Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
How do accomplished radicals elect a mediocre far-left presidential candidate?
The task might at first seem impossible.
Kamala Harris is currently a radical incumbent vice president. For more than three years, she was second in command to an unprecedentedly unliked Democrat president, his failed policies, and his unpopular record.
Harris herself had compiled a hard-left trail over her own entire career while loudly boasting indiscreetly to leftist audiences of being proudly “woke” and “radical.”
Most challenging for a Harris candidacy makeover was the long, entrenched Democratic Party’s reluctance to remove a debilitated President Biden from the Democratic ticket.
Why?
Because Harris was deemed such a liability that she had become a Spiro Agnew-like insurance policy for a failing Biden.
Until just recently, Democrats had considered an unpopular and enfeebled Biden nonetheless far preferable to an incoherent, lightweight, and widely ridiculed potential replacement Vice President Harris.
After all, she had never before entered a presidential primary. She never won a single delegate by voting. She failed miserably as a candidate in 2020.
And she co-owns the unpopular record of an even more unpopular president.
The complete Harris makeover requires fifteen radical rules followed to the letter:
- Remake Harris as an entirely fresh happy face. She’s about joy and vibe—which trumps position papers and policy statements. Banish all thoughts that she is an incumbent vice president and co-owns the last four years of the Biden administration.
- Ignore/deny that Harris as vice president could have long ago enacted her new makeover proposal—or could do so right now in the remaining five months of her administration’s tenure. She was the last person out of the room when Biden made those awful decisions.
- For the next 70 days, reinvent Harris as a moderate. Xerox much of Donald Trump’s current more popular agenda. Have Harris claim it as her own. Reboot her as a border hawk, a China hawk, a defense hawk, a budget hawk, and a law-and-order hawk.
- The word salad Harris must not do a single unscripted media interview, live town hall, extemporaneous chat, ambush hot mic, or lecture without a teleprompter.
- Harris must not offer any policy proposals such as her harebrained price controls that deviate from her 70-day new centrist image and teleprompted scripts.
- Do not mention Joe Biden at all. Harris is not to be seen with him in photos or at events. Create a vaguely joyful but completely imaginary, “Harris record.” Separate it from the miserable Biden-Harris administration. Leak that she was unhappy with Biden.
- Call Donald Trump a mobster, criminal, insurrectionist, and dictator nonstop. Never provide any evidence to support such charges. When challenged, double down and let loose with worse invective.
- Talk about abortion nonstop. But never dare mention the word. Relabel abortion “reproductive rights.” Falsely reinvent Donald Trump as a radical anti-abortionist who wants a federal ban.
- Follow the 2020 successful Biden “basement” strategy: keep out of the public eye, silent on the issues, reliant on 70 percent of the ballots not being cast on Election Day, and outsourcing the campaign to the fusion media and billionaire class.
- Harangue about race and gender nonstop. Define the election as a stark binary between a “young” oppressed but dynamic black woman and an old oppressor racist white guy.
- Reinvent the “journey” and life “story” of Kamala Harris—the child of two PhDs—into a hardscrabble, lifelong struggle against poverty, systemic racism, and greedy “billionaires” like Donald Trump. She is always to be from Oakland—never Berkeley.
- Talk about transparency nonstop. Feign a willingness to have three or four debates. But agree to hold only one—and only on a left-wing network. Promise interviews and town halls endlessly. Enter into discussions about them. But always delay, stonewall, and evade for the next 10 weeks.
- Meet privately and endlessly with the megarich donor class that helped to remove Biden. Assure Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley grandees that banter about wealth taxes, taxes on unearned income, and higher corporate taxes are mere campaign posturing. Then outraise Trump again 3-1.
- Privately assure leftist activists and Democrat politicos that any backslidings from supporting lifelong left-wing advocacies are temporary and necessary 70-day pretexts. Instead look at what Harris actually does after November 5, not anything she must say before then.
- Control and modulate the street. Anti-Trump protests are a legitimate “movement” that are “not going to let up. And they should not.” Any violent anti-Trump demonstrator should be bailed out immediately.
All anti-Democrat, anti-Harris demonstrations should be deterred. A large police presence must be proactive with as many arrests as possible, with barriers, and plenty of backup. Protest leaders should be given private concessions and incentives to tone down their people.
I do believe you have channeled them. Did you pick up even the slightest vibe of shame or guilt?
I don’t like that there is so much on the line with this election. However, the contrast between the two candidates is the ultimate test for the American people on the fate of our glorious republic. Harris as Victor points out is a fake in terms of a strong competent intelligent leader vs. Trump who is one of those exceptional rare leaders of our times. Our political leaders of the recent past have been apart of a corrupt government entity where a lot of the government corruption is legal. We can’t go back to politics as usual before Trump. If the American people do vote as Victor often says against their self interest and reward the leftist with a Harris presidency using the tactics he outlined in this article then our constitutional republic, our grand experiment is finished for the foreseeable future.
It is good times right now for the professional painters of lipstick on pigs. But Harris’s surge from joke to joy is indicative of widespread dislike of Trump. I don’t like Trump and wish someone else were the Republican nominee. If ever an election were a choice between two evils this is it. However, Republicans can take some heart in the knowledge that due to the electoral college, conventional wisdom is that the Democrats need to win the popular vote by at least 3 percentage points to win. Harris isn’t there, and at some point the lipstick smears.
