What is Kamala Harris doing? The US Vice President was almost treated as the de facto head of state, but she is struggling. Important employees quit and the right-wing press is already gleefully clapping their hands.
Sometimes things get small by adding extra emphasis. This is how a tweet from Jen Psaki that she recently wrote about Vice President Kamala Harris can be understood: “To all of you who want to hear it again, the Vice President is not only an indispensable partner for the President of the United States, but also one Courageous leader who faces the country’s most important challenges: from voting rights to combating the causes of migration to broadband expansion. ” So Jen Psaki, White House spokeswoman, feels compelled to explain the importance of a Vice President and what she does all day.
For someone like Kamala Harris, who some have already seen as the de facto US head of state, this admission is almost dishonorable. In any case, the post shows where the 57-year-old is currently in the public eye. And it’s not nice there.
Four years of Trump and then came Kamala
Flashback November 2020: When, after the tough vote counting process, it slowly became clear that Joe Biden would be the next US President and Kamala Harris US Vice President, half of the US (the liberal-left) and parts of the rest of the world came forward Enthusiasm. After four darker, fair-skinned and testosterone-laden years, modern America of the 21st century finally moved into the White House with Harris: a woman, moderate, with Indian-Jamaican roots. Some voices read as if the American people had put them by the side of old Biden in the Oval Office as a guardian and true ruler.
Unsurprisingly, it has barely been able to meet the gigantic expectations so far. Now, in November 2021, just a year later, quits with the communications manager Ashley Etienne one of her most important employees – because of “another opportunity”, presumably a better one. Jokes are circulating in the corridors about “VP”, as the boss’s office is called. About the des Satirical magazine “The Onion”, which wrote in late October: “White House urges Kamala Harris to sit at the computer all day in case an email comes in.” If one believes US media like CNN, the irony describes the situation of the Vice President much more aptly than the dutiful communication of the government spokeswoman. With a mixture of concern and curiosity, the newspapers and online portals report chaotic conditions in Harris’ environment and the morale of their employees.
You yourself, it is said, feel restricted and excluded at the same time. For example, she was not involved in the withdrawal of the Americans from Afghanistan, at the same time she would again let close friends hang down. Joe Biden has given her the huge and ungrateful subject of immigration. Logically, she is the first point of contact for the Central America neighbors, but not for the area of migration across the US southern border – currently one of the central and largest problem areas in the United States.
The responsible Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas had corresponding difficulties when he was supposed to explain how Kamala Harris actually helped shape her core task. Conservative Senator Josh Hawley quoted him as saying that she was not “directly” involved in key decisions by the Ministry. They had an appointment together in El Paso, on the border with Mexico, in the summer. At the time, Hawley also wanted to know how often and intensely Mayorkas reported to the Vice President. According to the New York Post, in which the senator recalls the conversation, the minister’s replies were noticeably evasive.
“Kamala Harris is a strange person”
The increasing criticism by and against the former hope is a welcome invitation for the conservative and right-wing US press to hit her even more. Just before the story of the border visit, the “New York Post” wrote one Column entitled “Kamala Harris is a Strange Person”. In it, author Kyle Smith digs out all sorts of unsuccessful sentences and describes their statements as “harris gossip”. They are like “an air salad with steamed croutons and nothingness dressing”. Fox News man Tucker Carlson, a poster boy from the new right, even questioned her citizenship after attending school in Canada for a while.
Somehow strange, elitist, definitely aloof – when it comes to the US Democrats, such accusations are part of the standard repertoire of right-wing media. In the case of Kamala Harris, there is also the fact that she is a woman with an academic background, a non-white one on top of that. That makes them suspicious and reminds some (even some party friends) of Hillary Clinton. She wanted to go to the White House twice, after all, no one knew Washington better, no one seemed more suitable as a head of state than the former first lady, former senator and former foreign minister. And wasn’t the United States ready for a woman to head it up anyway? The answer followed on November 8, 2016 and was: no way.
Clinton’s defeat was partly due to the fact that she had assumed all too naturally that she would grow organically into the White House. She was the natural resident, her rival candidate at the time, Donald Trump, a foreign body. Such hubris may be far from Kamala Harris, but her person has often, perhaps too often, been linked to the role of the natural next head of state. Joe Biden had referred to himself as the interim president on several occasions. One who sweeps up the rubble of Donald Trump’s industrial accident and hands the White House swept over to the next generation. But by taking care of immigration, he has done his deputy a disservice.
“There is little to gain in migration policy for Democrats in the US. Trump, the Republican, made a name for himself with his right-wing voters by building a wall, with deterrence. Harris, on the other hand, had to look for a line: more humanitarian than Trump, but not so liberal that the situation at the border is spiraling out of control. After a little over half a year you have to realize that it has failed, “wrote star– US correspondent Raphael Geiger recently. Almost every week, the border guards in the south report new highs of Latin Americans who want to go to the USA.
A majority is always dissatisfied
Even if some media If you doubt the constant record numbers, the subject of immigration hardly leaves anyone indifferent to the immigration country USA. According to surveys, a third of Americans want to stop, reduce or maintain migration at the current level. The specific and sometimes inhumane conditions of the southern border are rejected by almost all US citizens, but with every decision that Kamala Harris makes or not makes about migration, it offends the other two-thirds of the population. In other words: doing right impossible. How should she manage to develop a profile for herself in this initial situation? Or even to conquer people’s hearts?
And what does she herself say about all of this? Kamala Harris smiles the problems away. On the show “Good Morning America” she didn’t go into the rumors very much, only saying that she didn’t feel “taken advantage of or underutilized”. Instead, she referred to the government’s first, narrow success, the gigantic infrastructure package. “It’s been a good week, we’ll get things sorted and we can do it together,” said Harris demonstratively combative.
Sources: ABC News, “New York Post“, CNN, The Onion, NPR.org, Jen Psaki on Twitter, Gallup.com, SWR, Business Insider