Kamala Harris is not a woman of her word — hasn’t stuck to any leftie position since 2019.
THE UNITED STATES CAN”T AFFORD BACK-TO-BACK RADICALS!
Conservatives were shortsighted about Harris and Biden
Kamala The Chameleon (youtube.com)
Voters are about to learn that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is far more progressive than President Joe Biden. That’s not even all of the bad news.
Conservatives played a large role in helping to push aside Biden and to clear the way for Harris’ promotion.
In a great example of “be careful what you wish for,” Harris is as progressive as Republicans portrayed Biden to be. That is great for leftists, but awful for conservatives. And it will really test the beliefs of moderates. I admit that I did not see Harris’ candidacy and potential presidency coming. A lot of conservatives didn’t. I realize now how stupid and shortsighted that sounds.
Let me explain: Democrats have savagely ripped Donald Trump for eight years and the Republican Party for decades. That’s a long time to catch flak. When Biden took a turn for the worse, he became an obvious target for criticism. Not the 81-year-old commander in chief himself exactly, but the Democratic leadership who denied reality while backing a leader who clearly wasn’t fit to serve another four years.
It was an egregious error that needed to be pointed out.
The commentary almost wrote itself: How could Democrats have been so deceitful?
Were they gaslighting Americans? The questions were important. And a bit of relief from the constant flogging Republicans have taken in the media for years.
Finally, there’s a new target.
And it’s not us.
I didn’t think the Democratic Party would pivot and choose Harris. I also didn’t think Harris would be a compelling candidate. Who would vote for a candidate who is so progressive and who ascended to the top of the ticket without winning a primary? But I’m certainly not her target audience.
I didn’t see that the Democratic Party would do what it did: Kick Biden to the curb only months before the election. What did conservatives think we would achieve by forcing Democrats to finally scrutinize Biden? I think some of us thought that focus would lead all the way to victory. But our “gotcha” moment was short-lived.
Many Republicans, including me, did not think the Democratic Party would dump Biden and choose Harris because the GOP did not let Trump go when it could have. MAGA populists outnumber anti-Trump conservatives like me. So it wasn’t even really a question. But if it had been possible, it’s not something the Republican Party would do.
Republicans are often not as strategic or shrewd as progressives.
Voters deserve the truth from Harris:
What did Kamala Harris know about Biden’s deteriorating health?
And when did she know it?
One reason the Democratic Party is successful is because they have chutzpah where Republicans do not. They are ruthless where Republicans are loyal and forgiving. They are focused when Republicans hem and haw. They want victory now, not “legacy” later.
Victories lead to legacies, after all.
You know what might not lead to victory? Pitting an older, white male who is a convicted felon against a younger, energetic, progressive Black and South Asian female. Republicans called Biden a far-left liberal. Harris actually is.
Conservatives have made Biden out to be a far-left progressive who was too old and weak to serve effectively. Some of that is true, but he really isn’t a far-left liberal. Conservatives slammed his tax policies, his college loan forgiveness program and his “Build Back Better” program as utter failures. But compared with Harris, Biden’s policies will look moderate.
Harris appeals to Democrats who favor leftist rhetoric regarding inclusion and equality and progressive policies such as eliminating private health insurance, imposing mandatory gun buyback programs, banning hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas, and opposing the hiring of more police officers.
For conservatives, her sudden candidacy provides a chance to take a deep dive into her record, her ideas and her policies. It’s with her own ideas that we can show moderates and independents that a Harris presidency would decrease the quality of life for most Americans.
Harris stands in stark contrast to conservative ideas and values. And her candidacy forces us to ask what a Harris presidency would mean for the future of our nation. Harris versus Trump provides a clarifying moment for America: Which direction do we really want to go?
I complained about Biden, but I can tell you now, a Kamala Harris presidency would make the past four years look like a Republican has been in charge.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As a Republican, I bashed Biden. But Harris’ far-left ideas scare me even more.
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Inside the Harris campaign’s plan to continue President Biden’s economic progress.
