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They Have Met the Enemy, and It Is Them: Harris Campaign Flails

Posted on Sunday, September 22, 2024
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by David P. Deavel
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As a former resident of Minnesota, this writer cannot say he has ever been simpatico with Governor Tim Walz. Until now. Over the weekend in Pennsylvania, Walz inveighed against the evils of American life, including the “fear” that Republicans are instilling, that the “joy” of Kamala Harris would conquer. Apparently forgetting that Harris, his running mate, is the Vice President in the current United States government, he declared with his standard theater-kid arm motions: “She simply has said it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can’t afford, we can’t afford four more years of this. And I’ve been saying it.”

Us, too, Timmy. Us too!

Yes, we all understand that Walz probably didn’t mean to slam the current administration. He is more fluent in English than Harris, though that’s not saying much. But it’s hard to hear “another four years of this” and not think of those four-year presidential terms. And, given the inflation that has bedeviled the United States economy over the last few years, it was pretty funny to hear him talking about being able to “afford” things.

Walz’s Freudian slip was showing. And no wonder. The problems of people struggling with the economy were front and center in Kamala’s latest attempt to manage her image with friendly figures.

She sat down with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday night for a town hall and pep rally, and, without having little speeches to give as she did in the debate earlier in the month, sounded like she usually does: a teenage girl giving a book report on a book she hasn’t read and spouting platitudes about “lifting you up” and “caring.” “We believe in what is possible,” she intoned. “We believe in what can be, and we believe in fighting for that. That’s how we came into being because the people before us understood that one of the greatest expressions for the love of our country—one of the greatest expressions of patriotism—is to fight for the ideals of who we are….” Those ideals, as she continued, turned out to be a series of talking points about abortion, guns, and gender ideology. Even Newsweek chose to run a “Republicans pounce” article titled “Kamala Harris’ Oprah Interview Mocked by MAGA: ‘Word Salad,’” which, despite giving the usual signals about how the right are untouchables, seemed to acknowledge the fact that she is indeed a purveyor of word salads.

But, however, ill-spoken she was, she and those gathered to speak for her notably chose rhetoric promising change. Like Barack Obama, she would bring back “hope” and add to it “joy” as she helped the country “turn the page.” She had a plan, she told the audience, that would make things better for Americans who are struggling.

If that were true, why haven’t she and Joe Biden already enacted it?

But the line that got the most attention was her declaration that not only is she a gun owner, “but somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot. Sorry, probably shouldn’t have said that! But my staff will deal with that later.” Oprah’s face looked slightly pained as Harris said this, with her requisite weird laughing between sentences.

The whole thing was about as authentic as the ads featuring Tim Walz in his camouflaged hat and t-shirts doing things like pretending to fix an old car that wouldn’t be allowed to be produced under his own policies or posing with a rifle and looking like Elmer Fudd.

After all, Kamala Harris is about as anti-gun as they come. In fact, as Attorney General of California, she decided to enforce a law that outlawed the sale of any new handguns made after 2013 that did not have a technology that did not even exist outside of a laboratory. Running in 2019 for President, she supported a “mandatory buyback” program for “assault weapons.” And earlier this week she discussed an “assault weapons” ban (with the usual lack of any definition of an assault weapon). But her new rootin’ tootin’ shoot-em-up bravado, like Walz’s attempt at folksy manliness, shows a certain sort of desperation.

After all, the Democrats have long enjoyed the monolithic support of unions (apart from some fire and police unions). Yet this week, the Teamsters announced that they would not be endorsing Kamala Harris or Trump. Most mainstream media sources (including the AP piece linked) hid the story of internal polling showing roughly 59% of the Teamsters supporting Trump. So, too, there was little coverage of the Steamfitters Union reporting that 70% of their members support Trump.

While Democrats have been livid about these defections, ranting that Kamala Harris played a role in the passage of the Butch Lewis Act, which helped shore up union pensions, the AP acknowledges that many union members are much more concerned about “gun control, abortion and border security.” Apparently, they don’t believe in the legend of Shoot-em-up Harris. And they probably also remember that one of the first acts of the Biden Administration was the killing of the Keystone Pipeline on behalf of the climate activists, a decision which even CBS acknowledged caused a loss of at least a thousand jobs.

