The (False) Promise of Joy

The possibility of President Bratgirl is nothing to smile about

Trust me, America! I have values galore!

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The one thing that we know about Kamala Harris is that we really know nothing about her position on any issue except abortion. (She’s highly in favor of more and better terminated pregnancies.) But when it comes to the rest of the issues—the economy, education, law and order, immigration, foreign and defense policy—Harris couldn’t really say. When questions are put by journalists, the non-answers come from some anonymous campaign apparatchik who explains that, well, you know, the candidate feels strongly both ways.

The Vice President supplies not the slightest hint that she knows much of anything about anything. For the crisis in the Middle East, she has a memorized line: We need a ceasefire in Gaza, the safe return of the hostages, and a two-state solution. How are those needs to be realized? Harris can’t say. And she’s equally vague on other foreign policy and defense issues.

We do of course know what the Vice President used to believe. Suffice to say that she has the record of a California progressive—the very worst kind of progressive. But since she lucked into the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris has been busily disavowing all those Bolshevik positions, while assuring the public that her “values” haven’t changed. That is to say, the same values that led her to call for defunding the cops are those that made her a tough-as-nails prosecutor. There could be no more serviceable definition of cognitive dissonance.

Nowadays, Harris is posing as a pragmatic centrist. For instance, she says that she’s going to create an “opportunity economy.” By what means? Well, the candidate has pledged to build three million new housing units by the end of her presidency, i.e. over an eight-year period. That number may sound impressive. But the current housing inventory of the United States is 147 million units. Harris’ proposal amounts to a 2% increase. Over an eight-year period. Also, she‘s going to provide support to apprenticeship programs. A good idea, you say? It would be if Harris’ proposal weren’t really a payoff to Big Labor. Her plan would encompass union apprenticeship programs only, which have very little stretch. They currently enroll around 600,000 people nationwide. The Harris scheme would add maybe 200,000 more. That’s what’s known in statistician circles as a drop in the bucket.

When pressed on the issue of inflation, Harris declared that she would take action to combat “price gouging” by corporations—it being the Biden/Harris Administration’s line that predatory corporate capitalists are the real cause of inflation. This didn’t go down too well, critics charging that the candidate was aiming to impose a price controls regime. The campaign denied this and wonder of wonders, that was the truth! It turns out that the Harris plan is designed to combat price gouging in emergency situations only, for instance in the wake of a national disaster. Most states already have such laws in place, of course, so the need for federal action is not obvious. And whatever the pros and cons of Harris’ proposal, it would do precisely nothing to combat inflation.

The Vice President’s detailed economic plan is therefore a sham. Her campaign barfed out these and other small-ball proposals to quiet complaints about the candidate’s vagueness. In truth, the grand vision of an “opportunity society” is constructed of smoke, mirrors and word salad.

One can only conclude that Kamala Harris is an empty vessel who has never taken the time to think seriously about the issues that traditionally dominate a presidential election cycle. And this conclusion is confirmed by her absolutely terrible performance in every interview and press availability—few as they’ve been—so far in her campaign.

Most recently she sat down with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. It seems unlikely that anyone expected much to come of that interview, given that Ruhle is a self-proclaimed Harris fangirl who opined prior to the interview that there’s no need for the candidate to proffer specifics. Joy is sufficient! And indeed, Ruhle pitched nothing but softballs. But even so, “Ms. Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer," as The New York Times noted.

If Harris couldn’t get through an interview with a belly-crawling sycophant like Stephanie Ruhle without looking robotic and evasive, that gives good reason to think that she’s ill-suited to sit behind the Resolute Desk.

The Democratic Party and the nation have Joe Biden to thank for the misbegotten candidacy of Kamala Harris. There’s no fool like an old fool, and our current chief executive resoundingly validates that good old American proverb.

When he was running for president in 2020, Biden intimated that he would be a transitional figure: serving one term, restoring normality, paving the way for a new generation of leaders. But once in office, the President succumbed in his senile vanity to a cabal of court historians and progressive activists who whispered that he was the reincarnation of FDR: a once-in-a-generation transformational figure. From this flowed disaster after catastrophe, culminating in Biden’s determination to cling to power despite his accelerating physical and mental decline. He could have bowed out gracefully, giving his party an opportunity to select a plausible 2024 standard bearer. But Joe wouldn’t go, and finally the Dems had to give him the boot.

So now they’re stuck with Kamala Harris, whom everybody knows is a colossal dud. That’s why the upcoming election is a jump ball: Against Donald Trump and his skid load of baggage, Harris can’t break out into the lead. That’s what you get for pumping an empty pantsuit full of hot air and floating it out onto the national stage. But she just might manage to win in November—and that would rate no Ode to Joy, for a Harris presidency is certain to be a world-historical disaster.