An Inconvenient Blog

By Abigail

footnotes from Ashkan

Kamala Harris has always been a sort of political chameleon. If we learned anything from her first televised interview as the 2024 Democratic nominee last Thursday, it’s that she’s finally found an environment she’s (relatively) well-suited to. That’s not to say that she excelled, by any means, when going toe-to-toe with Dana Bash while Tim Walz did a remarkable job placidly smiling and waving by her side, but she put on a performance that was more confident than anything else we’ve seen from her during the last four years. 

The public response to the interview was predictably divided. Leftists bemoaned the fact that she didn’t use the opportunity to immediately sever all ties with Israel, or something, and Republicans wrote the whole thing off as a showcase of her inability to offer up anything other than ‘word salad’ when facing tough questions. As a moderate Democrat (read: perennial fencesitter), I found myself falling somewhere in the middle. 

I think the key issue here is figuring out what we really want and what we can reasonably expect from a 28-minute debut interview. Can a candidate like Harris, thrust into the race about as abruptly as possible, nail an introduction like this?¹ I genuinely think that she did a decent job with what she was given. 

The big questions facing her going into the interview centered on her actual policy positions, her track record as part of the hapless Biden administration, and how she’s interested in portraying herself. The Harris we’ve previously seen on the national stage has always seemed to lack a distinct political identity. In 2020, she rode the identity politics wave as far as she could and then seemed to fade out of relevance after a shaky start as Vice President. Now, she’s trying to refashion herself as a sort of everyman who can somehow appeal to the interests of the core Democratic base, swing-state voters, vocal leftists, a struggling middle-class, and any Republican not fully aboard the Trump train. It’s a lot. 

On policy, she offered up nothing particularly groundbreaking. Personally, that’s exactly what I expected and basically what I wanted from her. When someone like Elizabeth Warren pops up with, in Pete Buttigieg’s words, “a plan for everything,” pundits wonder if voters even care about policy–and seem to conclude that they don’t. Pressed about what she would do on her first day in office, she avoided specifics in favor of catchphrases and standard Democrat messaging, promising an “opportunity economy” and to “invest in families.” I genuinely think this is what most voters want to hear from her–simple, sympathetic statements that promise (vague) solutions to the widespread economic hardship facing them.² It would be nice if she elaborated on her plans somewhere (like on her oddly bare-bones website), but it’s not exactly surprising that she didn’t use her first televised interview to do so. 

She also addressed her flip-flopping on fracking, something commentators on both sides of the aisle have been fixated on since she appeared to do an about-face turn shortly after receiving the nomination. There’s no hiding that she went back on the position she articulated in 2019, but as someone who found the Kamala campaign of the 2020 race to be a cobbled-together performance of faux-progressivism, I’m glad that she’s openly articulating more moderate and reasonable positions.³ Democrats have always struggled with prioritizing their ultimate policy goals over realism and it’s about time they realize that isolating voters in key swing states is not an effective campaign strategy. On a similar note, Harris promised to appoint a member of the opposing party to her cabinet, although she balked at naming any potential names. 

Questioned about Trump’s now-famous assertion that she “turned Black,” Harris smoothly took the high road, refusing to dignify the question with a response. This is another welcome departure from the Democratic playbook of the last eight years, which has centered on taking any bait Trump throws their way. Every single person in America knows what Trump is like and how he operates, and if Kamala can find a way to define herself politically without falling back on the lesser-of-two-evils-argument, it will be a welcome relief. 

Asked about Biden and their shared legacy, she neatly sidestepped direct criticism of him, while also taking basically no responsibility for the failures of his administration, which is about the best we can hope for at this point.⁴ And with the ghost of Hillary Clinton’s various unsuccessful campaigns looming over her, she resisted Dana Bash’s attempt to make a fuss of her own unprecedented candidacy. 

None of it was particularly remarkable, but I came out of the interview feeling better about her candidacy. She came across as smooth and capable–things that couldn’t be said of her before Thursday. Trump is loud and argumentative, Biden is tired and muddled–at this point, we can only hope for some happy medium, and if that’s Kamala, I’m fine with voting for her. Passive acceptance is the name of the game! 

Ashkan’s response

1. Come on, let’s not dumb down the standards of what is expected of a candidate for President of the United States. If I had 40 days to prepare for one 28-minute softball interview with the friendliest news outlet I could find I’d hope I’m knocking it out of the park 5 times over (and I’m just some guy). ↩︎
2. I’m not sure Kamala’s sweet nothings really achieved anything though. I feel like it was such textbook political hot air — it wasn’t an energetic populist appeal à la Trump or Bernie nor was it a dazzling display of policy chops à la Liz Warren. It was some weird middle ground that no one wanted: muddled, unmotivating, and substanceless. ↩︎
3. Abigail, I’m glad you’re happy with Kamala’s centrist shift though I can’t help but think you’re drinking at least a small dose of Kool-Aid. Why are we to believe that she’s being sincere? The political rationale for moving to the center is clear: her old positions were staked out in a progressive bake-off of a Democratic primary in 2020 and now she’s moderating herself as she’s running in a general election to woo Independents. She gave us no viable story as to why she has changed her views so drastically — so all we can reliably believe is that she’s engaging in intense political posturing. Which then begs the question: as President, will she govern as 2020 Kamala or 2024 Kamala? Honestly — and this is my honest view as a voter — it seems like a coin flip to me. ↩︎
4. Kamala was twisting some very complex mental pretzels to be pro-Biden in a way that just seemed like gaslighting. I covered this in my piece but I really can’t imagine that Americans who are struggling with high prices can hear an almost unmitigated defense of Bidenomics and feel like Kamala represents their interests. I understand her political calculus but I’d feel weird lauding her for how she’s handling the Biden era. ↩︎