Kamala Harris: Are We Overlooking Her Record?
Look into Harris’ policies and leadership before casting your vote.
In the last few days, I’ve seen many friends and acquaintances who were not excited about voting for Joe Biden but suddenly excited about voting for Kamala Harris. Are there no critical thinking skills left in American brains? Or is it more about “Orange Man Bad” ideology regarding the “battle box” on November 5th?
So, let’s leave the cackling and Hawk Tuah memes behind and focus on Harris’ record. While Kamala Harris has been in public service for decades, her policy history, inconsistencies, leadership style, and potential challenges unifying a broad voter base are serious reasons to reconsider voting for her as president, as she may not be all that the mainstream media is promoting her as. Let’s take an unvarnished look.
While she was a prosecutor in San Francisco, to advance her “success” record, she withheld DNA evidence in court that would have otherwise exonerated citizens from being convicted and sent them off to jail. Another issue regarding her terrible “criminal justice reform” records is that she resisted calls to investigate police shootings and opposed state-wide standards when it came to police body cameras. In court, she also supported and defended California’s death penalty. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Harris also rejected pleas by civil rights activists to investigate deadly police shootings of young black men in Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
So, it is clear Harris’ record on civil rights and criminal justice reform is not as cut and dry as many would have you believe. And to suggest you’re willing to look past all that to keep Trump out of the White House says more about you than Harris. All those innocent convicted felons and black men are just collateral damage to elect Harris president.
But let’s move on…
She keeps shifting her positions on important issues. Similar to Trump, she doesn’t seem to have any hardcore principles. For example, she has gone from supporting Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan to a more moderate approach. Harris has stronger ties to the corporate elite and interest groups than regular Americans.
Harris has no record of achievements in the U.S. Senate besides being re-elected once, leaving many questioning her ability to work with both sides of the aisle and within her own party. Nor does she have anything significant to offer while she has been Vice President. Her biggest claim to fame seems to be her stint with Willie Brown and Montel Williams and her being an African-American black woman to get elected. She is the daughter of Jamaican-Indian immigrants, but let’s not split hairs.
She has had no substantial positive impact on society, and America hasn't liked her up to this point. Newsweek says, “The most recent analysis of contemporary polling by-election website FiveThirtyEight, released on July 17, showed Harris had a net approval rating of -11.8, with 38.6 percent of those surveyed approving of her performance and 50.4 percent disapproving.” And her approval ratings in the past have been much worse. Even her own staff doesn’t like her; what does that tell you? I suggest the only recent uptick has been because she is the Democrats’ only hope to keep them in the White House, no matter how scant.
And for Harris to defeat Trump, she will need to win key states, not just the country’s popular vote, and she is not popular in those key states. She has not shown she can secure the electoral college votes to win her ticket to the White House.
Lastly, I would suggest that Kamala Harris has solid authoritarian tendencies, similar to Donald Trump. She is a top-down authoritarian and lacks inclusive policymaking.
I could discuss her many poor judgments over time. Still, I’ll end with this one: her quick defense of the false Jussie Smollett story where Jussie lied to police and the nation about being attacked by MAGA supporters in downtown Chicago.
