Saturday, July 27, 2024

Israeli official criticizes Kamala Harris for speaking out about "dead children" in Gaza

Nandika Chatterjee
Fri, July 26, 2024 

Kamala Harris ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

An Israeli official criticized U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for speaking out about the plight of Palestinians — the death toll is estimated at over 39,000 civilians — and calling for a quick end to the war in Gaza, claiming such remarks would only delay a ceasefire.

Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, expressed concerns about the war after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday.

The unnamed Israeli official claimed that Harris’ comments could be misinterpreted by Hamas as evidence of a divide between the U.S. and Israel “and thus push a deal into the distance,” Reuters reported.

In her remarks following the meeting with Netanyahu, Harris said: “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time,” the Guardian reported. “There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, and as I just told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done."

Acknowledging Israel’s right to defend itself and denouncing Hamas as a dangerous terrorist organization, the vice president explained that it mattered how Israel chose to defend itself. “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [in Gaza],” Harris said. “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”

On Wednesday, Netanyahu called for more U.S. military aid for Israel, claiming that it would be the best way to restore peace to Gaza and ensure the release of hostages held by Hamas, The Guardian reported. Meanwhile, overwhelming global pressure has begun to mount as critics of the Israeli prime minister — including the families of hostages — accuse Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political purposes

Harris’ team rejects Israeli notion that her comments could harm ceasefire talks

Kylie Atwood, MJ Lee and Kayla Tausche, CNN
Sat, July 27, 2024 




Vice President Kamala Harris’ office on Friday is rejecting a suggestion from a senior Israeli official that the vice president’s remarks on Thursday that forcefully criticized Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas could have made a ceasefire deal harder to reach.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” a Harris aide told CNN, in response to a senior Israeli official being quoted in The Times of Israel: “Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference won’t be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure.”

Harris declared that she would “not be silent” about the suffering in Gaza amid the war after her meeting with Netanyahu. She also said that Israel has a right to defend itself but “how it does so matters,” staking out her lane as an empathetic and strong voice for the Palestinian suffering, just days after she became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.


But the vice president’s office on Friday sought to clarify that her message to Netanyahu behind closed doors mirrored that of Biden.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered the same message in their private meetings to Prime Minister Netanyahu: it is time to get the ceasefire and hostage deal done,” an aide to the vice president told reporters, adding that the meeting was “serious and collegial.”

Harris has already made some public comments about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that had a similar tone to her remarks after the Netanyahu meeting on Thursday. She emphasized the need for an “immediate ceasefire” in March, taking a long pause before adding the rest of the approved sentence: “for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.”

Harris’s office pointed out that her comments on Thursday “tracked with her previous comments on the conflict.”

“She started with rock-solid support for Israel and then she expressed her concern about civilian causalities and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as she always does,” said the aide, responding to reporters’ questions.

But her comments marked the first time that she spoke about the conflict since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee as she is faced with the challenge of defining her position on the politically charged issue of the Israel-Hamas war.

Her remarks on Thursday were not a major surprise to some administration officials who have been privy to her team’s views in interagency meetings.

Multiple US officials say that Harris’ team has often advocated for putting more pressure on Israel during interagency conversations over the course of recent months since October 7. For example, Harris’s aides have been advocates for sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, one source said.

Harris’s aides have also opposed the idea of possible low-level engagement with far-right members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet – such as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – making the case that engagement would be elevating their views, one official said. So far, the Biden administration has decided against reaching out to them.

Biden administration officials acknowledged that there might be some tension in the coming weeks as Harris develops her voice and her policy on the Israel-Hamas war. She has created that tension within the administration in the past on this issue. But now, they say that the tension could be worth it, given the ultimate goal of trying to draw in voters as she is at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket.

“She’s not substantively different than the president, but she’s tonally different,” one administration source told CNN.

A close friend familiar with Harris’ views expected “zero” chance she would break with Biden on policy, while acknowledging the opportunity for her to introduce more nuance, especially now that she’s the party’s candidate. “She’s allowed to support Israel but also want the war to end.”

Arab American leaders say that throughout the course of the Israel-Hamas war, Harris’ team has been “much more responsive” to the frustrations of their community when it comes to the Biden administration’s policies.

“Harris and her office threw us a lifeline early on,” Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “I spoke with her and she demonstrated compassion and empathy. She wanted to know what she could do to be responsive to our concerns.”

CNN’s Tim Lister and Tamar Michaelis contributed to this report.




Kamala Harris Hasn’t Broken From Joe Biden On Gaza. But Skeptics Of The War Watch Her Rise With Hope.

Akbar Shahid Ahmed
Sat, July 27, 2024 




LONG READ



U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday made her first major statement on the war in Gaza since she became the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee — affirming that she wants to see conditions improve for Palestinians, while still backing the current U.S. approach of simultaneously arming Israel and seeking a cease-fire.

Harris notably offered the U.S. administration’s official readout of discussions that she and President Joe Biden held earlier in the day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“To everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire and to everyone who yearns for peace: I see you and I hear you,” she said, detailing a proposed truce that the U.S. has spent months urging Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to embrace. Harris combined common administration talking points — support for Israel’s right to defend itself and concern for the human toll of its military campaign in Gaza — with the kind of detail she has often used in describing the conflict’s effects.

Citing “images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time,” Harris said she told Netanyahu “to get this deal done” to help Palestinians and free Israeli hostages whom Hamas captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the current fighting.

Biden rarely uses such vivid language in addressing Palestinian distress. Still, rhetoric is for now the chief difference between Harris and him when it comes to the war. As she develops her presidential campaign, managing continuity and contrast with the president on Gaza is likely to remain a top concern for Harris and her team.

Of the two voter groups she needs to woo for a victory in November — committed Democrats and a sizable number of independents — majorities have consistently opposed the U.S.-backed Israeli offensive for months. But stepping out of line with Biden could anger some in the party or spark pushback from ardent supporters of Israel. And all the while, Harris remains a high-ranking official, implicated in current policy as she faces questions about her possible future approach.

The administration took another step to position Harris as a standard-bearer on Gaza in its latest consultation on the war with outside national security experts on Friday. Such sessions are treated as ways to make sure influential voices understand and, the White House hopes, publicly defend the administration’s strategy. For the first time since such sessions began, the vice president’s team largely ran that meeting, two people familiar with the discussion told HuffPost, a shift that suggested a focus on demonstrating Harris’ foreign policy credentials.

As Harris takes a new role on the world stage, the dangers posed by the current Gaza policy have grown.

Polio is now spreading in the Palestinian enclave, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning an outbreak of the feared disease will be “very difficult” to stem because ongoing Israeli attacks have destroyed medical and clean water infrastructure. More than 250,000 people in the strip lack polio vaccines.

