3 ms·

I'd love to hear any theories about how/why this decision was made. If it aids the discussion, here's a list of her policy positions: https://en.wikipedia.org/

I'd love to hear any theories about how/why this decision was made. If it aids the discussion, here's a list of her policy positions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Kamala_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Kamala_...

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
It's pandering to identity politics. Biden explicitly said he was picking a female candidate. With the riots, picking a black female is a natural(but risky) extension.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  People downvoting you but it's the truth. Watch how media is lying about her being African American. She's Indian and Jamaican and family owned slaves - doesn't matter to me but it does matter a lot to the current left.
  - kgraves 6y ago
    Don't forget that she was also the top law enforcement officer for California aka 'Top Cop', which to some on the left find unforgivable. (see ACAB (All Cops are B*stards)
    - Alupis 6y ago
      And the right didn't care for her anti-gun policies either. In California, she doesn't have a lot of fans on either side of the isle.
  - jeromegv 6y ago
    You might know that sexual relationship between slave owners and their slaves was not always consensual. There is a decent amount of Black people that have a slave owner as an ancestor and this was most likely not by choice.
    - blisseyGo 6y ago
      Yes, I am aware. That's why I said that it doesn't matter to me as I don't blame someone for their ancestors. But if the left base had principles, they wouldn't like her for exactly that reason.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Watch how media is lying about her being African American. They aren't. The media are mostly saying that she is both the first Black woman and first Asian (sometimes specifically South Asian) of either gender to be in either slot on a major party Presidential ticket. Which is, entirely, true. Some (though IME a minority; usage has shifted recently) may use “African American” in place of Black, which is also accurate. > She's Indian and Jamaican Black people got to Jamaica from the same place (and for the same reason) they got to the rest of the Americas. > and family owned slaves - doesn't matter to me but it does matter a lot to the current left. There is very little of the current left to whom it matters that an African American is of mixed race, or that their ancestors were in Jamaica between Africa and the US, or that someone’s distant ancestors owned slaves (which is true, in fact, of quite a lot of the current left, including—perhaps especially, due to the sexual dynamics of chattel slavery in the Americas—Blacks.) Those things tend to be more right-wing distortions of different left-wing positions that the right would rather avoid dealing with head on than significant left-wing positions, though if you tried really hard you could probably find someone on the left who cares about each of those things. She has substantial opposition on policy issues and past actions in government from some of the left, which isn’t surprising since, like Biden, she's basically a centrist Democrat, though (also like Biden) somewhat more progressive than the center of mass of the centrist neoliberal faction, though. OTOH, it is more the kind of opposition that matters in a primary than a general election.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Considering that in the hundreds of years since the US was founded there has never been a woman of color as VP candidate (or Presidential candidate with a major party), isn't that identity politics to always pick the white guy? Are white guys always the most competent or are we just pandering to the white electorate?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    It's identity politics if he picked her because she is black (just like it's identity politics if he picked her because she's female). Which, cynically, I suspect is the case. But it's not that black and white (no racial overtones intended). If you have N approximately-equally-qualified people from whom to select your vice presidential candidate, the choice will almost always come down to some edge in voting - either because they're from a particular state, or (in this case) a particular demographic. If they're all approximately equally qualified, I don't see that as "identity politics" in quite the same way. If you pick for ability, with political considerations around the edges, that to me is different from picking from political considerations, with ability being secondary. And in this case, I think Biden is picking based on political considerations. He said (what, a month ago?) that he was going to pick a woman. He didn't make any kind of a case that all the most qualified candidates were female. No, he made that decision based on what would get him the most political mileage. That's identity politics.
blisseyGo 6y ago
> THERE’S A WAR GOING ON OVER KAMALA HARRIS’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE, WITH UNFLATTERING ELEMENTS VANISHING > In recent presidential cycles, the velocity of edits made to a Wikipedia page have correlated with the choice of vice presidential running mate https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/
webninja 6y ago
My theory: She’s good looking, she’s a woman, she looks like she may be black, and she’s good at drawing up enthusiasm and excitement. To support this, of the 29 VP candidates, 100% were women. Of those 29 women, about 70% were non-white and only 2 were presidential candidates.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