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A Vote for Harris will bring the whole left agenda 🖕
WASHINGTON — A Kamala Harris presidency could have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. healthcare system, from abortion rights to insurance coverage to drug pricing, according to policy experts and former advisers to the vice president.
For starters, Harris is expected to focus heavily on protecting abortion access, an issue she has been fluent at using against Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
“She will attack them repeatedly and mercilessly on reproductive rights,” said Drew Altman, the president and CEO of KFF, a nonpartisan research group. “I think it’s been a winning card for her so far, and I would expect to see her dial that up tremendously.”
Andy Slavitt, a top healthcare official in the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations who has informally advised Harris, said she has an advantage on abortion, an issue that resonates with voters.
“It’s awkward for President Biden to talk about it,” Slavitt said. “But I think she knows how to talk about it in ways that people relate to.”
As vice president, Harris’s goal has been to advance and promote Biden’s agenda. But if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination — as she’s currently favored to — Harris would be free to cast her own vision to remake the health care system. And her record and 2020 presidential campaign provide some clues about how she would govern.
Her campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment as the Harris campaign is in its early stages. But her record and 2020 presidential campaign provide some clues about how she would govern.
“We can expect her to try to build on the Biden legacy of expanding coverage,” Sabrina Corlette, a health policy expert and professor at Georgetown University. “And she’s going to have to do something to bring down costs.”
Corlette predicted Harris would look to protect the Affordable Care Act and extend the enhanced subsidies designed to lower costs, which are currently set to expire at the end of 2025. She’d also likely work with Congress to try and extend Medicaid coverage in the 10 states that haven’t expanded it under the Affordable Care Act.
And she could carry on Biden’s attempts to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing benefits for seniors. It’s still early for even close allies to know how Harris will seek to balance embracing Biden’s approach with carving out her own. “I have no idea,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a powerful figure within the party, though he added that the Obama-Biden health care legacy would be in good hands with her. “She’s a part of it,” Clyburn said.
Beyond that, Harris showed more liberal instincts on health care in her 2020 campaign than Biden did, which could be a factor. “She may be more willing to take on some of the sacred cows in health care than the Biden administration was,” Corlette said. “She obviously signed onto Medicare for All. She also supported public option proposals in the Senate.
You could see more backing of a government-supported plan option for people, which could have the power to bring down the costs of insurance.” Harris signed onto the Medicare For All Act of 2019, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a few months into her presidential bid.
The bill sought to expand Medicare to cover all Americans and effectively end private insurance. It divided the Democratic Party — progressives embraced it, but moderates, including Biden, feared it went too far by effectively eliminating private coverage. The issue tripped up Harris when she was quizzed on the bill’s impact on the private insurance most Americans have.
She later offered her own health care bill that leaned on Medicare Advantage to preserve a role for private coverage. At the time, the episode raised questions among Democratic elites and voters about where she stood ideologically. Harris ended her campaign later that year and by the time Biden chose her to be vice president, she embraced his proposals.
“I don’t think she’s a disrupter. I don’t think she’s going to be pushing for some big, radical change,” Slavitt said. “People will talk about how she signed on to Bernie’s bill. A lot of people signed on to Bernie’s bill for a variety of reasons. Some say the ideal is universal coverage. … Some because they believe in it literally. … I read her as being more pragmatic.”
Altman added that in this campaign, Democrats are highly unlikely to revive Medicare for All “because of their fear of Trump.” Republicans are combing through Harris’ past statements on health care and looking for material to use against her.
A GOP strategist noted that in a June 2019 debate, Harris was among 10 Democratic candidates who raised their hand when asked if the U.S. should insure undocumented immigrants. Harris didn’t discuss it, but others on stage argued that it was humane and fiscally wise to ensure broad coverage so people are less reliant on expensive emergency care when they get sick.
On the campaign trail, Altman expects that Harris will continue to promote existing initiatives from the Biden administration, particularly the ongoing rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Among the provisions is a $35 per month cap on the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for seniors on Medicare, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Starting next year, the law will also impose a $2,000 out-of-pocket spending cap on prescription drugs for people on Medicare. It also allows the federal government — for the first time — to negotiate prices for drugs that Medicare spends the most money on, a long sought-after goal by Democrats and some Republicans.