On Saturday, the risk of a new and broader war shot up. A rocket strike in northern Israel killed 11 people, sparking Israeli threats against the Hamas ally Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and has been striking Israeli targets throughout the war in Gaza. Israel has responded with sweeping attacks of its own, and U.S. officials have suspected the escalating tit-for-tat will spur a full-on Israeli invasion of Lebanon and devastation in both countries. (Speaking to Reuters, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the Saturday attack.)

Many humanitarian and global affairs experts say it’s past time for the U.S., as Israel’s closest ally, to use its leverage to force a change in Israeli policies in Gaza, seen as driving tensions across the Middle East. They recommend policies like Washington indicating that military and diplomatic support for Israel could end if the country does not take steps such as halting bombing altogether or letting more aid reach Palestinians.

Harris’ sudden influence already appears to be affecting the Israeli calculus. After Netanyahu’s meeting with her, Israeli officials told reporters they were surprised by her tacit criticisms, claiming these could help Hamas in cease-fire negotiations by showing “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel.

Stateside, many political observers are arguing that Harris is open to suggestions for a change from the Biden administration’s policy, including by being firmer with Netanyahu. “She’s going to be somewhat less supportive [of Israel] than President Biden has been, and I think that a large part of the Democratic Party, especially the younger members of the party, want that,” veteran Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said on MSNBC this week. Patrick Gaspard, the president of the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, wrote on X that Harris’ comments after meeting with the Israeli leader led to him “hearing from many who finally felt heard by our [government].”

But most signs suggest she will remain cautious about questioning the administration’s policy or overhauling U.S.-Israel relations — a position she will need to explain and defend as the November election nears.

“She has a responsibility to define where she stands,” Mohammed Khader, the policy manager at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told HuffPost, identifying “policy and institutions” as more important than “tone shifts.”
The Biden-Harris Show

Harris already has a track record on the war in Gaza. It suggests observers are right to hope she will not operate as Biden has, but should also temper their predictions.

The president’s near-total support for Israel is the result of decision-making by an insular group including him and just a handful of advisers. Foreign policy officials have told HuffPost the process has been unlike the administration’s handling of other dilemmas, such as the war in Ukraine. They say the White House has also largely disregarded pushback from government experts who believe the policy is harming U.S. interests and potentially violating U.S. and international law by funneling weapons to Israel as it faces allegations of committing war crimes. As internal complaints and public resignations of staff members have mounted, Biden’s team has said it welcomes feedback — but has not meaningfully changed course.

Harris’ aides, however, have consistently been more open to feedback, a U.S. official told HuffPost, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.

Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, and her Middle East special adviser, Ilan Goldenberg, “take input from staff and don’t pretend to know all the answers to everything,” the official said.

They contrasted the pair with Biden’s controversial chief Middle East aide and his national security adviser. “Both have been much more reasonable and moderate than [Brett] McGurk [or Jake] Sullivan,” the official said. They said Gordon and Goldenberg were particularly effective in devising steps to address the Israeli government enabling violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, saying: “Gaza has been all Biden people in every aspect. … Everything gets decided top-down.”

Though the two Harris aides do not hold dramatically dissimilar views from most other Biden officials, their more deliberative approach to policymaking and some of their past work suggests they may consider less deference to Israel. Gordon has urged the U.S. to reflect on its dubious track record in the Middle East, and Goldenberg has recommended that Washington boost outreach to Palestinians.

Harris herself has raised Palestinian concerns in policy discussions when she has felt they were overlooked, White House officials told The Washington Post, for a story that quoted an administration official saying the vice president chose to focus on planning among U.S. officials for Gaza’s postwar fate.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris appears onstage to speak during a session at a United Nations summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Dec. 2, 2023. GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images

Conversations with several U.S. officials and outside analysts familiar with policymaking also suggested Harris and her staff have not been deeply involved in the administration’s day-to-day choices on the most controversial matters, like responding to Israeli airstrikes on civilian targets or wrangling Netanyahu — raising the prospect that they would have handled these situations differently.

Meanwhile, the vice president’s public comments on Gaza have drawn attention and fueled hope among some opponents of the current U.S.-Israeli policy. In December, she became the highest-ranking official to say Israel should do more to minimize Palestinian deaths. For a March speech, she personally inserted descriptions of “inhumane” conditions in Gaza, according to the Post, and said Israel had “no excuses” for restricting aid. White House staff watered down that address, according to NBC News. (Kirsten Allen, Harris’ communications director, told NBC the report was “inaccurate.”)

In that speech, Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” in what was cast as “some of the administration’s most forceful public remarks to date” and as “some of the strongest made by a senior U.S. official” about Palestinian lives.

But she was describing the administration’s policy at the time, as it attempted to secure a temporary truce.

The episode reflects how wishful thinking and a public hunger for an administration shift have sometimes ignored a basic reality: When it comes to the fundamentals of U.S. policy, Harris has been aligned with Biden since Oct. 7.

She is a long-standing supporter of billions in military aid to Israel from the U.S., and she has not publicly challenged the president’s decisions to advance additional weaponry to the country, including by bypassing oversight from Congress, despite widespread concerns about how American bombs and other equipment will be used.

Nor has Harris weighed in on whether she believes the excessive civilian death toll she has often referenced violates international law, even amid an International Court of Justice case over “plausible” genocide in Gaza and a debate at the International Criminal Court over arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders. Separately, it’s unclear what she makes of lawmakers, former officials and human rights groups arguing that continued American backing for Israel breaks a U.S. law against providing weapons to a government barring the delivery of American humanitarian aid.

And Harris has not joined other Democrats who have called for halting or rethinking American weapons shipments. In the coming weeks, the administration plans to unveil an $18 billion package of additional arms for Israel, the largest since Oct. 7.

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a school destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 27, 2024. Abdel Kareem Hana via Associated Press

Tosome, Harris’ alignment with Biden’s policy so far means it’s hard to see her as any different.

Her staff members often present “the same talking point: Kamala cares about the vulnerable, the unprotected,” said a second U.S. official who has worked with Harris’ team.

The official expressed skepticism about her concern for Palestinians affecting policy. “I don’t know if it’s really based on reality,” they said. On Gaza, the Harris team doesn’t “have strong leadership.”

Spokespeople for the vice president and the White House National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
What Can Be

Advocates for a different U.S. strategy for the war in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict openly hope they can push Harris in a new direction. Some point to personal reasons why she may be more attuned to Palestinians’ experience.

The vice president is close to her pastor, Amos Brown, whom she consulted last weekend as Biden passed the baton to her in the 2024 election. Per The Washington Post, Brown directly asked Harris in February to help Palestinians, arguing their struggle resonates with that of Black Americans. Black churches have broadly been important centers of support for Democratic candidates, and amid the war, more than 1,000 Black pastors have called for a cease-fire. The move showed “a recognition within the Black church that their role [in conversations about the war] is as important as any other voter bloc,” said Khader from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, who is Black and Palestinian.

