“I believe in “America” is the first line you hear in The Godfather. A troubled funeral home owner named Amerigo Bonasera comes to visit Don Corleone seeking revenge for his daughter who has been wronged by two young Anglo-Saxons. The film is essentially an immigrant story devoid of Horatio Alger fantasies or any notion of smooth integration into society. Rather, the film and the book tell of old-world traditions that mix, reinforce, and corrupt the democratic experiment with often bloody and spectacular results. America in the Nineteenth Century The Godfather This was not the melting pot that middle school teachers everywhere described, but a turbulent cauldron of vested interests, narrow beliefs, and most of all, fierce struggles. It was the true story of coming to a foreign land and trying to do good.
In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris told a very different version of that story, when she spoke of her mother’s struggles upon coming to America. But The Godfather Neither author Mario Puzo nor director Francis Ford Coppola could have done it better. Her mother and father, immigrants from different backgrounds, eventually split up. She spoke of the tight circle her mother built around the family — embracing Harris’s young friend who was being abused, and encouraging her daughter to fight back to protect her friends. The five-foot-tall Shyamala Harris’s accent may have made her seem different, but she wasn’t going to take crap from anyone. Her daughter told the Democratic National Convention audience how Shyamala worked as hard as she could to provide for people, but times were tough and resources were limited. They managed to survive, but maybe not by much, but she still opened her doors to those in need.
“My mother understood the importance of caring for people, especially when they are hurt or in pain,” Harris said recently. Rolling Stone“I grew up feeling the same way.” (It’s unimaginable to think of slumlord Fred Trump imparting such lessons to his son Donald.) Harris described the kind of neighborhood where doors are open and parents work together, one that has become ingrained in our collective imagination of what this country is supposed to be like. “I grew up in a community where people take care of each other,” Harris told us.
In telling her personal story, Kamala Harris has once again taken the narrative of the American Dream and made it the narrative of the Democratic Party. She has made it acceptable to be a proud Democrat again, or at least more acceptable in polite chambers. For all his legislative accomplishments, Joe Biden has lost the trust of most people. As the first presidential debate demonstrated, he was clearly too old to do the job. His performance so shook the party that one staffer told me that during the first presidential debate he felt like he was “watching someone die.”
At the Democratic National Convention, Harris spoke forcefully. She wrapped herself in a flag, and talked about economic opportunity and a strong national defense. She talked about prosecuting criminals and the Iranian threat. She was pitching to the voters she could get and trying to win elections, like any normal politician. Social issues aside, if she didn’t know better, this could have been a speech from, say, a Republican National Convention, any time before 2016.
The stark contrast between Harris and Donald Trump and his bizarre Republican National Convention was devastating. Harris has put forward a vision of the country that is almost comfortingly familiar and unapologetically patriotic. She loves this country and wants to make it better. Trump’s nightmare dreams seem like twisted fantasies conjured up at Breitbart concerts or Stephen Miller’s basement cell.
Trump has a narrative of failure, fear and destruction. He wants to deport millions. Abandon allies. Start trade wars. The country he describes, from the safety of his gated, gilded mansion, is unrecognizable or even remotely close to reality. We face all manner of threats, problems and conflicts, to be sure, but the scenarios he presents are the delusions of a narcissistic mind. He ignores the climate crisis and blames the most marginalized. After four years in office, his legislative achievements amount to a massive tax cut for the very wealthy and little else.
It’s unlikely that a pleading immigrant like Amerigo Bonasera will make it past the front gates of Mar-a-Lago, never seeking justice for his daughter from a man who has openly bragged about harassing women and who was convicted by a jury of sexual assault. But if Amerigo can find his way to Harris, he will find a sympathetic and righteous ear intent on finding justice within the law.
No matter what happens in this election, Kamala Harris has made it clear that she believes in America, too.
