The New Spin: Kamala Harris Is Victim of the Vice Presidency

The big-box media want you to know it’s not her fault. “Historic” Vice President Kamala Harris is being held back by her office. A Feb. 6 New York Times feature article is being presented as reflecting stout criticism of Harris’ performance during her two full years in office. Yet it is chock-full of extenuating insinuations meant to explain away weaknesses that even dominant media outlets cannot pretend to hide anymore.

“Through much of the fall, a quiet panic set in among key Democrats about what would happen if President Biden opted not to run for a second term,” The Times stated. “Most Democrats interviewed ... said flatly that they did not think Ms. Harris could win the presidency in 2024. Some said the party’s biggest challenge would be finding a way to sideline her without inflaming key Democratic constituencies that would take offense.”

This is what can no longer be concealed. Let the journalistic dancing commence.

Trapped ‘Prominent Woman of Color’

The Times predictably leaned on its go-to card, race. There are several references to Harris struggling with “the unique dynamics of being a woman of color in a job previously filled only by men”:

“Ms. Harris’s allies said she was trapped in a damned-if-she-does, damned-if-she-doesn’t conundrum – she is expected to not do anything to overshadow Biden while navigating intractable issues he has assigned her such as voting rights and illegal immigration. And some see a double standard applied to a prominent woman of color.

“‘That’s what being a first is all about,’ said Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and one of the nation’s most prominent Black lawmakers, who has been an outspoken supporter. ‘She’s got to work every day to make sure she’s not the last.’”

Clyburn is a senior-ranking House Democrat who carried a faltering Biden to victory in a crucial South Carolina primary in 2020 when his campaign was staring disintegration square in the eye. He is a black man with insider clout who is able to harness racial grievance on behalf of the party political establishment. Times’ reporters must have him on speed dial.

A bit further down, one finds Dodge Number Two: the built-in constraints of the vice presidency:

“No one feels the frustration of being underestimated more acutely than Ms. Harris, but she makes a point of not exhibiting it publicly. In an interview with The New York Times while she was in Japan last fall, she tried to explain her own political identity.

“‘You got to know what you stand for and, when you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for,’ Ms. Harris said.”

Amazingly, in trying to portray Harris as an undervalued asset for the Biden administration, the paper captures the essence of what has made her such an acute liability. Harris’ penchant for uttering content-devoid child-like babble has gone from snide joke to defining characteristic. The Times is doing her no favors by highlighting it as a sign of gravitas.

Not to be outdone, The Los Angeles Times on Feb. 5 featured an opinion piece by political columnist Mark Barabak that also offered up the “it’s not her, it’s the office” defense.

Harris “is just the latest to experience the enervating effect of the vice presidency, alternating between periods of mockery and being largely ignored,” Barabak wrote in his article, titled “Here’s why Joe Biden won’t be dumping Kamala Harris as his running mate.” He compared her to other heavily criticized veeps from recent history, including a Republican who big-box reporters relished bashing some 30 years ago.

“President George H.W. Bush faced pressure to replace Vice President Dan Quayle, who suffered the same kind of lousy approval ratings as Harris,” Barabak noted. The differences between Quayle and Harris are enormous. Indianan Quayle was tapped to provide youthful Heartland balance to a ticket headed by a DC establishment careerist. He was, indeed, window dressing. Harris, on the other hand, was heavily touted as the future president ready to take over for her aged running mate after one term and perhaps even sooner.

Harris entered the 2020 Democrat presidential primaries as the desired choice of numerous leading Democrats. She was widely seen as Barack Obama’s preferred candidate. “Good or bad, the vice president can generally be summed up in a single word: afterthought,” Barabak concluded. This deliberately misses the point. That was not the plan for Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris Is the Norm

The higher truth is that Harris is a perfect representative of the White House she serves. The Biden administration is not meant to perform popular deeds.

“Biden is a gaffe machine, but he is not dumb. He must have grasped as far back as 2019 during the dark and dystopian Democratic presidential debates that the policies he championed would not go over well if ever implemented against the general public,” Liberty Nation wrote in June 2022.

This is a man who enacted harsh federal coronavirus vaccine employment mandates by executive order. He has presided over inflationary economic policies that are causing Americans acute financial pain. His attorney general attempted to label parents who questioned their local school boards as domestic terrorists. His secretary of state actively seeks to sink US national sovereignty in the morass of international governing bodies.

Biden knows what he is doing and for whom he is doing it. Yet he still yearns to be embraced as a Scranton Joe, working-class hero. The disconnect appears total. The Biden administration is machinery in action. Those at its head have been placed there precisely because they are so unexceptional. It was always going to be this way. The only aspect that a delusional ruling political elite didn’t take into account is that the American people would be able to so clearly see it.