The government is currently negotiating with drugmakers on the 10 costliest drugs under Medicare, which include popular heart medications and diabetes drugs. The new prices are expected to be published by September and go into effect in 2026.
A KFF poll published in May found that more independent voters trusted Biden over Trump when it came to many areas of health care, including health care costs. Harris will be seeking to carry that years-long Democratic advantage.
Altman said he expects Harris to lean into protecting Medicare and Medicaid, while highlighting GOP proposals that would partially privatize or cut those health care programs for elderly and lower-income Americans, respectively, a tactic Democrats have used against Republicans for years.
Those GOP proposals include some recommendations in “Project 2025,” a sweeping collection of right-wing ideas to transform the U.S. government. Though it was written by former Trump officials in anticipation of a second term, Trump has said he knows “nothing” about it.
“I also suspect she will be the first to bring Medicaid into the picture,” he said, “arguing that the various Republican groups from [Project] 2025 to the Republican Study Committee are proposing to eviscerate the Medicaid program by capping and cutting it.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
VP Harris is pushing forward with progressive economic policies, but the new jobs report could cast a shadow over her campaign’s goals. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld joins The Weekend to break down what could be in store for a future Harris economy.
What would a Harris Administration Mean to America – Search Videos (bing.com)
What Harris’s career has made clear is that she’s more likely to pursue incremental progress than big, ambitious ideas. That’s why if elected, it’s likely that her administration would simply be an extension of the current one rather than a disruption.
On the campaign trail this week, several priorities have come into focus, with the economy and affordability still at the top of the list. Harris continues to talk about prioritizing the middle class, just as Biden did: “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said at her first major campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
“When our middle class is strong, America is strong.”
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To support that swath of Americans, improving the care economy — those services that focus on children and the elderly — could be one of the major policy areas she may come to prioritize.
She would zero in on a straightforward policy agenda, said Carmel Martin, who served as the vice president’s domestic policy adviser from 2022 to 2023: a focus on “economic progress while bringing down inflation, expanding access to services that people need — health care being at the front of the line — and protecting reproductive rights.”
Harris has already shown signs of this focus, saying in a campaign address on Monday that she believes “in a future where no child has to grow up in poverty; where every person can buy a home, start a family, and build wealth; and where every person has access to paid family leave and affordable child care.” All of these stances are essentially what Biden has pitched before.
The fact that Harris has shown she’s not a hardened ideologue means that she can be swayed by political headwinds, giving social movements an opportunity to push various agendas.
Some of the country’s most transformational legislation, for example, didn’t come directly from presidents who were ideological hardliners, but rather from presidents who were willing to listen to social movements and public sentiment — as was the case during the Civil Rights Era.
Will Harris help or hurt the Democrats’ chances in November?
Usually, by the time a presidential candidate makes it to the general election after a grueling primary campaign, their policy priorities and ideology are relatively clear. Barack Obama, for example, offered a vision for a post-George W. Bush America — promising to end the US “forever” wars, address economic inequality, and unite the country around the common desire for hope and change.
Kamala The Chameleon (youtube.com)
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In 2020, Biden was largely viewed as a centrist who campaigned on defending democracy and a return to normalcy after the rise of Trumpism and the devastating effects of a pandemic, specifically touting his vested interest in pursuing bipartisanship.
Harris, however, is starting a campaign essentially from scratch, without having gone through a primary process. As a result, voters haven’t been properly introduced to her as a candidate for the presidency.
Her lack of a clearly defined ideological position up to this point in her career might now prove an asset: She has a unique opportunity to reintroduce herself to the country and offer a new vision for the future.
What Harris does over the next few weeks will help to shape voters’ opinions of her. That doesn’t mean she can entirely evade her past — her record as a prosecutor will likely keep coming up — or that she won’t be haunted by past policy positions. For now, though, she’s likely to focus on Trump’s baggage and the danger he poses to democracy. READ MORE: What would a Kamala Harris presidency look like? – Vox
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