Kamala Harris does not often mention her father, Donald J. Harris, 86, an economist known for his Marxist positions.
He is the first black economist to have a chair at Stanford University: Donald J. Harris. The man, now 86, is not often mentioned by his daughter, Vice President and Democratic White House candidate Kamala Harris.
Unlike the bond she shared with her mother, Kamala Harris seems less close to her father. “She doesn’t talk much about him,” says Corine Lesnes, correspondent for World in the United States, interviewed by RTL. At the age of seven, Kamala Harris saw her parents divorce and custody of the couple’s children, her and her younger sister, became a subject of tension. “The divorce was contentious. They fought over who was going to keep the books,” says the journalist. It was ultimately Kamala Harris’ mother who obtained custody and relations between father and daughter were maintained during the summer vacations. Enough to explain the distance between the two of them.
A Marxist in a liberal country
Donald J. Harris, born in Jamaica and naturalized American after many years spent in the country, is particularly known for his Marxist positions in a predominantly liberal country. Ideas that could explain Kamala Harris’ discretion about her father. Especially since Donald Trump has several times described the vice-president as a Marxist, a word which in the mouth of the Republican seems to be an insult or even a serious accusation. Kamala Harris herself denied being a Marxist and claimed to be a “pragmatic capitalist” to reassure the American electorate.
This political position, the economist Donald J. Harris defended it all his life and in 2019, just before his daughter’s first electoral campaign, he deplored in an interview “the weight of capitalism on third world economies “, before announcing “that he would no longer speak to the media”, undoubtedly so as not to harm Kamala Harris’ professional life.
At the same time, Kamala Harris had claimed that she had already smoked marijuana “because she was Jamaican”, which did not fail to make her father react. He then felt that it was an unwelcome shortcut. “He took it badly because it is the history of his country,” according to Corine Lesnes. Strong opinions and disagreements which could have further distanced Kamala Harris and her father, or which at least explains the discretion of the Democrat on the latter However, Kamala Harris assured that the absence of proximity was not synonymous with conflict and assured that he was on good terms with his father.