First I’ll mention race: Harris’s ancestry is so mixed that in a sense it’s an error to assign her to any one of the traditional (and arbitrary) racial categories. She truly is a product of globalization of the gene pool, and is a taste of the inevitable future when Americans broadly have ancestors from all over the world.
So, in racial terms, I like her as a symbol of a world where race is viewed as the obsolete and arbitrary concept that it is. Which, ironically, isn’t how President Biden or Vice President Harris have talked about her race, but… culture has yet to catch up to the reality of modern American mating practices.
Anyway, class, though, is what’s going to hurt Harris. While in some ways her work as prosecutor can be viewed as pro-working-class (whose neighborhoods the criminals she put away would have affected most), her vibe is very much not working class. Her parents both are and were highly educated, PhD researchers.
Given that the rust belt was the kingmaker of 2016 and 2020, we might expect it to be the same this time. Joe Biden of Scranton, PA was the only part of the ticket connecting with the working-class world most affected by the outsourcing of industry under NAFTA and (later) WTO.
So the choice of VP is key. But so are the policies. I’d like to see her propose a new, systematic approach to the burgeoning trade protectionism that both Trump and Biden have furthered. Which industries deserve protection, and which don’t? Where do we want to keep the dynamism and (more often) low cost imports of global competition, and where is it more important to preserve domestic capabilities, whether for reasons of national security, hindering of adversaries, rewarding of friends, or national pride?
Speaking of WTO… it’s a moribund organization – an old model where we hoped that free trade would lead to reform which… nobody believes anymore. It’s nerdy stuff, but a lot of Trump supporters would care if she proposed a successor to WTO – something that reflects the new reality.
Getting ahead of Trump on the trade issue, putting a fresh, Dem stamp on it, would go a long ways. Aiming for “Damn… she sounds like she means this.”
Just some thoughts.
Leave a Reply