The Media’s Cheerleading Can’t Save Kamala Harris

On Sunday, July 21, Joe Biden was forced out of the presidential race after his party could no longer deny his mental decline. He endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, and she tweeted, “I am honored to have the President’s endorsement, and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.” It’s ironic, though, considering she impressed no one in her 2020 presidential campaign, earned zero primary votes this year and likely wouldn’t have been nominated at all, given she’s the most unpopular vice president in modern history. This didn’t stop Democrats and media from quickly jumping on the Harris bandwagon, focusing not on her track record or accomplishments, but rather on the two aspects she seems to have going for her: her race and her gender. 

Unfortunately, Harris being a “girlboss” of color doesn’t ensure a sensible plan for Americans, nor does it mean she can answer tough questions. For weeks, Harris avoided addressing the media and the public and offered zero policy proposals, successfully campaigning on practically nothing. Since her debate with Trump, Americans are seeing more of Harris and starting to learn more about her “plan” for the people. She claims to have a “new way forward” for Americans to recover from the “threat to democracy” that was the Donald Trump administration, even though he hasn’t been in office for three and a half years. Despite the media’s predictable kindness toward her, Harris continues to struggle to answer questions properly, fails to offer any policies of real substance, and, most importantly, doesn’t explain why she isn’t enacting those so-called “new way forward” policies for our country while she’s already in office. 

On September 10th, the Harris campaign entered the presidential debate hoping for another viral “I’m speaking” moment. There is no doubt that Trump delivered a lackluster performance. Harris employed a great strategy by attacking Trump’s ego and forcing him to the defensive. However, she ultimately didn’t have a standout moment and failed to define herself as a separate candidate from Joe Biden, evident in her campaign’s immediate demand for an additional debate, after previously dodging Trump’s multiple debate requests. From Harris’s opening answer, it became clear to me that the night would be void of meaningful policy discussion. This wasn’t surprising, considering her campaign had thrown some issues on her website just 24 hours before the debate. When asked if she believed Americans are better off today than they were under Trump, Harris rambled on about being a middle-class kid and her vague idea of an opportunity economy. She mentioned her love for small businesses and touched on the aspirations of Americans, but nowhere in her monologue did she explain how her administration has been better for Americans than Trump’s. 

Perhaps the most shameful aspect of the debate was her disingenuous portrayal of Trump, filled with straight-up lies that went completely unchecked by the moderators, who were focused on fact-checking him (5 times). One of the most absurd hoaxes both Harris and Biden are guilty of spreading is the “very fine people on both sides” line attributed to Trump during a news conference about the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Harris’s claim that Trump was praising white nationalists is blatantly false. When watching the clip in its entirety, it’s clear he did the exact opposite. By “fine people,” Trump was referring to those simply there to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, and he explicitly stated, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” 

In addition to the Charlottesville distortion, Harris claimed that Project 2025 was the Trump platform and included a national pregnancy and miscarriage monitor, as well as a national abortion ban. First of all, Project 2025 is a proposal from the Heritage Foundation, an independent think tank that outlines a potential agenda for Republicans in each election cycle. While there may be some policy overlap, Project 2025 is not the official Trump platform and has never been endorsed by him. Moreover, nowhere in Trump’s policy platform or even in the Project 2025 document does it mention pregnancy monitors or a national abortion ban. Harris knows this, and more importantly, the supposedly unbiased moderators should have known it as well. Yet, they failed to challenge her and didn’t ask any follow-ups. 

Even in a 3-on-1 debate setting with the moderators seemingly aiding her, Harris still didn’t provide Americans with a clear understanding of what she stands for or how she is truly different from the man they ousted in a coup. Spoiler alert: she still hasn’t, and my perception of her only worsened from here.