And Harris, unlike Biden, “does not have a long-term personal relationship with Netanyahu,” noted Sarah Harrison, an analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. That history is widely understood to have contributed to the president’s reluctance to break more fully with his Israeli counterpart.

“She is listening to the next generation in a way that President Biden did not,” Harrison said, pointing to “young, progressive women” close to Harris who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians, notably niece Meena Harris and stepdaughter Ella Emhoff.

Harrison, who has criticized the Biden administration’s Gaza approach, is realistic about where Harris stands: “She is still going to work within the parameters the Democratic Party has set on foreign policy. She’s not one who tends to rock the boat.”

But a Harris presidency could put extra pressure on achieving goals like establishing a Palestinian state living alongside Israel and holding violators of international law accountable, Harrison said.

“She could set a different tone” for government officials, argued Harrison, who previously worked on laws covering weapons transfers at the Pentagon. That might encourage them to, for instance, apply the same human rights standards to Israel that the U.S. does to other countries receiving American arms.

Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy think tank recently argued Harris could even as a candidate embrace moves like restoring U.S. funding for UNRWA, the United Nations agency serving Palestinians. (Biden suspended the funding after Israeli allegations that workers with the agency were involved in the Oct. 7 attack, for which an independent review said Israel has yet to provide sufficient proof. The U.S. is now the only country to have rescinded funding that has not since reversed the move; lawmakers from both major parties this spring voted to write a one-year ban into American law.)

Closer to home, Harris has the chance to unburden herself from Biden’s Middle East agenda in ways that reap political benefits.

For instance, the president putting a U.S.-Israel-Saudi Arabia deal as his top goal in the region may have made his team wary of criticizing the Saudis. But that meant a major line of attack against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was left on the table. Biden “should be bashing Trump over his business ties with Saudi Arabia,” said Stephen Miles, the president of the progressive advocacy group Win Without War. “They should be talking about corruption. But that’s not what they’re doing.”

Abbas Alawieh speaks during an election night gathering, Feb. 27, 2024, in Dearborn, Michigan. via Associated Press

As she tries to rally support, Gaza will be key for the vice president’s approach to some deeply disillusioned groups of Democratic voters, from students to Arab Americans. For some, simply having a set of new faces to deal with may inspire some hope.

“President Biden’s team has failed to substantively engage with the policy demands of our Uncommitted movement,” said Abbas Alawieh, an organizer with the “uncommitted” movement, in which tens of thousands of Democrats denied Biden their primary votes in opposition to his Gaza policy. Biden has repeatedly directed aides to reach out to Alawieh and others in his coalition but has not altered U.S. policy on Gaza in response.

“We’re hoping that Vice President Harris takes a different approach, listening to voters’ concerns and engaging seriously with our demand for an arms embargo that saves lives and helps achieve a cease-fire and a release of all hostages and detainees,” Alawieh added.

With fighting, deaths and U.S. involvement in the war ongoing, those seeking change are tracking Harris’ moves now, not just her promises for when she may be in the Oval Office — and the final say on shifts that could boost her candidacy remains with the president.

“We are clear on how dangerous Trump is, and that’s part of why we need Biden and Harris to change course immediately,” Alawieh said.

Arguing that “it’s never fair to judge a vice president based on the president they serve,” Miles told HuffPost that “the work to end the suffering in Gaza cannot wait for another half a year.”

“The person who can do the most, right now, to secure a cease-fire, release the hostages, and set the stage for a sustainable peace is and remains President Joe Biden,” he continued.


Polish journalist suspended for calling 'Imagine' a 'vision of communism' during Olympic opening

HE IS RIGHT; ANARCHIST COMMUNISM

VANESSA GERA
Updated Sat, July 27, 2024 

FILE - Singer John Lennon appears during a press conference at the Hotel Americana on May 13, 1968, in New York. The Polish state broadcaster on Saturday July 27, 2024 suspended a television journalist who during the Olympic Games opening ceremony reacted to a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by saying it was a “vision of communism.” (AP Photo, File)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Polish state broadcaster on Saturday suspended a television journalist who, during the Olympic Games opening ceremony, reacted to a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by saying it was a “vision of communism.”

TVP, the broadcaster, issued a statement Saturday saying that the journalist and sports commentator, Przemyslaw Babiarz, would not be allowed to comment on air anymore during this summer’s Games.

Lennon’s song asks to imagine no heaven or hell, no countries, and no possessions.

“This is a vision of communism,
unfortunately,” Babiarz said during the grand opening ceremony along the Seine River in Paris on Friday evening — comments that immediately triggered controversy for those watching in Poland.

TVP said in its statement announcing his suspension: "Mutual understanding, tolerance, reconciliation — these are not only the basic ideas of the Olympics, they are also the foundation of the standards that guide the new Polish Television. There is no consent to violate them.”

State media has been an ideological battleground in Poland for years. It was used as a mouthpiece by the right-wing populists who governed Poland from 2015-23. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a centrist politician whose broad coalition took power in December, acted quickly to remove their control of the airwaves.

Conservatives and their allies still reeling from their loss of control of state media denounced the decision, among them conservative President Andrzej Duda and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

“The truth will defend itself! Your actions will be remembered and censorship will fail," Morawiecki wrote on X.

Some commentators on the political left said they felt the punishment was too harsh.

Poland was under Soviet-imposed communist rule from the end of World War II until 1989, an era that still evokes great emotions.

Many of the same Polish conservatives also condemned the mixing of LGBTQ+ themes with a Last Supper tableau during Friday's grand ceremony.

"Imagine"


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


Bernie Sanders says Trump's 'lying' when he claims Kamala Harris is more liberal than the Vermont senator

Paul Steinhauser
Fri, July 26, 2024 


EXCLUSIVE: WEST LEBANON, N.H. — When it comes to Sen. Bernie Sanders, former President Trump is no laughing matter.

The longtime independent senator from Vermont, progressive champion and two-time runner-up in the Democratic presidential primaries is on a two-day swing this weekend in neighboring New Hampshire as well as Maine to campaign on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris to make sure the GOP presidential nominee doesn't return to the White House.

"Trump cannot get elected. We’ve got to do everything we can to make sure that does not happen," Sanders told a crowd of supporters during his first stop Friday in New Hampshire, a key swing state in presidential elections.


Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaks to supporters at a campaign event on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, on Friday.

But minutes earlier, Sanders briefly broke out in laughter when asked in a national exclusive interview with Fox News about comments from Trump this week arguing that Harris — who has replaced President Biden at the top of the Democrats' 2024 national ticket — is more liberal than the Vermont senator.

