Americana Extra

My assessment of a Harris candidacy

I have a piece in today’s Current magazine—where I have just accepted an appointment to come aboard as a Contributing Editor—assessing Kamala Harris’s candidacy for president. I think it’s a bad idea for three reasons:

1.     Geography. A Californian of a progressive San Francisco stripe, Harris offers little in terms of policy and perspective that matters most to the non-college white population that forms the foundation of the electorate in the key industrial states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Her strongest issue is abortion, but Democrats may overplay their hand in their refusal to acknowledge any limits on it.

2.     Identity. Here I’m thinking less about Harris’s race or gender, as much as both may matter for better and worse, than her personification of a meritocratic elite that is deeply unpopular in American life, and whose issues, like the Green New Deal, have strong professional class accents that simply do not sell well on a majoritarian basis.

3.     Skill. Harris has a demonstrably poor track record as a candidate, whether in terms of managing staff, incoherent policy positions, or troubling word salads.

The Vice-President is a charismatic politician who will no doubt mobilize the Democratic Party base, reflecting the logic of conventional wisdom of contemporary electoral politics. She may indeed win. But if, as many Democrats believe, Donald Trump represents an existential threat to democracy, one wonders if a Harris coronation is the best way to prevent it.

I elaborate on each of these points in detail in the piece. I hope you’ll take a look (and, perhaps, subscribe) to Current, which seeks to stake out responsible and independent centrist positions in culture and politics.