Column: As president, Harris would be a ‘first’ in so many ways. She can handle it
The more America sees Vice President Kamala Harris and gets to know her, the more America will see what President Biden saw when he selected her as his running mate: She can handle it.
Opinion Columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.
And I’m not just talking about the campaign schedule, earning the nomination or doing the job. I’m talking about what she’ll have to endure as a “first.” Biden saw up close what it’s like, having campaigned with and served two terms next to Barack Obama. Do you need a refresher on the racial ugliness that a Black man’s presidential candidacy revealed starting in 2008? The misogyny that reared its head when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016? You shouldn’t, because that racist and sexist ugliness is not even history; it’s the face of the Republican presidential ticket in 2024.
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President Biden was in a close contest with Donald Trump despite the debate debacle, assassination attempt and more, reflecting a polarized, entrenched electorate.
No president has it easy. Few even have it good. But the weight of the presidency was not all that Obama carried, and what Biden said in endorsing Harris for the presidency this week is that she is strong enough to carry that added weight.
If elected, she would be the first woman to be president, the first Black woman to be president, the first person of South Asian or Jamaican descent to be president, the first president to be in an interracial marriage, and the first president whose spouse is Jewish.
The idea of nominating Kamala Harris or another candidate despite the primary election results has some accusing Democrats of an antidemocratic coup. They’re wrong.
Biden’s endorsement was touching not only because he was saying that she could handle carrying those mantles. It was also touching because he was going through something like what she endured in 2020. When she first ran for president, her campaign was among the first to shutter its doors. Many are quick to remember that part. Fewer give Harris the credit for having the strength to run as a Black woman in America in the first place.
“Some might think that breaking barriers mean you start out on one side of the barrier and then you just turn up on the other side of the barrier … no,” Harris told journalist Jemele Hill in 2019. “There’s breaking involved and when you break things, it’s painful. You get hurt. You may get cut and you may bleed.
“It will be worth it, but it’s not without pain.”
When party leaders choose the nominee rather than letting primary voters weigh in, that doesn’t necessarily yield worse candidates or presidents.
That’s not meant to get voters to feel sorry for her. Quite the opposite. She’s reminding voters that’s she’s tougher than many of us could ever know. It must be quite an odd existence now to be considered both the backbone of a major party and yet to be doubly dismissed because of race and gender.
Malcolm X pointed out 60 years ago that “the most disrespected person in America is the Black woman,” and judging from the racism and sexism that exploded the moment Biden announced he was stepping aside, much of that still rings true today. Her ability to win against former President Trump questioned by sports personalities who struggle to predict winners in their own field. Her intellect questioned despite a brilliant career: Trump called her “dumb as a rock” on Monday, echoing last month’s transparently false and racist line of attack by Newt Gingrich.
The journey she is embarking on can be lonely. To be the first is to be alone.
She won’t get there by herself, of course. She has family and friends and advisors standing by. Millions of supporters already love her: voters and volunteers who are ready to back her, donors who in the first 24 hours of her candidacy broke fundraising records with an $81-million deluge.
But that weight of being a “first” is hers alone to carry. Just as Clinton had to fight for voters to even imagine a woman as a potential president, conservatives have been quick to call Harris a “DEI candidate,” because it’s a euphemism for the word they wish they could say.
Biden, who knows her well and who well knows the high stakes, is telling us she can handle it. The campaign, the job, the weight.
Throughout an impressive career, Harris has always been under a microscope as the first like her to have many of those jobs. She exceeded expectations because she took her mother’s instructions seriously: Don’t just be the first person like yourself to hold this job; make sure you aren’t the last.
Harris is familiar with ridiculous and baseless insults (“uneducated and uneducable”) and the equally insulting low expectations (“Can she win against Trump?”). She’s heard two decades’ worth of similar voices on her road to making history, and she never let them slow her down.
That’s not to suggest the next few weeks should be some sort of coronation for her. Harris must still answer the same questions regarding the economy and the border and decisions of the administration that Biden would be answering. She also has to communicate a vision for the future — one that speaks to young voters who care about climate change and affordable housing. Reproductive rights are a major concern. The next president should lead the nation on regulating artificial intelligence. What are we going to do about affordable child care? And making sure this aging nation is prepared for the rising cost of elder care?
The weight on the president is huge. Impossibly huge.
And Harris would be carrying an extra load of responsibility, that no man or white person would. We won’t necessarily see it. She won’t talk about it nor get credit for it. Not that it matters. She proved long ago she can handle it all.
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