With some hard work, pluck, the right boyfriend and a bit of genetic luck, Kamala Harris has found her way onto the presidential ballot without having to secure a single primary vote. Don’t tell me the American Dream is dead.
Sure, Harris is a demagogue who speaks in cringy, swirling, impenetrable platitudes. And sure, according to President Joe Biden, Harris was an identity hire. But “Morning Joe” says we’re not supposed to talk about any of that. So, let’s discuss her record and stated positions.
It seems like a lifetime ago that Biden named Harris his running mate. What you may not recall is that the media tried to gaslight us into believing the California senator was another apolitical dealmaker.
Former Clinton fixer George Stephanopoulos said Harris was “the middle-of-the-road, moderate wing of the Democratic Party.” The New York Times called her a “pragmatic moderate,” while the Associated Press focused on her “centrist record.” And so on.
A “small-c conservative,” one Washington Post columnist wrote.
The only problem was, according to GovTrack, Harris’ record in the Senate was to the left of red-diaper baby Bernie Sanders. She was least likely of any senator to join in any bipartisan bills.
That’s fine. Bipartisan bills are the pits. Harris wasn’t handed a Senate seat by her former beau and California political kingpin Willie Brown to waste her time legislating with a bunch of pinheads. She was there to run for the presidency. In her truncated first term, few excelled more at smearing their political opponents.
Remember when Harris moderately accused Brett Kavanaugh of gang rape?
This false perception of moderation stems from Harris’ time as prosecutor and attorney general. Harris liked to brag about using “a huge stick” as a prosecutor in San Francisco, where she regularly threatened poor parents with jail time in her efforts to craft social policy — which wasn’t her job.
It’s true that Harris threw a lot of people in jail to bolster her political fortunes. Some of them likely innocent. And judging from her disposition, she would throw a lot more people into jail, if she could.
When pro-life journalist David Daleiden published videos of Planned Parenthood executives nonchalantly discussing the selling of body parts, Harris had his home raided, seized evidence, and then tried to throw him in prison. She later teamed up with the abortion mill to write legislation that would squash the free speech rights of other pro-lifers.
Like any good authoritarian, Harris enforces whatever laws she sees fit to enforce whenever she sees fit. One of the reasons Harris allegedly opposed the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was that the judge “consistently valued narrow legalisms” — which is to say, respected the Constitution — “over real lives.”
Harris was never one for legalism. When candidate Biden argued that Harris’ promise to issue an executive order unilaterally banning access to certain guns would be unconstitutional, she retorted: “I would just say: Hey, Joe, instead of saying ‘No, we can’t,’ let’s say ‘yes, we can,'” before cackling at the very notion that presidents couldn’t do whatever they wanted.
As a national candidate, Harris said she believed immigration laws should be treated as civil, rather than criminal, offenses. As a candidate, Harris supported abolishing private health insurance — “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on,” she told CNN. In addition to nationalizing health care and education, Harris wants the government to control the manufacturing sector, the auto industry, food … and any industry that emits carbon.
Harris was in favor of getting rid of the filibuster to overturn state voting laws, nationalizing abortion on demand until birth, and passing the Green New Deal — an authoritarian takeover of the economy written by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which would ban all fossil fuels, force Americans to retrofit every building in the country, eliminate air travel and meat, and create government-guaranteed jobs, among many other authoritarian measures.
On foreign policy, we don’t really know, though we can guess. This week, Harris wouldn’t even greet Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. She didn’t sit behind him during his speech to Congress. A few weeks ago, the same Harris said anti-semitic pro-Hamas campus protesters showed “exactly what the human emotion should be.” In the past, she has openly protested with Islamic Republic propagandists from the National Iranian American Council. To be fair, in some ways her disposition comports more with the latter than the former.
When I say Harris is an authoritarian, I’m not contending she’s Hitler. I am saying she is a fan of obedience to authority, especially of Democrat-run government, at the expense of personal freedom in ways that are deeply un-American. That’s a bad trend in politics, in general, but it’s difficult to think of many politicians more wedded to the idea than Kamala Harris.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
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