Kemi and Kamala

dissimilar party leaders

I am no more certain of the election outcome in the United States than any of you. I parse polling reports while I took copious care to consider how many TRUMP versus HARRIS signs I saw in Talbot County, Maryland over the weekend. Talbot is one of the oldest counties in the country, with the Valliant Farm sign citing an origin of 1640. But, like statistics in any football game, signs are irrelevant. What matters is who the electorate actually chooses to support in a safe and secret ballot process.

I saw many signs for each of these candidates. The most “rural” of areas, perhaps isolated yet they were hardly interior Alaska, probably had more TRUMP signs while communities (defined as multiple homes clustered) had more HARRIS signs. But, there were surprises—meaning I saw signs for BOTH everywhere—as I drove around St. Michael’s, Tilghman Island, Bellevue, Royal Oak, Easton, and Oxford. It’s exciting more Americans appear engaged in this cycle than thirty years ago but I confess I did not visit Talbot in the 1990s so perhaps this county has always been a highly involved bunch. Anybody know? I should add that the “Financier of the Revolution”, Robert Morris, actually spent the last several decades of his life in Oxford so politics has been part, indirectly, of the past here.

I am fascinated that the same year Kamala Harris, an African-South Asian-American, became the Democratic nominee for President, Britain’s Tory Party (a.k.a. the Conservatives) selected, Kemi Badenoch, a British-born Yoruba woman as party leader. The similarities between the two women are interesting: they each had at least a single parent from African roots (Badenoch’s parents both were from Nigeria) while Harris’s father was African-via-Jamaica (her mother is South Asian, of course, like Nikki Haley and Usha Vance). Both women are first generation citizens in their countries. Both actually spent some of their childhoods overseas as Harris spent time in high school in Montréal while Badenoch in the United States after growing up for several years in Nigeria. Neither studied at the elite educational institutions so traditional in their nations: Badenoch earned a Master’s degree from the University of Sussex rather than Oxbridge; Harris attended Howard University before earning a law degree at Hastings (now University of California San Francisco) Law School. Curiously, both women worked at McDonald’s in their youth. Badenoch and Harris are the first African-heritage women to lead their political parties, though not the first non-Caucasians since Badenoch follows Rushi Sunak and Harris was preceded by Barack Obama at the helm of the Democratic Party.

From there, the two political leaders diverge in their experiences and policy preferences. Badenboch was born in Britain after her pregnant mother made the trek there to assure her daughter would have British citizenship before the law prohibited that sort of “birthright citizenship”. Her party struggles with immigration and race issues. A hard Brexiteer, she would appear firmly in the camp of preferring Britain for British although I am not sure how that plays out for someone of her background. Perhaps one of our British readers could chime in?

Harris unquestionably was born and raised well into her teens in Oakland, California even if her parents did divorce during her childhood. Harris rose through California politics by serving as a prosecutor, then the state’s Attorney General before winning the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Barbara Boxer in 2016. She served in that position when selected as Vice President in 2020. Harris earned attention for her prosecutorial questioning during Senate Judiciary Committee meetings but also managed to work across the aisle with a Republican of prickly repute, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, on bail reform.

Badenoch, on the other hand, had jobs in both the digital and wealth advising sectors upon graduating with her Master’s twenty years ago. She became a Tory Party member in 2005 but failed in her first couple of personal political forays before winning a Parliamentary seat in 2017. Badenoch vigorously supported Britain’s abandonment of the European Union the prior year, a position likely quite at odds with Harris’s more inclusive, liberal approach to alliances and partnerships. Badenoch’s tenure in Parliament included a relatively rapid rise into leadership with another aspirant (Michael Gove) as her mentor. Both because of her outspoken positions and the seeming implosion of traditional Tory politics resulting from Brexit division, the timing matched her aspirations. Badenoch’s most noteworthy cabinet portfolio has been trade, an especially vital area as Britain struggles to negotiate trade accords outside of the European Union.

My point here is not to compare item by item the policy positions but to show that we should not project anyone’s politics simply by identifying his or her race, gender or origin. Politicians are as complicated as any one of us, if not more so. Badenoch strongly opposes diversity and inclusion policies for Britain while Harris supports them in this country. Harris’s background is that of a strict law-and-order prosecutor and the state helping find solutions for the future while Badenoch hues towards trade and limited government as solutions for Britain’s many problems. Harris stresses expanding conversations across the aisle while Badenboch accused (some reports called it joking while others did not) up to 10% of the civil service of being “very, very bad…you know ‘prison bad’ people”. I have no idea how either would govern so don’t tell me I am giving one side or the other a pass. I am simply mentioning the tenor of their remarks regarding the governments which they would lead, should each win her next respective election. In short, these are definitely not cookie-cutter women of African heritage leading their parties even if they appear somewhat similar at first glance. Each has an unique background as first generation women of color reaching the helm of their political movements.

