Identity Politics Have Undercut Kamala Harris
HOW she becomes the nominee matters
Kamala Harris gets a bad rap. She’s not an idiot and she’s not a villain: She is simply an uninspiring dolt. And that’s normal; from what I can tell, the Vice Presidency is occupied by an uninspiring dolt roughly half of the time. Dan Quayle and Gerald Ford were uninspiring dolts, and Al Gore was an uninspiring dweeb, which is pretty darn close.1 When uninspiring dolt John Tyler ascended to the presidency, the Whig Party swore they’d never make that mistake again, and then did the very next chance they got with Millard Fillmore. And then — and this is the really unforgivable part — they2 did it again with Andrew Johnson! Kamala Harris may be an uninspiring dolt, but she at least represents a hallowed tradition of uninspiring dolt Vice Presidents.
Harris’ poll numbers aren’t good. Her favorable/unfavorable has been underwater for years, and she regularly polls behind Biden and other Democrats in a hypothetical matchup against Trump (though more on that later). Harris has done plenty to earn her bad numbers. She ran for president and didn’t think that someone might ask her about her position on health care. She staffs her office with relatives and dimwits who trash her behind her back. She has a special brand of pablum-speak that sounds like Yoda after ten beers. And she starred in this video, which hopefully does not constitute an “official act” according to the Supreme Court, because I feel like someone needs to go to jail for this:
Even so, Harris is less popular than she might be. Democrats don’t like to talk about how Harris got her job, because it raises uncomfortable questions. First, it suggests that one of the party’s leading figures — who is central to the question of whether Biden should drop out of the race — perhaps didn’t get where she is by impressing everyone with her rapier wit and uncommon political skills. Second, it highlights one of the big problems with using race and gender as major job qualifications. Perversely, this unwillingness to be forthright about how Harris became VP is currently working to her disadvantage. Because every argument for bypassing Harris boils down to: “She’s unpopular.” And there is a counter argument about how she could perhaps be more popular than she is, but people don’t make it. And that’s because they’re being tactful or polite, but thankfully I am neither of those things, so here goes: Harris is less popular than she could be because people see her as a DEI hire, and they don’t respect that.