What the Kamala Harris Doubters Don’t Understand
Barstool punditry has its blind spots.
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The June 27th debate was barely off the air when my phone began buzzing with messages from anxious Democrats I know: “He needs to pull out. Will he pull out?” President Joe Biden eventually did the patriotic thing and ended his campaign. But in the three weeks in between—as the text threads moved from “if” to “when” to “who”—I was shocked at the certainty with which people dismissed the idea of Biden being replaced by his obvious successor: Vice President Kamala Harris.
Let me be specific. It was not “people” dismissing her; it was men. I have many male friends, and they frequently include me in barstool-punditry sessions where they pontificate, often with wisdom and insight, on the issues of the day. Usually I enjoy this, but over the past few days, I’ve found myself more and more irritated.
[From the November 2023 issue: The Kamala Harris problem]
I’ve had men I know (and love) explain to me the many reasons Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, J. B. Pritzker and—as if to prove that it’s not a “woman thing”—Gretchen Whitmer would all be better and more exciting candidates. I’ve been told about Harris’s mediocre polling (yes, I know about it), reminded of her awkward 2020 presidential bid (yes, I remember). My male friends bring up “likability,” and her made–for–Fox News–fodder role as border czar. I get it: Asking whether someone can actually win is one of the most basic questions in politics. But when I push back on their trepidation, many give me some version of: “I have no issue with her; I’m just worried about how she will play with white midwestern male voters.”
I have been haunted by this unnamed white midwestern male voter for longer than I can remember. He turns up anytime a woman runs for anything, tucks his polo shirt into his jeans, and starts listing all the ways the candidate just doesn’t share his values. If only I could find him and talk with him! If only we could grab one of those proverbial beers. I would explain that although he matters and is important, now is not the time to make things about himself. Now he has to do what I and so many women and people of color have done in this country for generations: hold our nose and vote for a politician who might not totally get us, but whom we have to trust to do their best by us anyway.
I lived through the roller coaster of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. I watched Elizabeth Warren supporters campaign while Bernie bros told them they were wasting their time. Then the Supreme Court took away the right to choose that I had thought belonged to all American citizens. Now I’ve run out of patience. My friends’ barstool logic is not only maddening; it’s dangerous.
It is not that I don’t understand the electoral map, or that I’m dismissing the importance of the white male swing voter. Of course he’s important, and of course there’s a very good chance that, after leaving a diner and speaking to a reporter about what really matters to voters like him … he’s going to vote for Donald Trump. But the Harris candidacy is no longer hypothetical. She is almost certain to be running against Trump, and our democracy hangs in the balance. What do my male friends gain from fretting so much over this particular voter now? I’m beginning to think that they bring him up because they don’t want to admit to their own biases—that he’s a cover for their own hovering doubts about a female candidate, and an excuse for why they’re not getting more enthusiastic about Harris.
Such doubts may reflect a deep desire to defeat Trump. But these men—and the women who secretly or not so secretly agree with them—can’t afford them any longer. The only way to beat Trump is to support Harris. And all sorts of other voters are already doing so. In that spirit, I thought I would provide nervous Democrats with a list of them.
Black voters, and especially Black women, have saved the Democratic Party time and again. Yet non-Black voters continually dismiss the power and potential of this community, which includes supporters, donors, and many swing-state residents. Some people have questioned Harris’s appeal among Black voters. She is half South Asian, and married to a white man, and was a prosecutor whose work, Republicans will point out, resulted in the incarceration of young Black men. But if the past few days are any indication, many Black voters aren’t just enthusiastic about her; they’re gleeful. Harris has long been vocal about issues that affect Black women, such as their disproportionately high mortality rates during childbirth. And she’s a graduate of a historically Black university, where she was a member of a Black sorority.
On the night Biden endorsed Harris, the group Win With Black Women mobilized more than 44,000 women to join a Zoom call; they donated more than $1 million in three hours and some stayed on past 1 a.m. One friend told me she “couldn’t log off, because I didn’t want to miss a word.” The next night, a similar call for Black men was organized.
If Harris wins, she will be the first Asian American president. Her mother was an immigrant from India; the now viral “coconut tree” meme came from one of her mother’s favorite expressions. South Asian Americans are not only the largest Asian American group in America; they are the most politically engaged on many issues. Many live in swing-state cities like Philadelphia and Atlanta. And, despite the high profiles of conservatives such as Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal (and now Usha Vance), most South Asian Americans are Democrats. Tech investors and entrepreneurs such as Nihal Mehta are already lining up behind Harris.
The vice president has the potential to excite women of all races. Anyone who says that they don’t think America is “ready to vote for a woman” has not been paying attention. In 2016, many felt that voting for a woman was a way to shatter glass ceilings and celebrate “girl power.” This time is different. It is not about a milestone. It is about our bodily autonomy and right to control our own health care. Which is why, over the past two years, women have come out even in the most conservative states to vote against ballot measures limiting their reproductive rights. No man can campaign as passionately on this issue as a woman can.
Harris has already gone on a “Fight for Reproductive Freedom” tour in battleground states. And who can forget her exchange with Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings? Harris, like many senators, tried to get him to say what he thought about Roe v. Wade. When he wouldn’t, she asked him something different: whether he could “think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” He could not. When comparing her with the retrograde MAGA president who put American women in this predicament in the first place, people wouldn’t need to even like Kamala Harris all that much to confidently vote for her.
Perhaps one of the most surprising things about her candidacy is how quickly she’s been embraced by young people on the internet. At nearly 60, Harris would hardly be considered young in any other context. But after watching last month’s Showdown at the Geriatric Corral between a septuagenarian and an octogenarian, Harris seems positively sprightly. Not only can she walk (in heels!) with a spring in her step, but she can dance, and have that dance go viral on TikTok and Instagram. As the rapper Charlie XCX has already proclaimed to her youthful followers: Kamala is brat. If you don’t know what that means, it doesn’t matter.
[Read: The Brat-ification of Kamala Harris]
What matters is that young people are meme-ing and tweeting and engaging with this candidate. Celebrities like Cardi B, who had previously said they’d sit the election out, are now endorsing Harris. (Or “Momala,” as her 20-something stepkids call her.) For the cynics who say “Young people don’t vote,” I won’t refute that. But … they might. And in the run-up to November, their excitement will influence the culture. I am old enough to remember when everyone was behind a seasoned political figure named Hillary Clinton until it became clear that all the cool kids were supporting a young senator from Chicago who’d made a speech at a political convention.
On Monday, in her first speech since Biden dropped out, Harris asked: “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law? Or a country of chaos, fear, and hate?” It’s a pressing question. And the kind that reminds us that another broad voter group might be moved to support Harris: people who want to feel optimistic about America again.
Harris is kind of a goofball. She’s earnest when you wouldn’t expect earnestness. She tells awkward stories. She laughs often and loudly. She is not at all cool. And people seem to like it? Many of these things worked against her back in 2020, but now it’s like seeing an ex at a high-school reunion: Suddenly the old flaws look different. Is it us? Are we lonely and desperate now? Probably.
The point is that for some time now, the only place for laughter in politics has been at a Trump political rally, in response to one of his cruel jokes. Politics has been about mass death and mass deportations. Harris takes these things seriously, but she can also provoke joy, which this country desperately needs. At that event Monday night, Harris told Biden—with warmth and sincerity—that she loved him. And then she spoke with a smile on her face about the future prospects for our country. Listening, I felt transported to a time before Trump came down the gilded escalator and turned the conversation from hope to carnage. We live in an era of cynicism, but Americans are still attracted to joy. We might find that even our white midwestern male voters want more of that.