Michał Sutowski: The furthest social reforms after planet War II – affirmative action, civilian rights bill or voting right – was conducted in the US by Lyndon B. Johnson, a reasonably conservative politician from the deep conservative state of Texas. Biden besides moved to the left in relation to what kind of politician he was in legislature – he pushed among others. big investment programmes in green technologies. Is it easier for old white guys to become an effective progressive in America?
Łukasz Pawłowski: Johnson was much easier off that he had a large lead in Congress, legendary backroom influences, and a completely different arrangement of relations between the 2 parties. In the mid-1960s, if, for example, any confederate Democrats did not want for the equal rights of African Americans, the president could search – and found – the support of many senators and members of the home of Representatives among Republicans. But fundamentally Biden's analogy to Johnson is correct, due to the fact that both of them are white, respected, highly established politicians who managed to lead, at least in any areas, extremist for their time of reform. With their position and image they could force them as something common sense, responding to the challenges of the era.
Candidates with a “radical” image have worse?
When the same or even half of the same wants to introduce a candidate like Obama or Kamali Harris, if she had won the election in November, it would be much easier to pin this patch of utmost leftovers, scandalous radicalism, ideological revolution. This kind of blackmail has paralyzed president Obama to any degree – he was very afraid of the accusations that the first black president was elected and already wants to turn America upside down.
Does that mean Kamala Harris, a black female with Indian-Japanese roots – in the run and possibly during the presidency – is doomed to centralism, “healthy sense” and “moderate advancement within the limits of the law”? In another words, must he at all costs center his message and program in order not to be accused of levitation?
There is specified a threat, due to the fact that the very fact that we are dealing with a heavenly female for the first time in the past of the presidential election creates large possible for accusations that she is unfit, that she is "unpresent" that all she does is extreme. Only on the another hand, it is not determined how it will behave, since its organization too, and American society are elsewhere than for Obama in 2008. His preservation resulted, at least in his first term, besides from the feeling that there was inactive any area for cooperation with Republicans.
Is he gone today?
Either not at all, or it's very narrow, due to the fact that cooperation with the another side is not politically worthwhile: voters of the another organization will not convince themselves, and yours will not reward you for it. In this situation, you can either proceed trying to walk in the mediate or follow your beliefs. While Kamala Harris is not a leftist – in 2020 for the organization left she was besides "prosecutionary", she tried to rapidly adapt to the expectations of the electorate, she fell out incredibly and, among others, lost the primary before they started. Her party, however, I will repeat, is elsewhere today, as was seen in the example of Biden, whose moods in the organization and among voters pushed in any respects to the left – for example in the controversial issue of the elimination of student debt, prison policy or state intervention in the pharmaceutical market, and he remained in the mainstream of democrats.
You say that the field of cooperation between democrats and Republicans is nothing or minimal, but individual could point out that in the 1960s social conflicts in the US were much sharper – dozens of people died in the riots, and the bombers killed, among others, the incumbent president, the likely presidential candidate and brother of the first and yet Nobel Peace Prize winner. In the South, the authorities tolerated militias murdering civilian rights activists. Polarisation was powerful – and yet someway passed all these laws and amendments to the Constitution, which moved America forward. And today, erstwhile you read your book, you can get the impression that not only can you not decently improvement anything, but that America is in danger of civilian war!
If this analogy is accepted – between the stormy 1960s and the modern era – then we must consider the different horizons of analysis. There may not have been a civilian war at the time, but it was a twelve years of serious unrest and social uproar that ended with Reagan's election and his promise of a "new morning" in the United States. Of course, this promise travels with reality, due to the fact that the 1980s is simply a time of social erosion and the origin of many problems that we are seeing today, headed by a advanced rate of incarceration, i.e. the percent of people in prison. But this is on the margins – whether we consider that present is worse or better than 50–60 years ago, we have time to destabilize in the medium-term.
However, this is someway comforting – the scale of tension was most likely comparable to today's, the level of force even greater, and yet the US has survived and seems to be somewhat better than before. A small little racist, little discriminatory than that. Well, if it worked then, then possibly now too...
Survive? Probably, though if we take a long time perspective, we don't gotta worry about anything at all. In the long run, we'll all be dead, and besides, the universe will detonate anyway, so there's nothing to worry about. Like in a movie Annie HallWhere a young hero doesn't want to do his homework for this reason. But to put it rather seriously, the consequences of the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s are besides felt today, so it is not necessarily essential to derive comfort from those times.
