Kamala Harris. Why the disdain?

Lavender Room
1

I’m isolating B&P’s comments from the Trump thread for discussion here.

Harris is our president-in-case-Biden-doesn’t-meet-the-role’s-requirements.

ETA: I might add that we have identified a younger leader who is a moderate and demonstrates the qualifications to lead our country. She’s been receiving a world-class education and training for the role of president for 4 years now.

I’ve never understood the disdain for Kamala Harris.

I can’t recall a VP garnering so much negative reaction since Dan Quayle, though that was for very different, and for quite obvious reasons. Yet, Harris has experienced “some of the lowest approval ratings of any VP in recorded history”.

Sure, she was handed a poison chalice with the responsibility in reducing numbers of asylum seekers, but I suspect if she were appointed head of the bipartisan committee for orphan puppies it would’ve made little difference.

Whatever one’s political stripes, I would’ve thought she would at least garner a level of respect as articulate, intelligent and educated, qualities too often regrettably lacking among recent US politics.

Even on the LR thread “If Biden were to drop out of the race…”, her name has only warranted a mention in two of 55 posts, both in a negative context.

Please tell me it’s not as simple as race and sex.

The latter didn’t appear to be an issue with Sarah Palin; her shortcomings lying elsewhere. When Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984, I don’t recall a massive pushback as a potential woman VP. Hillary was always carrying some of her husband’s baggage was otherwise polarising.

Viewing from afar, I just don’t understand why Harris is viewed so negatively. What would a Harris (partial) presidency mean for the US? LR political animals, please help me out here.

2

Even The Daily Show has mocked her word salads. A quick google will bring up more.
https://youtu.be/r1RmWKA5Vaw?si=HBTHQVLLi2oyppqc

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I don’t have strong feelings about her one way or another, but I was impressed with how she handled herself in congressional hearings when I had the chance to catch her questioning. She’s an experienced prosecutor and it shows. As far as the word salad stuff, most of the clips I’ve seen her criticized for may have been more wordy than necessary but I had no trouble understanding what she was saying and it didn’t take a decoder ring. I’m sure there are times I didn’t see that didn’t land like she would have hoped, but I think she probably does get a certain amount of criticism that you wouldn’t see for these reasons with, say, Governor Newsome.

It’s pretty shocking to see Trumpers wear shirts and bumper stickers calling her a Ho (“Joe and the Ho have to go”). Needless to say she’s run circles around those people in terms of accomplishments and intellect. They can fuck all the way off.

I would personally rather see her in the Oval Office for the next four years than either of the two running.

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It’s pretty shocking to see Trumpers wear shirts and bumper stickers calling her a Ho (“Joe and the Ho have to go”). Needless to say she’s run circles around those people in terms of accomplishments and intellect. They can fuck all the way off.

How many people pay one iota of attention to what the VP does? Got to think low approval ratings are largely tribal, and of course MAGAs give plenty of reasons to think her low approval ratings would be influenced to some degree of an ism of one sort or another.

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I’ve never understood the disdain for Kamala Harris.

Insecurity
.

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Even The Daily Show has mocked her word salads.

TMI mocking word salads is comical.

What specific policies of hers do you dislike?

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Please tell me it’s not as simple as race and sex.

That’s good enough for 30-40% of the electorate.

8

Republicans don’t like her because she is a democrat. She has developed a reputation for being difficult to work for whilst in the VP office. Biden has not helped making her the fall person for the border for instance. Her presidential campaign seemed quite disorganized and she does not seem to have a focus. So she isn’t gaining traction. She likely is perceived as being excessively progressive where as Joe Biden was made the nominee to appeal to older more moderate democrats.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60061473

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Currently at the very top of FoxNews.com is a picture of the VP with a big banner under it that says, “acting erratically”. The actual story is about two members of her SS detail getting in a shoving match. This disconnect is not an accident.

As I mentioned in the thread about Biden stepping aside, the right wing media machine will demonize anyone they feel is a threat. Propaganda works, they turned Fauci into a bad guy for Christ’s sake.

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For a lot of people it is that she is a woman, and she is black.

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Label someone as a DEI hire, then destroy them. Then cast all minorities as DEI hired to discredit successful people.

Out of fear of a black woman President, chip away at her early and often.