On September 13, Harris sat down for her first one-on-one interview with ABC Philadelphia since being selected as the Democratic nominee more than a month prior. To say it was disappointing would be an understatement; she delivered the same generic non-answers we witnessed during the first debate. The fact remains that many undecided voters still don’t know who she is, and this interview did nothing to change that. In fact, the ABC host kicked off the interview stating, “People want to know more about you and your specific plans,” and then asked her about what she has specifically planned to bring down prices and make life more affordable. By now, you can probably guess that I’m not Kamala Harris’s biggest fan, but even I was taken aback by her response. I’m not exaggerating when I say she began her answer about policy and the economy with, “I’m a middle-class kid,” repeating her response verbatim from the debate. Instead of providing a clear, coherent outline of her plan, she resorted to buzzwords, spoke about her mother, and mentioned how her neighbors were proud of their lawns. It’s hard to overlook the absurdity here: when asked about the economy—a pressing concern for Americans facing 25% increases in grocery prices—her notion of what unites us is our lawns.

After over two minutes of fluff, we finally heard some policy. She mentioned her housing policy: to work with the private sector and housing developers to create 3 million new homes by the end of her first term, alongside offering $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. This plan, however, is fraught with issues. First, the notion that subsidizing builders will lead to lower housing prices is misguided. When prices are high, builders are already incentivized to construct more homes without needing additional government assistance. In fact, Harris’s goal is nonsensical given that the country already builds over 3 million homes within a four-year period, averaging around 1 million annually. It seems like she might actually be aiming to build fewer homes, which could ironically benefit her given the stupidity of this policy. While Harris accurately points out the housing supply shortage, she and like-minded California Democrats have a long track record of failing to reduce housing costs. Builders in the state, where regulation is rampant, face so many obstacles that they are disincentivized from constructing new homes, leading to skyrocketing prices and dwindling permit approvals. Contrast this with Tennessee, a state with lighter regulations and where housing permits align with demand. This is what a functioning housing market looks like. Moreover, Harris’s down payment assistance program is fundamentally flawed because it will stimulate demand when we’re facing a supply crisis. She will push those who would normally rent into the buyer’s market, driving prices higher–possibly over an additional $25,000. What I find particularly upsetting is that out of all the policy positions Harris could have presented, she opted for one of the most destructive, which has already failed in her home state. 

When asked how she differs from Joe Biden—a standard question meant to help define her identity—Harris’s response fell flat. She mentioned expanding the child tax credit from $3,000 to $6,000, but I’m not sure how this proves she’s different, considering this is essentially a Biden policy. Moreover, her plan only applies for the first year of a child’s life, while Biden’s credit extends up to age 18, making her proposal not significantly better. I found it particularly amusing when she attempted to articulate her vision, stating, “My focus is very much on what we need to do over the next 10 to 20 years to catch up to the 21st century around again capacity but also challenges.” I genuinely have no idea what she meant by that, and I challenge anyone to reread that sentence and try to decipher it. I find it concerning that despite being much younger than Biden, she struggles to differentiate herself from him with regards to mental clarity. 

On September 17, Harris joined the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), following Trump’s hostile interview in August. Unsurprisingly, the NABJ was nowhere near as harsh with Harris as they had been with Trump, but to their credit, they did ask some important questions and follow-ups on which she did not withstand scrutiny. The very first question was one I was eager to hear: Are voters better off now than they were under Trump? It was the same question she faced during the debate, and the NABJ kindly offered her another chance to respond. With Americans grappling with high inflation and interest rates, they’re still trying to understand how she could possibly argue that they are better off today. I felt a bit of relief when she didn’t start her answer with “I was a middle-class kid,” and I thought she should be prepared to tackle this question by now. Unfortunately, my relief quickly faded as I listened to the numerous inaccuracies she chose to present instead. First, she claimed that her administration inherited the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression, which is simply not true. When Biden took office in 2021, the unemployment rate was 6.4%. This figure was elevated due to the pandemic—important context she overlooked—and the fact that many governors, particularly Democratic ones, chose to implement strict lockdowns. However, this rate does not come close to being a record since the Great Depression. In fact, when Barack Obama entered office, he inherited a 7.8% unemployment rate. 

