PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — A journalism professor and award-winning journalist believes, aside from issues with the economy, inflation and immigration, Democratic candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris’s stinging defeat in the US presidential election last week had a lot to do with her gender.

“I think that she suffered from some of the vulgarities of American [culture]. She also suffered from the fact that she is a woman and there are a lot of people in America — a lot of men just can’t get the notion of having a woman as president,” said Linn Washington, a professor at Temple University.

Washington, in responding to a question posed by the Jamaica Observer a day after Donald Trump, the Republican candidate and former president, won the election, pointed to the struggle of American politician Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the US Congress in the late 1960s, to make his point.

“During the campaign it was the talk of Shirley Chisholm, who ran in the early 70s as a candidate for the Democratic nomination and she was not successful,” Washington said, then argued that misogyny was a major factor in last Tuesday’s election which saw Trump getting just over 74.5 million votes while Harris polled almost 71 million.

“The country has been in existence since 1791. She [Chisholm] said that the largest and most persistent impediment that she faced was the fact, not that she was black, but that she was a woman. I think that a lot of the vote that we saw in this election from some black and Latino men was related to misogyny,” he said.

Washington believes Harris “ran an incredible campaign” within a short span of time.

“… [It] was just 100 days between when she was selected to be the candidate and the election, so there was tremendous effort. I think she should be credited for running a very good campaign but the reality, too, is she was running an uphill campaign and it was difficult,” he explained.

Trump made illegal immigration a major plank of his campaign, and Washington believes it worked in his favour while the Democrats handled it wrongly.

“They allowed the Republicans to pretty much command a narrative on how there have been efforts over the years to address that issue. Earlier this year there was bipartisan agreement as to how to pass legislation that would have addressed some of the issues at the border, and the Republicans who were on board with this got a call from a guy named Donald Trump who said, ‘Don’t do this, because I am going to make it an election issue, a campaign issue,’ and they backed away from that,” the professor said.

“I don’t think that move was highlighted enough by the Democrats. There were a few tactical errors there, but just understand that she was running from behind, and she did an incredible job. If she had more time I think she would have done better,” he added.

Washington pointed to his personal experience interacting with illegal immigrants who came to the US as children.

Noting Trump’s vow to start deporting illegal immigrants on day one of his presidency next January, Washington said, “I think he will try to do that, and I think a lot of people are a little naïve about it. I remember a [few] years ago I covered a press conference in City Hall and it was about dreamers — young people who were brought to this country as children and had grown up here, had roots here, but they are not legitimate citizens because they didn’t go through the immigration process.

“…some folks from Jamaica are going to get caught up in this, and it is going to be a situation where you are guilty or you are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent — and that is going to cause utter chaos,” he said.

He claimed that many illegal immigrants are pumping their energy into the American workforce.

“People who are here working, if they get a pay cheque [then] social security payments are deducted from that, taxes are deducted from that, but they have no say in any of it. They can’t get social security — so they are putting more into the system than what they are getting out of it,” he said.

“Let me be clear, there is a problem at the border. There was a time when, to get into the country you had to go through certain procedures, and if you wanted to claim asylum — that you were running away from something — it couldn’t be because you wanted a better life here; you had to have a legitimate [threat] from where you were. There is this notion that people come here, they automatically get jobs and support from the Government. Who is hiring those people?” he asked.

“… Are they coming into America and going to an employer and putting a gun to their head and say, ‘Hire me’? No, it is Americans hiring them, so Americans are a part of this problem, but we don’t say that… it is crazy,” he said.