What’s wrong with Kamala Harris

THIS IS HOW IT’S DONEI thought, as I listened to Republican stalwart Liz Cheney introduce Kamala Harris in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party.

“I never voted for a Democrat. But this year, I am proud to cast my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Cheney said at Ripon College. “Vice President Harris stands in the breach at a critical time in our country’s history. . . . I know she loves our country and I know she will be a president for all Americans. As a conservative, as a patriot, as a mother, as someone who respects our Constitution, I am honored to join her in this urgent cause.”

Her clarity – and words like “proud” and “honored” – were so welcome. This was not “half Liz” practiced by Nikki Haley, described by the SendNick Catoggio wants Donald Trump to win, while wishing he would keep his heinous behavior in check to improve his chances. In contrast, he writes, “’The Complete Liz’ wants Trump to lose because they don’t want America to be ruled by a proto-fascist sewer rat.”

There is another contingent that you could call ‘the three-quarter Liz’. They are conservatives who see Trump for what he is: a blight on the Republic and on true conservatism, and who publicly say that (a) they will vote for Harris, or (b) strongly imply that they will do so because they want Trump banished from the country. public life. Their public support should be welcomed by anyone who wants to see Harris elected, Trump defeated and a broader recognition of Trump’s unique unfitness. That said, their support comes with public reservations – and I would argue that they are largely, if not entirely, wrong.

For example, George F. Will writes that the preferred outcome for conservatives like him is a President Harris tempered by the (conservative) Supreme Court and a Republican Senate. This is necessary, he says, because she would be a president “full” of progressivism, “whose current personality is clearly synthetic,” because she is too weak to resist the pull of the Bay Area where she “breeds ‘ became. and who needs to be reminded regularly “that most Americans disagree with most of what she believes.” Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, offers “an anguished but emphatic support” for a candidate he considers emptymediocre, vaguely left-wing, ‘extremely cautious, deeply insecure and out of her depth.’

No one can predict exactly what kind of President Harris would be, but she has shown many signs that it would be nothing like what these prematurely disappointed conservatives expect. Their assessment of her seems to be based largely on geography (she is from San Francisco) and on her first attempt to become president five years ago – a ten-month presidential primary campaign in an area of almost thirty main candidates.

When Harris entered the 2020 race on Martin Luther King Day, January 21, 2019, New York Times reported that liberals were skeptical about her. She ended her bid in December of that year. “Sen. Kamala Harris of California never arrived at an overarching narrative and rationale for her candidacy that encompassed her life, her record and her plans. And she mismanaged her campaign,” I said wrote in a March 2020 assessment of the many dropouts.

As a career prosecutor, gun owner and “top cop” of the nation’s largest state, Harris could have tried to take a moderate path. Instead, she competed for progressive votes against a group of progressive hopefuls, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, former Representatives Beto O’Rourke and Tulsi Gabbard, then-Washington Governor Jay Inslee and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro.

Fair or unfair, both right and left judge her based on the climateenergy, and healthcare positions she took in 2019 – positions she left behind a few months later when she became Joe Biden’s running mate. Since then, she has been what I would call a solid center-left politician, very similar to Biden in every respect in her policy preferences and her openness to bipartisan compromise.

Is she a socialist, or even progressive? Not even close. She calls herself one capitalistshe is to court Wall Street, and she would increase the $5,000 tax deduction for start-up companies to $50,000. She has welcomed the support of Republicans like Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary and vice president, and has said she would put a Republican in her cabinet. Harris has also pledged to ensure that “America always has the strongest, most lethal military force in the world” (a speech at the convention line which some in her family didn’t seem to like).

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Progressives at home didn’t like her much in 2020 and didn’t want to Biden to choose her. In fact, she faced so much pressure as a prosecutor that public defender Niki Solis said she “struggled” with writing a column praising Harris. “There are many who will criticize me for this piece, but I feel compelled to speak out,” says Solis wrote. The groundbreaking work she cited, on marijuana cases, diversion programs, human trafficking and other projects, now looks more like bipartisan common sense than progressive excess.

Do most Americans disagree with Harris on most issues? In fact, polls show that the opposite is true. The majority agrees with her reproductive rights, gun restrictions and support for Ukraine. Paid for family leave and affordable childcare, reduce healthcare costs, and prohibit price gouging on food and groceries. On increasing taxes on rich people and corporations to pay for much of her agenda instead add trillions to the national debt (as economists say Trump would do with his tariff proposal). On her promise to sign the bipartisan border security bill that Trump rejected.

Is she weak and in over her head? Again, not even close. This is a woman who has prosecuted transnational criminal gangs and, according to… SlateFred Kaplan of Fred Kaplan came up with the idea of ​​sharing American intelligence to convince Ukrainian leaders that Russia was about to invade. traveled to Kiev to tell President Volodmyr Zelensky.

Is it “synthetic”? That depends on whether you think the real Harris was the Harris of 2019, or the one we see today – defending constitutional norms, getting comfortable with America’s global leadership role, supporting our allies, transcending political boundaries at a time that demands it, and perfectly capturing the moment, from Ukraine to reproductive rights, with the one-word slogan ‘freedom’.

Do Democratic presidents need a Republican Senate to keep them in line? The results of recent years make it clear that they only need fellow Democrats. Seriously, with Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who needs outsiders to force compromises? Yes, those two are leaving the Senate this year, but the point remains: Democrats are so fractious within their giant tent that tough negotiations are the norm, whether internally or with the Republican Party.

The contrast with Cheney and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, both former members of the Jan. 6 committee, is dramatic. Both are working to help Democratic Rep. Colin Allred of Texas loss Senator Ted Cruz, one of Congress’s “objectors” to the 2020 election, whom Trump tried to keep in power after he lost. Cheney and Kinzinger clearly care more about character than which party controls the Senate.

In Ripon, Cheney did not challenge her conservative positions: limited government, low taxes, strong national defense, the primacy of the family over government, the private sector as the growth engine of the economy. But she also didn’t insult Harris or dwell on their differences. She focused instead on the task at hand, urging everyone listening to her to “reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump” and help elect Harris.

“I know she will be a president who will defend the rule of law. And I know she will be a president who can inspire all of our children – and if I may say so, especially our little girls – to do great things,” Cheney said. “So help us right the ship of our democracy so that history will say of us: when our time of testing came, we did our duty and triumphed because we loved our country more.”

That’s the complete Liz. She understands that this is not the time to publicly question what Harris could or could not do about abortion, energy or the national debt. It’s a moment to accept and embrace a simple fact: Harris is not just our best hope for beating Trump. She is our only hope.