Conservatives lashed out at the media for insulating Kamala Harris after the Associated Press (AP) ran an article highlighting how the Vice President’s love of food is helping her connect with the American public. Several people responded to the article on social media, saying the AP is effectively a Harris promotion project and focuses on light issues like food rather than holding the Vice President to account for her policy positions.
Nevertheless, Democrat voters make the same allegation and accuse the press of failing to hold Donald Trump to account, prompting a new phrase, “sane-washing.” Democrats insist that the media takes what they see as incoherent Trump remarks and reframes them as solid policy, prompting fury on the left.
The AP piece, however, did note that Vice President Harris struggles to connect with the public and seems less comfortable in the spotlight than Donald Trump. It highlighted a video posted to social media showing Harris buying Doritos at a store and talking about how much she enjoys the snacks and often eats them as a treat. She also told the store clerk that chocolate with caramel is “my favorite.”
During her stop in Savannah, Georgia, the Vice President also discussed recipes and her love of cooking. She told a restaurant chef that she had sometimes prepared so many vegetables that she was forced to wash them in a bathtub.
Dana Brown of the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics said the video was Harris’s attempt “to show that she is a full person.” The Vice President has also emphasized her middle-class background in several speeches, including reminding attendees at North Carolina and Nevada events that she worked at McDonald’s as a student, where her duties included cooking fries and working the cash register.
The AP article also described Harris as “relatively unknown” in American politics and as an individual who has “an aversion to opening up and embracing the spotlight.” Many Republicans, however, do not accept that Harris is a private person, and argue that she avoids the spotlight because she fears speaking off script and is unable to sufficiently communicate her policy positions.
