Thomas Crooks, 20, made three historic shots impacting Trump, Biden, and Kamala Harris, setting the latter on a path to potentially lead the U.S. Kamala’s journey from liberal California through a controversial prosecutorial career to the vice presidency shows her resilience and determination. Her story reflects the American dream, shaped by her biracial background and strong stance on crime and civil rights. Despite political challenges and personal turmoils, Kamala’s energy and tenacity position her as a significant figure in American politics.
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by Pino Corrias
Thomas Mattew Crooks, 20, with sweaty hands and a poisoned heart, unknowingly proved himself a sharpshooter, making three historic shots in Butler, apart from killing a firefighter. The first shot crowned Trump’s White House run, the second halted Biden’s slow climb, and the third set off Kamala Harris, the current vice president, on her sprint to the top, poised to be chosen by Americans and the Deep State to lead the largest democratic arsenal on Earth.
In Tamil Nadu’s beautiful language, “Kamala” means “lotus flower.” She naturally floats, yet shows maximum resilience when needed. Her rise began in liberal California, immersed in student movements, eventually earning a law degree from Hastings College. Her controversial prosecutorial career was marked by battles on the ground—tough on crime, gangs, white-collar criminals, and even undocumented immigrants—and media storms that earned her the nickname “the cop prosecutor.”
However, during her four years as vice president, Biden used her to garner minority votes but kept her sidelined on major issues—economy, environment, healthcare, education—except for the thorny immigration issue, where he let her stumble without support. Her worst misstep came after her first Central American tour, when her public “Don’t come!” statement drew Republican mockery and angered those aspiring to the American dream.
Her story embodies that dream perfectly. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, came from India at 19 and became a renowned biologist, while her father, Donald Harris, arrived from Jamaica to teach Economics at Stanford. They met in Berkeley, sharing the civil rights struggles of 1960s California, married, and had two daughters, with Kamala born on October 24, 1964, in Oakland. Her parents divorced the following year.
Raised by a single mother in a biracial background, similar to Barack Obama, Kamala developed a strong determination applied to her character, studies, and career. She said, “Living among black, Jewish, Asian, and Chicano communities, I learned about inequality.” For a quarter-century in courtrooms, she sought to address this her way, becoming a San Francisco prosecutor, then head of the Career Criminal Division, coordinating five prosecutions. She tackled violent crimes, murders, robberies, and sexual offenses, noting that crime rates rose where school dropout rates and social services were inadequate. She called for interventions to protect the vulnerable while demanding severe repression against organized crime. This stance didn’t stop her from opposing the death penalty while defending life imprisonment without parole for the most dangerous offenders.
The media spotlighted her for courtroom controversies and her romantic involvement with Willie Brown, a prominent African-American politician and future San Francisco mayor, known as a “playboy who loves luxury cars and women.” In 1993, when Kamala was 29 and Brown 60, married with children, the media relished in his affairs, calling him a man who could attend a party with both his wife and mistress. Brown eventually left her in 1996 when he became mayor, but not before helping her secure two state commission appointments and a final push to become San Francisco’s and then California’s top prosecutor. Kamala downplayed these circumstances, later investigating her mentor for cronyism, calling him “an albatross around the neck” in a TV interview, and omitting him from her autobiography The Truths We Hold.
As chief prosecutor, she reiterated, “It’s never progressive to be soft on crime,” and “No one in America is above the law.” She pursued international drug traffickers, Big Tech, oil multinationals, and financial giants while defending civil rights, the gay community, and women’s abortion rights against ultra-conservative attacks. After various romantic turmoils, she met her soulmate, New York lawyer Doug Emhoff, on a blind date, marrying in 2013.
Her leap from prosecution to the Senate in 2016 multiplied her enemies and toughened her character. She bristled at questions about her Indian, Jamaican, and black origins, insisting, “We’re not a flat glass, but a prism, a sum of many factors.” And thus? “I’m just American.”
A veteran of many Senate inquiry committees, she tackled Donald Trump with no shyness, criticizing his orders to separate immigrant families and imprison children in 2018, and voting for his impeachment in 2019 when he was accused of obstructing justice.
Now, Trump boasts, “It’ll be even easier to beat her,” but his bravado masks fear, as Kamala, 59, is full of energy, ready to sprint up the power ladder, leaving behind the 78-year-old man who thought himself young only to find himself suddenly old.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, July 23, 2024
