Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
- Kamala Harris was recently described in a new book as someone who failed to achieve anything substantive as VP.
- Experts who spoke to Insider say that much of the criticism against Harris isn’t always fair.
- Harris is facing an ever-evolving role while combatting a racist and sexist landscape.
Kamala Harris has been a lightning rod for criticism of the current administration since the start of her vice presidency.
She’s not well-spoken, headlines read. She has yet to meaningfully prove herself in her role as vice president, Democrat colleagues say. And, recently, a new book, providing a behind-the-scenes look at President Joe Biden’s administration, described the VP as highly sensitive, unable to achieve anything substantive, impossibly over-prepared, and underutilized by her own boss.
“She let the criticism guide her,” Franklin Foer wrote in “The Last Politician.”
Experts who spoke to Insider painted a different picture of the first Black and South Asian woman VP: She is caught between multiple roles with an inability to set her own agenda while battling scrutiny steeped in misogyny and racism.
Julia Azari a professor of political science at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, told Insider that Harris is caught in the tension between being a diligent vice president behind the scenes, being the public spokesperson for the Biden administration’s agenda, fostering the trust of women of color to help advance the goals of the administration, and carving her political identity, perhaps in the hopes of advancing her own career.
And sometimes, these goals are in opposition.
Part of the reason Harris takes on so many tough issues stems from the approach Walter Mondale used when serving alongside then President Jimmy Carter in the ’70s, Azari observed in an essay for Politico. Mondale expanded the role of the vice president to become a de facto advisor to the president and execute their agenda.
“The vice presidents who were most successful are the ones who are the sort of generalist trusted advisors behind the scenes, and Walter Mondale back in the ’70s really cultivated that reputation,” Azari told Insider. “But that’s very difficult to do and also develop yourself as a distinct politician.”
Azari also pointed out that Biden’s extensive experience does not leave a lot of “governing gaps” for Harris to fill. Instead, she fills biography gaps, where an older white man may not be the ideal messenger.
“She really has a much more public-facing role,” Azari said, “and I think it is just really challenging for a vice president to have this public-facing role, and to be a liaison to specific communities in the Democratic Party, and yet also be, ultimately, not someone with a lot of freedom to define the agenda.”
This could also play into why the vice president was caught in predicaments as to what assignments she should take on as her role continues to morph and evolve. Foer writes about Harris’s struggle to find her undertaking: She first tried to shy away from the spotlight by tackling Scandinavian relations, then moved on to high-profile issues like voting rights.
Beyond the difficult job, Harris also faces many critiques that have less to do with her job and more to do with her race and gender. Harris has noted that she tends to receive more scrutiny than her predecessors.
Nadia E. Brown, a professor of government and director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University, has spoken extensively about how race and gender affect the public’s perception of Harris.
In an interview with Insider, Brown pointed Insider to one criticism in Foer’s book — that Harris was over-prepared, to the point that it was “exhausting,” as a result of her insecurities as the first female vice president of color — as one example of the stereotypes that Harris has had to face, even if it isn’t overt.
Brown explained that the “backhanded compliment” is the result of her being a ‘”first” and that the end result of these stereotypes stokes racism and sexism.
“Foer recognizes that she has to be well prepared in case people have eyes on her, and she’s aware of that, but the downside is he says that she’s paralyzed by this and that she’s not effective at her job,” Brown told Insider. “It’s done in a way that plays to the perceived strength of Black women but continues to undercut the end product of what they produce.”
As for whether or not Harris would even be receiving the amount of attacks she has during the course of her career were she a white man, Brown said it’s not likely. However, she also pointed to the fact that political polarization also plays a role in the intense scrutiny of Harris.
“I think for obvious reasons a lot of the attacks that she’s facing, and the Biden administration writ large are facing, is because there’s a good possibility that she could become the first Black woman president or the first woman president,” she said. “And so this makes a lot of people deeply uncomfortable. To some extent, I think that if she were a white man, there would still be some of these attacks.”
And sure, she isn’t perfect, and there is plenty of criticism that is valid — for example, Foer mentions her flub during a now infamous NBC interview on immigration after being tasked with taking on Central American issues.
But Azari pointed out that despite being portrayed as someone who just can’t get it right, has been fairly successful in arenas like voting rights and abortion. She’s even made some strides in tackling Central American issues. Foer also writes that behind the scenes Harris became an “incisive” advocate for issues pertaining to underrepresented communities.
“My line with Harris is that people really like to use adjectives with her and they’re often not followed up with a lot of verbs,” Azari said. “I just don’t see a lot of concrete stories. I don’t think she’s an especially outstanding vice president, but it just seems like she’s a pretty standard one.”
