卡马拉·哈里斯将自己的家庭视为典型的中产阶级，这是一个重大转变

【中美创新时报2024年9 月 2 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）当卡马拉·哈里斯在民主党全国代表大会上发表她一生中最重要的演讲时，她在自己的传记中加入了经济宣传：“我来自中产阶级，”她说。《波士顿环球报》记者塔尔·科潘对此作了下述详细报道。

在努力赢得那些因物价居高不下而苦苦挣扎的选民时，哈里斯一直在利用自己的人生故事将自己描绘成中产阶级的捍卫者。对于一名政治家来说，这样做并不新鲜，但在总统舞台上，哈里斯的背景是独一无二的。

这个故事与她在民主党竞选中取代的拜登总统和她在 11 月将要面对的唐纳德·特朗普所讲述的故事截然不同——这两个人都以吸引工薪阶层选民的能力而闻名。但哈里斯希望她的叙述能够反映并增加她在当今美国人心目中的可信度，她的叙述以她的母亲为主角，她的母亲是一名移民，是一名科学家，独自抚养两个混血儿女。

“中产阶级并不是铁板一块，她讲述的故事不仅可以让人们了解她的背景，因为她告诉了选民她是谁，而且这也是一种很好的方式来突出中产阶级的不同方面，而这些方面可能没有得到‘斯克兰顿·乔’（拜登）的关注，”中左翼智库第三条道路的加布·霍维茨说。

尽管如此，民意调查显示特朗普在经济政策问题上领先选民，而拜登的经济记录不受欢迎，这是一场赌博，赌的是选举日前影响选民的最大因素之一。

哈里斯明确地将她多民族、非传统的家庭生活故事作为其经济讯息的一部分。

“这对我来说很私人，”哈里斯在民主党全国代表大会演讲中说道。“我母亲严格控制预算。我们量入为出，但我们想要的不多。她希望我们充分利用我们能得到的机会并心存感激，因为正如她教导我们的那样，机会并不是人人都有的。这就是为什么我们要创造我所说的机会经济。”

在新的广告中，哈里斯表达了降低住房成本的希望，她引用了她母亲为购买第一套房子而努力攒钱的故事。另一则突出她家庭的广告提到她在麦当劳的暑期工作，以赚取大学零花钱，并指出她的成长经历是她与竞选搭档明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹的共同之处。

“两个中产阶级孩子，”哈里斯上周在密尔沃基对人群说。“一个出生于加利福尼亚州奥克兰，母亲是职业女性。另一个是内布拉斯加州平原地区的孩子，从小在农场工作。……只有在美国，他们才能一起入主白宫。”

哈里斯还利用这些谈话要点与特朗普进行了对比，特朗普的房地产帝国很大程度上得益于他富有的父亲提供的启动资金，哈里斯将他描绘成一个与现实脱节的亿万富翁。“他实际上并不为中产阶级而战。相反，他为自己和他的亿万富翁朋友而战，”哈里斯说。

但这不仅仅是与特朗普的对比。拜登也以自己的成长经历而闻名，他把自己推销为一名政治家。不过，他讲述的是在 20 世纪 40 年代和 50 年代在宾夕法尼亚州斯克兰顿和特拉华州长大的叙述是另一个时代，当时他的爱尔兰天主教父亲靠一份收入养家糊口。

“我们的父亲拼命工作，”拜登去年春天在爱尔兰说。 “我们会在六点吃晚饭……然后他会回去工作到九点。”

哈里斯的经济政策与拜登的政策并无太大不同，她甚至详细介绍了这些政策，但侧重点不同。她主要提出了获胜后​​的目标，包括降低食品价格，并承诺停止哄抬物价。哈里斯专注于住房成本，例如为首次购房者提供首付帮助，并提议大幅扩大儿童税收抵免。

共和党人试图将自己描绘成中产阶级的救世主，而将哈里斯描绘成中产阶级的敌人。特朗普最近在他的高尔夫俱乐部举行了新闻发布会，周围摆满了杂货，以强调通货膨胀。

“中产阶级目前在拜登经济学下受苦，卡玛拉·哈里斯坚称拜登经济学正在‘发挥作用’。”特朗普发言人张志伟在一份声明中表示。“卡玛拉认为这是‘黑衣人’，她可以抹去选民的记忆。她掌权了，大多数选民说在她的领导下，他们的情况更糟了。”

