There has seldom been a politician more destined for the dustbin of history than Kamala Harris, a person completely devoid of political talent, charisma, morality or conviction. Her and Biden’s legacy is that of broken promises, capitulation to the right-wing, genocide and incompetence. In a just world, a rap sheet like that would send someone to The Hague, or at the very least make them slink off into a life of relative anonymity.
Unfortunately, we now live in an age where people never go away, where there is no scandal too salacious, crime too egregious, or failure too great for people to resign in disgrace, and so we are cursed to still hear from Kamala Harris. To quote Alexei Sayle, “at least when Thatcher fell from power she had the good grace to shuffle off into an alcoholic haze.”
107 Days, Kamala Harris’ memoir about her campaign is not about learning from failure, but an attempt to exculpate her and the democratic party from their colossal failures. This is apparent even in the title of the book, with its focus on her campaign being the shortest in history, a pathetic excuse for her ineptitude and unpopularity.
Obviously, Harris was restricted by the short campaign, but that was a problem partially of her own making due to her and her party’s constant lies about the cognitive health of Joe Biden. It is also laughable to imagine that the only problem with Harris’ campaign was that it was too short; if anything, the less people saw of her, the better. The book is full of such excuses and whitewashes, from her stating that she is a strong trans ally, despite making transgender rights a “states’ rights issue,” to blaming Biden for the failure of her campaign.
Some of these excuses are so lazy that they force one to ask how much Harris truly cared about anything during this period.
Harris does engage in some self-flagellation in the book, acknowledging interview failures and that she should have distanced herself more from Biden, who proved himself to be thoroughly unpopular. Unfortunately, this is something that is quite hard to do when you have been in his government for four years, and don’t have any serious disagreements with any of his policies.
One reason for my anger towards Harris is that she is the apotheosis of the democratic party. She talks about how she didn’t make a good enough case for her policies, and that she should have sold them better, and that is certainly true, but it ignores the key problem is the very policies themselves.
The ideology of the democratic party, that of centre-right status-quoism, is so painfully uninspiring. No one likes it. The status quo is rubbish, things are constantly getting worse, and people are desperate for a change. Running as an establishment candidate was always going to end in disaster, no matter how charismatic you are.
Fascism emerges as capitalism in crisis, and so, without serious change, one will lose to fascism every time. This is not something that the democratic establishment is entirely ignorant of, either; they are also unwilling to change, even if it means losing. This can be seen by their sabotage of Bernie Sanders and attacks on Zohran Mamdani. The democrats do not want to win if it comes at the cost of having to implement universal healthcare, ending forever wars, and solving the housing crisis. And why would they? They are a bourgeois party; doing those things would be contrary to their class interests. They would rather languish in opposition, providing a defence of American “democracy” as effective as a legless man in a foot race, than have themselves or their billionaire donor friends give up even a small fraction of their enormous wealth.
Something that is clear from the book is that Harris is not going away, the release of this memoir and her statement about not running for governor of California suggests that she is gunning for the 2028 presidential nomination. If Harris secures the nomination, one of two things is true: either the party is completely deluded, or they all suffer from a humiliation fetish. In either case, it is clear that the democratic party is dead; it is a blob that seeks to subsume all aspiring left-wing politicians into its bland and failing centrism, and anyone attempting to make real change in America should stay far away from it.
“Kamala Harris” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Kamala Harris’ Book: a Pathetic Defense of a Dreadful Election Campaign
There has seldom been a politician more destined for the dustbin of history than Kamala Harris, a person completely devoid of political talent, charisma, morality or conviction. Her and Biden’s legacy is that of broken promises, capitulation to the right-wing, genocide and incompetence. In a just world, a rap sheet like that would send someone to The Hague, or at the very least make them slink off into a life of relative anonymity.
Unfortunately, we now live in an age where people never go away, where there is no scandal too salacious, crime too egregious, or failure too great for people to resign in disgrace, and so we are cursed to still hear from Kamala Harris. To quote Alexei Sayle, “at least when Thatcher fell from power she had the good grace to shuffle off into an alcoholic haze.”
107 Days, Kamala Harris’ memoir about her campaign is not about learning from failure, but an attempt to exculpate her and the democratic party from their colossal failures. This is apparent even in the title of the book, with its focus on her campaign being the shortest in history, a pathetic excuse for her ineptitude and unpopularity.
Obviously, Harris was restricted by the short campaign, but that was a problem partially of her own making due to her and her party’s constant lies about the cognitive health of Joe Biden. It is also laughable to imagine that the only problem with Harris’ campaign was that it was too short; if anything, the less people saw of her, the better. The book is full of such excuses and whitewashes, from her stating that she is a strong trans ally, despite making transgender rights a “states’ rights issue,” to blaming Biden for the failure of her campaign.
Some of these excuses are so lazy that they force one to ask how much Harris truly cared about anything during this period.
Harris does engage in some self-flagellation in the book, acknowledging interview failures and that she should have distanced herself more from Biden, who proved himself to be thoroughly unpopular. Unfortunately, this is something that is quite hard to do when you have been in his government for four years, and don’t have any serious disagreements with any of his policies.
One reason for my anger towards Harris is that she is the apotheosis of the democratic party. She talks about how she didn’t make a good enough case for her policies, and that she should have sold them better, and that is certainly true, but it ignores the key problem is the very policies themselves.
The ideology of the democratic party, that of centre-right status-quoism, is so painfully uninspiring. No one likes it. The status quo is rubbish, things are constantly getting worse, and people are desperate for a change. Running as an establishment candidate was always going to end in disaster, no matter how charismatic you are.
Fascism emerges as capitalism in crisis, and so, without serious change, one will lose to fascism every time. This is not something that the democratic establishment is entirely ignorant of, either; they are also unwilling to change, even if it means losing. This can be seen by their sabotage of Bernie Sanders and attacks on Zohran Mamdani. The democrats do not want to win if it comes at the cost of having to implement universal healthcare, ending forever wars, and solving the housing crisis. And why would they? They are a bourgeois party; doing those things would be contrary to their class interests. They would rather languish in opposition, providing a defence of American “democracy” as effective as a legless man in a foot race, than have themselves or their billionaire donor friends give up even a small fraction of their enormous wealth.
Something that is clear from the book is that Harris is not going away, the release of this memoir and her statement about not running for governor of California suggests that she is gunning for the 2028 presidential nomination. If Harris secures the nomination, one of two things is true: either the party is completely deluded, or they all suffer from a humiliation fetish. In either case, it is clear that the democratic party is dead; it is a blob that seeks to subsume all aspiring left-wing politicians into its bland and failing centrism, and anyone attempting to make real change in America should stay far away from it.
“Kamala Harris” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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