It's pandering to identity politics. Biden explicitly said he was picking a female candidate. With the riots, picking a black female is a natural(but risky) extension.

blisseyGo 6y ago
People downvoting you but it's the truth. Watch how media is lying about her being African American. She's Indian and Jamaican and family owned slaves - doesn't matter to me but it does matter a lot to the current left.
- kgraves 6y ago
  Don't forget that she was also the top law enforcement officer for California aka 'Top Cop', which to some on the left find unforgivable. (see ACAB (All Cops are B*stards)
  - Alupis 6y ago
    And the right didn't care for her anti-gun policies either. In California, she doesn't have a lot of fans on either side of the isle.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  You might know that sexual relationship between slave owners and their slaves was not always consensual. There is a decent amount of Black people that have a slave owner as an ancestor and this was most likely not by choice.
  - blisseyGo 6y ago
    Yes, I am aware. That's why I said that it doesn't matter to me as I don't blame someone for their ancestors. But if the left base had principles, they wouldn't like her for exactly that reason.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Watch how media is lying about her being African American. They aren't. The media are mostly saying that she is both the first Black woman and first Asian (sometimes specifically South Asian) of either gender to be in either slot on a major party Presidential ticket. Which is, entirely, true. Some (though IME a minority; usage has shifted recently) may use “African American” in place of Black, which is also accurate. > She's Indian and Jamaican Black people got to Jamaica from the same place (and for the same reason) they got to the rest of the Americas. > and family owned slaves - doesn't matter to me but it does matter a lot to the current left. There is very little of the current left to whom it matters that an African American is of mixed race, or that their ancestors were in Jamaica between Africa and the US, or that someone’s distant ancestors owned slaves (which is true, in fact, of quite a lot of the current left, including—perhaps especially, due to the sexual dynamics of chattel slavery in the Americas—Blacks.) Those things tend to be more right-wing distortions of different left-wing positions that the right would rather avoid dealing with head on than significant left-wing positions, though if you tried really hard you could probably find someone on the left who cares about each of those things. She has substantial opposition on policy issues and past actions in government from some of the left, which isn’t surprising since, like Biden, she's basically a centrist Democrat, though (also like Biden) somewhat more progressive than the center of mass of the centrist neoliberal faction, though. OTOH, it is more the kind of opposition that matters in a primary than a general election.
jeromegv 6y ago
Considering that in the hundreds of years since the US was founded there has never been a woman of color as VP candidate (or Presidential candidate with a major party), isn't that identity politics to always pick the white guy? Are white guys always the most competent or are we just pandering to the white electorate?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  It's identity politics if he picked her because she is black (just like it's identity politics if he picked her because she's female). Which, cynically, I suspect is the case. But it's not that black and white (no racial overtones intended). If you have N approximately-equally-qualified people from whom to select your vice presidential candidate, the choice will almost always come down to some edge in voting - either because they're from a particular state, or (in this case) a particular demographic. If they're all approximately equally qualified, I don't see that as "identity politics" in quite the same way. If you pick for ability, with political considerations around the edges, that to me is different from picking from political considerations, with ability being secondary. And in this case, I think Biden is picking based on political considerations. He said (what, a month ago?) that he was going to pick a woman. He didn't make any kind of a case that all the most qualified candidates were female. No, he made that decision based on what would get him the most political mileage. That's identity politics.

blisseyGo 6y ago

> THERE’S A WAR GOING ON OVER KAMALA HARRIS’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE, WITH UNFLATTERING ELEMENTS VANISHING > In recent presidential cycles, the velocity of edits made to a Wikipedia page have correlated with the choice of vice presidential running mate https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/

webninja 6y ago

My theory: She’s good looking, she’s a woman, she looks like she may be black, and she’s good at drawing up enthusiasm and excitement. To support this, of the 29 VP candidates, 100% were women. Of those 29 women, about 70% were non-white and only 2 were presidential candidates.