Why Can’t Harris Say “We Moved Too Slowly on Asylum Because We Were Afraid of Denying Valid Claims”?
Why Can’t Harris Say “We Moved Too Slowly on Asylum Because We Were Afraid of Denying Valid Claims”?
Isn’t that the truth?
Someone has clearly told Kamala Harris: “Never admit that you changed your mind.” When Harris gets asked why she changed a position, she bobs and weaves and does everything short of yelling “WHAT’S THAT???” and then jumping out a window. On fracking, she said that her position hasn’t changed since 2020, which is like a husband saying “I have never cheated on you since I got back from Jamaica.” I get the logic behind not admitting a mistake — the response to that in politics is usually not for your opponent to say “I understand, and it was big of you to admit that” — but I wonder if this Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer talk-around-the-issue routine is Harris’ best play.
The topic where Harris has had the most explaining to do is immigration. Voters strongly prefer Trump’s views on immigration, and Trump knows it. At the top of the shockingly long list of ways that Joe Biden has damaged Harris’ campaign is his decision to have her “lead” the White House’s border response, surely the most doomed assignment since George Pickett was told to charge the Union line at Gettysburg, only to have Robert E. Lee watch the carnage and say “Yikes — make sure that doesn’t get named after me.” Harris also isn’t able to deflect criticism of Biden’s policies by saying “I didn’t ‘lead’ shit — the Vice President has less power than a dog sitter,” because that makes her seem small-time. So, she simply takes a big hit every time immigration comes up.
But does it need to be that way? The headline immigration issue right now is asylum; Harris’ plan to admit more refugees — which is not the same as a plan to admit more asylum seekers,1 but surely few people know that — is her least popular policy (by far!) of 100 issues tested in a recent poll. And the fact of the matter is that the number of bogus asylum claims has skyrocketed in recent years. But when Harris gets asked why the Biden administration didn’t act sooner, she kicks into her “I’m focused on the future” routine, which is so evasive that it’s literally a Monty Python bit. And I don’t understand why she doesn’t just say this: