Kamala Harris: An Experiment In Individuality

Calling Kamala Harris qualified is an understatement. A candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has served as a District Attorney and then Attorney General for California. Harris burst on the scene as a senator during the Senate judicial hearings regarding the nomination of then-judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. During the hearings, her forceful statements and brutal honesty appealed to the progressives in the Democratic Party. With her experience, Harris is no doubt a qualified and experienced candidate for the presidency.

Senator Harris is a major part of the progressive movement that gripped the Democratic Party in 2016 and played a major role in capturing the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms. Her support for legislature granting Medicare for all has earned her a place among many progressive candidates in the upcoming primaries, including Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand. Her economic policies are also innovative. Though she stays with the party line regarding the support of the lower and middle classes, she innovates ideas like rent-based tax credits and workforce training in preparation for automation. She’s also starkly against many policies that President Donald Trump has implemented, pledging to fight against President Trump’s border wall and the Republican tax act. She supports the innovative Green New Deal, which would completely overhaul the American economy and its infrastructure. It would impact everything from energy and climate change to labor and education. Aptly, the Green New Deal would be the biggest innovation to hit the United States since the original New Deal. She is also calling for universal background checks and a complete ban of assault weapons. Harris appeals to the 2020 Democratic voter with not only extremely progressive and ideal politics, but also the fact that if she assumes office, she will be the first black female president.

However, Senator Harris’s campaign isn’t free from controversy. Her history as a prosecutor in California has put her at the forefront of many controversial policies. For example, her office played a part in overcrowding several state prisons—partially to keep up with the demand for penal labor—and has been oblivious to wrongful convictions under her watch. Anomalies like these contradict the liberal and progressive views she now supports, which could damage her campaign in future months.

Harris is no doubt qualified to contend in the upcoming Democratic primaries, and in many ways, she embodies the progressive policies of the newly remade party. But despite her high name recognition across the country, she has done little to show that she is an outstanding candidate. Harris’s campaign shows great potential to be a serious player in the 2020 presidential election, but the various controversies surrounding her policy platform put her future as a candidate at risk.