If anyone understands America’s broken political system, it’s Kamala Harris | Opinion
The last five years of Kamala Harris’ career demonstrate how choatic and disruptive the current political enviorment has become.
“Recently I made the decision that I just – for now – I don’t want to go back in the system,” Harris said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert when asked her decision not to run for California Governor. “I think it’s broken.”
It was a provocative comment for Harris to make, considering just months ago, she was the first Black woman and Asian woman selected as the Democratic nominee for the presidency. She was the first Black woman and Asian woman elected Vice President of the United States. She was elected once by California to the United States Senate and twice as Attorney General.
And now, after losing a bitter presidential campaign to Donald Trump, Harris believes the system is broken?
“I believe, and I always believed, that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles,” Harris told Colbert. “And I think right now that they’re not as strong as they need to be.”
It didn’t come as a shock to me that Harris decided she didn’t want to be California’s governor. She is done with being a puppet. The system is indeed broken and not only that, it exhausted and dejected an accomplished woman to the point where she passed up the highest office in the state where she was born and raised.
Right now, being a political star in the Democratic Party is more like being a pawn, a candidate that the party dresses up to be what they think voters will like. Harris was tossed around for 107 days of presidential campaigning, an impossible task. The Democratic strategists running her campaign shopped her to every political demographic in the party in hopes of seeming appealing, but yet it didn’t work.
Politics are not for political pawns
Kamala Harris was never meant to be a rising star. The former U.S. Senator’s attempt at a presidential run in 2020 had relegated her to the back of the pack among mid-tier liberal candidates.
After she dropped out of the race, her star was all but certain to fade away, until Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination and Black political leaders demanded that he choose a woman of color, going against his alleged desire to choose a white woman. Harris was one of four finalists for the job. The others were Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and U.S. Senator (and apparent favorite) Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, according to New York Times.
The Democratic Party believed all it had to do was present her as a moderate Democrat who hangs out with the likes of anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney, and she’d win America over. They essentially gave her the same campaign as Hillary Clinton, and it didn’t turn out so well for her.
What makes matters worse is that, unlike Clinton, Harris didn’t have that much going against her. The two biggest downsides were that years ago she said wanted to end fracking and provide health care to Trans people.
Taking a break from the system she believes is broken is the right step for her.
She might be taking a page out of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s playbook by wanting to go across the country, visiting with the more conservative places to listen to their concerns. That would be best for her and her party. Democrats are currently too busy pointing fingers at themselves. They’re too worried about finding one main leader instead of looking to what the people want.
When Harris speaks about politics, she talks about it from a place of public service. She knows the weight that her leadership has and the impact it has in communities.
The Republican Party has forgotten the true function of government. They spend their days worrying about how a dead white man in Jeffrey Epstein could hurt President Donald Trump while the Democrats try to lure male podcasters to their side in hopes of attracting men back to their party.
Both parties would be wise to get back into seeing their roles as a public service to Americans.
Harris isn’t done as a force for good.