But possibly inspiration. That then society was divided, and yet it could improvement itself.
Of course, the 1960s were times of large polarization and fast change, a bit like today, erstwhile everything starts to collapse – old norms, customs, laws. But on the another hand, the process of these political divisions was completely different from today, due to the fact that not along the organization line. After all, Johnson's key laws, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the civilian Rights Act of the year before, passed with more proportional support from Republicans than Democrats.
So these super-controversial cases that people were shot at on the streets like African American civilian rights or the Vietnam War, they shared people, but they weren't closely connected? A supporter of racial equality may have believed that soldiers in Vietnam in the South defend the planet against communism? And a racist would think that this war was stupid and throwing taxpayers' money in the mud? And any of them could have voted for Democrats or Republicans due to the fact that they actually liked a candidate?
Yes, these views were not arranged in packages, due to the fact that besides the 2 main parties were, as our co-author writes American Podcast Piotr Tarczyński, actually... 4 parties. There were, therefore, confederate Democrats who could support their organization on the improvement of an active or caring state, as long as the support went primarily to whites. And there was besides specified a group among Republicans – after all, the celebrated state road construction program was implemented for president Eisenhower. At the same time, they were among Republicans, especially their elite, environment against the active engagement of the state in the economy. At the same time, you lost those white confederate Democrats erstwhile it came to civilian rights legislation, but it could be compensated by the votes of the Republicans from the North. The same was actual in alleged moral issues: Republicans have long praised the fact that they were the first to support the amendment on equal rights between men and women, the alleged Equal Rights Declaration.
Concerning the prohibition of sex discrimination, this communicative is told by, for example, the series Ms. America.
She yet disappeared, but by the 1970s both parties supported her and seemed to pass without any problem – she was voted out in legislature and 33 state legislatures! Only 3 states have been able to make decisions about it throughout the country. And it was only then that it became the start of cultural wars. Since the early 1960s, any Republicans have argued that they must play for polarization. This process is almost complete, due to the fact that present you will no longer find a politician who will have conservative views on abortion, just as you will not find a Republican who will say abortion is mostly a woman's matter, or at least it will not be a crucial group in this party. Abortion is simply a good example: erstwhile you look at the software platforms of the 1970s, but after the judgement in the case Roe vs. Wade, then abortion was not a organization issue.
But as far as African American rights are concerned, Republicans began to decision to the right as early as the 1960s, and it became the agenda of the full party.
Yes, just remember that for most of the period of the Cold War, and even earlier, due to the fact that since the 1930s, the Republican organization has been a number party. She could only win presidential elections, and little frequently – General Eisenhower is an exception between 1932 and 1968. However, people were able to vote for e.g. Democrats for Congress, and to elect a Republican candidate for President, but in Congress, these others were number for decades. So in the mid-1960s, the question was: what to do?
Because the strategy so far isn't working?
Exactly whether we request to work with the democrats if we want to implement at least the elements of our programme, and we are in a number – or vice versa. possibly due to the fact that we're in a minority, we gotta go on a sharp short circuit. And that's what candidate Barry Goldwater says in 1964: if we don't stand out hard, then we just blend in with the Democrats. Therefore, if we want to take power, we must emphasise divisions.
They see that this is simply a logical solution that they take coldly. due to the fact that so what if they pride themselves on the tradition of "the Lincoln Party", the 1 who abolished slavery, or even stand up for black people in the South? If they're inactive leaving for the Democrats who bring in the fresh Deal...
It's mostly addressed to white people.
Yes, that's how it was calibrated – confederate Democrats would not support president Roosevelt's ambitious programs if they were beneficiaries of besides many blacks. But the politics of stimulating the economy have improved their existence anyway, so African Americans have gradually sailed to the democrats.
And they were leaving for the North.
Yes, in large waves of migration: in the early 20th century, later during the large Depression in the late 1920s and 1930s, and after planet War II, erstwhile the automotive manufacture and jobs were developing in the North. And where racism was also, but not formally sanctioned. I urge you watch footage of protests in the North, erstwhile to the cities Blacks come and effort to settle besides in white neighborhoods. due to the fact that they gotta live somewhere, and apartments are missing, since waves of fresh migrants keep coming. Martin Luther King mentioned that in Detroit or Chicago he was sometimes amazed level of hostility in protest, even higher than in the South.
And on this hostility, they start building a Republican position?
