Vice President Kamala Harris’ pop culture-centered, policy avoidant campaign paints a telling picture of the low regard in which the Democratic Party views young women.
Despite being the second-in-command of an administration that enacted an executive order allowing biological males to enter women’s private spaces and supporting a California proposition that categorizes rape of an incapacitated person as “nonviolent,” Harris has centered much of her campaign around being a feminist folk hero. With her Clinton-esque pantsuit girlboss persona and promise to keep the evil orange villain from turning America into the Republic of Gilead, she has won the hearts and minds of many women in the over 35 crowd. With Gen Z and younger millennial women, it is not so easy. For many of us, she is reminiscent of an awkward college English professor trying to relate to students with an outdated playlist of “girl power” anthems and years-old memes in her PowerPoints.
With young people, Harris had an opportunity to make her campaign one of substance. She could have outlined tangible policy and plans for her presidency regarding how to prevent us from inheriting an economy in which it is growing increasingly difficult to provide for oneself, let alone start a family. (Although, as vice president, she was already in a position to do something on these issues the past four years.) She could have presented foreign and climate policy talking points addressing growing fears of coming of age in a world rife with armed conflict and natural disaster.
