From the sidewalks of Oakland to the halls of the White House, Kamala Harris’ story is the stuff dreams are made of…the American Dream. Because where else could the daughter of immigrants rise to the highest office in the land, shattering glass ceilings all along the way? Only in America.
Of course, she had plenty of examples to show her what was possible. Coming to America from India at only 19-years-old, her mother became a celebrated biologist. Her father had come from Jamaica, studied at UC Berkeley and became a renowned economist and professor at Stanford. So, they raised her not only to see what is and what has been, but to imagine what is possible -- not who we are, but who we can be.
It worked because she thrived on that possibility. It took her to Vanier College in Montreal, Howard University and the University of California College of Law, San Francisco. It drove her to organize for justice. It helped her prosecute murderers and rapists as the District Attorney’s chief of the Career Criminal Division and eventually become San Francisco’s district attorney herself, then attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president.
It gave her the moral clarity to fight the big banks who paid for their own misdeeds by foreclosing on working families. It gave her the strength to fight for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company and it gave her the tools to win bringing rent relief and badly needed resources to low-income communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, to deliver student debt relief to countless American, to help create millions of new jobs and more.
Now, because it’s her time and her turn, she is zooming through and into history and nobody deserves it more. Yes, we recognize that politics is a contact sport and we know that the attacks will come. In fact, some are coming already.
But we also recognize that a lot of the folks wearing different jerseys than we are keep running the same old plays of racism, bigotry, misogyny, ignorance and hate. From birtherism 2.0 and dismissing the vice president as a DEI hire, to claiming she "became Black" and purposefully mispronouncing her name, it’s clear that the closer we get to history, the louder and sicker they become.
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That’s OK. She can take it because the contrast is easy to see.
It’s not just about the prosecutor vs. the felon or even the undeniable truth vs. rapid fire lies. It’s about progress vs extremism. It’s about who we can be.
Think about the landmark legislation Vice President Harris helped marshal through Congress and into law. Think about all the executive orders to raise wages, fight climate change, protect reproductive freedom and more that she helped make reality. Now compare that to the four years of deprivation and degradation we saw under Donald J. Trump.
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Of course, elections are about the future forecast. So, compare former President Donald Trump’s all but official endorsement of the plans laid out in Project 2025 to President Harris signing a real bipartisan border security bill into law, protecting a woman’s right to control her own body and make her own health care decisions, extending the child tax credit that cut child poverty in half, building on the more than 15 million jobs she already helped create.
Compare Trump’s plan to declare martial law to President Harris strengthening the middle class, growing small businesses, expanding health care, keeping medical debt off your credit report and making sure no one raises taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 per year.
While Harris knows that affordable internet is a must not a plus for all Americans, the MAGA Republicans refuse to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program. And while they’re screaming about imagined crises, we’re talking about raising wages, closing the wealth gap, lowering the cost of childcare and making sure getting sick doesn’t mean going broke.
That’s just a hint of the differences.
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Simply put, Vice President Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate who has generated more power and energy for this country than Duke Power. It’s been less than a month since she announced her campaign for president and she’s already unifying the Democratic base, expanding our coalition, stretching the map and forcing the Republicans to short circuit.
In less than two weeks, Vice President Harris has recruited nearly 200,000 volunteers, sparked nationwide grassroots organization, secured the Democratic nomination and raised $310 million, which is twice as much as Trump raised through all of July.
From campaign calls to rallies to local volunteers knocking on doors on a Saturday morning, folks are getting tuned in all across this nation like we’ve never seen before. It’s unprecedented. It’s historic.
Vice President Kamala Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate and this is a once-in-a-generation moment for America. The choice is clear. Will we choose truth or lies? Will we choose hope or hate? Will we choose the future or be doomed to repeat the past?
Well, like the vice president says, we are not going back.
Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @antjuansea.
