Kamala’s ready, and so is America

Vice President Kamala Harris watches as President Joe Biden delivers remarks about border security on Jan. 5, 2023. Photo by Drew Angerer | Getty Images

With few exceptions, the Democrats have closed ranks.

They’re sticking with President Biden, for now at least, despite his deeply unsettling debate performance with Donald J. Trump last week.

No, Biden loyalists, he didn’t just have a bad night. The shocking display left me and millions of other Americans deeply concerned that he is not well enough to go on. 

Being president is grueling enough. Doing the job and running for reelection must take almost herculean stamina. Doing that when you’re 81? I’m almost 20 years the president’s junior and don’t know that I could handle the physical and mental demands that come with the job. 

I get why Biden is running again. As he’s said time and again, he believes the election is, as it was in 2020, a fight for the “soul of America” — either democracy lives another day or the dictator-in-waiting, Trump,  reascends to what he considers more as a throne to exact retribution than a righteous platform for public service.

But the time for Biden to step aside has come, and the right person to replace him is Vice President Kamala Harris.

Yes, the racists hate her and independents will take some convincing, but Harris comes with pluses.

Like more than half of the country’s voters, she’s a woman. In fact, I would argue that whoever replaces Biden must be a woman. 

Except for the way he treated Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Biden has built a reputation as a strong advocate for women’s rights, especially since the high court overturned Roe v. Wade. But Biden, like me, can never fully understand what it means to be treated as a second-class citizen just because you have a womb.  

The repeal of Roe v. Wade didn’t just restrict women’s reproductive rights — it stripped away part of their citizenship by allowing right-wing lawmakers and judges to dictate what women can do with their own bodies. No legislature in the country could muster the votes needed to pass a law controlling what men do with their sperm (outside of preserving it), but if a woman tries to not have a baby by any means other than the rhythm method, so called “small government” conservatives are ready to usurp the expertise of trained medical professionals and police the entire process.

Harris is the perfect messenger. With 70% support for abortion rights nationwide, she has already proven to be a powerful and effective messenger on the topic. It matters as well that restrictions on abortion rights disproportionately impact women of color.

Harris would likewise be the perfect critic for Trump’s criminality and his pending state and federal indictments. As the former attorney general for California and a local prosecutor before that, Harris has the bona fides and experience to address the consequences of the GOP’s decision to choose as its presidential standard bearer an unrepentant, twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon, who also stands credibly  accused of trying to overthrow the U.S. government and steal top secret government documents. 

And let’s not forget his recent guilty verdict in nearly half-billion business and real estate fraud scheme in New York and the fact that was found liable of committing sexual assault and defamation.

Harris has also proven herself on the foreign policy front, having capably represented the White House around the globe on everything from the war in Ukraine, migration, and the dangers posed by climate change.

Young voters and voters of color would go wild for Harris. Biden has had trouble keeping both groups in the fold this election cycle as compared to 2020. (Harris was born to immigrant parents, and identifies as Black and Indian American.) Progressives and minority groups have criticized her tough-on-crime track record as attorney general as a betrayal of her more progressive positions as a local prosecutor, but if her pick means history will be made, I’m convinced they’ll rally to support her.

Democratic insiders worry a decision by Biden to quit his run for the White House could lead to a free-for-all between his potential replacements. The best way to avoid that is for Biden to put his foot down, loud and hard, and immediately declare his unflinching support for Harris.

And why not? If she was good enough to be your running mate in the 2020 campaign, and good enough to be one heartbeat away from the presidency for the past three-and-a-half years, then she must be good enough to assume the party’s nomination.

There will be naysayers — there always are — but if Biden is the man of honor he purports to be, and I believe he is, he’ll stand by Harris and back her for his party’s nomination.

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