Kamala Harris’s Identity Crisis

In the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris’s policy flip-flops have become a focal point of the race. But what appears to be concerning voters is not just that Harris has changed her position on key issues – it’s that she refuses to explain why she had a change of heart or even acknowledge any ideological shift.

During Harris’s sit-down interview last week for “60 Minutes” – one of the only unscripted interviews Harris has given since becoming the nominee – CBS host Bill Whitaker pressed her on her mounting number of about-faces.

“They say that so many voters don’t know you because you have changed your position on so many things,” Whitaker said. “You were against fracking, now you’re for it. You supported looser immigration policies, now you’re tightening them up. You were for Medicare for all, now you’re not. So many that people don’t truly know what you believe or what you stand for.” (Whitaker forgot to mention that Harris also switched her stance on mandatory gun buybacks, EV mandates, abolishing ICE, defunding the police, and major parts of the Green New Deal, which she co-sponsored in the Senate.)

Harris’s only explanation was that she had been “traveling our country” and “listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of common ground.” Harris claimed she believes “in building consensus,” but said she had not compromised her values.

Under the most generous interpretation of that response, vague as it was, one might believe that Harris saw how unpopular her previously stated policy positions were and adjusted them to be more in line with the American electorate. But even this raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions about Harris’s policy judgement and whether she’s just saying what she thinks will get her elected.

What most Americans most likely saw in that answer is a politician who can’t decide who she is or what she stands for – something which was confirmed a day later during Harris’s appearance on “The View.” When host Sunny Hostin asked the vice president if she would’ve done anything differently from Joe Biden over the past four years, Harris responded, “There is not a single thing that comes to mind.”

But wait – isn’t Harris supposed to be the “change” candidate according to her campaign and the corporate media? Isn’t she supposed to represent a “new generation of leadership” that doesn’t do things like they’ve been done in the past? Once again, Harris has failed to explain the discrepancy.

Of course, Harris couldn’t break from Biden’s record even if she wanted to. On the three issues that have consistently hobbled Biden’s tenure – the border, inflation, and foreign policy crises – Harris has inextricably tied herself to the president. Biden tapped Harris to lead the administration’s immigration policy in 2021, she cast the tie-breaking vote on trillions of dollars in government spending which sent inflation soaring above nine percent, and Harris bragged about being the “last person in the room” with Biden before the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

Harris’s efforts – whether intentional or not – to rhetorically distance herself from Biden get at the heart of why so many voters are uncomfortable with her as a potential leader. Running as a change candidate against the incumbent while supporting every incumbent policy strains credulity with most Americans. As the old saying goes, “those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.” Harris has placed herself in policy limbo, unwilling to fully embrace any political identity other than “not Trump.”

As Reason Magazine senior editor Elizabeth Brown recently put it, Harris’s most “consistent political trait may be a lack of consistency.”

Harris’s failure to explain that lack of consistency contrasts sharply with Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, who has his own history of changing his position on one major issue – his support for Trump.

As has been well-documented by now, Vance was a top Trump critic in 2016, repeatedly bashing the soon-to-be president in the media. By 2020, Vance had become a vocal Trump supporter, and by 2022 he was one of Trump’s top allies in the U.S. Senate.

That would seem to be a flip-flop at least on par with anything Harris has pulled, were not for a key distinction – Vance actually explained his reasoning. As he has detailed on numerous occasions, he saw how the media had misled him about Trump and looked at the 45th president’s record of success in office.

Vance’s explanation of his shift on Trump not only makes sense to voters, it likely resonates with many who feel the same way. Americans can easily follow Vance’s reasoning and logic behind opposing Trump at first and then supporting Trump once he had new evidence and data.

Harris has offered no such explanation, leaving voters to wonder: who is the real Kamala Harris? Is she the gun-toting, border wall-building, tax-cut hawk she’s now claiming to be? Or is she the open borders, gun-snatching, tax-and-spend socialist she has spent the majority of her public career positioning herself as?

All evidence would point to the latter, but it seems she expects voters to elect her to find out for sure.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.