President Donald Trump marveled Tuesday that former Vice President and native Scrantonian Joe Biden, his Democratic opponent for the presidency, had selected Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate because Harris had been “nasty” to Biden in a primary debate.
In doing so, he inadvertently summarized some of the fundamental differences between himself and Biden and between Harris and Vice President Mike Pence. Unlike Trump, Biden obviously does not judge others’ abilities based on their willingness to praise him. And, unlike Trump, who looked for and found a sycophant in Pence, Biden apparently is not afraid to have on board someone who is not afraid to disagree with him.
Following the announcement, Republican politicians and their commentariat at Fox News managed to characterize Harris as everything from a Wall Street flunky who will alienate the left to a far-left socialist who will alienate Wall Street.
Of course Harris is neither. She is a former prosecutor, San Francisco district attorney and state attorney general with a reputation in the Senate for preparedness and intellectual toughness.
Though her candidacy has revived the racist “birther” conspiracy theorists who, including Trump, claimed that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, Harris’ story is uniquely American.
“Birthers” claim she can’t serve because her immigrant parents had not been naturalized at the time of her birth. That is preposterous. Harris was born in Oakland, California, and is a natural-born citizen.
Her father was born in Jamaica, her mother in India. Both were highly regarded professors, her father in economics at Stanford and her mother in nutrition, endocrinology and cancer research at the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin and McGill University in Canada.
Harris is the first child of two immigrants ever to be part of a presidential ticket. She is the first Black woman and the first person of Asian descent to do so. Her candidacy is historic regardless of the campaign’s outcome, and it validates the vision of America as a beacon to the world and a land of unbridled opportunity.
