Protests present Kamala Harris with her first big DNC challenge | Opinion
I wasn’t an hour off the Amtrak train that brought me to Chicago Sunday to cover this week’s Democratic National Convention, when the city bus I was riding to the hotel was diverted for protesters who think Kamala Harris is not liberal enough to be president.
After I walked an extra half-mile to drop off my suitcases on the eve of the convention, I went out into the street to talk to the protesters to see what they wanted.
They had a laundry list of grievances, but the main cause celebre was Palestinians, particularly those in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Their featured chant of the day was “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide. You are funding genocide.”
Similar protests have dogged the Harris campaign since she became a candidate for president, as they did President Joe Biden’s campaign before her.
In isolation, the protest was not that big a deal, a few hours on a sunny Sunday in Chicago. But it does illustrate one of the thornier problems the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket faces as it moves toward the November election.
This week’s convention is all about showing the country that the Democratic Party is as united behind Harris as the Republicans are behind Donald Trump. Jewish and Muslim voters are both a part of the coalition that Harris must hold together to win the White House and head off another four years for Trump.
The contrast between Trump’s and Harris’ policies toward the Middle Eastern conflict could not be any more stark.
The Biden-Harris administration has worked hard to try to bring about a cease-fire and provide humanitarian aid to civilians caught right now between the hammer that is Israel and the anvil that is Hamas. It’s a nuanced, reasonable approach to try to stop the war.
Trump has gone in a decidedly anti-Palestinian direction, urging Israel to “finish the job,” which is every bit as ominous as it sounds for the Palestinians. He’s also vowed to prohibit immigration of Palestinian refugees into the U.S. and to expand a ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries that was a feature of his presidency.
No one at Sunday’s protest seemed to notice that as they gathered their demonstrators and unfurled their banners and flags at a corner in downtown Chicago, the backdrop dominating the scene was the glittering Trump International Hotel & Tower.
“They think that just because Kamala is a woman of color, just because she’s not Trump, that we’re automatically voting for her, and guess what? That’s not it,” one protester told me. “Then, she added “I don’t want Trump. I want to make that clear that I don’t want him.”
That’s the quandary. The fact that there are still voters to be convinced gives the protesters some measure of leverage, that they hope to use to influence current policy in a more pro-Palestinian direction. But at the same time, every vote they peel off Harris’ total brings Trump that much closer to a triumphant return to the White House.
One of the first speakers on the convention agenda for Monday is Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and a prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause.
She’s one of the few members of Congress who’s used the G-word, genocide, to describe Israel’s response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October in which about 1,100 Israelis were killed and about 250 were taken hostage.
At this writing, we don’t know what she’ll say at the convention podium. It will be interesting to see if her presence and words can sway demonstrators like one I spoke to Sunday, an older man with a walker.
“She’s (Harris) talked about a ceasefire, so has Biden, so has the Democratic Party, but they haven’t been serious about it,” the man told me. “They haven’t stopped sending arms to Israel. That’s a key thing.” Asked to reconcile that with what Trump’s said he’d do, the man replied “He’s a Zionist. He told the Zionists to finish the job. Yeah, it’s the same difference.”
Wichita Eagle Opinion Editor Dion Lefler is covering the Democratic National Convention for McClatchy’s Opinion teams.