Trump over the past week has worked to define Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, as an ultra-liberal, pointing to her record in the U.S. Senate and as vice president.

Speaking to a packed arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump charged that Harris was the "most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history… She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office."

And mentioning Sanders, Trump argued that Harris is "more liberal than Bernie Sanders. Can you believe it?"

Sanders, responding, said, "I would hope that when he said, ‘Can you believe that?,’ people said no."

"It'’s not true. Once again, Trump is lying," Sanders emphasized. "Let me just simply say that for better or for worse, Kamala Harris is not more progressive than I am."

During his Fox News interview and later at his event, Sanders took aim at Trump, who two months ago was convicted of 34 felony counts in the first criminal trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history.

"This is the most important election, I think, in our lifetimes. I will do everything that I can to see that Donald Trump is defeated," the senator stressed.

Sanders argued that "the American people will not and cannot accept a president who is a pathological liar, somebody who believes that women should not be able to control their own bodies, somebody who in the midst of massive heatwaves thinks climate change is a hoax and somebody who actually does not believe in democracy, has not said that he will accept those election results if he loses. So, for all of those reasons, Trump must be defeated."

Sanders is campaigning on behalf of Harris, but he hasn’t formally endorsed the vice president.

Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a campaign event in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

"I think if the vice president is to win this election, and obviously I want her to win, I think she has to start talking about issues of relevance to the working class of this country, because there are tens of millions of people who are really hurting," Sanders explained. "They want to know what the next president is going to do for them, and I hope very much that Vice President Harris will make that clear."

"The path towards victory is to talk about issues that are relevant," he reiterated.

Asked what Harris specifically needs to detail, Sanders said, "I hope that the vice president will be talking about the need to substantially lower prescription drug costs… the need to have tax reform so the wealthiest in this country start paying their fair share of taxes, so we can greatly expand child care and affordable housing in this country, and I think we’ve got to be very strong on the issue of climate change and make it clear that we’re going to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel if we’re going to save this planet for future generations."

Sanders said that Harris’ choice of a running mate — which is expected to come in the next two weeks — will be a signal of whether she will project a progressive agenda as she runs for the White House.

"I think it will, and I hope very much she looks at one of the many progressive people who are out there who I think would do a good job as vice president," the senator said.

Sanders was making his swing through New Hampshire and Maine less than a week after President Biden suspended his 2024 re-election rematch with Trump. Biden made his move amid mounting pressure from within the Democratic Party for him to drop out after a disastrous performance in last month's first presidential debate with Trump.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaks to supporters at a campaign event on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris in West Lebanon, New Hampshire on Friday.

The embattled president's immediate backing of Harris ignited a surge of endorsements of Harris by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders. By Monday night, the vice president announced that she had locked up her party's nomination by landing the backing of a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month's Democratic National Convention. On Friday morning, former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama were among the final major party leaders to endorse the vice president.

Harris has also hauled in a staggering $129 million in fundraising since Biden's announcement, her campaign touted on Thursday morning.

Republicans charge that the process has been anything but democratic — and they point to Biden's own words.

Before dropping out, the president had repeatedly cited the 14 million votes he won in this year's Democratic presidential primaries as a reason he should stay in the 2024 race.

"The voters — and the voters alone — decide the nominee of the Democratic Party," he emphasized in a letter on July 8. "Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned."

Trump, at his rally in Charlotte on Wednesday, called the switch at the top of the Democrats' national ticket "an undemocratic move."

"These are nasty people, the Democrats," Trump argued.

And Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas claimed in a social media post this week that "Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes."

But Sanders, who argued during his marathon 2016 Democratic presidential primary battle against eventual nominee Hillary Clinton that the party was working against him, doesn't buy the GOP criticism.

"These are extraordinary times and the Democrats had to move very quickly," Sanders said. "So I think that given the reality that Biden dropped out and having a Democratic convention coming, I think what happened is she announced her candidacy, she rallied the support she needs, and I think that’s fine."
Record-breaking Zoom supporting Harris mobilizes white female voters

Over 160,000 attendees in a key demographic ‘answered the call’ on Thursday, with nearly $8.5m raised for Harris

Erum Salam
Fri, July 26, 2024 

Kamala Harris addresses members of the American Federation of Teachers on 25 July 2024 in Houston, Texas.Photograph: Elizabeth Conley/AP


Following the success of a virtual call to mobilize Black women voters for Kamala Harris, a similar event with more than 160,000 attendees was held on Thursday aimed at white women, and appeared to break records.

White women will be a key demographic for the Democrats to win over this election.

The presidential campaign of Harris, who would become America’s first female president if she were to win for the Democrats in November, and would become the first Black woman and south Asian woman to be a major party’s presidential candidate if she is confirmed at the Democratic national convention next month, has taken off quickly since Joe Biden announced last Sunday he would step aside from his re-election campaign.

“It’s our turn to show up. So that’s what we’re doing. Hold this date and time,” read the virtual flyer for an event calling for white women – the majority of whom tend to vote Republican – to mobilize for Harris shared widely on social media.

“White Women: Answer the Call”, a Zoom call inspired by the call for Black women held earlier this week, saw 164,000 white women join, reportedly setting a world record as the largest Zoom meeting in history. Nearly $2m was raised for Harris in less than two hours on Thursday night.

The Zoom call that started it all was hosted on Sunday by Win With Black Women, a group of Black women leaders and organizers, within hours of Biden’s decision, and saw an astonishing 44,000 participants, raising more than $1.5m for Harris’s budding campaign.

The tens of thousands of those who couldn’t access that call because it was at capacity streamed it through other platforms such as Twitch, Clubhouse and YouTube.

It was just one of several calls hosted by the group since 2020, when it was founded by strategist Jotaka Eaddy.

A Win With Black Men call also inspired by the call with Black women raised more than $1.3m to support Harris from more than 17,000 donors on Monday.

Shannon Watts, a prominent gun control activist, organized Thursday’s event, which featured speakers including actor Connie Britton, former US soccer star Megan Rapinoe, the US House representative Lizzie Fletcher and the musician Pink. The group had raised more than $8.5m by Friday afternoon, Watts tweeted.



Exit polls found 52% of white women eligible to vote in 2016 cast a ballot for Donald Trump, a figure which likely helped tilt the election in Trump’s favor. At the time, he was running against Hillary Clinton, who hoped to be the first female president. In 2020, the majority of white women voted for Trump again.

“A majority of white women have voted for the Republican candidate since the 2000 presidential election when white women were almost equally split between Democrat Al Gore and Republican victor, George W Bush,” according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“In contrast, a large majority of Black, Latinx and Asian women have supported the Democratic candidate for the entirety of the time period in which data disaggregated by gender and race has been available.”

