If we are to believe the media, Kamala Harris is the best thing that could have happened for Team Biden. And outwardly, it certainly looks as though she checks all the right boxes. She is a woman, “of color,” young and ambitious, more progressive than Biden, and has a history in law enforcement.
However, as far-leftist and former press secretary for Bernie Sanders Briahna Joy Gray says, Harris is anything but good for the ever-left leaning party. And the base is wholly unimpressed with this pick.
Gray wrote on Tuesday, “We are in the midst of the largest protest movement in American history, the subject of which is excessive policing, and the Democratic Party chose a “top cop” and the author of the Joe Biden crime bill to save us from Trump. The contempt for the base is, wow.”
I have to admit; the irony is substantial.
But it becomes even more so as we look deeper into Harris’s background. While being black and a woman, you know, traits that only matter on the outside, a look at her work history as a lawmaker actually puts her on the exact opposite side of the table from most of America’s progressives.
Let’s take her position on the death penalty, which most progressives a rule, abhor.
As a district attorney for the city of San Francisco and the first person of color to ever hold that position, she noted the death penalty seemed to discriminate heavily against “poor and black people and would not deter more killing,” according to the New York Times.
However, a few short years later, when she had risen to be the state of California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris appealed a judge’s decision declaring the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional.” According to the Times, she said: “it was a matter of upholding the law.”
And while no one in the state was actually put to death under the law during her time as AG, she allowed it to remain in effect, if for nothing more than a threat.
Another thing progressives loudly balk about is the need for complete criminal justice reform. Most arguments claim that prisons and jails are often packed to overcapacity and that a majority of the occupants are of some minority or another and not white. To blame for this is believed to be the 1994 crime bill that Joe Biden helped to create and which Kamala Harris stoically stood by.
It is noted that both the positions of the district attorney and attorney general were attained by Harris, mainly on the premise that she was tough on crime and, as such, could increase conviction rates. As the Gray Lady noted, “it was Ms. Harris’s success in increasing conviction rates that became a central boost of her campaign for attorney general in 2010.” And her office reported that while some of those numbers might seem low in comparison to her predecessor, “she had won stiffer sentences… by demanding prison time instead of probation for crimes including robbery and home burglary.”
Next, let’s look at what her record says about holding police accountable.
As Forbes noted recently, two progressive groups, Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction, have found that she “failed for years to hold police accountable for gross misconduct in California.”
Not only that but she also “repeatedly sided with prosecutors accused of misconduct, challenging judges who ruled against them,” according to the NYT. And when the governor diverted much-needed funds that were supposed to go California homeowners during the Great Recession into his own budget, she said little and did even less.
And yet, now that she has a chance at the White House, she says her opinions have changed.
Excuse me if I find that hard to believe.
But apparently, according to Ms. Gray, I’m not the only one. Harris’ record speaks for itself. And what it says is that she isn’t really all that progressive. Now, that might be a comfort to certain conservatives, but it should also terrify you, as it means she will quite literally do and say anything to get what she wants.
If nothing else consider the fact that Harris has come out against Biden on several occasions, first calling him a racist segregationist and then saying she believes he is guilty of sexual harassment. And yet now she suddenly has no qualms about being his VP?
