Vice President Kamala Harris is failing, and Democrats are getting desperate to salvage their heir-apparent to the throne before her collapse is irretrievable.
A recent Suffolk University poll showed that only 28% of Americans approve of the job Harris is doing. No vice president in polling history has ever polled so low.
Harris has been whining about being underutilized, but given her nearly non-existent job skills, what else could Biden do? In truth, Harris has mostly refused the jobs Biden has given her. She flatly declined the setup to make her the fall person for the border crisis. Instead of taking the blame, she reinvented the job to make it about regional security.
Biden has been very careful to give her high-profile exposure, like her recent trip to France. They didn’t let her anywhere near a negotiating table, of course, but she looked great doing the grip and grin with President Macron.
Related: White House Scrambles to Defend Kamala’s Honor
Even though it’s Joe Biden and his allies who are downsizing the vice president’s position, White House press secretary Jen Psaki is blaming those evil right-wingers for undermining Harris — just because she’s nonwhite and a woman.
“I do think that it has been easier and harsher from some in the right-wing who have gone after her because she is the first woman, the first woman of color. I’m not suggesting anyone will acknowledge that publicly,” Psaki said during an appearance on Politico’s “Women Rule” podcast Wednesday.
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“I mean, so many firsts, right? It’s a lot to have on your shoulders,” Psaki said. “She is somebody who, at a much higher level than the rest of us, but who wants to be seen as the talented, experienced, you know, expert, substantive policy person, partner to the president, that she is. But I do think there have been some attacks that are beyond because of her identity.”
Whenever Democrats play the race and gender card with Harris, it’s good to remember former Secretary of State Condi Rice and how she rarely responded to questions about her gender or race, believing them to be insulting.
“Neither Powell nor Rice consciously allowed their racial identity to substantially influence or characterize their participation in the defense and projection of U.S. hegemony, Clarence Lusane argues in his book, Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century.
Is it too much to ask that Harris rise to that level of statesmanship?
Apparently, yes.
Harris’s apologists like to insist that she is as unpopular as she is because she’s a non-white woman. But this explanation gets the cause of the disapproval backwards. Kamala Harris isn’t disliked because she’s a non-white woman; Kamala Harris was chosen as vice president because she’s a non-white woman, and she’s disliked because she has nothing to recommend her beyond those facts. In the highest of high dudgeon, her defenders will propose that this is Joe Biden’s fault, for not “using” Harris correctly in her role. But this too is unjust. In truth, there is no good way to “use” Kamala Harris, because Kamala Harris is a talentless mediocrity whose only political flair is for making things worse than they were before she arrived.
A recent CNN story claimed that Biden’s White House is fed up with Harris and her “entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus.” Harris allies struck back hard.
Best-selling author Don Winslow called the story “racist and misogynistic,” while former Democratic congressional nominee Pam Keith said, “The reason Kamala Harris is being attacked is because she is a Black woman in high office… and many many people who would swear they aren’t racist or sexist, can only cope with and accept Black women, if they are in subordinate roles.”
The question is, do Harris’ allies really believe that nonsense? Or do they know that she’s vulnerable on so many different levels that she doesn’t have a prayer if she runs for president?
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