What Does Kamala Harris Actually Want?
Plus: Elon Musk talks about his trans child, OpenAI comes under congressional scrutiny, and more...
What does Kamala Harris stand for? Over the course of a few short days, Vice President Kamala Harris has practically ascended to the spot left vacant by President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday, and gobbled up his delegates. She's the presumed nominee come convention time (which will happen later in August) and, naturally, the subject of a spate of recent flattering mainstream media pieces. Depending on who you ask, she is endearingly memeable. She is "underestimated." She's even "brat," claims a CNN panel that doesn't really know what they're talking about but is using pop star Charli XCX's endorsement as a way to claim Harris has influence with Gen Z.
Speculation abounds about who Harris will pick to run her campaign and who will serve as her running mate. But everyone's oddly light on the actual policy specifics. She's beginning to run a campaign, so stop with the forced pop culture references; what does Harris actually believe?
Foreign policy: Possibly becoming tougher on Israel, but also not really. Some say Harris "might be more inclined to make U.S. support for Israel more conditional on its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank," reports The Wall Street Journal. But, frankly, Harris' approach right now is more one of strategic ambiguity, to borrow a term. If she appears to be tough on Israel and advocates a ceasefire in Gaza, she can garner support from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but it would be perceived as a break from the Biden administration approach—and something that might piss off the rest of the party, which is sorely divided on support for Israel.
Attempting to portray Harris as more lefty on Israel might also simply be a ploy to get the far-left, disgruntled by what they (wrongly) call a "genocide" in Gaza, on board with a candidate who is not markedly different than her predecessor.
"A Harris administration would probably offer strong support for Ukraine's war effort, and continue initiatives to deepen alliances in Asia and the Pacific in the face of China's geopolitical ascendance," reports Politico. "As senator, Harris voiced less hawkish sentiments than Biden on U.S. military presence in the Middle East," but she's inexperienced at crafting foreign policy, meaning she'll likely be more reliant on her traditionalist advisers, Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official, tells Politico. "Their views, I think, would fit well with a Bill Clinton or [Barack] Obama presidency. They are straight-arrow, traditional foreign policy folks."
Economic policy: More spending, and worse issues with debt and deficit. Harris, like so many politicians that have come before, talks big talk about building up the American middle class. The policies that she aims to pursue would, of course, further deplete federal coffers and run the risk of driving up inflation further, as money printer simply cannot go brrr in perpetuity.
"While she was a senator and presidential candidate, Harris's signature tax proposal was the LIFT [the Middle Class] Act, which resembles a universal basic income and would have cost about $3 trillion over a decade," reports the Journal. "Harris's plan would have provided a $3,000 tax credit for individuals and $6,000 for married couples" with phase-outs for middle- and high-earning families and individuals.
Harris voted against lowering individual and corporate tax rates back during former President Donald Trump's first term. She appears to back Biden's IRS crackdown approach. She supports government-mandated paid family leave and capping the cost of childcare for those enrolled in certain government programs. It's classic big government, all the way down.
As a senator, her signature housing policy proposal was the Rent Relief Act, "a bill that would have given people refundable tax credits to cover the rent they paid in excess of 30 percent of their income," writes Reason's Christian Britschgi. Ultimately, the effect was that "landlords could more comfortably raise rents on tenants, knowing that much of the cost increase would be absorbed by taxpayers."
Upshot: The sad reality is that, right now, Harris is pretty much only hype, no substance. Of course, her campaign hasn't had a ton of time to get into full swing, and her lack of policy assertiveness is fitting for a vice president who has had to mostly just get in line with the president's wishes. But there's also no policy ingenuity to speak of, and her record gives very little in the way of foreign policy in particular—the area that's especially important when deciding which presidential candidate to vote for.
Politico is out there claiming Harris is responsible for, and emblematic of, a political "vibe shift," while The New York Times says she's showing "the political power of joy." Forgive me, but I would like actual policy to assess instead.
Scenes from New York: "A police procedural drama staged a tent encampment for a film shoot at Queens College," reports The New York Times. "Pro-Palestinian demonstrators felt it trivialized their movement."
QUICK HITS
- "I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys," Elon Musk told Jordan Peterson, on his child's gender transition at age 16. "There was a lot of confusion and I was told Xavier might commit suicide [if not allowed to medically transition]." He continued: "They call it 'deadnaming' for a reason. The reason it's called 'deadnaming' is because your son is dead. So my son, Xavier, is dead, killed by the woke mind virus. So I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that, and we're making some progress." This explains an awful lot of Musk's dgaf attitude.
- Hawaii's Sen. Brian Schatz (D) is leading a group of lawmakers, all Democrats and independents, in forcing OpenAI to detail how it will meet "public commitments" to ensure the product does not cause harm "following employee warnings that the company rushed through safety-testing of its latest AI model," per The Washington Post.
- Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle (whose incompetence was the subject of yesterday's Roundup) resigned.
- This Kamala Harris ad that just dropped seems likely to be representative of Republicans' strategy in key battleground states: painting her as a radical who is open to every ultra-progressive Democrat's absurd ideas.