Reduce support for Biden among independents by saying “if something happens to him, we can’t be stuck with HER!”

Use her previous relationships to say she slept her way to the top. Create a belief system that all women do that, or at least “their” women do it. “Our’s” on the other hand “earn it.”

The right has every incentive to undermine her at every opportunity.

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I like that she is a woman and black. I like her general competence. But l definitely dislike her questionable record as a prosecutor. I also dislike the fact that she seems to make her own staff pretty unhappy. I wish l could choose someone else.

That said, l still HIGHLY HIGHLY prefer her over the trump nutcase and/or any nutcase he will be picking for VP. There is just no comparison, Harris is literally a million times better.

(all of the above said with zero sarcasm)

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The GOP has gotten really, really good at villainizing. Hillary was pretty well liked across the aisle as a Senator. She became a literal demonic, assassination-happy harpy to some. Biden is a congenial old centrist dude, became some super evil guy, again nearly demonic.

Harris has only gotten half the treatment because she’s not quite relevant enough for the full Hillary, but half is pretty bad.

The GOP would say it only took villainizing to this extreme because the Obama campaign made Romney out to be a villain, and he’s a pretty nice guy. The GOP was forced to do this. Didn’t want to. But can’t just roll over and let Obama do this.

But OTOH, it seems to have gotten out of control as now the MAGA GOP faction is more brutal with Romney than Obama ever was.

The GOP would also say the Democrats make Trump out to be a villain. But IMO he is.

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Please tell me it’s not as simple as race and sex.

.

There are two massive uphill battles she has to fight on those fronts.

Female politicians need to be better than their male counterparts. No, it isn’t fair but that’s how it is. Equal = worse. They will get ripped apart for doing the same things men would do. They need to be better. Just look at Hillary, if she was a man she would have been viewed as tough. Instead she was viewed as bitchy.She will always be viewed as token black woman VP. Is that fair? Surely not, but that is the view by many.

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I’d also say she seems more Asian than black. Would Asian Americans vote for her. Asian Americans don’t have a big attachment to affirmative action I think they are okay with making it on merit. They will just outwork you. They are doing quite well already. There was a group of Asian Americans suing Harvard because they felt they had been passed over for DEI candidates. Would black men vote for her or view her as relatable. I’m not so sure. She doesn’t have the appeal of being an anti establishment candidate.

When she was elected as VP last time DEI was at its height. Now not so much it is in a bit of a retreat.

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She will always be viewed as token black woman VP. Is that fair? Surely not, but that is the view by many.

There are many here who think she only got her jobs (not just the VP job) as a diversity selection.

I 100% think she was selected as VP due to her being a black woman, the same way that Biden was selected as VP for being older (in 2008) and white.

But this doesnt mean she wasnt qualified. More qualified than mike pence

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Pence was Governor of Indiana and a member of Congress prior to that. Graduate of Perdue law. I don’t know what your personal criteria are for qualification for the office but that’s a pretty solid resume, better than Trump, Biden, Obama, and Harris in my view. Setting aside ideology, of course.

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Pence was Governor of Indiana and a member of Congress prior to that. Graduate of Perdue law. I don’t know what your personal criteria are for qualification for the office but that’s a pretty solid resume, better than Trump, Biden, Obama, and Harris in my view. Setting aside ideology, of course.

Perdue law, is that where chickens go to law school? :slight_smile:

I’ll give you the others, but it’s hard to be more qualified than Biden was to be president.

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Pence was Governor of Indiana and a member of Congress prior to that. Graduate of Perdue law. I don’t know what your personal criteria are for qualification for the office but that’s a pretty solid resume, better than Trump, Biden, Obama, and Harris in my view. Setting aside ideology, of course.

Perdue law, is that where chickens go to law school? :slight_smile:

I’ll give you the others, but it’s hard to be more qualified than Biden was to be president.

Yeah. Biden’s problem isn’t that he has too little experience. It’s that he has too much.

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I don’t dislike Kamala, at least by the standards with which we judge potential Presidents. Most of the attacks on her — which are working — are simply because she is a fairly liberal Black female from California. She has not done much in office to help her cause, though that is not entirely her fault. However, reading her interview in the Atlantic several months ago, it was very disappointing how superficial her answers were.