Watts said she hopes history will not repeat itself.

“Fellow white women: we can and have to fix this, and that starts with mobilizing like Black women,” Watts wrote on Instagram ahead of the call. She linked to a Substack post she wrote, which read in part: “White women voting for Republicans, even when it appears to be against their best interests, is a complex phenomenon influenced by privilege, systemic racism and sexism, religious affiliations and, of course, the patriarchy.

“But we’re not a monolithic group; our voting patterns are typically divided along lines of religion, education and marital status, and that division makes us not only a crucial voting bloc, but an unpredictable one – even small shifts in our voting behavior can have significant impacts on election outcomes.”

Watts added: “In other words, if we start doing the work right now, we can create a shift in voting momentum that will help Black women elect Vice-President Harris as president in just 100 days.”





The night White women raised millions for Harris. And broke Zoom.

Over 164,000 women joined a Zoom call to discuss support, privilege and allyship as they raised millions for the vice president’s campaign.


Attendees of Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign event wave signs and cheer on July 23rd, 2024 at West Allis Central High School. (SARA STATHAS/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES)

Jennifer Gerson
Reporter
July 26, 2024,

“Girl, we broke Zoom,” Erin Gallagher said over text at 8:10 a.m., less than nine hours after wrapping up “White Women: Answer The Call! Show up for Kamala Harris,” a meeting held over Zoom Thursday night. So many more women than anticipated logged into the call that the platform crashed several times, forcing many participants to watch the livestream on YouTube until Zoom was back up.

Over 164,000 women logged on to hear from women like the singer P!nk; the actor Connie Britton; the writer and podcaster Glennon Doyle; athletes Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird and Abby Wambach; and a long list of elected officials, including Congresswomen Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas. Their goal: Push White women to recognize their privilege and the way they have frequently failed to use it as political capital — and get them to avoid making the same mistake again.

The motivation was clear: This year, White women have the opportunity to elect — and make other White women elect — the first woman of color as president.


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The money came in at a volume and pace so intense the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising site went down several times during the call on Thursday night. By Friday afternoon, the group had raised over $8.5 million.

The idea for the call came from Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, the group that changed the face of the gun safety movement by organizing mothers — including many White, wealthy and suburban ones — against gun violence. Watts told The 19th that she wanted White women to follow the lead of the Black women who quickly organized behind Kamala Harris’s candidacy; on July 21, when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, 44,000 of them gathered for the Win With Black Women Zoom call and raised $1.8 million.


“When I started Moms Demand Action as a White woman in the suburbs of Indiana, even though I was a progressive woman, I was surrounded by the women who were the people they call ‘the 53 percent’ — the White women who have voted Republican in every single presidential election since the 1950s except for two,” Watts said. “I know these women and I learned how to organize them through Moms Demand Action, because so many of these women would come into the organization after there had been a school shooting, some national tragedy or because they sent their own kid to school to do a lockdown drill.”
More from The 19th

Four hours, 44,000 Black women and one Zoom call
$81M in 24 hours: How the Harris campaign could turn women donors into a force

Once White women became engaged, Watts understood that her mission was to get them to think holistically about the toll of gun violence — not only in schools, but in communities of color, where shootings and killings rarely garner national media attention.

In the current political moment, she said, her task is the same.

“My role has become to help White women understand the political and economic power they have to make the world better for everyone, not just their own family or their own community,” Watts said. “We are the 39 percent. We are the largest single voting bloc and yet many of these women — a majority of these women — in recent presidential elections have voted in a way that upholds White supremacy, that upholds the patriarchy. And as my friend Brittany Packett Cunningham says, ‘Your Whiteness will not save you from what the patriarchy has in store for you.’”

Gallagher shares the same beliefs, which is why when Watts texted her on Monday, asking “You want to do this with me?”, she said yes without knowing the details or considering the work it would entail.

“Everything in my life has been turned completely upside down these past three days, but for all the right reasons,” Gallagher said. “We were just, like, ‘We have to own this. We need to own the fact that White women have deeply fucked this up every fucking time.’”

Gallagher has a name for this pattern: “toxic White women.” Very often, she said, White women are the ones who get to be alone in a room full of men and, because of that, have the power to represent all women. They also get to join only women in spaces and, more often than not, have enormous power and influence over them.

“The truth is that there are many places where White women hold more power than White men and in the wrong hands, that can be so deeply dangerous,” Gallagher said.

The call to rally White women to support Harris was intended as a first step to course correct on this demographic’s voting history in the most recent past presidential elections. It was also a response against what some of the call participants characterized as assaults on women’s rights, in particular the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 that ended federal abortion rights.

Gallagher said that she, Watts and the other co-organizers — progressive influencer Liz Minnella and former South Carolina congressional candidate and gun safety advocate Dr. Annie Andrews — spent six to seven hours a day on calls from Monday on, talking to one another and also consulting with the women behind the Win With Black Women call. There were multiple conversations with Jotaka Eaddy, the founder of Win With Black Women, about “how to highlight the organizations and the women who have been doing this work since its inception while also taking the responsibility on ourselves to actually do the labor,” Gallagher said.

Black women are the Democratic Party’s most reliable voting bloc; 91 percent of Black women voted for Biden in 2020. In organizing this call, Watts channeled a key lesson she learned from them through the gun violence prevention movement, that “gun violence prevention activism is a marathon, not a sprint, but it’s also a relay race.” To her, organizing White women on the call last night felt as if she had “taken the baton” from Black women.

“It isn’t just one donation. It isn’t just one conversation. It isn’t just one call,” Watts said. “This is about unleashing your political power, your privilege, and making a plan to hold yourself accountable and to be in it for the long haul. And that doesn’t end the day we elect Kamala Harris as president.”

More from The 19th
‘People are energized’: LGBTQ+ rights groups and voters are lining up behind Harris
‘Brat presidency’: Where the internet is going crazy for Harris’ campaign

Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, an organization that recruits and supports young people running for office on progressive platforms, was also on last night’s call. As she listened, she couldn’t help but think about how this level of mobilization could not have happened before 2020. “Logistically, there was not Zoom,” Litman said. But now there was also the kind of cultural awakening brought by the Black Lives Matter movement in the spring and summer of 2020 — “the way it gave rise to a really forward-facing, very public and very popular conversation about White supremacy, White fragility and in particular the role that White women play in these things.” One of the changes the movement brought about was to turn language around the work of active allyship that belongs to White women — something that once felt “foreign, academic and disorienting” — into something familiar.

She recalled how Doyle, the writer and podcaster, talked about grappling with her own discomfort in this work and told the other women on the call that if they were feeling that way, they were not alone and could all work through it together. Watts and Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow gave guidance on some next steps: make a list of friends to call, create a voting plan and commit to volunteering for the campaign.