In the South, they see the erstwhile Dixiecrats, or Democratic voters, whose organization with Johnson at the head of the “fail”, undermining racial segregation. In the North, in turn, they see white immigrants and their descendants, erstwhile seen as inferior sort, i.e. Poles, Irish, Italians. They have so far been an electorate of the Democratic Party, close to labour unions, but among them there is simply a increasing consensus: due to the fact that their organization opens up more and more to blacks, and they do not want to share their wealth. In a sense, fresh Deal has become a victim of himself here, due to the fact that the politics of the 1940s and 1950s rise the standard of surviving of the population, which at any point begins to defend it and does not want to extend solidarity to another groups. And since the Democratic organization is heading this way, they're starting to look for alternatives, too.
So the racial issue, under fresh conditions, allows voters to be moved between parties?
The idea, best known under the slogan "South Strategy" does indeed appear in the 1960s, and its essence is the celebrated thought of Kevin Phillips, a Republican strategist, that in politics it is crucial to know who hates who. It is crucial to remember that the usage of this on the presidential level does not change the full political scene yet – it will be decades before it comes to the level of elections for state assemblies or governors.
But Richard Nixon won the election in 1968.
Among another things. Of course, he does not talk straight about the request to reconstruct segregation, like the infamous politician of Alabama and his counter-candidate George Wallace, but proclaims the slogan of restoring “law and order”. On the 1 hand, it refers to the chaos, the riots, the general social unrest of that time, which, in particular, the older generation is clearly tired, as the "silent majority" which, alternatively of making mischief, is working hard on their own and the country's prosperity. But on the another hand, there is simply a hidden, racist subtext in this: due to the fact that if you tell us that “in the centres of our cities we must bring law and order”, it is known which social group in these centres lives. The white mediate class had already moved to the suburbs.
And the white workers who couldn't do it, they want peace. However, possibly not immediately, but specified a racial issue has proved to be very effective?
Yes, even in the presidential election it was a trial spread over years. Nixon besides wins in 1968 due to the fact that Democrats had already lost the South to Barry Goldwater, a conservative Republican from Arizona 4 years earlier. He then won in 5 confederate states, where practically since the civilian War Republicans had nothing to look for. Granted, Johnson gave him a beating at national level, but the Democratic organization lost that part of the country.
Despite these processes in the next election Nixon only has a minimal triumph – a fewer tens of thousands of votes little in Illinois and Missouri would make him not get the majority of electorate votes. In the South, he was picked up by George Wallace in 5 states, who, on racial issues, drove him from the right. And if he lacked these electorate voices, the election of the president would fall on the home of Representatives, where the majority nevertheless had Democrats. In another words, Republicans noticed that the racial subject was starting to pay off for them, but there was no way that this phrase in the South would reverse the logic of the full political scene. Democratic organization governors won in the South even until the end of the 20th century.
When you talk about white European immigrants from the North, I am reminded of the description of social reforms in Brazil – beneficiaries of social and educational programs that have come into the mediate class thanks to them, began to be against redistribution in favour of social pits, especially indigenous peoples, and voted for fascist Bolsonaro.
That's why it was so naive, popular a fewer years ago, that due to the fact that America is becoming more and more different in terms of race, it pluralizes ethnically – it will necessarily favour democrats as a organization more open to migration. That's not true, due to the fact that it's due to the fact that you're already incarcerated, you don't want any more groups to come here.
Going further with analogies to those times: in the 1960s, almost simultaneously with the introduction of equal laws, riots erupt in U.S. cities. And that, of course, creates a convenient ground for right-wing narrative: you give them a finger, they eat the full hand.
Or you will give them, and alternatively of being thankful, they will destruct the city, and their own neighborhoods.
Is it not akin today? We even elected them – we, the good Americans – the black president, and they're blowing us again, setting up any Black Lives Matter...
In the 1960s, it was actually a serious problem for president Johnson, who pushed these laws through, and at the same time he knew perfectly well that riots had their causes. A committee was even created to describe them accurately, and what was defined in the 1960s remains mostly up-to-date: discrimination against African Americans at residential level, overcrowding of districts and low standard of housing, poorer educational prospects, poorer employment conditions, higher costs of the same services or worse services at the same price. In short, black people are treated unevenly and at any point there is simply a spark in the form of, for example, violent police intervention, which, again, systematically treats them worse than white people. Anger explodes, burns, and for a time there is peace.
But before the peace returns and as long as the riots continue, the right - especially Republicans - is increasing support. Doesn't that work like that now?