The rise by both of these women indicates two monumental shifts in the landscape of the United Kingdom and the United States. First, the electorate in both countries is significantly less Caucasian than it was even a quarter century ago. Immigration anxiety undergirded the 2016 Brexit referendum as it is doing during the U.S. campaign closing out this evening. But the flip side of that is millions of first generation immigrants are discerning, legal voters, and supporters of traditional philosophies the British Conservatives and the U.S. Democrats began embracing decades before these women’s immigrant forebearers came. Many Americans and Brits who are not immigrants don’t focus on that factor, it would appear.

Second, women may have come late to political leadership positions, especially in the United States, but women leaders are here to stay. Badenboch is the fourth British Tory leader in the past thirty-five years: Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Liz Truss preceded her. Nicola Sturgeon was the Scottish National Party head for several years before a startling downfall. We Yanks have only had one prior female presidential candidate, Democrat Hillary Clinton, and two other vice presidential running mates, Geraldine Ferraro and Kamala Harris. I have seen no note of it but Harris leads the Democratic ticket in Maryland where another African American woman is attempting to win an open Senate seat as well. Nancy Pelosi may upset many but she was an exceptionally talented Speaker of the House.

Women leading political movements is becoming unremarkable; it is far from a partisan preference or quirky happen chance. Yes, women grind through the internecine battles as tenaciously as men, almost invariably in the face of dispiriting residual sexism. But politics is a hard fought battle for anyone who plays the game at its highest levels. Mao is supposed to have noted politics is not a dinner party, an assessment I suspect Badenboch and Harris would both acknowledge

Kemi Badenboch, only named Tory leader last week, gave her party two assignments: to hold Keir Starmer and Labour accountable for its tenure following this past July’s landslide victory along with preparing the Conservatives to retake a parliamentary majority within two years. The past eight years since Brexit have been rough for the Tories so she will need tact, steel, vision, and deal-making to succeed.

Kamala Harris holds the 2024 presidential campaign’s closing Democratic Party rally at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this evening. As hard fought as the past four months have been, governing in this polarized environment would be even harder but she believes she has a path if she has the votes. Time will tell on both scores.

Two daughters of immigrants, along with Suella Braverman in Britain, and Republican Nikki Haley in the United States show that the twenty-first century democracies in the United States and United Kingdom are different places than those of us reading this grew up seeing. We are wrong to assume anything about politicians, instead asking them to show why specifically they merit election and how they would govern specifically given the chance. Policy details ought be our demand as voters although knowing whether someone is a compromiser versus a weakling on all scores probably matters as well (that character thing again from yesterday morning?). Are we seeking a new form of Harry Truman’s “I’m from the Show Me State” so show me?

Thank you for reading Actions today. I welcome your thoughts, questions, comments, or anything else. I appreciate your time on this busy first Monday in November. If you are a citizen of the United States, I hope you have a plan to register your political preferences through voting, a sacred opportunity.

Thank you to the subscribers who support this work. I welcome anyone to put your resources into this newsletter.

My photograph today is meant to send much needed (at least for me and everyone I seem to meet today) zen. I took this from a bench in Talbot County yesterday morning, overlooking the Tred Avon River between Oxford and Bellevue. Tell me this doesn’t spell calm.

Be well, please vote, and be safe. FIN

“Can Kemi Badenoch Make the Tories Electable Again?”, podcast, TheGuardian.com, 4 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/audio/2024/nov/04/can-kemi-badenoch-save-tories-plus-us-election-politics-weekly-westminster-podcast

Sean O’Grady, “Kemi Badenoch: The Anti-Woke Brexiteer making waves in the Tory leadership race”, TheIndependent.com, 16 July 2022, retrieved at https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/kemi-badenoch-tory-leadership-race-brexit-b2124741.html

Rafi Schwartz, “What Did Kamala Harris Accomplish as California Senator and District Attorney?” , TheWeek.com, 14 August 2024, retrieved at https://theweek.com/politics/kamala-harris-president-senator-attorney-general-ag-achievements-california