Pensions are indeed good things, but you gotta have a job to collect them. That’s why Pennsylvania energy workers who have been interviewed don’t trust Harris, even if she claims to have changed her position on fracking. The regulations under the Biden-Harris Administration have made things much more difficult. “It’s much easier to work under a Trump administration than this administration by far,” said Mark Marmo, CEO of Deep Well Services.

No, there’s a panic on the side of the Democrats these days. More people are catching on to the fact that Harris rallies seem to have an unusually large number of people who are bused in and far fewer locals. The coveted Taylor Swift endorsement seems to have pushed more people to not support Harris than to support her. And the battleground states are showing that “joy” and “hope” are not being sought in Harris and Walz.

The Oprah event was held in Michigan, where Trump is currently leading due to very high black support for him. Even before Kamala Harris came out during the Thursday event, Oprah herself recounted meeting a black man in the airport in Michigan who stopped to talk to her but said he was voting for Trump. Minnesota itself is now showing support for Trump that puts that state in play, a phenomenon that only happened after Walz was named the veep nominee. (Take it from a former Minnesotan: this makes sense.) And this weekend, new polling shows that Virginia is a dead heat.

In its short existence, the Harris-Walz strategy has pivoted from stealing everything Trump says he will do to running against their own positions and asking, if inadvertently, whether Americans can take another four years like the last four. Harris and Walz have met the enemy. It is them.

The difficulty is that most Americans can tell that Harris and Walz aren’t really for border security or fracking. Nor are they against gun control. Indeed, it’s an open question as to whether Harris even owns a gun. CNN’s Jim Acosta asked one of the staffers who was supposed to “deal with that later” what kind of gun Shoot-em-up Harris owns. The staffer doesn’t answer that question, a good sign that this gun is as mythical as the McDonald’s at which she supposedly worked.

A house divided against itself, a first-century rabbi once said, cannot stand. So it is that the “energy” so many Harris surrogates claim they are feeling in this race may not be a good thing. It might be the tremors of a campaign that will collapse if it can’t straighten out its story.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.

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Lieutenant Beale
Lieutenant Beale
11 days ago

Over 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled their country since the Socialist takeover according to hrw.org. And these two chuckle-heads (Harris/Walz) along with the Democratic Socialists want a version of that government here. My question for them and those of their ilk:
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKIN’ MINDS???

WJS
WJS
11 days ago

Good article David. Yet it still is a scary thing that people will vote for them. I don’t believe or trust Harris especially when she stated publicly that “her values have not changed”, but now claims to be for fracking, border control, in favor of owning guns, and not taxing tips. The very things Donald Trump has been all along for. The question that has been raised but not answered “is why haven’t you done something about this three plus years ago” since you are now in favor of and yet her past rhetoric has shown she is completely against them. Again I can’t trust those two or most democrats and their ideologies.

Gail
Gail
11 days ago

Anyone who votes Democrat must certainly just follow their party not studying to see that the Democrats are not the Democrats of long ago. These people need to be enlightened as they appear to be ignorant. Look at the dead faces of her followers and it tells you something. Wake up!

Joe Pilcher
Joe Pilcher
11 days ago

Democrats will literally say anything to remain in power, including whole cloth fabrications. Then when caught, clam up totally, deny bare facts, or change the subject just as Mugabi, the former dictator from Zimbabwe did when faced with a Cholera epidemic. Not to mention that if you do not have a ‘smoking gun’ defense then they repeatedly use words such as debunked, disproven, and the phrase “false claims” without providing an iota of evidence to the contrary. If you accuse someone of being a liar or slander or “false claims”, then it is incumbent upon you, the accuser, not the accused that you berate no matter your personal hatred, to verify your accusation with actual evidence. Have we all gone to the extra-judicial standard of the dreaded Family Court system of mere accusation as pure evidence without a shred of proof as our standard bearer of justice?

