Part 4 of my 3-part Series: How Kamala Harris Uses the 9 Power Tools (though she probably never heard of them)
Issue 278 — November 4, 2024
I’m having a heck of a time concentrating on writing this nail-biting last day of the momentous 2024 election. Trying hard to “keep calmala and carry onala.”
If you haven’t voted yet, would you please get thyself to the polls on November 5th and make your voice heard at the ballot box.
Remember, #votingisleadership. You’re a leader. Someone I know well once titled a book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power. Now is a crucial time to use our individual and collective power.
Back to the topic, when I started writing this series a few weeks ago, I planned on writing one post on each of the “buckets” of those 9 Leadership Power Tools: the self-definitional tools, the counterintuitive tools, and the change leadership tools.
Turned out there was more to say, so here’s part 4.
Power Tool #7 is “Create a movement.” Both candidates are adept at this, but in very different ways.
To create a movement, there are three elements I call #sistercourage: be a sister/brother and make coalition with others who share your concerns and values; have the courage to raise those issues to the power centers; and put sister and courage together with a strategy to make change.
Harris seems to BE a movement. Certainly she spawned a movement that arose spontaneously the moment she became the Democratic nominee for President. Her own intersectionalities encompass so many Americans: female, Black, South Asian, daughter of immigrants, Christian married to a Jew, blended family, and more.
Groups sprang up all over, organizing themselves to canvass, raise money, and remind each other and their networks to vote. This self-organization has long been a strength of the evangelical far right, but not so much of the muddled middle or the left. As humorist Will Rogers once said, “I don’t belong to an organized party; I’m a Democrat.”
Zoom groups became grassroots organizing groups:
Win With Black Women started it off, soon followed with White Women for Harris, determined to show solidarity since the majority of white married women had voted for Trump in previous elections, White Dudes for Harris, Swifties for Harris, Black Men for Harris, Childless Cat Ladies for Harris, LGBTQ, Geeks and Nerds, Young Voters, Latinas, Native Americans, Western Women for Harris. I’m sure I am overlooking many groups that collectively have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the campaign.
All of these affinity groups springing forth like flowers after rain show that Harris has been able to instill belief that their grassroots efforts are important and their votes matter even in previously cynical citizens.
I predict this is a movement that will endure after the election. If Harris is elected, they’ll have her back and if not, they’ll continue to grow their grassroots impact.
Power Tool #8 is Employ Every Medium
You are the medium and the message. For a political candidate, this tool is the holy grail.
Apparently I’ve been writing about Harris’s self-presentation for years. I did not remember a June 16, 2017 article I wrote, brought to my attention by a friend, relating one of Harris’s early tangles with powerful men as a U.S. Senator:
“…Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets nervous when questioned by a woman (Senator Kamala Harris)… Senator John McCain rode to Sessions’ rescue by attempting to silence Harris. Apparently Sigmund Freud’s ghost remains influential, for Harris was then labeled hysterical by a commentator on CNN. She, you’ll recall, came to Congress as the first ever female and woman of color Attorney General of California, much admired as a smart and tough prosecutor; I suspect anyone trying to avoid interrogation will meet his or her match while she is in office.”
Harris was initially criticized for not doing media interviews, but she seems to have been following a strategy of bearding the lion in his den where she could best demonstrate that toughness and mental agility. For example, she appeared on Fox News with conservative host Bret Baier who looked like he was sucking on a lemon when she challenged him.
She went on the Howard Stern show channeling die hard fans of Stern who are typically white males, a demographic her team is trying to reach.
Then there was her “Call Her Daddy” podcast:
This appearance was designed to appeal to the millennial/genZ crowd Harris needs to win. Alex Cooper, the host of “Call Her Daddy” is a well known influencer/media creator among this generation.
It was a good opportunity for Harris not only to get “real” with this demographic, but also gave her a platform to articulate her policies on abortion and safety of women.
Critics say by going on a female oriented podcast, Harris is perpetuating the gender gap in voting between her and Trump, as more women are already likely to vote for her and more men to vote for Trump This is a double standard: Trump has been attempting to align with young millennial/genZ male audiences by sitting down with Jake Paul a known media star and boxer who has a large young male following.
She also took interviews twice with The Breakfast Club host, Charlamagne tha God. The Lyft driver who picked me up from an event I attended called this one to my attention.
And who can forget her boundary-setting retort, “I’m speaking,” refusing to be interrupted by Trump’s 2020 VP partner Mike Pence. Compare her performance with the moment Pence sat still while a fly buzzed on his head. He didn’t move, while she showed she knew how to pivot when something unexpected happened — with a pleasant smile on her face as women must do.
Social Media presence (Kamala HQ)
Harris is taking a unprecedented approach to social media as another effort to reach young voters– Kamala IS brat! She’s willing to make fun of herself. This also differentiates her from the BidenHQ social media strategy which was more traditional.
Her body language shows her youthfulness in comparison to Biden and Trump, and she uses more future-oriented language, hopefulness, and joy, which resonates with younger generations who have been living in uncertainty about inflation, homebuying, and student loan debt. Harris’ policies on loans for first time homeowners capitalize on this.
She uses a few quotable zingers to differentiate herself: “He will walk into the office with a grievance list. I will walk in with a to do list.” “Ours is a fight for the future” is an attempt to contrast with Trump’s age and his penchant for making statements that would take society and women in particular back to an undesirable past.
“Tell Your Story” is Power Tool #9.
Harris has a compelling story and she shares it often.
She credits her mother, an immigrant from India, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, as being the most powerful influence on her own self-awareness of all she could accomplish and a driving force who nurtured her ambitions.
“She maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment,” Ms. Harris said of her mother, “But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women — who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight — women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all.”
She tells how she took care of her mom when she was dying of cancer. This connects directly with the many voters who have struggled with caregiving for an elder or child.
She speaks of growing up in a middle class home, starkly contrasting with Trump’s upbringing in wealth and his intent to give the wealthiest among us even greater tax advantages than those passed during his first term.
She connects her story to her values that drive her public service, ”I believe in this county’s promise because I have lived it. My parents took me to civil rights marches in my stroller… I have family of blood and family of love…I see the promise of America in every one here, and in all the young leaders who are voting for the first time. I see you and believe in your incredible power.”
One thing for sure, regardless of the election outcome, the work for democracy and women’s rights to economic and reproductive self-determination will be more important than ever — either because they are under attack more than ever, or because this is the moment of opportunity we have long been working toward.
For until women have equal power, pay, and leadership positions across the board, we must, as the “Suffs” song says, “Keep marching.”
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.
