PHONIER THAN A THREE DOLLAR BILL: THE DECEPTIVE CAREER OF KAMALA HARRIS

by Albert Lanier

If there is one thing you can learn from the American version of the British series HOUSE OF CARDS, it is the deception and artifice are the key building materials in the structure that is a politician’s career.

Frank Underwood- who goes from being a member of the US House of Representatives to Vice President and then President-is a fictional case study in this aspect. His fourth wall breaking asides give the audience the inside story of how he really feels as opposed to what we see him say to other members of Congress, to staff, to voters. Who is he really is never the same as who he portrays himself as.

The problem with life though is we never get those asides when viewing real politicians on TV, the internet or even in the real world if one actually gets to meet them in the flesh. There is no shattering of the fourth wall with real politicians-just a wall of phony sincerity, phony rhetoric and phony beliefs.

California Senator Kamala Harris is indicative of all three of those and likely more. Her recently announced Presidential run and kick off in Oakland as well as CNN Town Hall may provide her campaign with the usual media push and optics that Presidential campaigns need.

This blog however will provide a degree of pushback to the barely crafted media profile of Harris.

Though this blog has only been around for more than a year, my exposes have shed light on the reality behind the artifice of such figures as Alex Jones and Meghan Kelly. Jones has been de-platformed from many online outlets thus impacting his largely internet driven empire and Kelly was fired from NBC ostensibly over remarks about not seeing the big deal about people wearing blackface.

And so we turn to Kamala Harris. Harris’s candidacy is not a surprise at all but a result more than a couple of years of relative high national profile especially online where she has been touted as a Presidential Contender particularly since being elected a US Senator serving the State of California.

At this point, some may see her as Obama 2.0.

The big difference is that Barrack Obama’s climb to the Presidency was far stealthier and smoothly executed compared to relative firestorm that Harris now has put up with from varied sectors of online media.

To begin with, Obama was a former community organizer and later, attorney in private practice. Obama won election to the State Legislature in Illinois and eventually won a US Senate seat from the same state.

Harris is a former prosecutor in the Bay Area who went on to become Attorney General of the State of California before eventually winning election as a US Senator in the same state.

The fact that she served as a Prosecutor and AG wouldn’t be problematic if her core constituency was largely European-Americans who were conservative and right wing.

However Harris is obviously targeting what some have deemed the “Obama Coalition” namely people of color such African-Americans, Latinos and Asians. The problem is that Black and Hispanic populations have been impacted by tough on crime legislation and law and order mentalities of prosecutors that have created a mass incarceration problem in those communities.

Harris can only be described as a nightmare as a Prosecutor in Northern California and eventually as Attorney General of the entire state. Take her decision to enforce truancy laws-at best an extremely minor infraction-by targeting parents and threatening them with jail time if their children dont show in classrooms.

A video can be found on youtube of Harris discussing her approach during an address to California’s Commonwealth Club. Her outright glee and unabashed happiness in describing what can only be described as nauseating for me to watch. Harris comes off as a Prosecutorial Version of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Harris noted that truancy rates dipped more than 30% thanks to her tough-as-nails approach. Of course as AG, her tough-as-nails approach was nowhere to be found when it came to prosecuting large banks for massive misdeeds in her state. For example, the Steve Mnuchin -run One West was able to avoid prosecution. It comes as no surprise that money from the banking and financial sector found their way to her US Senate campaign.

Both Obama and Harris are biracial individuals who have a degree of African ancestry. Harris has largely claimed to be African-American. In fact, Harris matriculated and graduated from African-American based Howard University. However, in a recent CNN interview with Jake Tapper when asked about possibly being the first Black Female President, Harris seemed to shift her identity by essentially disagreeing by saying she was a “woman of color.”

Compared to Obama who made no effort to hide the fact that he considered himself a black person and crafted his career and campaign so as to be acceptable enough to African-American voters, Harris seems to be doing a 180-trying to appeal to as many ethnic and racial groups as possible as a Presidential candidate.

This is interesting in light of the fact that Harris’s life seems stage managed and structured to take advantage of her black ancestry in an obvious, public way while distancing itself from it in a private and sometimes semi-public way.

Harris has publicly stated that she was largely influenced by her Indian mother, a Cancer researcher who largely raised Harris and her sister after getting a divorce from her father, a Stanford Professor of Jamaican ancestry.

In fact, Harris largely grew up in Canada as a young girl and teenager and graduated from high school. Clearly Harris doesn’t come from the wellspring of black residential communities or even institutions in the US.

Thus her matriculation to Howard, joining a sorority there and getting her Bachelors’ degree seems like a conscious way of trying to make herself amenable to African-Americans. Going to a well-known black university serves as a form of credentials to deter any doubters from questioning her authenticity as a “black” person.

Except she isn’t black but biracial, an Indian-Jamaican woman raised in Canada and who apparently comes from a slave holding family on her father’s side, and who is influenced by immigrant parents while being raised in a neighboring country.

Is it an wonder then that this lack of familiarity with people of color including African-Americans resulted in career as a Prosecutor and Attorney General where she had no issue with locking up as many persons of color including many African-Americans for various offenses?

Even her campaign slogan feature terms like “tough” and “fearless”-clear signs of a Attorney general/ Prosecutor type mentality.

As deeply flawed as Obama was as a chief executive politically, he least was rational enough to have a career as an attorney and legislator that didnt come at the expense of black people whose votes he would need.

Harris by contrast seems to shamelessly think she can garner black votes in light of her “lock them up and throw away the key” approach to black parents and individuals in general. If nothing else, this shows a complete and utter contempt for African-Americans on her part.

What is laughable is that this woman positions herself as a “progessive prosecutor”. I would ask ”What is progressive about targeting parents-including many of color-for enforcement of minuscule truancy infractions?” The answer of course is nothing.This is regressive and punitive. This supposed Democrat has fomented the kind of policies that make far right Republicans’ overjoyed. One is tempted to think that Harris would make a better Republican candidate than Democrat candidate consider her harsh and nasty career as a prosecutor.

And so, much like the title of the TV show, Kamala Harris’s career is largely a House of Cards. The question is when this house of cards will be demolished thus derailing and perhaps ending her candidacy.

Albert Lanier was an Independent Journalist and freelance writer for 22 years.Lanier wrote for a variety of publications during his career including Pacific Business News, Honolulu Weekly, Puget Sound Business Journal, Hawaii Magazine and Asianweek. Since retiring nearly 2 years ago, Lanier has written op-ed pieces on occasion for Honolulu Civil Beat as well as this blog for Medium.com. He also is interviewed as a commentator and analyst on radio shows and podcasts, most recently on the Parallax Views podcast and can give lectures about the state of news and journalism to colleges, universities and other institutions. He can be reached on Facebook and Twitter.