“Mallory made the point of saying, ‘This is not the time to start a book club’ and that’s actually a really interesting way of raising that in 2020, there just weren’t a lot of concrete action items that White women could do to combat racism and prove their allyship in a meaningful way,” Litman said. “This is a moment where there actually are really big ways you can do just that.”

In addition to the money raised, the call also resulted in “tens of thousands” of new volunteer sign-ups for the Harris campaign, Watts said over text Friday morning. The response was so intense that a Women for Harris coalition call planned for Sunday to bring together the various identity groups that have organized over Zoom this week has been pushed to Monday to ensure the technology is in place to accommodate the number of women who are bound to attend it.

Sali Christeson, the founder and CEO of the women’s workwear brand Argent, grew up in the South where, she said, “women are taught to vote alongside their parents or their spouses and to not have conversations.” Last night’s call had “a different energy,” she said, adding, “I think that women, individually, feel really defeated and really beat up, and then all of a sudden, with Kamala on the ticket, collectively, there’s this enthusiasm and this confidence and this power and this force that I have never felt before.”

Since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris, Christeson has been texting friends, telling them about the stakes of this election and asking if they are going to vote for Harris, she said. A lot of those friends — even conservative ones — have told her they will. Christeson has heard the same from her own childhood friends who have been lifelong Republicans and others whose husbands still say they are voting for Trump.

Thinking back to the 2016 election, Christeson said, “We could have done more. We could have all done more. We should have done more. We shouldn’t have just been in this Pantsuit Nation group behind the scenes. We should have been very vocally supportive.”

She said she feels an urgency from other White women that was missing in 2016 and even in 2020. “I think we as women are tired from the years of Trump and the rhetoric and just having our rights stripped away….It’s just too many slaps in the face and too many direct assaults on women’s rights”

Last night’s call was so encouraging, she said, because “we all have access to the woman that needs to be voting for Kamala.”


RADICAL FEMINIST JOURNAL

Opinion

Senator Elizabeth Warren: 
“The Case for Kamala Harris”

WHITE WOMAN FOR HARRIS

Senator Elizabeth Warren
Fri, July 26, 2024 



Senator Elizabeth Warren

Kamala Harris will be America’s first woman president. I’ve known her for 14 years, first as California’s attorney general, then as a US senator and now as vice president. I’ve seen firsthand her toughness, her smarts, and her compassion. I’m endorsing her for president of the United States because she will unite our party, prosecute the case against Donald Trump, and win.

It’s hard to believe from the picture of us above, but this was November 2016, right after Trump had been elected president. People were in tears, the atmosphere was bleak, hope was gone. But the world felt different when Kamala showed up. The same day Trump was elected, Kamala Harris made history by winning her seat in the Senate. And she didn’t skip a beat. One week after the election, she showed up at my Senate office to surprise my staff and reminded us what the future might bring. She took selfies, offered hugs, and delivered hope.

There’s a reason the Democratic party is uniting behind Vice President Harris. She’s a candidate trying to take us forward at a time when Donald Trump and the Republican Party are trying to drag us backward.


US-VOTE-2020-DEMOCRATS-DEBATE-POLITICS
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Kamala Harris together in 2019.ROBYN BECK/Getty Images

During his four years in the White House, Donald Trump’s signature achievement was installing an extremist Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. He’s now running to ban abortion nationwide. And even as Trump publicly tries to slither away from that wildly unpopular effort, he has picked an even more extremist running mate, JD Vance, who adds that there should be no abortion law exceptions for rape or incest.

No one has been stronger than Vice President Harris at fighting to protect access to abortion. When Trump’s Supreme Court ripped protections away from millions, Kamala fought back to protect reproductive freedom. She worked with President Biden to strengthen access to emergency abortion and made it easier to get birth control. She met with women and doctors, and she became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion provider. Make no mistake, if voters give us a Democratic House and Senate, Harris as president will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

Trump’s only major legislative accomplishment was a massive tax cut, mostly sucked up by millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations. Trump has promised that in a second term, he’ll reward his “rich as hell” donors with even more giveaways. His new tax plan would give every billionaire about $3.5 million in new tax cuts every year—paid for by tax increases on middle-class families. The Republican blueprint, Project 2025, estimates that Trump’s tax plan will increase taxes for a middle class family of four by about $2,600. That’s Trump’s worldview—make America work even better for the billionaires and make everyone else pay for it.

Vice President Harris has a strong record of putting working people first. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, I worked shoulder to shoulder with then attorney general Harris to push back on the giant banks that were cheating homeowners. While other attorneys general caved in to the banks, Kamala Harris held firm and won a better deal for the people of her state. She clawed back billions of dollars from those banks and put that money to work helping families that were facing foreclosure.

As vice president, Kamala Harris has put a special focus on protecting consumers. She’s supported bans on junk fees and helped advance student debt cancelation. She has also spearheaded the administration’s work to help families drowning in medical debt, including working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help the VA cancel medical debts for thousands of veterans.

Kamala Harris’s mantra has always been “for the people,” and it’s clear that the people are for her. There’s a new energy sweeping through the American people. On Sunday, Kamala had the single biggest fundraising day in American history, with millions of people pitching in to boost her candidacy. That evening 40,000 Black women joined an organizing call for Kamala, maxing out the Zoom room. Gen Z voters came out in droves to support her. National unions and local organizers are lining up to endorse her. In a vibrant democracy, campaigns can be won on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for a candidate. Enthusiasm for their vision. Enthusiasm to be a part of something historic. That is Kamala Harris’s promise.

The Republican Party has chosen a convicted felon as their nominee. The Democratic Party will have a skilled courtroom prosecutor at the top of the ticket. Donald Trump is a liar and a cheat who has been found liable in a court of law for sexual abuse. Kamala Harris spent her career as a prosecutor defending women from abuse and holding sexual predators accountable. She routinely dealt with bullies, and I am truly excited to see her go toe to toe with Donald Trump on a debate stage.

I’m even more excited about a Kamala Harris presidency. If voters give us a Democratic House and Senate, she will restore the protections of Roe v. Wade. She will pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. She will ensure our kids have access to clean air and water and that their parents don’t have to worry about sky-high health care costs and access to safe, affordable childcare. She will pick up the fight for paid family leave. And Kamala Harris will do what Donald Trump will never even consider: She will make sure government works, not just for the wealthy and well-connected, but for all of us.

Now is our moment to turn the page on the old politics of Donald Trump. Now is our moment to come together and emerge as a hopeful, determined people. Over the next 104 days, I will leave it all on the field in the effort to beat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris, and I hope you’ll join me. What happens in 2025 is up to us.

Originally Appeared on Glamour
Black women see Harris' push for the presidency as a battle to prove their own humanity


Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post
Updated Sat, July 27, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris' rise to near-lock as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee has been swift and certain during the past several days, with the passion and enthusiasm behind her drawing parallels to the push of Barack Obama in 2008.

