When Kamala Harris first jumped into the 2024 competition, the pleasure was apparent.
Every key Democrat darted to enjoy. The tradition internet uncorked the Champagne. Rank-and-file Democratic electors had a cheer in their move. After all, the Democrat Party had accomplished an exceptional feat: They had rigged the Democratic primary to avoid any major opposition to the ailing president Joe Biden and handed it to Biden’s younger, more varied vice president without a second vote.
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What could go bad?
The idea was simple: The issue with Biden’s strategy was Biden. It was n’t the issues. It was n’t Americans ‘ view of the country more broadly. It was just the stumbling aged person talking mushmouth while dodging the stage. Throw him out of his sorrow like Old Yeller, the idea went, and Democrats had put literally , people and beat the much-despised Donald Trump.
For a few days, it seemed they might be ideal.
Harris soared in the polls, immediately, where Trump had led by anywhere between three and five factors nationwide, she was away by a similar ratio. In the bounce says, where Biden had fallen way behind, Harris had rushed to little but tangible leads.
The Kamalamentum was genuine.
And then, abruptly, it faded away.
What happened?
The answer is simple: The British citizens realized that Kamala Harris is, after all, Kamala Harris. She’s also the awkward, clear, incomprehensible disaster she was when she ran for president in 2019. She does n’t know how to answer basic questions about her own policies, worse, she does n’t even know her own policies. When asked anything beyond the utterly simplistic, she begins to frank out like Quaid’s fat woman fit in” Total Understand.” Her phrases resemble MC Escher illusions: linguistic staircases that ought to fly to a predetermined point, but rather, defying the laws of purpose, curve up on themselves to stop where they began. Only the incredibly artificial enthusiasm with which she utters her facile slogans can match their vacuity in terms of their scale. All the off-putting tics– the strange laughter, the peculiar hand motions, the oral smugness as she recites completely obvious tautologies– they’ve all reappeared with a vengeance.
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In short, she’s terrible.
And she was always terrible.
Biden himself was concerned about this reality. There was a reason why Harris left the race for president in 2020 earlier than any other significant candidate. She was the most unpopular vice president in modern American history for a reason.
And there’s a reason she’s collapsing now.
And so she’s left with one strategy: bribery. She’s pledging new goodies, day after day, directed at specific voter blocs. This week, after deploying Barack Obama to lecture young Black men did n’t jog her support levels, she proposed a bevy of obviously unconstitutional giveaways, including a million loans of$ 20, 000 for Black entrepreneurs,  , fully forgivable.  , This followed her pledge to hand a$ 25, 000 homebuyer grant to first-time homebuyers, with heavier grants to “first-generation homeowners”– a giveaway again specifically targeted at minority audiences.
This is unlikely to work. After all, big promises rarely materialize in big results. She would need Congressional support to accomplish any of this, and, as she made it clear to CBS News ‘ Bill Whitaker, she literally has no idea what to do if Congress rejects.
And so Kamala Harris is learning. The joy is gone. The sugar rush has dissipated. Kamala, it turns out, is still Kamala. And that is bad news for a Democratic Party that had hoped to advance unburdened by what has happened.
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