Rfassett
Rfassett
10 days ago

We can’t just go back, we have to go back! Way back!
We can’t go back to Biden’s regime, we have to go back farther!
Back to Donald J. Trump’s presidency!!!
We need a president who will take us back to lower prices, again.
We need a president who will have us be oil dependent, again.
We need a president who puts America and Americans first.
We need President Donald J.Trump back in office.
Also, please don’t forget to vote early! Don’t let the Democrats come up with some way to sabotage the voting machines on election day. They are evil!

Lallie Barnes Small
Lallie Barnes Small
11 days ago

You really write well. You are funny and hit the true nail on the head at the same time.

depressionbaby
depressionbaby
11 days ago

But, but; She did read the comic book version of the book!

Buddy Eoc
Buddy Eoc
10 days ago

If you want an Empty Suit for President and Vice President, vote for Harris and Walz.
That’s exactly what you will get.
The other day, my wife and I went out to grab a sandwich with a medium soft drink combo at a local restaurant with a dessert. The bill came to $50.00+tax, not including the Tip.
If you vote for the Harris/Walz Ticket, you will not only get empty suit(s) you will also get an extraordinarily high bill for and from (them) as well.
Caveat Emptor

Floie
Floie
10 days ago

The go to for the Democrats is “Divide and Conquer”.
Normally used as a military tactic, it has been escalated to ethnic groups by ”indoctrination”, first at the universities with left policies of promoting DEI, and now to be found in corporations, mandates in state and local governments, and into public education 6th -12th graders, the next wave of voters.
This is the Harris/Walz platform for the coming 4, possibly 8, years if they get elected Nov. 5th. If this happens there’ll be Zero chance of walking back the legislation which gets introduced by executive orders unless SCOTUS rules unconstitutional. That’s when they increase the court to have 3 more liberal justices installed.

ref
ref
10 days ago

It all comes down to this: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are progressive fools. And by the way so is Jamie Raskin who wants to limit Trump on Executive orders should he win. That really rich since Biden bypassed Congress all the time and signed more Executive orders than any oresident. The people are starting to grasp the truth that progressive and the stupid policies are crippling America. It’s progressives that are the real threat to Democracy. Elon Musk it right. If Trump doesn’t win the nation will fall into tyranny.

uncleferd
uncleferd
10 days ago

Well, Harris/Walz SHOULD straighten out their story, because “fighting” for “what could be” sounds like she’s poised to disenfranchise Americans once again… this time, in a way that suggests steep income tax hikes to build new housing projects for those who will pay nothing at all…. taxes or otherwise.
Of course, many of us are already familiar with disenfranchisement, as the millions of illegal Biden/Harris immigrants, who are now voting, are showcasing for us… but, the soft-pedaling of yet another electorate-bribing scheme, while a 3rd World War is likely brewing, may not be the most “equitable” gesture to those of us who know our taxes must fund interest on our growing national debt, AND our national defense.
Hmmm…… What HAVE Biden & Harris been managing?

Philip Seth Hammersley
Philip Seth Hammersley
10 days ago

From the comments already posted, I can see that Soros’ TROLLS are out in force today! Do you suppose it is one person with multiple names or is Georgie paying out a lot of $$$ today? Day one–DJT assign a REAL prosecutor to investigate Soros and his phony non-taxable societies!

Summer Sands
Summer Sands
10 days ago

Okay people. Let’s get real here. If komarade kacklin’ kammy was spewing the truth regarding anything she stood for, then why hasn’t she done it over the last 4 years??? Everything she’s standing there lying about could have been proposed or implemented during her regime of supporting illegal aliens and criminals, at the expense of American Citizens. Where has she been hiding all of her generosity, care, and concern? She’s been hiding it nowhere…LOL What you see is what you get and if she’s elected POTUS, you will get a lot worse than what’s been taking place since they cheated their way into the White House in 2020. They gave their cheating away when they so proudly stated that good ol’ lying beijing biden got more votes than obama. The boob biden campaigned from his cellar for crying out loud. No way that happened legally…lol

michael
michael
10 days ago

what harris believes(or not) and what she can/has accomplished are at opposite ends of the spectrum. in 4 years as VP she has drawn a paycheck for accomplishing nothing. zero, zip, nada, nothing and that will be her legacy if you are dumb enough to elect her. there is one thing that will happen if you elect her. everything you have, hold dear or desire will be destroyed by her ineptness. vote trump and save what you have for 4 more years at least.

