There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?

Tressie McMillan Cottom.

Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that a childless woman can become a nation’s Momala, and that a Gen-X sensibility can resonate with boomers.