Kamala Harris: the missed opportunity?

At first the enthusiasm, now the doubt: did Kamala Harris, a woman of Jamaican and Indian ancestry, know how to campaign to become the first president of the United States? Donald Trump, populist par excellence, could well win this poisonous duel, where slander of all kinds has been unleashed. A friend who is an Episcopalian pastor from the East Coast told me: Trump brings together everything that she and her enlightened community loathe, from New York to Boston: the lies, the vulgarity, the simplistic solutions like claiming to resolve the Ukrainian crisis in twenty- four hours.

But the problem is America is dangerously divided, and that, like Hillary Clinton in 2016, Kamala Harris represents a certain favored, liberal America, when conspiracy and fundamentalism, including evangelicals, lead many Americans, Latinos and, to a lesser extent, blacks, to place their hopes in the corrupt billionaire ex-president. Whether he serves hamburgers in a McDonald’s or shows his passion for combat sports, whether he says that Haitian migrants eat cats, these excesses resonate with an impoverished middle class who feel threatened by a ” great replacement.”

After a hopeful start to the campaign, the candidate long in the shadow of Joe Biden disappointed, failing to clearly express her choices beyond a desire to defend the standard of living of the middle classes (housing, health, food). Eager to attract conservative and left-wing voters, she remains in the middle without strong projects on the environment or immigration. Without distinguishing herself in foreign policy, she proposes a “Biden bis”. A Democratic outsider candidate, Jill Stein, could lose him votes, contributing to Trump’s victory.

Passionate in her fight for women’s rights, the former prosecutor will certainly collect many of their votes, as her opponent led an outrageously macho campaign. But she failed to raise the debate, responding to Trump one after the other. Alas, in this game, the billionaire is the best.