It was like an explosion – no matter where you looked in any media or listened in any broadcast – the name of the day, week and probably for the next months until the election, is that of Kamala Harris.
The California senator is the announced choice of Joe Biden to be his running mate in his presidential campaign. What a choice! A woman, but more importantly, a minority woman, even more so, a “black” woman.
Harris is being touted as a “black” woman, which carries a lot of weight in the politics of today. But clearly Harris’ situation is more complicated than that.
She was born in California to parents who, at the time, were NOT citizens of this country. Her father was a citizen of Jamaica, with white and black heritage and, indeed, from a family with a history of owning plantations and slaves.
(Funny how that part of her history is being ignored by media.)
Her mother was of Asian Indian descent, and also not a U.S. citizen when Kamala was born.
Her parents both, later, became citizens.
For people in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s no surprise that the emphasis on Harris is on whatever part of heritage is black. It fits the Bay Area culture and quite frankly, for her political career, could only help – which it did and continues to do.
Harris was raised in Berkeley, but when she was a teenager her parents split and she moved to Canada with her mother and family. She eventually came back to California, completed her college years and law school and got involved in San Francisco and California politics.
It didn’t hurt that she became friendly and dated powerful San Francisco politician Willie Brown. She learned lots about politics from Willie, and when they cooled their relationship, he made it possible for her to assume roles on several powerful state committees. That Willie was married at the time of their relationship got lots of publicity, but the Bay Area being what it is, it mattered not. And still doesn’t.
Willie made the news here last week with a commentary published in the local paper in which he advised Kamala not to accept any invitation to join the Biden ticket. It got lots of publicity and got him on local talk radio.
But Harris did get the invitation from Biden, accepted it – and Willie then said that he thought she made the right choice.
Politics. Go figure.
The reality of all this is that the Biden/Harris ticket will be the Democratic team for the presidency facing Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
Lest you think that the Bay Area is totally in the Biden camp – it’s not necessarily so. I have seen many comments in print, on the internet and heard on local talk radio which indicate that those who don’t like the Biden nor the Trump ticket will vote for third party candidates. They deeply hate Trump, but also see the Democratic ticket for what it is – a blatant pandering to voters.
If enough voters take that point of view with their votes, the outcome of the election will be an unhappy surprise for many who are assuming the Democratic liberals will win.
Another important aspect of the situation is that Kamala Harris is not your usual liberal Democrat. The woman is extreme in all aspects of her politics. To say she is a socialist would be to put it mildly.
She buys in fully to the green agenda and wants to put an end to any use of fossil fuels in this country.
She believes that people should not have the right to their individual medical insurance policies.
She does not believe that people have a right to have guns to protect their families and homes.
She fully supports higher taxes on high-income citizens and supports proposed tax increases for Californians. The state already has the highest tax rate in the country, 13.3%. If AB 1253 is enacted, that rate would go to 14.3% for incomes over $1 million, and the highest rate would rise to 16.8%, for incomes above $5 million.
The state already has seen an exodus of high-income businesses and people because of the current tax situation. If these increases are passed by the legislature, the loss of income to the state would be dramatic.
A major aspect of the Biden/Harris ticket is its approach to abortion. Both Biden and Harris support abortion, and in fact, Harris is on record supporting abortion right to the point of birth.
They are being referred to as the most pro-abortion presidential ticket ever.
This is while Biden is touted as being a loyal Catholic and Harris is presented as a devout Christian. How all that fits with the concept that it is OK to kill a viable preborn, human infant is something to consider.
Whether these beliefs will be presented to the public in the campaign and how it will affect the votes they want remain to be seen. What is to be considered is that Donald Trump is the most pro-life president we have had in modern times.
There is no doubt in my mind that Democrats will do their best to hide all this from voters, because ultimately, it would work against them in the final analysis.
But it may not be visible in the campaign. Conservatives are tending to keep silent because of “Black Lives Matter.” Polls are not really valid because of this, and the ultimate effect on the outcome of the election, at this point, is anyone’s guess.
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