacles.
“That’s what made me encourage her to join the debate team [Hovardo universitete] – fearlessness,” she recalled.
Wit and humor are part of this arsenal. In a video posted on her social network in 2020. after winning the election, she shares the news of victory — with a very hearty laugh — with Biden: “We did it, we did it, Joe. You will be the next president of the United States!”
The laugh she used to greet the then president-elect while making that fateful first phone call was one her friend recognized immediately and intimately.
“It clearly shows her personality, even in the short time she’s been on the campaign trail,” Rosario-Richardson said. “She’s always had that laugh, she’s always had that sense of humor, she’s had the wit — even in the context of a university debate — to make those points.”
The ability to deliver witty retorts to her opponents in live debates contributed greatly to the fact that she began her pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination.
Kamala, “Momala”, the history maker
in 2014 then Senator K. Harris married lawyer Doug Emhoff and became the stepmother of his two children.
in 2019 she wrote an article for Elle magazine about her experience of becoming a stepmother, revealing a name that would later dominate many subsequent newspaper headlines.
“When Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella and I agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom.’ Instead, they came up with the name “Momala” (from the English word “mom”, which means mother).
They have been portrayed as the epitome of the modern American “blended” family – an image that has been picked up by the media and has taken up a lot of column inches on how we talk about female politicians, according to the BBC.
Many argue that she should also be viewed and recognized as a descendant of a different kind of family, that of generations of black women activists.
“She is the heir to the legacy of grassroots organizers, elected officials and failed candidates who paved this path to the White House.” Black women are seen as a political force in Democratic politics and the Democratic Party,” Nadia Brown, an associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue University, told the BBC.
Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Septima Clark are just a few of the names she follows in her footsteps, Brown says.
“Her victory is historic, but not hers alone. She belongs to the many black women who made this day possible,” summed up N. Brown.
Parents pay BBC inf.
2024-07-22 22:18:41