In the six weeks since Harris upended the 2024 presidential race, commentators have run amok manufacturing all manner of phrases to describe her sudden White House run.
Some have called it Kamalamania others Kamalamentum and even Kamelot. Not to be left out, Trumpists have dismissed it as irrational exuberance.
With her running mate Tim Waltz, Harris’s run has been described as the politics of hope and joy.
The palpability of the energy and optimism of the Democratic National Convention was inimitable.
Democrats rejoiced in the oomph and confidence that has been set in train by the unexpected transformation from Joe Biden to joyful warrior Harris.
Her nomination marks the first ever for a Black and Asian American woman on either a Democratic or Republican Party ticket.
Never mind that Harris had actually spent the last four years cooped up in the rather unthankful and shadowy role of vice president.
What is so hopeful and or joyful about her brand of politics and what lessons can Kenyans and Africa draw from it?
In a way, she unveiled a new branding of the Democratic Party, nay, of the American dream. One fit for purpose of the new generation.
One in which the people themselves can chart a new way forward and make their own decisions about their own lives.
Harris embraced the concept of joy as a forward looking cheerful way to disengage her campaign from Trump's rhetoric of fear, buffoonery, hate and darkness.
She has literally snatched the time and tasted political mantra of freedom from under Trump's feet and anchored her campaign around it.
Freedom from what? You may ask, and Harris obliges: Freedom from gun violence in schools; freedom to love who you love with pride; freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water; and the freedom that unlocks all the other freedoms, the freedom to vote.
But Harris isn’t a one woman army. She is supported by a glittering cast of enablers. The power couple of the Obamas, Michelle and Barack, have added their salvos on how to defeat trump and unlock the American dream.
Michelle is urging Americans not to sit on their laurels and complain but instead to rise up, fold their sleeves and “Do Something”.
Our very own Barack chimed in with “Bring him down to size and make him look as small as he is” mantra.
Oprah Winfrey signed off Trump's epitaph by urging Americans to choose common sense over nonsense. Not to be left behind, running mate Walz, aka coach, rounds it off with the curt retort of “mind your own damn business”.
Harris offhandedly dismisses Trump as an unserious mind but cautions Americans that the consequences of putting him in the White House are extremely serious. Choices have consequences, rings a bell?
The message is simple and clear. A Harris presidency would be tough on crime, good for the family’s budget, lower middle-class taxes, secure the border but that is not all, she will do so with compassion and kindness.
She is not selling herself and coach Walz as warriors in shining armour, brimming with entitlement, coming to save the American people instead she is telling them, “Good people. We, together, can do this”.
Kenyans are rather put off by those smitten with the power that politics affords and have seen far too many friends and acquaintances ascend to political office as beacons of democracy and champions of the poor and down trodden only to reveal themselves as louts, common thieves and looters.
The people are tired of the troubling trend of treating politics as a hobby. Most of our politicians are political hobbyists who don’t really take politics seriously and view it as a form of entertainment rather than a vital aspect of life with serious consequences. Indeed, politics need not always be morally and spiritually corrosive.
Collectively, it is time to remember that we have not made our prosperity, we have inherited it from those who have come before us, and therefore, we also inherit the responsibilities that came with it.
Getting good people into politics is every Kenyan’s responsibility. Imagine local politics in which dialogue trumps over diatribe, civic engagement happens and people talk to each other instead of about each other.
The profound exuberance of the Harris ticket, the seemingly irrepressible hope of the Democratic Party offers hope. It has a positive spin for our own democracy and politics.
Like the American people, Kenyans are tired of the message of fear and darkness. Tired of the big man politics that denigrates the citizen.
It is imperative that our leaders are prepared for the realities and limitations of government. Equally important is that we as citizens can and must engage in a more thoughtful, co-created approach.
The writer teaches globalisation and international development at Pwani University
