After years of public and private ridicule from both sides of the aisle, Vice President Kamala Harris had a golden opportunity on Wednesday, July 24, to establish a fresh narrative. Two days after the so-called palace coup that shoved Joe Biden out and Harris in, she had the chance to burnish her credentials as a serious player on the world stage simply by showing up and sitting behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his breathtaking speech before Congress.
If she had done so, some people might have started viewing her less as a deeply partisan leftist and more as a stateswoman and prospective commander-in-chief who understands the significance of our international alliances. It would have demonstrated that, for the sake of an anxious country being put through the wringer, she realizes that she must put aside her long-expressed animosity to Israel and cozy relationship with known antisemitic actors because she is now speaking to the nation, not a rally in San Francisco. She had a chance to dispel the notion that she is more than just an attractive talking head spouting left-wing platitudes.
Instead, she chose to attend a sorority convention in Indianapolis. A scheduling conflict, we’re told.
Later in the day, Harris had another opportunity to pass a test establishing that she is more than just a woke progressive supporting the left’s cause du jour. Jew-hating protesters set fire to the American flag and desecrated the Christopher Columbus Memorial Monument outside Washington’s magnificent Union Station, spray-painting slogans such as “Hamas is Coming.” The vice president should have called for an end to it, or at least condemned it after the fact, and talked about healing or unity.
She refused, though she did finally issue a statement of condemnation about 30 hours later, long after the protest had broken up and the media had moved on to other stories.
These two blown opportunities are representative of why conservatives and centrists consider Kamala Harris far more dangerous than Biden – even if she runs a poor campaign – because she presents as a true believer in the progressive cause.
Kamala Harris: Heart-and-Soul Progressive
Since “clinching” the Democratic presidential nomination in 24 hours following Biden’s withdrawal without ever receiving a vote, Kamala Harris has so far failed to demonstrate the political skill necessary to meet the magnitude of the moment. Perhaps she will suddenly discover such talent in her 60th year of life, but if not, she could be easier to break down than even an enfeebled Joe Biden – and here is why. While Biden accepted his party’s leftward shift, as he did its other trends over the years, and governed accordingly, he was never viewed as a left-winger anxious to embrace Black Lives Matter, reparations, 70-80% tax rates for the wealthy, a full-strength green new deal, and diminishing our relationships with long-time allies: foremost among them Israel as it attempts to defend its very existence.
Kamala Harris is different, a heart-and-soul progressive who has embraced by default every far-left, deconstructionist cause, especially since she decided to tack even farther left in her 2020 presidential campaign. She failed miserably, never even reaching the starting gate after burning through a massive war chest almost as fast as she famously burned through senior personnel in her office as vice president. The soundbites of her radical views aired during the 2020 campaign are now being dusted off and recovered from the archives. They promise to effortlessly depict her as a California leftist – at a time when homelessness, drug abuse, and crime have overtaken and come to define the state.
Most conservatives assumed that a second-term Joe Biden would continue to move the country and culture further to the left. But they also understand that Kamala Harris, given the requisite support of congressional Democrats, will embrace the whim of every progressive initiative. For example, Biden never spoke directly of packing the Supreme Court (though he did recently call for term limits), turning liberal territories into states, or abolishing the Electoral College. Harris has been aligned with those who advanced all those radical proposals designed to assure leftist control of every branch of government for as far as the eye can see. Only Joe Manchin – and, at times, Kirsten Sinema – prevented those history-changing initiatives from reaching critical mass during the Biden-Harris administration by voting against their fellow Democrats in the Senate.
All those leftists acting – or pretending to act – all pumped up over Kamala Harris will soon realize just how empty a vessel she truly is. Sure, she can call Trump a fascist and read a teleprompter just like her aging boss – any politician can do that – but now she must answer endless unscripted questions about her past and her radical 2020 presidential platform on top of her miserable failure as border czar and transform a personality marked by circular logic and inappropriately hysterical laughter. Absent a huge mistake by Donald Trump – always in the realm of possibility – or a country that has become very different than the one we perceive, Democratic elites might well come to believe, as many apparently do privately, that she could ultimately be an anchor that sinks her party.
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