Wynn
Wynn
9 days ago

I remember Kamala recently said that people have the right to dream, aspire to happiness, want a better life for their children, or something like that. Well, we are dreaming, we are trying to aspire to happiness, but the economy will not allow us. It is so nice of Kamala to give us permission to dream of a better life. However, my way of thinking, which is hers, is that people will hear she will make things better, but what she means is nothing will change. Kamala is tricking you into vote for her. Once you vote. you can not change your vote. Kamala can change her policies any time she wants after you vote.

Chris Baker
Chris Baker
9 days ago

Harris’s views and opinions have not changed because she has none. She’s for sale to the highest bidder just like Biden and Obama before him. She has whatever views and opinions her donors tell her will get her elected except that like Biden she really can’t keep them straight. Oh yes, and she’s a blatant liar just like all the democrats in leadership and the so called news media.
None of them actually support the constitution but for that matter almost none of the republicans do as well. They all break their oaths of office almost as soon as they are in office, with very very few exceptions.

larry
larry
8 days ago

When I started reading this I thought Amac was the commie outfit for old farts. But the words did not make any sense if this was that outfit. Eventually it dawned on me that this was the other Old Fart publication, the one that advocates for Freedom, not oppression. I’m not good with acronyms. Perhaps that’s because I’m an old fart.

LarryFrom10EC
LarryFrom10EC
9 days ago

People don’t understand, Harris isn’t going to give up HER gun. She’s just going to seize YOURS

LarryFrom10EC
LarryFrom10EC
9 days ago

The Harris- Walz campaign is following the usual Democrat campaign plan- campaign like a Republican, govern like a communist.

B B
B B
10 days ago

Good article pointing out the failures of these phony people – the Democrats.
By the way — too many lunatic dem trolls on this blog.

gravy
gravy
10 days ago

I suspect the Democrats will win this presidential election. The United States is at a point of no-return. If we continue on our current path there will be a communist government here. A Democratic Party victory will put the nail in the coffin of the United States. Freedom of the press is gone. Freedom of speech is almost gone. Getting a fair trial is not realistic. The major corporations are collaborating with the Democrats. The dollar is on the verge of no longer being the international currency. Our government is so corrupt it resembles that of a banana republic. I worry for my grandchildren. I do not believe there is a bright future for them.

Tony
Tony
10 days ago

She just makes me want to puke..

Sonny Crockett
Sonny Crockett
11 days ago

I dunno. I think I look pretty good, Gail!

MikeL
MikeL
9 days ago

Democrats are sick in the head.

Steve Hunt
Steve Hunt
11 days ago

But the polls suggest Harris is gaining every week

Mickey Cashen
Mickey Cashen
10 days ago

Harris-Walz “Flails.”

I didn’t know that’s what you call growing their lead in the polls while Trump and Vance make new enemies every day while lying about issues and people.

Jim
Jim
11 days ago

You must have not heard about the NBC poll this morning or followed the news about your favorite candidate for Governor in North Carolina. But I’m guessing you’re lying and know Trump is in trouble.

Steven Kenneth Diehl
Steven Kenneth Diehl
11 days ago

Sorry, this writer does NOT LIVE IN REALITY. Delusional bile from the blah blah blah boring Fox “News” bubble, what a waste of words

Mark
Mark
11 days ago

People keep talking about Harris not doing anything for 3 and a half years. She was VicePresident, not President. What did Trump do for 4 years except lower taxes for the rich, and play golf. Trump put a tariff on Chinese goods that we pay for. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the border wall, that did not happen. Trump promised to bring jobs back to the U.S., that did not happen. He is a good politician that tells people what people want to here but fails to live up to campaign promises. Trump used the presidency for his own personal gain and wants to be president again to stay out of jail.

jack smith and his memo ; trump
medicare costs - stethoscope and money with medication
biden-harris administration on Medicare program
joe biden at the white house

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