Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has picked California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate.
I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 11, 2020
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Sen. Harris responded:
.@JoeBiden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals.
I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 11, 2020
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The pick, however, comes with tremendous baggage. While the New York Times immediately moved to frame her as a “pragmatic moderate,” the facts do not line up with this narrative. According to GovTrack, she is listed as the 4th most progressive member of the Senate. Like Biden, she favors the banning of fracking and a full-scale assault on the Second Amendment.
She also opposes religious freedom. When Hobby Lobby fought Obamacare mandates that forced them to provide contraceptive care and abortion services, it was Harris, who was the California Attorney General at the time, who wrote a brief to the Supreme Court saying that Hobby Lobby should be forced to provide abortifacients:
She wrote a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up the case and, when it did, joined with the attorney general of Massachusetts to write an amicus brief arguing that the court should force Hobby Lobby to cover abortifacients.
This premise lurked at the foundation of her argument: When people start for-profit corporations, they must leave their “personal” religious beliefs behind.
These are not pragmatic nor moderate positions. These are radically left positions. Add to this the personal attacks on Biden during the Democratic debates, when Harris called him in league with segregationists:
Harris was also caught on tape laughing about sending black children to jail for truancy.
Harris cheerfully recounts the story of sending an attorney from her office to intimidate a homeless single mother whose children were missing school. She smiles as she recalls how she instructed her subordinates to “look really mean” so that the mother would take the threat of jail seriously. In separate footage, Harris mocks those on the left who say things like “build schools, not jails” and “put more money into education, not prisons”, suggesting they are naive sloganeers who do not understand crime prevention.
Harris is not a moderate. Media may try to force that narrative down the throats of the American people, but the facts of her positions – and her attacks on Biden – remain. Politics do indeed make strange bedfellows, and this pick may be one of convenience, as the party clearly demanded that boxes be checked to have the right kind of nominee. But it certainly does not unify the Democratic Party.
And considering the multitude of Americans who are questioning Biden’s mental acuity, the choice of Vice-President – for those who are sitting on the fence between Biden and President Trump – is huge. Does Kamala Harris give those people the push needed to vote for Joe?
If I were advising the Trump campaign, I would tell them there is only one question that they should be asking:
The only question @realdonaldtrump and the campaign should be asking America right now – Do you trust @KamalaHarris as President if and when she takes over for @JoeBiden?#KamalaHarris
— Tony Katz (@tonykatz) August 11, 2020
