In 2020, Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris to be his running mate, despite her evisceration of him on a debate stage where she attacked him as perpetuating and collaborating with racists. Biden, at the time, explicitly said he would choose a nonwhite female running mate and had originally flirted with the idea of failed Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams. To Republicans today, Harris is the epitome of a DEI candidate, and Democrats are furious about that comparison. It is a problem for the Republicans.
Democrat focus groups and media focus groups have regularly shown Kamala Harris is not well liked in parts of the black community. Black women and younger black men have often voiced criticisms of Harris. In the opinion of black focus group participants, Harris has not lived what they see as the “black experience.” The daughter of a Jamaican immigrant father and Indian immigrant mother, Harris is the epitome of the American dream and melting pot. But her father's family descends from a line of slave owners in Jamaica. She herself grew up in progressive politics in Oakland, California. Her father was a Marxist economics professor, and her mother was a biologist and cancer researcher.
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