The extra America sees Vice President Kamala Harris and will get to know her, the extra America will see what President Joe Biden noticed when he chosen her as his working mate: She will deal with it.
And I’m not simply speaking concerning the marketing campaign schedule, incomes the nomination or doing the job. I’m speaking about what she’ll must endure as a “first.” Biden noticed up shut what it’s like, having campaigned with and served two phrases subsequent to Barack Obama.
Do you want a refresher on the racial ugliness {that a} Black man’s presidential candidacy revealed beginning in 2008? The misogyny that reared its head when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016? You shouldn’t, as a result of that racist and sexist ugliness isn’t even historical past; it’s the face of the Republican presidential ticket in 2024.
No president has it straightforward. Few even have it good. However the weight of the presidency was not all that Obama carried, and what Biden mentioned in endorsing Harris for the presidency this week is that she is powerful sufficient to hold that added weight.
If elected, she can be the primary lady to be president, the primary Black lady to be president, the primary individual of South Asian or Jamaican descent to be president, the primary president to be in an interracial marriage, and the primary president whose partner is Jewish.
Biden’s endorsement was touching not solely as a result of he was saying that she might deal with carrying these mantles. It was additionally touching as a result of he was going by means of one thing like what she endured in 2020. When she first ran for president, her marketing campaign was among the many first to shutter its doorways. Many are fast to keep in mind that half. Fewer give Harris the credit score for having the power to run as a Black lady in America within the first place.
“Some may assume that breaking obstacles means you begin out on one facet of the barrier and then you definately simply flip up on the opposite facet of the barrier … no,” Harris told journalist Jemele Hill in 2019. “There’s breaking concerned and whenever you break issues, it’s painful. You get harm. Chances are you’ll get reduce and you might bleed.
“It will likely be value it, but it surely’s not with out ache.”
That’s not meant to get voters to really feel sorry for her. Fairly the other. She’s reminding voters that she’s harder than many people might ever know. It have to be fairly an odd existence now to be thought-about each the spine of a serious get together and but to be doubly dismissed due to race and gender.
Malcolm X identified 60 years in the past that “essentially the most disrespected individual in America is the Black lady,” and judging from the racism and sexism that exploded the second Biden introduced he was stepping apart, a lot of that also rings true right now. Her skill to win in opposition to former President Donald Trump is questioned by sports personalities who wrestle to foretell winners in their very own subject. Her mind questioned regardless of an excellent profession: Trump called her “dumb as a rock” on Monday, echoing final month’s transparently false and racist line of attack by Newt Gingrich.
The journey she is embarking on might be lonely. To be the primary is to be alone.
She gained’t get there by herself, after all. She has household and buddies and advisers standing by. Thousands and thousands of supporters already love her: voters and volunteers who’re able to again her, donors who within the first 24 hours of her candidacy broke fundraising records with an $81-million deluge.
However that weight of being a “first” is hers alone to hold. Simply as Clinton needed to combat for voters to even think about a girl as a possible president, conservatives have been fast to name Harris a “DEI candidate,” as a result of it’s a euphemism for the phrase they need they may say.
Biden, who is aware of her nicely and who nicely is aware of the excessive stakes, is telling us she will deal with it. The marketing campaign, the job, the load.
All through a powerful profession, Harris has all the time been beneath a microscope as the primary like her to have lots of these jobs. She exceeded expectations as a result of she took her mom’s directions critically: Don’t simply be the primary individual like your self to carry this job; ensure you aren’t the final.
Harris is conversant in ridiculous and baseless insults (“uneducated and uneducable”) and the equally insulting low expectations (“Can she win in opposition to Trump?”). She’s heard 20 years’ value of comparable voices on her street to creating historical past, and he or she by no means allow them to gradual her down.
That’s to not counsel the following few weeks needs to be some type of coronation for her. Harris should nonetheless reply the identical questions concerning the economic system and the border and choices of the administration that Biden can be answering. She additionally has to speak a imaginative and prescient for the long run — one which speaks to younger voters who care about local weather change and reasonably priced housing. Reproductive rights are a serious concern. The subsequent president ought to lead the nation on regulating synthetic intelligence. What are we going to do about reasonably priced little one care? And ensuring this getting older nation is ready for the rising value of elder care?
The burden on the president is big. Impossibly large.
And Harris can be carrying an additional load of duty, that no man or white individual would. We gained’t essentially see it. She gained’t speak about it nor get credit score for it. Not that it issues. She proved way back she will deal with all of it.
