Democrats have been relieved when President Joe Biden lastly pulled out of the presidential race. That was comprehensible. It was straightforward to see why they shortly coalesced behind Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden’s alternative: Time was quick, there’s no customary get together course of for placing on a snap second spherical of primaries, and passing over a girl of shade who has served dutifully if not impressively would have been a foul search for the get together.
Utterly inexplicable, however, is the Democrats’ instantly creating an “I’m along with her” cult of character for Harris — the identical slogan that helped sink Hillary Clinton in 2016 as a result of it violated the No. 1 rule of politics: The politician is meant to be with us. Why are gullible Democrats donating at report ranges for a candidate who has but to make a single marketing campaign promise? They’re lining as much as volunteer for an incumbent politician who didn’t accomplish a single factor in her present job — no new legislation attributable primarily to her, no coverage initiative she pushed by means of, no large thought she championed. They usually’re overlooking the prosecutor place the place she did get stuff completed, defending oppressive state insurance policies and abandoning a path of damaged lives shattered by injustice she helped perpetuate.
We all know why: She’s not former President Donald Trump.
That’s nowhere near being adequate. Primarily as a result of it’s a defective assumption. How will we know she’s higher than Trump? Till Harris tells us what she’s for, there isn’t any goal strategy to examine her to her Republican counterpart.
If a politician desires votes, they need to earn them. They have to establish our issues and develop insurance policies to handle them. They have to clarify why their options are higher than these proffered by their opponents. They have to defend their report. They have to clarify their errors and clarify why they won’t repeat them.
Harris shouldn’t be doing any of this. And there’s no signal she plans to.
A social media advert distributed July 27 by the Harris Victory Fund says all of it: “I’m operating to be President of the USA. If that’s all you could hear, then make a donation to fund my marketing campaign at this time.” No. It’s not. I would like to listen to much more — and so must you.
Ronald Reagan quoted a Russian proverb: “Belief, however confirm.” When a pacesetter asks you to belief her with out providing any cause to take action, when she asks for a clean examine, when residents willingly droop skepticism, when those that want to wait-and-see are shouted down as get together poopers in service to evildoers (on this case, Trump), you might be observing a key element of fascism: blind belief in The Chief. Jason Stanley, a Yale thinker, famous: “Reality is required to behave freely. Freedom requires data, and in an effort to act freely on this planet, you could know what the world is and know what you’re doing. You solely know what you’re doing in case you have entry to the reality.”
What’s the reality about Harris? It doesn’t matter what, her supporters say, she’ll be higher than Trump. To which I ask, citing the Boston punk band The Lyres, “How Do You Know?”
This can be a robust query to reply.
Which is outrageous.
In a democracy, a citizen shouldn’t should resort to Chilly Warfare-style Kremlinology to guess how a candidate for president would govern the nation. But right here we’re, casting our votes blindly.
No matter you consider Challenge 2025, the Heritage Basis’s bold right-wing want checklist for a second Trump administration, or whether or not you imagine Trump’s declare that he has nothing to do with it, it’s important to give Republicans credit score for having a plan. Voters can learn Challenge 2025 and watch Trump’s rallies and browse the GOP platform and resolve, as knowledgeable free residents, whether or not or not they wish to vote for a candidate who, extra seemingly than not, would perform these insurance policies have been he to be reelected. We all know who Trump is. We all know what he’s for.
The identical can’t be stated of Harris, a sidelined vice chairman whose report within the White Home is startlingly sparse. New York journal described the veep final yr as “a minor character who has little position within the administration’s home and overseas coverage.” She solely served a part of a single time period as senator, the spotlight of which was her grilling of then-Supreme Court docket nominee Brett Kavanaugh. No invoice that she cosponsored ever made it into legislation.
If anybody owes voters an in depth coverage agenda, it’s Harris. Would she be Biden 2.0? Is she a progressive or a corporatist? She’s run as each. Democrats ought to subject their very own model of Challenge 2025 so we all know who and what we’re voting for — or towards.
Except we maintain politicians’ toes to the hearth, consultant democracy is unaccountable and subsequently nugatory. Once we give our votes away with none guarantees in return, we’re decreased to hypothesis about what they could or might not do. As soon as elected, they do no matter they need.
They’ve promised us nothing. In order that they owe us nothing. We’re worse, and our system is worse, than individuals in a corrupt autocracy who promote their votes for cash or, as in some international locations, kitchen instruments. As voters, we’re worse than whores. We’re sluts of democracy — we give it away at no cost.
With out particular coverage guarantees, our evaluation of Harris should, by necessity, ignore the dictum that previous efficiency isn’t any assure of future returns. Individuals change. But when Harris has developed since her days as a prosecutor — the one interval of her profession that paperwork her personal actions, ready the place she had huge discretion — we now have no strategy to know that. Is she higher than Trump? The one arduous information we now have is her report as a DA and AG.
That report is fairly bleak. Hers is the portrait of bold careerist who marketed herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor with a view towards setting herself up for a scenario just like the one during which she finds herself now, operating for top workplace at a time when persons are freaked out about avenue crime. (Bonus! Trump is a convicted felon!) Bother is, like most self-styled crime fighters, she dedicated quite a lot of crimes herself. She violated due course of, cheated the foundations of proof, fought to protect flawed convictions, refused to pay wrongfully convicted defendants and labored additional time to maintain the harmless behind bars by denying DNA exams.
A special sort of evil than Trump’s — however not a smaller type. What could possibly be extra disgusting than utilizing your place as an officer of the court docket to oppose the curiosity of justice?
Happily for Harris, she will simply lay these skeletons in her closet to relaxation. She will be able to apologize, say that she has seen the sunshine, and write up a reputable plan for felony justice reform that exhibits she has modified her views.
Hopefully we’ll see one thing earlier than Election Day.
Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis.