But attendant to Harris' ascent is the concern among Black Americans that, as with Obama, racist criticisms and caricatures — some subtle and some not so subtle — are sure to follow. And for Black women, the concern is heightened, carrying with it the chagrined certainty that Harris will endure doubts and dismissal both as a woman and as a Black woman — a double-barred reality many Black women know all too well from their own lives.

That may explain why, on the day President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Harris, some 44,000 mostly Black women across the country got on a call to pledge solidarity with Harris. It was the kind of organic, grassroots call that speaks to genuine enthusiasm and support, and it was followed the next day by another mass call of support from Black men.

For Black women, a solidarity with Vice President Kamala Harris

It is Black women, however, who most acutely feel a sense of solidatrity with the vice president, and it is Black women who have promised to have her back.

Black women interviewed for this story, who hail from various parts of Florida, all said they plan to support Harris. They said they don't simply share her policy aims; they expressed a deep-seated understanding of what it's like to be a successful Black woman and to have everything about you scrutinized and demeaned — everything from the way you look and sound to your intelligence and accomplishments.

Rachel Cohen, a 35-year old, stay-at-home mother of three in Port St. Lucie, said she remembers what she heard after learning she got an early acceptance from the University of Florida.

"I got it because I'm a good writer and a good test-taker," Cohen said, adding that not everyone viewed her acceptance as a product of her talents and accomplishments. "But it couldn't be because of that. I was another check box for a quota. The only reason I got in is because of my race."

Harris, 59, has been mocked and memed by white, often male, political opponents because of how her laugh sounds. Former President Donald Trump has been trying out various attack lines tied to that mockery, including nicknames like "Cackling Kamala" and "Laughing Kamala."

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican tapped by Trump to serve as his running mate, has criticized Harris and other Democratic women as "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable."

Harris gained two stepchildren when she married attorney Doug Emhoff in 2014. The vice president, like an increasing number of professional women in the United States, married later in life and has no biological children.


Rachel Cohen, 35, of Port St. Lucie, poses for a photo in her Port St. Lucie home, Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Cohen, a married mother of three, is excited for the potential Democratic nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris, but also feels uneasy due to the amount of political violence, whether it’s physical or verbal, surrounding the upcoming election.More

In endorsing Harris, actress Jennifer Aniston mentioned Vance's "childless cat ladies" dig, posting on a social media account that she "truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States."

Aniston has detailed her own fertility struggles and pushed back against the notion that a woman isn't truly successful in life unless she becomes a mother.

Vance lobbed another attack at Harris in a recent campaign speech, questioning if she is sufficiently "grateful" to be a citizen of the United States. Critics saw the comment as an attempt to racially "otherize" the California-born Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and whose mother was from India.

Some GOP opponents have called Kamala Harris a 'DEI candidate'

Other Harris critics leaned more heavily on race in knocking her, including Wisconsin congressman Glenn Grothman, who said Democrats would feel compelled to turn to Harris as the party's presidential nominee because of her "ethnic background."

Some of Grothman's Republican colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives have called Harris a "DEI" candidate, insinuating that the vice president's successes are all tied to an embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion, which they criticize as a pathway to reverse discrimination against white people.

Cohen said Black women alone won't be enough to push Harris past such tactics to victory in November.

"My concern is white women," Cohen said. "White women allowed Hillary (Clinton) to lose. Black women are going to do what we're going to do. This is going to come down to white women, and we'll have to see what Hispanic voters are going to do."

Harris is making a strong play for the votes of women, leaning into criticism of the former president as the person who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe v. Wade, scuttling abortion rights for millions of women. The vice president is also talking up child care, education and health care policies she hopes will resonate with women.

As national polls show her drawing even with or slightly past Trump, Harris has come under increasing attack not only on the political front but in personal, sexist and racist ways.

"There seems to be a growing comfort and permissability to not only openly question Vice President Harris' qualifications a la 'DEI hire' but also to flirt with the ugliest of tropes about Black female sexuality and professional accomplishment," said Shalonda Warren, a 54-year old West Palm Beach City Commission member. "The silent calculus that accepts this is a threat to the rights of all women."

Black women say they've heard varying versions of this criticism in their own lives and seeing Harris endure those barbs publicly binds them to her.

"It's like our humanity and our worth is being challenged," said Robin Reshard, a 58-year old local historian in Pensacola, noting with incredulity the box where the vice president's critics want her to remain. "How dare she rise? You should stay in this lane that we have assigned for you."

Reshard said she's glad that, so far, Harris has kept to her campaign script and has not responded to the racist and sexist pokes.

"I appreciate that this sister isn't doing tit-for-tat," Reshard said. "Ain't nobody got time for that. If you do that, you're taking your eyes off the proverbial prize."
Can Kamala Harris take the heat? Supporters say she can


Kamala Harris and Cyprianna Jackson of Lake Worth. The two women were classmates at Howard University in Washington D.C. They graduated in 1986 as members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Victoria Jones, a 39-year old Cocoa resident who is founder, president and chief executive officer of the Space Coast Black Chamber of Commerce, said she's not worried Harris can't take the heat.

"To worry is like inviting trouble to a party," Jones said. "Women, especially Black women, have carried this country for hundreds of years. We’re the true hidden figures behind many great things but do not receive credit for it. We’ve often had to deal with sexism along with racism. As a Black woman involved in politics and economic development, I’ve experienced my share of both."

Jones, a registered Republican who has run for office as a Democrat, said sexist fliers were mailed out during her run for office. There have been other painful momemts in her work life as well, she said.

FAU-Mainstreet poll: Kamala Harris behind Donald Trump, but by less of a gap than Joe Biden

"I’ve had to have one of my close male colleagues sit in on a meeting with a male businessman who essentially proposed causing issues for me if I didn’t back down," she said. "I’ve had a male community advocate reach out to shake my hand and once I embraced his hand, he squeezed so hard my hand swelled up. I did file a police report for the incident to have it documented in case I had to defend myself in the future."

Jones said she remembers seeing a picture of Harris seated next to Biden. The caption used a slang term for prostitute in referring to Harris.

"I know how it feels to have those sorts of things hurled at you and to keep walking with grace," she said.
For Black women, a Harris victory could mean a shift for more opportunities

Tanya Burke of West Palm Beach and Kamala Harris in Chicago in September, 2019. Both women graduated from Howard University as part of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

That's Harris' charge, said Katrina Long-Robinson, a 48-year old former Westlake City Council member who now works as vice president for public and government relations for a political consulting firm.

