Donald Trump has openly stated that if he wins in November and returns to power, he will not be a dictator, “except on the first day.” Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, which organized the influential Project 2025, remarked, “We are in the midst of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it.” Recently, at a rally supporting Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, Ohio state senator George Lang expressed concerns, saying, “I fear if we lose this one, a civil war will be needed to save the country, and we will save it.”
In the midst of this turbulence, Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the renewed hope for the Democratic Party and potentially for democracy as it stands today. By this point in the 2024 campaign, she could very well have been positioned as the successor to President Joe Biden.
After Biden’s surprising performance in the June debate, many, including myself, worried that discussions about changing the top of the ticket were merely a pretext for Democrats to entertain multiple alternative candidates. Many seemed to be operating under an illusion, unaware of the complex realities of the Democratic coalition.
Fortunately, the Democrats appear to have avoided another internal skirmish. Exhausted from weeks of debates around Biden’s potential withdrawal, they have quickly rallied behind Harris, who has garnered enough delegate support to emerge as their presumptive nominee.
The Democratic Party seems to recognize that Black voters, typically their most loyal constituency, will play a crucial role in any chance of victory. Republicans have been making concerted, and at times effective, efforts to attract a share of the Black vote. Recent national polls suggest that Trump might still have a slight edge overall. However, by selecting Harris as their candidate, the first Black, Asian American, and female vice president, the Democrats are giving themselves the best opportunity to counter Republican strategies. Ignoring her would have been politically disastrous.
Now, the Democratic Party faces the challenge of protecting Harris from impending personal attacks. Recently, we have witnessed assaults on her character that extend beyond politics into the realm of personal attacks. Social media is flooded with defamatory claims regarding Harris’s past relationships. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett from Tennessee provocatively referred to her as the “VP of DEI,” sarcastically implying that a woman of color may not be qualified for the country’s second-highest office.
Throughout this campaign, Harris will need to combat not just the sexism faced by Hillary Clinton but also the racism that confronted Barack Obama. As Democratic strategist James Carville noted about Harris’s likely challenges, “Racism is the periodontal disease of America.” He added, “It’s with us and won’t disappear, but it can be overcome.”
Civil rights activist Gary Chambers Jr. believes that Trump’s attacks on Harris might be so egregious they could ultimately work in her favor. “He’s going to go too far,” Chambers said, “and Black women will not tolerate it.” This sentiment is already galvanizing Black women, the most loyal segment of the Democratic base, to rally in support of Harris.
For years, they have witnessed prominent Black women like Ketanji Brown Jackson and Claudine Gay face hostility amid the broader anti-woke and anti-DEI sentiments that have swept the nation, largely as a backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement.
With Harris’s candidacy, Black women seize the chance to uplift one of their own, and they are mobilizing rapidly. Last Sunday, over 40,000 Black women gathered on a conference call organized by Win With Black Women to strategize on how to defend Harris. The following evening, an additional 50,000 Black men joined a similar call, raising over a million dollars each night.
As Chokwe Lumumba, the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, often asserts about the power and potential of people of color, “We must be the cavalry we have been waiting for.”
For Harris, that cavalry must extend beyond the Black community alone. Her candidacy stands as a contest against a man who attempted to overturn the results of the previous presidential election, representing nothing less than the preservation of the constitutional order. Democrats, including elected officials, campaign strategists, donors, and voters, have entered a binding pact that if they break it, they will bear the consequences. They must recognize that she is walking on a “glass precipice,” where a woman can only rise to the top in times of crisis. It is essential for all Democrats to understand that in motivating Biden’s exit from the race, they are now responsible for Harris’s success.
Replacing Biden with Harris is a significant gamble that cannot afford to fail.
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