By Ashkan
footnotes from Abigail
I find it genuinely funny that the Democratic Presidential campaign strategy for the past two cycles has been to campaign as little as possible.
Do we all remember the Joe Biden COVID bunker in 2020? As Trump criss-crossed the country shaking hands and kissing babies1 (which I suppose might have been ill-advised from a #FlattenTheCurve perspective), Joe Biden sat ensconced in his impenetrable Delaware basement, conveniently untouchable by reporters who could seize on a gaffe, or, far worse, make him explain his vision for America.
It’s remarkable that in a largely post-COVID world, (yes, Abigail, I know I have COVID2 as I’m writing this, whatever), that Kamala Harris has erected her own bunker. She went 40 days without granting a single interview — and this strategy of hide-and-hope-no-one-seeks3 has worked immensely well for her. She has managed to manufacture a “let the good times roll” honeymoon phase unlike any we’ve seen; 40 days of unfettered political ascendancy without any chance to be held critically to account by anyone.
Democrats have found that the less their candidates speak, the better it is for them. Meanwhile, Trump is doing long-form podcasts, countless morning shows, and even taped golf games. Say what you want about him, but he’s always out speaking his mind. But what is on Kamala’s mind? Does anyone know? Does she know? She hasn’t defined herself for us. Her campaign slogan is literally “Let’s Win This” — seriously, look at her website — which has got to break records for the most vacuous and nondescript principal message that a campaign can promote.
We don’t know if she’s moderate, progressive, pro-Biden, anti-Biden, pro-fracking, anti-fracking, pro-immigration, anti-immigration, pro-single payer healthcare, anti-single payer healthcare… I could go on. Therein lies the magic of the Kamala campaign: not pissing anyone off with specifics and maintaining her big-tent image as the heroine saving America from Biden and Trump.
But she finally broke the seal and awarded CNN (almost journalism, so close!) a live pre-recorded, full-length edited one-on-one interview along with emotional support coach Tim Walz.
In answering Dana Bash’s questions, she had the chance to finally define herself, either by her identity or by her policy. In the interview she refused to do the former and did somewhat expound on the latter. Let’s talk about each.
First, on identity, I think she’s doing everything right by still not talking to the press about it. Bash asked her about Trump’s recent racially charged attacks on her, and Harris simply responded “Same old, tired playbook. Next question.” She didn’t take the opportunity to disavow Trump’s bigotry and explain what a history-making, glass-ceiling-shattering President she would be. This was well calculated.
We all know she is Indian, Black, and a woman. Those who are excited to vote for her because of her identity will do so whether she touts it or not. She has a lot more at risk with nervously prejudiced Independent voters who don’t want diversity, equity, and inclusion shoved down their throats. Hillary Clinton blamed misogyny for her 2016 loss, which I buy — she was clearly supposed to win, her slogan was “I’m with her,” and she lost.
Kamala has learned from Hillary’s defeat and is approaching her identity with a sense of humility that I think is smart. She insists that she’s just an American who wants to serve us. She said in the interview: “Listen, I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender.”
Now to policy. She’s not running as the woman candidate, meaning she has to have some kind of exciting legislative plans for America, right? That’s the path she tried to go down with CNN. Being forced to define policy, though, finally began to eat at her 40-day honeymoon.
She was first asked about her plans for day one in office. Kamala said “support and strengthen the middle class” in a “new way forward” which would be “fueled by hope and optimism.” Given this level of detail I’m surprised she didn’t just repeat her slogan – let’s win this! Of course the interviewer was confused and had to ask again, “So what would you do day one?” to which Harris in effect tells us nothing again, but one could pick out a child tax credit expansion somewhere in her word salad.4
Kamala was then made to take ownership for the Biden-Harris years which many Americans have loathed for so long. On the economy, she asserted that they had done “good work” and that the post-pandemic economic recovery has been “done.” She feigned some understanding of economic hardship in her answer but obviously couldn’t acknowledge that Americans are suffering without double-crossing herself.
On foreign policy, she talked up “extraordinary successes” and how the world now “has confidence in who we are as America.” Meanwhile Russia is threatening to launch nukes at the West and Hamas is killing hostages with impunity. I was surprised that she even dared to bring up anything international.
The worst part for her, which the Trump campaign pounced on immediately, was her repeated assertion that her “values haven’t changed” when challenged on flip-flops. She did not clarify what those values are. But somehow a candidate with the same values can believe that the border should be decriminalized and that we are a nation of laws? And that fracking is bad but that fracking is good? I’ve written about how flip-flopping seems to not matter as much to voters this cycle, but she offered us absolutely zero insight into her ideological evolution. With “unchanged values,” moderate voters can now assume they’ll still have 2020 Comrade Kamala’s war on red meat in their future.
I think Kamala is better off in the bunker. I found her shaky and unable to articulate a cohesive policy doctrine.5 The best part of the interview was what she didn’t talk about (identity). She should continue not defining herself politically — the more people hear from her, the more reason they have not to vote for her. Nate Silver’s election forecast (not nearly a surefire metric, but something) flipped basically right after the interview to put Trump ahead. As long as she keeps interviewing, brat summer might continue to fade. Autumn had to come anyway, I guess!
Abigail’s response
- When Joe Biden went a step further and tried to actually eat a baby you all called him creepy, so make up your mind about what you actually want from him.
↩︎ - Sources say you might benefit from your own COVID bunker at this point in time, Ashkan. ↩︎
- How anyone can accuse Harris of hiding when she just swanned around the entire state of Georgia in her ridiculously ostentatious bus is beyond me. ↩︎
- If only Kamala started following the Trump playbook when it comes to giving insightful answers to challenging policy questions. For instance, I really like the specificity of this reply he gave to Lex Friedman when asked about medical marijuana: “And we put out a statement that we can live with the marijuana. It’s got to be a certain age, got to be a certain age to buy it. It’s got to be done in a very concerted, lawful way. And the way they’re doing in Florida, I think is going to be actually good. It’s going to be very good, but it’s got to be done in a good way. It’s got to be done in a clean way. You go into some of these places, like in New York, it smells all marijuana. You’ve got to have a system where there’s control.”
Maybe if she just promised to handle her first day in office in a “good way,” you’d feel more at ease! ↩︎ - I personally also find Harris’s lack of in-depth policy discussion off-putting and her echoing empty room of a website disappointing, but (as I said in my piece) I don’t think the average voter is looking for a technocrat’s eye for detail in her public comments. Biden has been stumbling his way through every public appearance for months, and someone who can finish their sentences and confidently promise a healthier economy is probably way more appealing to voters than a policy wonk. I’d like to see more from her in the runup to the election on her key issues and how she plans to fix them, but I don’t think it’s surprising or necessarily bad that she didn’t use her first televised interview to out herself as a policy wonk. ↩︎
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