There is a joke in the US about two sisters: one went to the high seas, the other became vice president. After that they were never heard from again. And it’s true: Vice presidents have traditionally kept a thankless existence out of the limelight. John Nance Garner, former vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, once said the office is worth “no more than “a bucket full of warm piss.” Nevertheless, you expected more from the first woman in the second highest office in the US.
Kamala Harris (58) has been disappointed across the board so far. More than half of all Americans think the ex-California senator isn’t in control of her job. Even on the Democratic side, one openly wonders whether the woman with the big smile and Indo-African roots might have been misplaced from the start.
Videos of her most recent appearances are doing the rounds, showing an overwhelmed politician. During a panel discussion on the climate crisis, she said: “We will work together and continue to work together to address these issues, address these challenges and work together as we continue to work on the new standards, rules and agreements that we decide to work together.” . We will work together.”
Disastrous with migration
This is politically speaking in its purest form. Less content is not possible. A commenter on Twitter said Harris once again looked like a high school student about to lecture on a book she hasn’t read.
Things are going downright disastrous for the vice president when it comes to the one important file Joe Biden (79) gave her: migration. More than two million illegal migrants have crossed the US southern border since the beginning of the year, four times more than in 2020, when Donald Trump spoke of an “emergency”. Republican governors in America’s southern states have begun sending the migrants in crowded buses and planes to Democratic cities in the north to “open their eyes” to politicians in New York and Washington. And Kamala Harris? No concrete proposals for a solution have been received from her. There is no clear explanation. She has no control over the file.
In the hot phase of the midterm elections (the midterm elections are next Tuesday), you would expect Harris to at least thrive as a campaigner. But unlike her predecessor, Mike Pence, who travels across the country with Republican candidates, Harris hides in fundraisers and doesn’t venture outside of major Democratic cities. If the predictions are correct and Republicans win Tuesday’s midterm elections, Kamala Harris will only have one step left to give her party some much-needed momentum: step down and make way for new forces outside the limelight.