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When Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Capitol on Friday to swear-in the new class of Senators, many of the smiling politicians handing her their family Bibles will be the same ones who for months have been telling crowds that she was a threat to the American way of life. At campaign rallies, on social media, and in interviews, some spent months falsely claiming she wanted to ban Christmas from the calendar, bring dog meat to immigrants’ stoves, or rig the election by inviting undocumented immigrants to flood polling places and cast illegal ballots.
Of the four Senators taking oaths on Friday who also spoke at the Republican convention in Milwaukee last year, three of them couldn’t be bothered to pronounce her name correctly when they took a moment to ridicule her.
It’s an inelegant reality that every Vice President faces in their role as the President of the Senate, one that is particularly raw for those like Harris, Al Gore, and Richard Nixon who lost their presidential bids but still had to return for a final few weeks of a grind at the Capitol. Former Senators all, they understood that the norms of the Upper Chamber could not be set aside to save their bruised ego, nor would these institutionalists ask to be spared. Standing there with folks who trashed them is just part of the gig. Or at least that’s what they have to tell themselves.
That doesn’t make it—or presiding over a Senate on Jan. 6 as it certifies their opponents’ win in the Electoral College—any easier. Just ask former Vice Presidents Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and Dan Quayle how much they enjoyed helping set their political foes on the final glidepath toward replacing them.
For Harris, who inherited the Democratic nomination late in the calendar, the day cannot be one of ease. Although she has put forward a strong face in the wake of her convincing…