It's working. It's reasoning that they'll never be happy, constantly resenting how much slavery... Same with the general level of crime. He may actually fall, but social feelings matter. If people see images of burning districts in the media, even if it is simply a part of reality, they feel that the country is in chaos – and that is their problem, not any systemic racism. And yet to measure the level of racism according to the fact that Obama became president, it is like to identify the state of Polish football with the career of Robert Lewandowski. The success of an individual does not necessarily reflect the standard of surviving of the group. As you look at various economical and social indicators, you can see that the average luck of a black household is respective times smaller than that of a white family. And you have 2 possible explanations: either it's systemic, or it's just worse, dumber, little resourceful and immoral since birth.
It's not said, I understand, directly. But can you allud to that?
It's been a long time since you've been speaking directly. Nixon spoke of “law and order”, and Ronald Reagan spoke of his run in 1980 started in Neshoba County, Mississippi. This is the same place where 16 years earlier 3 activists were brutally murdered encouraging blacks to registry for elections. It was a very loud case, shown, among others, in the movie Mississippi on fire. The inauguration at that place was evidently not an accident, but a conscious choice. Like letting go of the eye to the voters erstwhile Reagan said he would respect "right states".
I mean, can you interpret all these rights your own way?
State laws mean as much as the anticipation of regulating certain matters at local level. Of course, you can't just ban black people from voting, but you can so that the strategy can make it a small more hard for them.. Although in the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act introduced the rule that states with a past of racial discrimination must consult any changes in voting methods and get the approval of the Justice Department. This was renewed all erstwhile in a while, respective times, with the participation of the Republican Party, until 1 day the ultimate Court stated that it was no longer necessary. And practically castrated that record. This is simply a good example of modern erosion of laws that seemed erstwhile conquered and unrepeated.
Once the whites of the North didn't want fresh blacks coming, now they're more against Latin American immigration.
In general, Americans have a migration problem. And so it has been in the past. But the sources of today's tensions, in my opinion, are not “modern” at all, due to the fact that they are inactive reaching out to reforms of the immigration system, besides from Johnson's time. The abolition of quotas promoting migrants from Western Europe – alongside another factors – has changed directions, most of which have come to the US – to Asia and South America. In addition, the strategy of household reunification was introduced at the request of conservatives – interesting and paradoxical. They hoped that this would make migrants from Europe more likely to arrive in the United States and that this would keep a certain balance.
Did it work?
Exactly the opposite: the strategy of household reunification made it even easier for those people who came from fresh directions to come. Therefore, erstwhile you compare the migration structure to the 1960s and now, the home countries are completely different. It is in this context – and in the spirit of his “make America large again” – Trump asked at 1 of the meetings with the senators: why people from these “damaged countries” come to us, these Shithole countries? In principle, we want to, we request immigrants, but not from any African or South American countries, but from Europe, Norway. And they don't come...
'Cause for the hell of Norway, I'm going to America.
Emigration from Scandinavia to the United States in the 1920s made the most sense, but now it's gone. As well as adding a dysfunctional asylum system, it is not sustainable in the long run – it is easy to play on this sentiment that erstwhile this country was "our" or white, descendants of immigrants from the Anglo-Saxon countries, and now it is not our country.
And does the experience of the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1960s, erstwhile most progressive social reforms were introduced, propose that equality or solidarity reforms, yes, are possible that they can do rather well – provided that they are not besides inclusive? In another words – that they are not aimed at everyone? And that erstwhile fixing the world, i.e. America, “there are limits that must not be crossed”?
In the 1930s, this was discussed directly. president Roosevelt, despite the force even from his own wife, did not choose to introduce a law that would punish national lynching perpetrators. He knew that the Democratic organization would rebel with him, and preferred to reform, yes, progressive, but aimed mainly at white people. That is why, for example, the social safety introduced under the fresh Deal did not include farm workers or home aid – both groups of workers were dominated by blacks. The applicable enforcement of various programs was besides frequently carried to state level, and so states could calibrate support so that they knew where it would go. In this way, the improvement could gain support from confederate Democrats who could otherwise block many things.
Is present different? Is it possible under the present conditions to carry out progressive reforms that would include number groups, discriminated against?
