The Question of Kamala Harris’s Eligibility: Historical Context and Political Narratives

The Question of Eligibility: Kamala Harris and Historical Precedents

Donald Trump has a long-standing history of making unfounded assertions about the eligibility of his political opponents to run for office. Recently, some of his supporters have echoed similar baseless claims regarding Vice President Kamala Harris. A group known as the National Federation of Republican Assemblies has initiated a misguided effort to delegitimize Harris’s candidacy, arguing that her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth.

This organization has adopted this theory as its official stance, even referencing the notorious 1857 Dred Scott case. This Supreme Court decision infamously ruled that enslaved individuals could not be considered citizens of the United States, thereby denying them constitutional protections. The federation asserts, “Several states, candidates, and major political parties have ignored this fundamental presidential qualification, including candidates Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Kamala Harris, whose parents were not American citizens at the time of their birth.” In this statement, they draw comparisons between Harris and two former Republican candidates.

Despite these claims, there is no legitimate basis for asserting that Harris does not meet the qualifications set forth in the U.S. Constitution. The relevant clause, found in the first amendment, states: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.” Kamala Harris meets all these requirements.

Nevertheless, Trump and others have begun to circulate dubious narratives about her identity. The former president has made the false claim that she “turned black” after years of “pretending” to be of Indian descent. Additionally, various Republicans have frequently mispronounced her first name, emphasizing her non-European-American background as a means of questioning her legitimacy.

A Historical Echo: The Birther Movement

This situation is reminiscent of the so-called “birther” controversy from the 2010s, a movement that Trump famously exploited as he sought to establish himself in the political sphere. Long before his presidential campaign, Trump became the most vocal proponent of the unfounded theory claiming that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, thereby rendering him ineligible to serve as president under the natural-born citizen clause.

The narrative that Obama was born outside the United States gained traction among right-wing media and grassroots activists even before Trump’s involvement. Proponents of the “birther” theory argued that Obama had concealed his true birthplace and needed to provide undeniable proof of his U.S. birth to be considered a legitimate candidate.

• This theory was often intertwined with false allegations that Obama was secretly a Muslim, a notion fueled by a photograph of him visiting Kenya in 2006 and his middle name, Hussein.
• In reality, Obama presented his birth certificate, and his citizenship was never questioned by the political mainstream.

Despite this, Trump continued to promote the birther narrative for several years. In 2011, during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Obama took the opportunity to mock Trump’s obsession with the birther theory, while Trump sat in the audience. This moment is often viewed as a catalyst that propelled Trump to finally pursue a presidential run after years of contemplation.

Interestingly, Obama’s 2008 election rival, John McCain, also faced scrutiny regarding his eligibility. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was under U.S. control, leading to a complex debate about the applicability of the natural-born citizen clause to individuals born there. However, unlike the persistent conspiracy theories surrounding Obama, it quickly became evident that there was little interest in disqualifying McCain based on this technicality, and his identity was not subjected to the same level of scrutiny.