Every other word that comes out of Harris’ mouth is a lie. But now things have gotten even worse.
And massive harris lies have been exposed and the whole world is stunned.
Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently portrayed herself as a champion of the working and middle classes, using stories about her upbringing to suggest that she relates to the struggles of everyday Americans. During interviews, campaign rallies, and even presidential debates, Harris has touted her summer job at McDonald’s, her Oakland roots, and her supposedly humble background to bolster this image.
But a closer look at Harris’s upbringing tells a vastly different story, one of privilege and opportunities that most middle-class or working-class Americans could never imagine.
In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harris said, “I grew up a child of a mother who worked very hard. She raised me and my sister and saved up. And by the time I was a teenager, she was able to buy a home.” On social media, she has declared that she will always “put the middle class and working families first,” adding, “I know where I came from.”
Yet, as with many politicians who seek to appeal to working-class voters, Harris’s narrative appears to be more of a constructed identity than an accurate reflection of her life experiences. Harris has long downplayed her own privilege, choosing instead to craft an image that seems designed to connect her with a base that Democrats are rapidly losing: the middle and working class.
While Harris claims ties to the blue-collar city of Oakland, her early years tell a different story. Born in 1964 at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, Harris’s parents were both graduate students at UC Berkeley—an elite institution in one of the wealthiest and most progressive regions of the country.
While Harris often uses the vague descriptor “daughter of Oakland” to brand herself as the child of a working-class city, her family actually lived in Berkeley, a liberal, academic enclave adjacent to Oakland, but worlds apart in terms of socio-economic status.
Her parents’ backgrounds further shatter the working-class narrative. Harris’s father, Donald Harris, was a Jamaican-born economist who later taught at elite institutions such as Stanford University. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was the daughter of an Indian diplomat who studied at UC Berkeley and became a renowned cancer researcher. Far from the struggles that Harris implies she endured, she was raised in a home filled with intellectuals and activists.
In fact, during Harris’s formative years, her family lived in various affluent areas, including Evanston, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin, while her father pursued his academic career. Later, Harris and her mother moved to Montreal, Canada, where they resided in one of the city’s most upscale neighborhoods. Harris attended top schools, including Westmount High School, which boasts one of the highest educational standards in Montreal.
To put it bluntly, Kamala Harris was raised in a world of privilege, far removed from the daily struggles of America’s working class.
One of the more glaring omissions in Harris’s portrayal of her upbringing is her education. Before she was bused as part of a desegregation program, Harris attended Berkwood Hedge School, a private institution in Berkeley. Even today, tuition at Berkwood runs over $29,000 per year. This is hardly the experience of a child struggling in a working-class household.
In addition to her private schooling, Harris also took ballet lessons from the renowned Russian ballerina Madame Bovie, hardly a luxury that most working-class children can afford. These details, conveniently left out of Harris’s narrative, suggest a childhood filled with opportunity, not one of hardship.
When Harris finally did attend public school, it was not in a working-class neighborhood, but in the wealthier area of North Berkeley. This is where she was bused as part of a racial integration program, an experience she has used as evidence of her “disadvantaged” background. However, Harris’s earlier education in private schools reveals that she was far from disadvantaged.
Harris’s narrative further falters when we consider her family’s travel history. Harris frequently visited her father’s family in Jamaica and her mother’s family in Chennai, India. Few middle-class families can afford such international trips. Harris’s father himself came from a privileged Jamaican background, with ties to the country’s elite.
One of the most frequently cited elements of Harris’s so-called middle-class background is her summer job at McDonald’s during college. Harris claims she worked at the fast-food chain to make extra spending money, but even this story doesn’t add up.
At the time, Harris’s father was a professor at Stanford University, and her mother was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley. The idea that Harris had to work at McDonald’s for “extra spending money” while living in one of California’s wealthiest regions raises questions about the authenticity of her claim.
Moreover, Harris has never provided concrete evidence of this alleged job. While she claims to have worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, her mother’s home was located near a different McDonald’s in Oakland. It is unclear why Harris would commute to Alameda for work when there was a closer location near her home.
Perhaps the most misleading part of Harris’s narrative is her description of the home her mother purchased when she was a teenager. Harris frequently mentions that her mother worked hard to buy a modest house in Oakland. However, the house in question was located in the affluent Oakland Hills, one of the wealthiest areas of the city. The home was near a golf course and is now valued at nearly one million dollars, far from the modest, working-class image that Harris presents.
Throughout her political career, Harris has made a concerted effort to downplay her privilege and present herself as a working-class hero. Yet, her lifestyle has consistently been one of luxury. After her time at UC Hastings for law school, Harris purchased a condo overlooking Lake Merritt in Oakland, an area far removed from the struggling neighborhoods that many working-class families call home.
Harris’s rapid ascent into wealth continued with a string of high-paying government jobs, luxury real estate investments, and political appointments that catapulted her into the upper echelons of society. Despite these advantages, Harris continues to claim a working-class background, even though she has lived in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, including her $5 million home in Los Angeles and her $1.775 million condo in Washington, D.C.
Kamala Harris’s efforts to connect with middle-class and working-class voters by invoking her supposedly humble upbringing fall flat under scrutiny. While she continues to tell the story of a struggling child of a single mother, the reality is that Harris grew up in an academic, affluent, and internationally connected family. The misleading claims about her background are part of a larger trend in her political career, where image and narrative are manipulated to suit the needs of the moment.
As Harris seeks higher office, voters should remember that her version of “middle-class” life is not only exaggerated but outright false. The real Kamala Harris is someone who has lived in privilege, attended elite schools, and benefited from a world of opportunities that most Americans can only dream of.
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