She has proven to be flexible and pragmatic // She was not a progressive prosecutor, but as a senator she promoted laws to protect undocumented immigrants
▲ Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.Afp Photo
David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 29, 2024, p. 27
New York and Washington., The daughter of a Marxist economist and a cancer research scientist, both immigrants, who met at a protest against the Vietnam War and in favor of civil rights, is now on the verge of being crowned the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate and possibly the first black woman president of the most powerful country in the world.
Kamala Devi Harris was raised in Northern California among progressive intellectuals and activists in the 1960s and later in Montreal, Canada before beginning her career as a lawyer where she entered the political arena. Her Jamaican-born father, Donald Harris, is a Marxist academic and the first black professor to earn tenure at Stanford University, an expert in development (he was an advisor to the Inter-American Development Bank for a time). He divorced her mother when Kamala was a child and she has not had a close relationship with him since.
Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, originally from India, is a renowned breast cancer researcher who has always been involved in political activism, taking Kamala and her sister to protests since they were children, and teaching them the need to work to change the world. “She would say to us, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’” the virtual candidate recalled.
Harris has proven to be flexible and pragmatic in her political career. She started out as a lawyer advocating for victims of sexual assault, but when she was elected San Francisco city attorney, other lawyers recall that she opposed progressive efforts to free wrongfully convicted inmates and sided with police against efforts to impose stronger accountability measures for misconduct.
“Kamala Harris was not a ‘progressive prosecutor’… she was frequently on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general,” wrote San Francisco State law professor Lara Bazelon. Her professional record on immigration includes voicing support for the sanctuary city from San Francisco but also supported measures to report every undocumented immigrant who was arrested to federal immigration services, even if the arrestee was never convicted.
At the same time, when she was elected federal senator, she introduced bills to protect undocumented immigrants and demand greater accountability from local police.
These shifts in her positions lead some to accuse her of chameleonwhile others suggest she is adept at molding her policy positions to her political ambitions. Before becoming vice president, she supported the so-called decriminalization from the United States border with Mexico and expand health services for undocumented immigrants.
Early in his administration, President Joe Biden tasked Harris with leading his administration’s efforts to address the causes of race of migration to this country, but she failed to establish policies that were supposed to offer opportunities in Central America and southern Mexico so that people would not be forced to migrate. (https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/07/25/mundo/027n1mun
Last Saturday, CBS News asked Harris’ campaign manager Julia Chavez Rodriguez (granddaughter of Cesar Chavez) if her boss would maintain the partial ban on international asylum law implemented by Biden. She responded that The policies that are having a real impact in ensuring that we have security and order on our border will continue..
Beyond its role in addressing the underlying causes On migration, Harris has said little about policy toward Latin America. In fact, a document on her foreign policy experience released last week by her national security adviser Phil Gordon (who would likely be the White House national security adviser if Harris wins) does not include the word Mexico, nor does it mention Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil or almost any other country in the hemisphere beyond Central America and a very brief mention of the Caribbean.
At the same time, as vice president, she echoes the official line on the role of the United States in the world. “Global security and global prosperity depend on the leadership of the United States of America. And a America “A strong nation remains indispensable to the world,” he said in a speech to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2023.
She has been steadfast in her support of Biden’s policy of arming Ukraine, challenging China and supporting Israel. But she has been far more emphatic about the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and, in contrast to Israel’s unconditional support for her boss, has reiterated the need for an immediate ceasefire. In her meeting with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu last week, after not appearing in Congress to hear his guest’s message, she underlined her concern about civilian deaths and declared: I will not remain silent about it.
Campaign resurrected
In his newly launched campaign, he has used his potentially historic role to mobilise various party members who were disenchanted with his boss’s candidacy.
In multiple mass calls, starting with one lasting more than two hours in which 200,000 black women graduates of her Howard University participated, to others via Zoom with 50,000 African-American men, with 400,000 women, tens of thousands of Latinos and continuing with other sectors of the Democratic Party, she has demonstrated the need to mobilize her bases. She’s going to win because she’s getting everyone excitedcommented an African-American reverend, who had become disillusioned with Biden over his Gaza policy.
Yesterday, Harris’ campaign announced that it had broken all previous fundraising records by raising more than $200 million for the campaign in just seven days, two-thirds of which came from new supporters.
While there is no doubt about Harris’ talent as a public speaker and a good interrogator – given her experience as a lawyer and prosecutor – it remains a mystery what her own political positions are.
Astead Herndon, journalist at the New York Times who has reported on Harris for four years, attempted to write a profile of her last year but was frustrated because the vice president avoided answering almost every question about her own political thinking. In terms of her own political profile, she has been a vacuum of negative space, a vessel for both supporters and detractors to fill as they wish, as she refuses to do so herself.he concluded.
Harris and her campaign will have to think about how to fill that bucket more clearly and effectively as she begins her race against Trump.