中右翼美国行动论坛主席、前约翰·麦凯恩总统竞选顾问道格拉斯·霍尔茨-埃金表示，他理解哈里斯想要构建自己的叙事，但不一定觉得它令人信服。

“她开始讲述自己的故事，这总是比政策更有效的政治，但她的政策与政府的政策是表亲，”霍尔茨-埃金说。“它们是庞大而昂贵的社会项目，通常不是中产阶级取得成功的方式。所以它还没有连贯起来，至少对我来说不是。”

事实上，中产阶级是一个模糊的、几乎是神话般的类别。人口普查局没有对中产阶级的具体定义。

无党派皮尤研究中心种族和族裔研究主任马克·雨果·洛佩兹表示，随着收入不平等的加剧，按收入定义的美国中产阶级实际上随着时间的推移而缩小。根据皮尤研究中心的数据，如今，美国中产阶级的年收入中位数刚刚超过 10 万美元，而大约 50 年前这一数字为 6.6 万美元。

与西班牙裔、黑人和美国原住民相比，白人、亚裔和多种族美国人中产阶级的比例更高。但无论是高收入群体还是低收入群体，将自己视为中产阶级的美国人远远多于按收入划分的中产​​阶级。洛佩兹表示，尽管收入较低，但西班牙裔尤其可能将自己视为中产阶级，这也表明了对中产阶级的定义。但在一个关键方面，美国确实反映了哈里斯所体现的个人背景的变化。

“这个国家发生了很大变化，我们的选民变得更加多元化，在多个方面都更加多元化，”洛佩兹说。“与 20 年前相比，美国的选民中黑人、西班牙裔和亚裔的人数更多。……今天，大约十分之一的潜在选民是移民。”

在上周的大会上，许多代表表示他们同意哈里斯将中产阶级的形象扩大到包括像她这样的家庭。丽莎·考尔是纽约州波基普西市的县级立法者，该市是摇摆选区的战场。考尔和哈里斯一样是印度裔美国人，她表示很欣赏哈里斯在竞选中展现自己的人生故事。

“我认为卡玛拉正在向我们讲述一个迄今为止尚未讲述过的中产阶级故事版本，因为它以女性的角色为中心，”考尔说。“这实际上是在为社会中一个群体发声，我个人认为这个群体还没有发声，但却做了一些工作。这也是人们生活的现实。”

尽管美国行动论坛的霍尔茨-埃金对哈里斯许多政策的有效性表示怀疑，但他也表示这是一个聪明的竞选策略。他回忆起 2008 年麦凯恩竞选团队意识到美国人对这位已故参议员的生平知之甚少，于是竭尽全力向他们宣传。

“总统竞选中有很多问题都归结于性格，”霍尔茨-埃金说。“我们需要向选民解释约翰·麦凯恩是谁——不是重大成就，不是提案——他是谁。他们关心的是候选人。她也有同样的问题，她能做到吗？也许吧。”

但是，他补充说，“我们没有赢。”

题图：上周四晚上，副总统卡马拉·哈里斯在芝加哥举行的民主党全国代表大会上接受了总统提名。哈里斯在接受提名的演讲中谈到了她的童年和移民母亲。ERIN SCHAFF/NYT

附原英文报道：

Kamala Harris holds her family up as quintessentially middle class. It’s a significant shift.

By Tal Kopan Globe Staff,Updated August 29 

Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last Thursday night. Harris spoke about her childhood and immigrant mother in her acceptance speech.ERIN SCHAFF/NYT

WASHINGTON — When Kamala Harris stood onstage at the Democratic National Convention for the biggest speech of her life, she tucked an economic pitch into her biography: “The middle class is where I come from,” she said.

As she fights to win over voters struggling with stubbornly high prices, Harris has been drawing on her own life story to paint herself as a champion of the middle class. It’s far from novel for a politician to do so, but what is unique on the presidential stage is Harris’s background.

It’s a story that’s very different than the ones told by President Biden, who she replaced on the Democratic ticket, and by Donald Trump, who she is facing in November — both known for their ability to appeal to working-class voters. But Harris is hoping her narrative, one that features her mother, an immigrant, working as a scientist and raising two multiracial children by herself, both reflects and gives her more credibility with Americans today.

“The middle class isn’t monolithic, and the story that she’s telling is a fantastic insight not only into her background, as she is informing voters about who she is, but it’s also a wonderful way to just highlight different aspects of middle class that maybe didn’t get the attention with ‘Scranton Joe’ [Biden],” said Gabe Horwitz of Third Way, a center-left think tank.

Still, with polls showing Trump leading with voters on questions of economic policy and Biden’s economic record as unpopular, it’s a gamble on one of the biggest factors weighing on voters leading into Election Day.