"As a mother to a Black daughter, a former educator to young Black and brown students, and a person who works in Black and brown communities, I know the transformative power that representation and role models have," Long-Robinson said. "Vice President Harris’ very existence in such a significant role provides a powerful role model for young Black women, demonstrating that their voices and experiences matter in national leadership."

The Black women backing Harris said they aren't supporting the vice president simply to satisfy their own political desires. They said they are looking to the future, one where Harris' example could pave the way for more opportunities for girls and young women.

Toward that end, Cohen said she and a friend in Lake Worth Beach plan to host an event on August 1 where girls aged 5 to 12 — "future voters," Cohen calls them — will make friendship bracelets that will be mailed to the site of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later in the month. The plan is to have about 100 bracelets made that have a tag with information about the girl who made it.

"Our goal is really to get one to Kamala Harris," Cohen said. "Or to (First lady) Jill Biden. We want them to know there are young girls who are watching, who are aware of what's happening."

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.


Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states

TOMMY BARONE and GABRIELLA ABDUL-HAKIM
Fri, July 26, 2024 

Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states

When Jotaka Eaddy, the founder of Black women's leadership network Win With Black Women, heard Sunday that President Joe Biden had decided he wouldn't run for reelection, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party's first Black woman presidential nominee, her first thought was "Oh my God, what a time to be alive."

Her second? "Oh, our Zoom call tonight -- I'm gonna have to shift the agenda."

Formed in 2020, Win With Black Women has met by Zoom most Sundays for almost four years, drawing hundreds of attendees and support from names like Oprah Winfrey and Dionne Warwick. But Eaddy said they had never had a call anything like this past Sunday's, which drew tens of thousands of viewers, raised more than $2 million for the just-launched Harris campaign, and inspired a similar call led by Black men the next night that raised $1.3 million more for Harris' campaign.

MORE: Election 2024 updates: 'Let's go': Harris says she's ready to debate Trump

"We thought, 'Well, we probably gonna hit 1,000 [people]. And so we were prepared for 1,000," Eaddy said. "I knew something was different when at about 8 o'clock ... I couldn't get in my own Zoom because it was at capacity."

Win With Black Women's Zoom call this past Sunday -- joined throughout the night by prominent Black woman politicians such as Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile -- could herald a surge of support from Black voters and organizers, women, in particular, who could make up lost ground for Democrats in critical battleground states and down-ballot races nationwide.


PHOTO: Guests listen as Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Grand Boule at the Indiana Convention Center on July 24, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Black voters helping to swing red states blue

Many Georgia Democrats are looking to the change at the top of the Democratic ticket to help keep Georgia blue.

"For all of our clients, we will need to revise our projections for turnout upward," Georgia Democratic strategist Amy Morton told her team Tuesday after a flood of Harris endorsements early in the week. "That's the impact Harris will have on the ticket."

Since Biden announced on Sunday that he was leaving the 2024 race, Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting. And Morton said having Harris as the nominee "is energizing" to the party and could lead to high turnout rates with voters.

"Black women have been critical to Democratic victories in Georgia for as long as I've been working in local space," Morton continued. "And I think that having Harris at the top of the ticket is energizing for all Democrats."

"I expect to see turnout in November that approaches 2020 levels," she added. In 2020, the voter turnout rate was the highest for any national election since 1900.

Georgia played a crucial role in Biden's 2020 victory, going blue for the first time since 1992 due in significant part to organizing efforts from former Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams, who spent years spearheading get-out-the-vote efforts in Black communities.

In North Carolina, another Southern battleground state with a large Black population, many Democrats said they hope that Harris could reproduce the energy that powered former President Barack Obama to the party's last presidential-election victory in the state in 2008.


PHOTO: Vice President Kamala Harris greets members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority after speaking at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center on July 10, 2024 in Dallas, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

"President Obama was the last one who was able to mobilize Black people the way that he did back when he ran for office in '08 and '12," said Aimy Steele, who leads a North Carolina voter engagement organization focusing on Black and Hispanic voters.

Black voter turnout peaked in North Carolina in 2008 with a record 73% of Black registered voters turning out to vote, according to North Carolina's Board of Elections. For comparison, 2016 saw 64% and 2020 saw 68% in the state,

But with Harris at the top of the ticket, Steele said, "I expect the same thing to happen again, if not exceed what he was able to do."

Hoping to ensure that happens, several Black groups have responded to grassroots enthusiasm for Harris with new efforts to mobilize voters to the polls.

Quentin James founded Collective PAC, an organization that supports Black candidates at all levels of government around the country. James helped organize the Monday night Win with Black Men Zoom call -- telling ABC News that the call was just the beginning.

"As someone who's done a lot of fundraising, I've never raised $1.3 million over three or four hours from grassroots donors, I've never seen that kind of momentum," James said. "The energy is inspiring. Each one of those people on the call can organize 10 people or 100 people, and we hope to mobilize all of them."

On Monday, the presidents of the group of nine historically Black sororities and fraternities known as the "Divine Nine" wrote in a press release that they had agreed to collaborate on "an unprecedented voter registration, education, and mobilization coordinated campaign."

Harris joined Divine Nine sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha when she attended Howard University, a historically Black university.

Alpha Kappa Alpha International President Danette Anthony Reed said there is enthusiasm among the sorority's ranks for Harris as a candidate.

"We are just ecstatic and excited that a member of our organization, as well as the first woman of color, has the opportunity to become a candidate for president," Reed said.
'We know when we organize, mountains move'

Already the campaign is seeing the return on Harris' momentum. The campaign has reported a record-breaking $126 million in donations in the 48-hours after Biden's endorsement. The campaign said 74,000 of those who donated were from new recurring donors, with two-thirds of these recurring donors signing up for weekly donations. There has also been a surge of 100,000 volunteers, according to the campaign.

PHOTO: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 6, 2024. (Christiana Botic/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

MORE: Harris campaign outlines path to the White House, 'The race is more fluid now'

Although there are few polls out that have data to fully capture this moment, Harris is already seeing significantly higher numbers in favorability with Black voters. Black voters in April or June who split 70% for Biden to 23% for Trump in previous polling, now break 78% for Harris to 15% for Trump, according to a CNN/SSRS released on Wednesday.

In a memo outlining the campaign's path forward Wednesday, Campaign Chair Jennifer O'Malley Dillon wrote that the vice president has "multiple pathways to 270" thanks to her support among different groups of voters, including Black, Latino and women voters.

Recently, Harris delivered remarks to another Divine Nine sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, which, like AKA, was also founded at the vice president's alma mater, telling the women that "we know when we organize, mountains move."

Lois Lofton-Donivei, a teacher from Houston, Texas, heard Harris' call and was ready to answer it.

"I'm ready to hit the pavement and to do whatever I can to get her elected as the first female president," said Lofton-Donivei. "We're finally acknowledging that women have the ability to lead."