Democratic candidate for the American presidential election, Kamala Harris promises to help the middle classes in the face of crisis and inflation, to restore the right to abortion and to defend all minorities. She must also decide on the question of immigration. Update on his program.
In the race for the White House, Vice-President Kamala Harris is wearing the colors of the Democratic Party. This political family at the heart of the American two-party system, facing the very conservative Republican Party represented by Donald Trumpwants to be progressive. It is the expression of the left and the center in the United States and, as such, generally has the support of minorities, whether ethnic (African-Americans, Latinos and other immigrant communities), religious ( Protestantism being the overwhelming majority in the United States, all other religions are part of minorities), or established according to socio-economic profiles.
As a candidate for the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris is proposing a program and measures aimed at greater equality between social classes. She has also made the defense of purchasing power for the middle classes her battle horse for the presidential election. It must be said that the economy is the main concern of Americans faced with significant inflation which complicates access to housing and employment. Kamala Harris is therefore expected on these economic subjects and has unveiled several measures supposed to “give money back to middle and working class families”.
On the economic front, the Democrat is proposing three strong measures in particular: a birth tax credit, assistance for first-time home buyers and even a boost for business creation. She also promises a reduction in inflation to 3% and price controls for basic necessities and medicines. If it plans to facilitate access to the least wealthy households, but very well-off households the situation is different. Kamala Harris plans to tax the capital gains of households earning more than a million dollars per year at 28%. This is more than the current rate, but less than the 39% desired by Joe Biden.
Kamala Harris is in line with what Joe Biden did during his mandate. However, the current president who has had to deal with the post-covid crisis to which the financial difficulties of the American middle class are linked is often criticized on this aspect of his record. A contraio, Donald Trump who is a billionaire and a real estate tycoon is considered to have a mastery of the economy and suffers less from the memory left by his mandate and erased by the last four years. The fact remains that Kamala Harris opposes her program to that of the Republican who, according to her, “fights” for billionaires and big businesses.
Despite everything, part of the usual Democratic electorate is turning away from Kamala Harris in favor of Donald Trump for economic reasons, notably African-American and Latino men. To convince them, Kamala Harris has in fact insisted on measures designed for these communities with an economic “opportunities” program for black men which provides aid for training, learning and access to employment and entrepreneurship, but also a more social component focused on health. She also spoke to the Latin community during an interview on Telemundo.
Abortion, immigration… Kamala Harris’ social measures
Kamala Harris also, and above all, focused her campaign on measures with a more social aspect. She notably placed the subject of right to abortionwhich fell to the point of being banned in several American states after a Supreme Court decision, at the heart of the campaign. The Democratic Party is in favor of abortion and wants to guarantee this right to women throughout the country. More generally, women’s health was one of the important subjects of his campaign. But the Democratic candidate proposed measures aimed at several minorities.
If it addresses minorities, Kamala Harris must also specify its immigration policy and on this point she plays a balancing act: she wants to be firm in order to attract the moderate right, but not so closed as not to scare away the left. However, the candidate announced a toughening of migration policy involving “consequences” for illegal migrants and investments in physical barriers at the border with Mexico. However, it does not appear to be discriminatory against migrants in the way that Donald Trump can be, who considers immigration to be “problem number 1” and loses himself in xenophobic or racist criticism.
In terms of foreign policy, Kamala Harris positions herself mainly on Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the latter, she reiterated her commitment to the defense of the Jewish state and clarified that she would not suspend American arms deliveries to Israel in the event of victory. But she also wants to appear less pro-Israeli than Joe Biden and has condemned the violence perpetrated against Palestinian civilians. She said “far too many innocent Palestinians had been killed” and called for “a ceasefire.” Her positioning matters all the more as Arab-Muslim American voters who usually support the Democratic camp could turn away from Kamala Harris, because they are disappointed with Joe Biden’s policy regarding the war in the Middle East.
As for Ukraine, it reaffirms the United States’ support for the country after the Russian invasion. Moreover, she singled out Donald Trump for his good relations with leaders Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and assured that she would not make “friends” with dictators.
The ecological aspect is not the most supported part of Kamala Harris’ program, but the candidate is investing in the subject to distance herself from Donald Trump who broke with the Paris agreements during his presidential mandate. If she defends “the right to breathe clean air, to drink clean water and to live without the pollution that fuels the climate crisis”, she does not specify how. At the same time, she is making about-faces on several measures that she defended in the past: no longer a question of opposing hydraulic fracturing, a technique which allows rocks to be cracked to extract hydrocarbons, no longer a question of banning plastic straws and other waste of the type yet replaceable. Following on from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris says she is in favor of the inflation reduction act (IRA), a set of ecological, economic and social measures