Harris has been explicit in using her multiethnic, nontraditional family’s life story as part of her economic message.

“This is personal for me,” Harris said in her DNC speech. “My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means, yet we wanted for little. And she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us and to be grateful for them, because, as she taught us, opportunity is not available to everyone. That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy.”

In plugging her hope to bring down housing costs in a new ad, Harris cites her mother’s efforts to save up to buy her first house. Another ad highlighting her family mentions her summer job at McDonald’s to earn spending money in college and has cited her upbringing as what she has in common with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

“Two middle-class kids,” Harris told a crowd in Milwaukee last week. “One born in Oakland, Calif., to a working mom. The other, a son of the Nebraska plains who grew up working on a farm. … Only in America is it possible for them together to make it all the way to the White House.”

Harris has used the talking points to also draw a contrast with Trump, who built his real estate empire in large part thanks to starter money from his wealthy father, painting him as an out-of-touch billionaire. “He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends,” Harris said.

But it’s not just a contrast to Trump. Biden famously cites his upbringing in selling himself as a politician, as well. His narrative of growing up in Scranton, Penn., and Delaware in the 1940s and 1950s, though, is of a different era, where his Irish-Catholic father worked to support the family on a single income.

“Our dad worked like hell,” Biden said in Ireland last spring. “We’d have dinner at six o’clock … And then he’d go back to work until nine o’clock.”

Harris’s economic policies aren’t wildly different than Biden’s, to the extent that she has detailed them at all, but have a different emphasis. She has mainly offered goals if she were to win, including bringing down grocery prices with a light-on-detail pledge to stop price gouging. Harris has focused on housing costs by offering first-time home buyers down payment help, for example, and proposed a significantly expanded child tax credit.

Republicans have sought to portray themselves as the saviors of the middle class and Harris as its enemy. Trump recently held a news conference at his golf club surrounded by an array of groceries to highlight inflation.

“The middle class is currently suffering under Bidenomics, which Kamala Harris insists is ‘working.’” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Kamala thinks this is ‘Men in Black’ and she can just wipe voters’ memories. She is in power and the majority of voters say they are worse off under her.”

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum and a former adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, said he understands Harris wanting to build her narrative, but doesn’t necessarily find it convincing.

“She’s starting out telling her story, which is always more effective politics than policy, but her policies are cousins of the administration’s policies,” said Holtz-Eakin. “They are big, expensive social programs that aren’t typically how the middle class got ahead. So it doesn’t hang together yet, at least not for me.”

In reality, the middle class is a nebulous, almost mythic, category. The Census Bureau has no specific definition of middle class.

Mark Hugo Lopez, a director of race and ethnicity research at the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, said the American middle class, as defined by income, has actually shrunk over time as income inequality has grown. Today, it has a median income of just over $100,000 a year, according to Pew, up from $66,000 roughly 50 years ago.

A greater share of white, Asian American, and multiracial Americans are middle class compared with Hispanic, Black, and Native Americans. But far more Americans identify themselves as middle class than qualify by income, both of upper- and lower-income groups. Hispanics are especially likely to identify as middle class despite being lower income, Lopez said, suggesting an aspirational definition, as well. But in one key way, America does reflect the shift in personal background embodied by Harris.

“The nation has changed a lot and our electorate has become more diverse, it’s more diverse on a number of dimensions,” Lopez said. “The nation’s electorate is more Black, more Hispanic, more Asian than it was just 20 years ago. … Today about 1 in 10 potential voters are immigrants.”

At the convention last week, a number of delegates said they agreed with Harris’s expansion of the image of the middle class to include families like hers. Lisa R. Kaul is a county-level legislator from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a swing district battleground. An Indian American like Harris, Kaul said she appreciates how Harris is featuring her own life story in the campaign.

“I think Kamala is telling us a version of a middle-class story that hasn’t been told thus far, because it centers the role of women,” Kaul said. “It’s really giving voice to a segment of society that I personally think has not had the voice, but has done the work. And it’s also the reality of people’s lives.”

Though Holtz-Eakin, of the American Action Forum, doubts the effectiveness of many of Harris’s policies, he also said it’s a smart campaign strategy. He recalls in 2008 when McCain’s campaign realized how little Americans knew of the late senator’s life story and scrambled to educate them.

“There’s a lot of issues that come down to character in presidential campaigns,” Holtz-Eakin said. “We needed to explain to the voters who John McCain was — not big accomplishments, not the proposals — who he was. They care about the candidate. She has the same problem, can she do it? Maybe.”

But, he added as a caveat, “We didn’t win.”