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When Vice President Kamala Harris arrives on the Capitol on Friday to swear-in the brand new class of Senators, most of the smiling politicians handing her their household Bibles would be the identical ones who for months have been telling crowds that she was a risk to the American lifestyle. At marketing campaign rallies, on social media, and in interviews, some spent months falsely claiming she needed to ban Christmas from the calendar, carry canine meat to immigrants’ stoves, or rig the election by inviting undocumented immigrants to flood polling locations and forged unlawful ballots.
Of the 4 Senators taking oaths on Friday who additionally spoke on the Republican conference in Milwaukee final yr, three of them couldn’t be bothered to pronounce her title appropriately once they took a second to ridicule her.
It’s an inelegant actuality that each Vice President faces of their position because the President of the Senate, one that’s notably uncooked for these like Harris, Al Gore, and Richard Nixon who misplaced their presidential bids however nonetheless needed to return for a remaining few weeks of a grind on the Capitol. Former Senators all, they understood that the norms of the Upper Chamber couldn’t be put aside to save lots of their bruised ego, nor would these institutionalists ask to be spared. Standing there with people who trashed them is simply a part of the gig. Or at the least that’s what they’ve to inform themselves.
That doesn’t make it—or presiding over a Senate on Jan. 6 because it certifies their opponents’ win within the Electoral College—any simpler. Just ask former Vice Presidents Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and Dan Quayle how a lot they loved serving to set their political foes on the ultimate glidepath towards changing them.
For Harris, who inherited the Democratic nomination late within the calendar, the day can’t be considered one of ease. Although she has put ahead a robust face within the wake of her convincing defeat and has advised her supporters and aides that pity events aren’t how they do issues, the arrival in Washington this week of a few of her fiercest—and most artistic—critics, now imbued with extra energy, supplies an added sting to the meteoric rise and surprising shortfall she endured over the past six months.
Take Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno of Ohio, who was born in Bogatá, Colombia and ran an auto empire in Cleveland earlier than unseating Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown by tapping into voters’ anxieties over immigration in a former industrial powerhouse. Moreno not solely helped unfold the false allegations that residents of Springfield, Ohio, have been consuming canines and cats, he claimed they have been the byproduct of Harris’ position in giving momentary standing to authorized immigrants, and mentioned Harris and fellow Democrats “have put the welfare of illegals forward of our personal residents.” Meanwhile, his marketing campaign inched very near blaming Harris for a failed assassination try in opposition to Trump.
Sen.-elect Jim Banks of Indiana, campaigning for one of many most secure seats within the nation, caught with the tried-and-true tradition warfare fodder in saying Harris needed her “warfare of Christmas.” Harris will swear in him too, together with Sen. Ted Cruz, who spent months saying Harris and her allies have been coordinating asylum seekers to flood the nation with future voters. (For the document: non-citizens can’t vote.) Cruz additionally mentioned in September the Ukrainian president was utilizing a visit to the United States to marketing campaign as a Harris surrogate.
And Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who had eyed the highest job in his chamber however didn’t get it, crassly assessed that Harris was ignoring his state’s post-hurricane restoration to chase photo-ops. “She doesn’t care sufficient about Florida to get her butt down right here and say she’s going to verify the federal authorities is a associate in what’s occurring proper now in our state,” Scott mentioned. He additionally accused her of selecting the insurance policies she touted primarily based on “racism.”
And as these newcomers and alumni alike take the oath on Friday, they’ll be repeating it from the lady who, at the least till Election Day of final yr, was thought of the standard-bearer of a political party now on the lookout for an id and a future.
Political execs like Harris perceive that is simply the character of the performative piece of doing the job. As a former profession prosecutor, district legal professional, state Attorney General, Senator, Vice President, and presidential nominee, she will get that the parents throughout the aisle will take each alternative to amplify and even at occasions invent daylight between the 2 events. She definitely has carried out it over her profession, and there’s no indication that the 60-year-old trailblazer is finished.
That doesn’t imply there’s any of that pleasure heading from the Veep’s residence on the Naval Observatory to Capitol Hill as this week ends. Harris and Biden alike are packing up places of work that may quickly be held by their polar opposites. Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance—whose Senate seat from Ohio continues to be an open query that solely Gov. Mike DeWine can reply—are about as unlikely a pair of heirs as could be anticipated. The Senate, too, is about to pivot not simply from a Democratic majority to a Republican one, however a GOP-led chamber with out former Leader Mitch McConnell’s iron maintain over his caucus. That potential chaos in a chamber requiring 60 votes for nearly each piece of consequential laws will be the lone cause Harris can summon consolation as she readies for photo-ops with figures who spent months trashing her, weeks misrepresenting her up to date insurance policies, and for years to return will probably be casting votes in Washington whereas she plans her subsequent strikes.
So Harris will grip, grin, and grit on Friday, and for the following 17 days. Just don’t anticipate her to neglect the litany of slights they hurled at her. Like all good pols at her stage, Harris’ reminiscence could be cussed.
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