Harris' Initial Foray

Vice-President Harris first went viral during the June 13, 2017, questioning of Mr. Jeff Sessions the then Attorney General of the United States. Then Senator Harris, a former prosecutor and Attorney General of California, was criticized by then Senator Burr, and then Senator J. McCain about the rapidity of her questioning and her allowance of Mr. Sessions to respond in full (Baffy, 2020, p. 689). Then Senator Harris was defended on Twitter by two powerhouses of the Democratic Party Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Ron Wyden who both heavily criticized then Senators McCain and Burr as being overtly sexist in their criticism of Harris (Baffy, 2020, p. 690). These tweets by Warren and Wyden expanded the network of Kamala Harris. While this incident was the second time in a two-week period that Senator Harris was censured, it was a platforming event for her political aspirations as it raised her profile, it made her a national talking point and it solidified her ability to network the nomination in 2020 (Baffy, 2020, p. 689; Gift, 2020). The effect was much broader however as it engaged an audience on twitter who in contrast to liberal media, were engaging the racialized discursive frame of the censure proving crucial in her 2020 audience engagements and engaging Black women (Norander, 2017, p.1105-1106; Osei Fordjour, 2024, p.377).

References

1. Baffy, M. (2020). Doing ‘being interrupted’ in political talk. Language in Society, 49(5), 689–715. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404520000299

2. Gift, T. (2020, August 12). Why Kamala Harris was a safe Vice-Presidential choice for Joe Biden. LSE USAPP Blog. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/08/12/why-kamala-harris-was-a-safe-vice-presidential-choice-for-joe-biden/

3. Norander, S. (2017). Kamala Harris and the interruptions heard around the internet. Feminist Media Studies, 17(6), 1104–1121. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1380427

4. Osei Forjour, N. K. (2024). Personalization as a strategic political tool on social media: The curious case of VP Kamala Harris on Twitter. Howard Journal of Communications, 35(4), 375–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2023.2289980