Did Kamala Harris face the double whammy of gender and race?
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Seeing the second failed presidential campaign of a female candidate, can we now conclude that gender is another significant schism? Or did Kamala Harris face the double whammy of gender and race?
It would be unidimensional to reduce Harris' loss to only a gender equation. Multiple factors are responsible for Democrats not being able to convince the swing vote. They failed to respond to the increasing sense of abandonment of the working class that has permeated to Black and Latino groups. Crucial unions, historically a Democrat-voting bloc, failed to endorse Harris, unconvinced by her rhetoric on middle-class tax cuts.
To compound this, Harris seemed reluctant to sufficiently chalk out an economic programme different from an underperforming Biden administration. Foreign policy factors — such as failure to respond in any manner to the genocide in Gaza, and the ineffective US stance on the war in Ukraine — could possibly have had an adverse impact on the overall public faith in another Democrat administration.
Of course, there was never any hope of building much traction on polarising issues of immigration, gender identity and abortion. But two accomplished women having lost to a candidate who normalises sexualising women, was recorded boasting about groping women, and found liable for sexual abuse, should give some pause for thought. Significantly, the two