No major reforms can be carried out today. That explains the last book by Ziblatt and Levitski, Tyranny of the Minority, whose authors show that the United States has had very strong mechanisms to safeguard the interests of minorities since the very beginning of its existence. Of course, it was not about blacks, sexual minorities or Muslims – it was about the states of the South. This was served by electoral strategy or equal representation in the legislature of all states regardless of their size, and later the absurd procedure, the alleged filibuster, which makes almost all bill require approval of 60 out of 100 senators. In the American political system, agrarian regions are overrepresented, which vote for the Republican organization by far. The consequence is that politicians who have never represented a majority of voters are able to block any major political reform.
So real proportions, i.e. how many people support these solutions – are little important?
It is frequently said that the United States is divided in half, and there is something about it. But on the another hand, as you look at the votes cast on both sides, the division is not so balanced: Democrats have a crucial advantage. Biden won 7 million votes more than Trump in 2020. However, the President's selection strategy makes it possible that if respective tens of thousands of people in respective key states voted differently, he would lose.
But did not large reforms take place in times of optimism and hope? erstwhile was the U.S. on a rising wave? Money for education for planet War II veterans – after the triumph over Germany and Japan; housing programs during the 1950s economical boom. erstwhile Johnson introduced the civilian Rights Act, there was no Vietnamese disaster yet. And today, rather, the atmosphere of decline dominates.
I don't precisely agree with the premise, and with the proposal. On the 1 hand, after the war, there was a legitimate optimism and pride in the power of the United States, but on the another hand there was a spectrum of danger over America from the russian Union. any reforms could so be sold as part of building resilience or simply safety policy. Gratitude towards veterans played a role, but there was besides an argument that human resources training strengthens the economy in the technological race, and allows for modern reinforcements.
In turn, interstate highways, i.e. president Eisenhower's project, were part of the construction of infrastructure for the military – by the way they gave the full region a boost and reduced unemployment. In another words, they lived in the shadow of the atomic mushroom, with the feeling that without these reforms, without the state's engagement in the economy, the communists would overtake us technologically and endanger us politically. And let us add that the most celebrated improvement package, related to the fresh Deal slogan, was born on the wave of deep crisis and trauma of multimillion-dollar unemployment.
You compose in a book on social polarization, which in the United States is mostly influenced by the form of the political strategy and the strategy of politicians. But Obama tried to act differently, appealed to unity – why did it not work out? It didn't work out, did it?
It was partially a substance of informed political decision: Republicans decided that he was to be the single-term president. They failed, but part of this strategy was to torpedo all his efforts. However, Obama hoped for any interparty agreement that was no longer possible at the time.
It wasn't because?
Because it seemed that if Obama were to win spectacularly, then the Republican organization would gotta completely improvement and change its position on the political stage. So it was better to prevent it. The reaction to Obama was very quick: in 2010, or 2 years after the victory, he lost the majority in the home of Representatives, and it was rather spectacular. To the left, he was besides centred and reconciled, and to Republicans... you know.
The policy of conscious Republican play for polarization began then, in the 1990s or even before?
I would have reached for Goldwater's celebrated speeches from the mid-1960s, which promised that he would offer people a choice, not an echo that he would not imitate the Democratic Party's politics, that yet radicalism in defence of its values is not a disadvantage. He lost, but not his way of thinking. Philips with his “who hates whom” and the search for items that can polarize, activate your electorate and share your opponent's electorate. And what's more, if you're working on an issue, there are yet radicals on the social level who are forcing politicians to go even further.
W Your book What about Kansas? The process is described erstwhile in the 1990s, the Republicans, these establishments, abruptly realize that they are no longer mainstream in the party, but were driven around from the right. abruptly their electorate is in a completely different place and moves the organization more and more to the right. In today's Republican Party, even Goldwater or Reagan would never find each other. Again, Piotr Tarczyński wrote about it, how Republicans are sometimes taken over by an increasingly extremist faction – in fresh times Tea Party, and now MAGA.
And is racial conflict and what is called "cultural wars" besides a political package? Or are they different dimensions and names of the same conflict?
No, I don't think so. Trump, for example, grows support among black men. It's hard to tell how these elections will work out today, but as long as Biden was inactive in the game, the polls showed Trump could get the best score among African-Americans since... Nixon in 1960! We have already talked about the fact that immigrant descendants frequently do not want fresh immigrants in the country; on a akin basis, different conservative reactions can guide the voices of not only white Protestants. At the same time, it is worth noting that even 90 percent of the population vote for Democrats among blacks, so if specified Trump gets 30% of the votes among black men, it will be his immense success – but it is inactive a decisive minority.