Regarding her claim that January 6th was the “worst attack on democracy since the Civil War,” I believe that any politician who considers a 2-hour riot to be worse than the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11 is not fit to serve as President of the United States. Then, Harris bragged about creating over “16 million new jobs.” She implied that every single one of those jobs were new, when in reality, the vast majority of the jobs were recovered from the pandemic. The true number of new jobs created from January 2021 to August 2024 is just under 6.5 million. She continued to lie, claiming that the Black unemployment rate is at its lowest in generations. Last month, it was reported at 6.1%; however, during the Trump administration, that rate was as low as 5.3%. The funny thing is, Harris has acknowledged at multiple rallies that Americans are struggling, yet has no explanation for why she’s not taking action right now as Vice President. The fact that Harris feels the need to misrepresent and outright lie about her opponent’s performance–not to mention her own administration’s–makes me wonder if she thinks Americans are naive enough to believe we’re truly living in better times.

The most uncomfortable moment of the NABJ panel interview came when Harris was pressed about the Gaza war and was asked where she believes Israel should draw the line between aggression and defense—a question she clearly wanted to avoid. She sidestepped taking a discernible stance, likely trying to appease both Muslim and Jewish voters. While she expressed a desire for a ceasefire and a hostage deal and recounted the horrors of October 7th, she failed to address the critical issue of Israeli defense versus aggression. The interviewers, representing a significant portion of the Democratic base that questions Israel’s right to defend itself, were not satisfied with her responses. They continued to press her, asking for a specific policy change to end Israel’s aggression, to which she responded, “we need to get this deal done,” while also mentioning a pause on the 2000 bomb shipments to Israel. The journalists were looking for more than just a one-time pause, but Harris was unable to provide an answer. We have seen an incoherent stance on Israel in the Democratic party, and Harris failed to provide any clarity.

Finally, I want to address Harris’s interview with Oprah called the Unite for America Rally on September 19th. Aside from the second-hand embarrassment I felt while listening to out-of-touch celebrities telling us who to vote for, there were some interesting moments where the audience got to ask Harris questions. One young man concerned about immigration was wondering how Harris planned to strengthen the border. Considering she was put in charge of the border, it would have been nice to learn why she ignored the problem for the majority of her term. Instead, she deflected the entire blame to Trump for supposedly killing the “bipartisan” border bill, and completely forgot to answer the question, leaving Oprah to step in and bail her out. 

In reality, the border bill Harris referred to focused on adding more agents to process additional migrants rather than keeping people out. It also included provisions for continued funding of sanctuary cities that facilitate illegal immigration. The truth is that the Biden-Harris administration had ample time to address border issues during the first three and a half years of their term, but denied that there was a problem until it became a political liability. Even in the absence of a border bill, Biden was able to take executive action this year, which he could have done years before. Not to mention, in May 2023, the House introduced HR 2, known as the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which specifically called for hiring and maintaining an active-duty presence of at least 22,000 full-time border patrol agents who wouldn’t be bogged down by processing duties. Strangely, not a single House Democrat voted to hire these agents, despite Harris and the Democrats claiming they wanted to bolster border security. HR 2 addressed these concerns nearly a year before the bipartisan border bill was even introduced. On top of that, Harris has previously suggested defunding ICE and proposed decriminalizing entering the U.S. illegally. While the Biden-Harris administration claims that border crossing numbers are lowering, they’re still well above what we saw during Trump’s presidency. In the current term, there have been a reported 6.3 million encounters at the Southwest border. For context, during the first six months of 2024 alone, there were over 1 million encounters, surpassing any yearly total under Trump. Harris and the Democrats can avoid taking accountability for their disastrous handling of immigration as much as they want, but I truly believe voters see right through it.   

Kamala Harris has been relying on meaningless rhetoric to make the American people forget about her abysmal record as a politician. As election day approaches, many voters are still left in the dark about her, and the question remains: her “day one” in office has passed, so what is she waiting for? I urge readers who may disagree with me to move beyond superficialities, empty platitudes, and media narratives, critically evaluate the plans our candidates are putting forward, and demand substance over style.

The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.