A lot can be said about the current American election race, but it is not lacking in historical events and surprising twists. As many expected, Biden, who was reluctant to back down until the last moment, and who, due to his untenable mental state, had to face incredible pressure from Democratic politicians and the mainstream media, finally accepted the inevitable and wrote that certain letter that finally put an end to the i- re. The president's popularity has been well below that of Donald Trump, who playfully exploited his verbal and physical stumbles during his campaign. In connection with Biden's condition, many people, especially on the Republican side, have been implying that he has not been in charge of the United States for quite some time, instead, a shadow government has been pulling his strings.
In the past few days, by the way, with Biden's resignation, an interesting CNN interview from December 3, 2020 also came to light, in which he was asked how he gets along with Kamala Harris. He made it clear that they were friends, and when they disagreed, they resolved it the way he and Barack Obama did, between themselves, privately.
"I told Barack, if I reach something where there's a fundamental disagreement we have based on a moral principle, I will develop some disease and say I have to resign,"
said the president-elect.
Although Joe Biden endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris for the candidacy, this is by no means a guarantee that she will actually be the challenger to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Especially not until Obama's support is won by Harris within the party, and the vote for the Democratic nominee takes place within the House.
The friendship between Barack Obama and Kamala Harris goes back more than two decades. Harris already campaigned for him in 2004, when he was still an unknown senatorial candidate, and he was the District Attorney of San Francisco. In 2007, the vice president became the first California elected official to endorse Obama's presidential bid. Hillary Clinton was the overwhelming favorite of the Democratic establishment at the time.
Two hours after Biden pulled out of the race and stood for vice president, party leaders and donors immediately rallied around Ms. Harris, so it came as a surprise when Obama did not immediately endorsed his old friend's presidential candidacy.
By Wednesday, Harris had already received 2,668 Democratic delegates pledging to vote for him at the convention in the first week of August, although he needed only 1,976 delegates to become the party's nominee. Barack Obama was slower, but his endorsment arrived as well on Thursday.
Although she has yet to be officially crowned the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, it seems that the 59-year-old Harris is currently in the best position to do so. Although according to New York Times analysts, Kamala is the least electable candidate among the Democratic candidates, scoring 4.6 out of 10 on the scale (while Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro finished at the top with 7 out of 10), according to the latest poll by Reuters and Ipsos, already beats Donald Trump by 2 percentage points.
Trump has already launched an attack: the former president branded Harris a "dangerous liberal". Vice President J.D. Vance is even harsher in an earlier 2021 interview that has just been discovered, in which he also refers to Harris and laments that
the US is run by „a bunch of childless cat ladies” who are miserable because of their own lives and the decisions they make, and therefore they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
By the way, in the first speech of his campaign tour, Harris promised America freedom instead of Trump's chaos. But what can we expect from Kamala in terms of foreign affairs and religious life?
Kamala Harris was born to a Jamaican Christian (Baptist) father and an Indian Hindu mother. The mother, Syamala Gopalan, chose a traditional Sanskrit name for her child: the name Kamala means "lotus" but is also the name of a Hindu deity.
Growing up, the teachings and spiritualities of these two religions were mixed in him, as she practiced both Christianity and Hindu rites, attending both a Baptist Church with Pentecostal roots and a Hindu temple. This may also have led to the fact that she currently has a liberal view of Christianity and religions. Harris is currently a practicing Baptist who tries to live his faith in a way of life, which is basically based on the story of the biblical Good Samaritan, rather than on the entire Scriptures. Like her pastor, she also considers it compatible with her faith to be a champion of LGBTQ rights and abortion rights. Since her nomination,
several queer groups have dubbed her "Mother Kamala," and 10 of the 12 openly gay members of Congress have pledged their support.
Despite her Christian faith, in 2010, when she was running for California attorney general, Harris called her Indian aunt and asked her to break coconuts at a Hindu temple for good luck. In her maternal grandfather's village, even during this campaign season,
they offer sweets and rice pudding as a sacrifice for her success to Dharmasastha, the Hindu god of truth and justice.
The presence of the religious mix in the family is reflected in the fact that she has a practising Jewish husband Douglas Emhoff who likes to organize Muslim iftar and then an Eid al-adha celebrations at an interfaith centre.
US Christian groups have expressed concern that in 2019, while still a senator, Harris sponsored the Do No Harm Act, which would have restricted the application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), i.e. that believers should not be required to perform abortions, perform acts or make statements contrary to their faith, for example, or to their gender or sexual orientation.
According to sources quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Kamala Harris is unlikely to keep her current staff of national security officials if she wins the US presidential election in November. "Biden's key appointees, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, are unlikely to have their positions extended," the paper said, citing anonymous current and former US officials.
Although Harris has not yet had the opportunity to define his own foreign policy ideas, the Journal says she is more closely aligned with the progressive elements of the Democrats" and will impose certain conditions on US aid to Israel.
Harris's candidacy could help Democrats among Arab-Americans, younger voters and progressives, an unnamed source told NBC, as the vice president does not share Biden's pro-Israel stance.
The problem with Harris, according to Jonathan Tobin, editor JNS, is that with her ascendance, the Democrats will have a candidate who is more far-left than anyone else who has been nominated for president in the last 50 years, except Barack Obama. In Washington, it is an open secret that
Harris is openly sympathetic to the Palestinians and she is the least inclined to stand up for a Jewish state.
Since the beginning of the war that Hamas started on October 7, she has repeatedly recycled Hamas propaganda with false claims about Palestinian casualties and famine in Gaza. On several occasions, she has attended lectures calling for the destruction of Israel and has expressed sympathy and understanding for left-wing anti-semites who have turned university campuses into a no-go zone for Jews. For Harris, the pro-Hamas protesters are actually "very nice people".
