Nominee Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris, his running mate, have clashed with progressives over the years, seeding a distrust that the ongoing campaign is not attuned to their perspective. And though the Democratic ticket is the choice of most activists, Biden and Harris are still regarded warily by those pushing hardest for meaningful reforms to the criminal justice system.
In a series of interviews this summer, organizers told CNN their angst over the records of Biden, who wrote the 1994 crime bill, and Harris, a former prosecutor, along with the pair's outwardly supportive rhetoric for law enforcement, fuels their concerns about the future. And while Biden choosing Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, was in part a nod to influential Black women who wanted to see a reflection of themselves -- Black and highly qualified-- in the highest office in the land, the young activists said representation alone is not enough.
After a wide open primary that showcased the diversity of the Democratic Party, it ended with the nomination of the 78-year-old Biden, a moderate whose 1994 bill is often cited as one driver of mass incarceration, in part because of the "three strikes" law that ensured mandatory life terms for defendants with at least three federal violent crime or drug convictions.
Yet Democrats of all stripes have largely set aside their misgivings about Biden to focus on ousting Trump. That focus was amplified and sharpened following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Republicans' rush to fill her seat. It was buoyed further this week by the lack of charges brought against three officers for the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year old woman shot in her own home while Louisville police were executing a search warrant, signaling the limits of this summer's pressure campaign on legislative and judicial change.
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Young progressive activists are reasoning that they stand a better chance of successfully pressuring Biden into taking up key elements of their cause than Trump, who has lambasted peaceful protesters and refused to condemn all but the most egregious acts of police violence.
"There are a lot of people, including myself, who aren't excited," Gicola Lane, a 31-year-old Black woman and criminal justice organizer from Nashville, told CNN in an interview. "Because of what we have seen happen in courtrooms, in our own neighborhood and all over this country. And we know that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have played a part in that system."
Still, she plans to vote for the Democratic ticket in the fall.
The lack of enthusiasm for Biden and Harris points to deeper concerns over their ability to unite the party absent what many perceive as an existential threat posed by four more years of Trump. Demonstrators on the front line of a wildly invigorated social justice movement see movable objects in Biden and Harris, where the current administration looms like a stone wall blocking their push for change.
"Voting is not an expressi
