By Sabrina Völz

Usu­al­ly, the spous­es of vice pres­i­dents of the Unit­ed States don’t attract much pub­lic atten­tion. Many Amer­i­cans prob­a­bly can’t even name more than two or three sec­ond ladies, but that is just a guess. Yet Doug Emhoff is the hus­band of Kamala Har­ris, the first female African Amer­i­can, South Asian Amer­i­can Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. He’s becom­ing a house­hold name and break­ing down bar­ri­ers as America’s first Sec­ond Gen­tle­man as well as the first Jew­ish spouse of any vice pres­i­dent. Does that real­ly mat­ter, you might ask your­self? It shouldn’t, but it does. Let’s take a look at a clip from an inter­view tak­ing social media by storm that gives us insight into his popularity:

So is he ‘just’ a father as well as a charm­ing and sup­port­ive hus­band of a ‘Pow­er­frau,’ as we would say in Ger­man? Or will he play a real role in Amer­i­can life and pol­i­tics? What can we expect of a man in the role of Sec­ond Gentleman?

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