Kamala

Seeing how conservatives are reacting to Kamala Harris being chosen as Joe Biden’s Veep, I’ve come to realize one thing; they aren’t sure how to attack her, which probably makes her the right choice.

Kamala is an interesting problem for the propagandists of the right. Her biggest problem in the primary was progressives seeing her as “a cop”. In terms of her record as a prosecutor, there’s a a fair amount of validity to this claim. Progressives, who favored Bernie and Warren, jumped on this during the primary, screaming she wasn’t a true progressive (even though Kamala has voted with Bernie 93% of the time as a Senator). Kamala made the mistake of trying to please progressives and moderates, and it ruined her primary chances. The problem for ole’ Dumpy Donald and his cronies is this ain’t the primary.

They have immediately started a new campaign about how Kamala is a radical leftist. They’ve also tried to reinvigorate the idea that Kamala is a cop to sew amongst the liberal faction internally. They are playing both sides of the fence and seeing which one sticks. And who knows? Maybe it will work, I’m not going to give the American public the benefit of the doubt, we did elect Donald Trump.

Here’s the problem though… Biden and Kamala don’t seem like radical leftists. Biden was the centrist pick of the Democratic nominees. Kamala’s biggest problem during the primary was her lack of support amongst progressives. I just don’t see this argument working. They’re making a policy argument and simply put, American’s don’t pay attention to policy. They seem like moderates and are doing a good enough job to court progressives. Biden has leaned into a progressive platform heavily, outside of accepting Medicare 4 All. Kamala has been an incredibly progressive Senator. Making up the ground with progressives seems much easier to me than convincing the public they’re radical leftists.

On top of that, the “cop” persona isn’t even a negative with many people outside of progressives. In a general election, it actually might make “middle America” feel a bit more comfortable in a weird way.

So what’s their next option? Bringing up how Kamala Harris schooled Joe Biden during the debates and called him racist? Sure, maybe that will work. Although it’s sort of hard coming from a party who embraced Trump after he claimed Ted Cruz’s dad may have been involved with the JFK assassination or made nicknames for half the Republicans in his own party.

The idea that progressives are going to sit out the election, vote for Donald Trump, or vote 3rd party, is incredibly overblown. Will some of them do this? Sure. But there’s no way this is that significant of a number. And let’s be totally honest, many of those people wouldn’t have ended up voting anyways or aren’t actual progressives.

Kamala may not be a perfect pick but there was no perfect pick. I don’t think Joe Biden was the perfect pick but I’m finding a hard time finding many things he’s done since being the presumptive nominee I don’t like. I think he’s playing this well and Kamala might be the right person for this specific moment. And again, what’s the alternative?