Could Republicans fight for more? The “value” agenda?
Such ideas were formulated in 2012, after they lost the presidential election for the second time. An analysis was created, according to which the organization should open up, among others, to Latin voters. The candidate carved from this analysis was Jeb Bush in 2016. shortly after, however, Trump arrived and priorities changed a bit. However, what he himself says, his ma Purist, referring to the conventional masculinity of the message may appeal to men of Latin origin and black.
Do the Latins like the wall, too?
In general, the wall is becoming more and more popular with democrats – 1 3rd of their voters are already in favour. And just to be clear, the physical barrier at the Mexican border was built much earlier, besides for Obama's presidency, but no 1 was bragging that it was Obama's wall. And the number of migrants on the confederate border was lower for Obama than for Trump. These numbers are inactive changing, but at any point Biden's presidency was truly record. Now they have fallen again due to the fact that the president has introduced fresh guidelines at the level of the executive regulation. The law reforming the asylum strategy disappeared in Congress.
What does that come from? Just more people trying to drive in?
At any point individual figured out how to usage the American asylum system. Migration present is rather different than it was in the 1990s erstwhile single Mexicans, mostly men, tried to get unnoticed into the United States, there to work and send money to the family. present you have people who are simply crossing the border and presenting asylum applications to border guards. And the process of processing this application takes respective years, during which they can live, work and wait for a decision in the United States.
When so many people appear on the border in a short time, the question arises what to do with them. Do you want me to lock you up in any facilities until the motion is considered? But where exactly, if there are no seats? Do families keep together or children separate? Trump Administration separating parents who migrated with children, hoping that specified a policy will discourage at least any migrants. The media reported that any of the children had not returned to their parents.
These fewer years of waiting for the examination of the proposal is due to a deliberate policy or an overload of the system?
Even if the border was abruptly closed present and no 1 else applied for it, it would take 3 years to process it already submitted. In another words, the strategy is very overloaded. We were at the border with Piotr Tarczyński and we saw how it worked. You drive up there, and you don't gotta wait long to run into migrants on the American side. They're usually not Mexicans, they're people from all over South America who walk through that fence. He evidently has holes that individual cut out, but besides regular breaks – he is not in any places. Everybody knows where it is, they go through and they don't run from border guards, they're looking for them. They say they want to apply for asylum, and they're triggering the full procedure.
In Biden's administration, was Kamala Harris liable abroad?
Technically, yes, but she had no tools to do anything about it. Cooperation between both parties would be needed to change migration policy in any direction. Even the proposal to increase the border guard's budget and facilitate the removal of those who do not have the right to apply for asylum has been blocked due to the fact that chaos is politically worthwhile.
Indirect solutions were introduced – in Biden's time, for example, they tried to introduce a "stay in Mexico" policy so people would apply from there. An application was besides created to apply online, and people tried to direct people to border crossings to kind things out a small bit. But it doesn't substance much if it's the easiest way to cross the border anywhere, and the full system's stuck for years anyway. Either you radically reduce the number of applications you have submitted and at the same time improve the advancement of those already filed, or nothing will change.
Kamala Harris besides has immigrant, and it's not European, due to the fact that Indian-Japanese roots. Is this issue and will it be played in your campaign?
Trump began by questioning her racial origin, saying that she was Indian, that she was only “newly” appearing as black and that she was trying to play it. This is just not true, and you can have a double identity – the best example of his children Vice president candidate, J. D. Vancewhose wife is besides Indian.
When Obama competed in the election, he tried to avoid the description of a "black candidate", he did not powerfully emphasize the issue of race. Is Harris gonna do the same?
Obama, on the another hand, could juggle his communicative that he had a father a migrant from Kenya, while being raised by white grandparents in Kansas, and then went to Columbia and Harvard, so he could play both identities. Kamala Harris does not have that possibility, so he will most likely go into the communicative that “this is what America is today”, which is simply a diverse one. The more he stands behind her White, older Minnesota guy.
Will it aid her if she was a prosecutor?
In the primary of 2020, it harmed, especially on the left side, but it was shortly after The execution of George Floyd. Today, rather, it will work in her favour, although of course the right will accuse her of being besides soft – for soft for criminals, for soft for migrants, for soft to negociate with leaders of another countries.
**
LukePawłowski – a sociologist and psychologist, a doctor of sociology. Together with Piotr Tarczyński leads American Podcast. Book author United States of America (Republication Mark, 2024).