Trump evil? Where were you during his first term? He has no filter and can be crass but he enacted great policies and he kept inflation down and the world at peace.
Yes, Trump is proving to be a very poor candidate. He’s unable to effectively counter Kamala. Thanks Republican Party for allowing what will likely be a four year woke Kamala administration. You could’ve nominated Nikki Haley instead, a sure winner.
The choice is clear as between the policies and accomplishments of the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.
This is a binary choice and unique inasmuch as they’ve both been in the White House and the proof of their accomplishments has already been entered into evidence.
I was once in your camp and wished there was anyone but Trump. “Please,” I said to the higher powers, “give us a kinder, gentler moderate, a truly moral individual, one that would appeal to all.” Then I took a hard look at our past “leaders,” both Republican and Democrat and realized how often they failed.” Then I said, “Well most politicians have soaring rhetoric, but fail to keep their promises. Trump’s made so many of them, there’s no way he can keep them, but if he does keep even half, I’ll be okay with voting for him.” Not only did he keep the majority of them, he continued to make more promises, and keep them. Where he did “fail,” as Ann Coulter liked to say with the border (Sorry Ann, I don’t read you anymore.), was because he faced insurmountable odds, and even that was mostly complete by the time he left office.
The media apparatus is insidious. They spoon feed you poison, telling you, you are morally and intellectually deficient if you don’t agree with their narrative.
I believe it’s the first time I’ve seen a politician running for office gravitate to the center so radically prior to an election. More commonly, they seem to move to the center after the election, recognizing that it’s incumbent upon them to represent all people, not just the ones that got them elected to office.
VDH –
Here’s another rule for the radicals…
16. Deceive by presenting liberal Tampon Tim as a midwestern high school football coach who can relate to the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, lunch pail carrying working class to try and capture the center-right and Independent vote. Encourage him to flail his hands and wave to the crowds like a circus clown handing out candy to the kids.
Walz was an unpaid Assistant Coach….in other words, he liked being around young men enough to do it for nothing.
She apparently is appearing here in Pittsburgh Monday with Biden
Can’t wait to see if that happens. Our government has turned into a soap opera, it’s cheap and disgraceful.
Thank you Mr Hanson.. So admire you and proud you live in my neck of the woods. 🇺🇸
It’s a game of pretending to be a vanilla candidate (a non-radical) for 10 weeks — knowing that all of the logic, rhetoric, record, quotes, etc. is irrelevant as long as they stay within the margins of “typical politics.” This is precisely where they want the focus — even if it exposes lies and hypocrisy. They know that stuff is small potatoes, that the real contest will be over ballots, not votes — and the less people talk about that, the better.
You forgot what she said at the DNC convention that five people were shot inside the capitol by the Trump rioters. Maybe she got confused with her rioters. If we had a just media a democrat would never get elected thanks Victor
Thank you for your sharing your wisdom.
Unfortunately too many voters “feel” instead of “think”. They want to believe everything Kamala says because she’s happy and joyful, not mean like the man who gave us 4 years of good economics, border security and kept our enemies in fear of messing with us or our allies. Too many get their news from tiktok and social media and MSM edits the news to favor the Democrats. Real Journalists should be demanding that Harris and Walz give live press conferences where reporters from both sides of the aisle can ask questions. How can these journalists even look at themselves in the mirror?
Rule 17: If anyone says that they can not afford to buy bread, tell them to go eat cake!
The DemoRat machine got stuck with her because they had no one else to ride that had any name recognition at all. Now they have raised $540 MILLION to try and put lipstick on the pig.
The American population public is NOT Stupid. No amount of media manipulation propaganda with manufactured lipstick on the pig will change the reality of who and what she is.
Martin Armstrong has a VERY reliable evaluation of her popularity at TEN PERCENT.
They will simply keep flying folks in to where they can vote. That would be states like MA. I’ve never shown an ID to vote. It will also be the mail in vote that will go on and on. After what we have witnessed and he has endured, hustling the vote will be a snooze fest!
Professor, when comparing her stark contrast btwn radical left VP (mostly rhetoric?) to current neocon/ trumpian policy kamala-appointed by DNC-harris, do consider her VP’s extreme-left persona as merely wider-net capture of voters for the Party w/benefit of doing nothing but talk and cheer. Now she continues to follow DNC policy script (more neocon than maga in its pro-war and pro-oligarchies). Yes, they’ll have her throw in some woke b.s. here and there to appease some voters which will hurt the nation (since neocon war profiteers and oligarchies don’t give much of a damn about this nation) but the bigger blows to this nation’s middle class would continue to be from expensive/debtly foreign wars and oligarchy-captured government agencies (which is literally killing/oppressing us with chronic health diseases, in case anyone hasn’t heard the evidence or looked around.).
Yes, she’s still following the oligarchy-controlled DNC script. And who is the DNC? Same DNC as who chose/handled Biden. The DNC script that is more neocon than maga in its pro-war and pro-oligarchies. Yes, they’ll have her throw in some woke b.s. here and there to appease some voters which will hurt the nation but the bigger blows to this nation’s middle class would continue to be from expensive/debtly foreign wars and oligarchy-captured government agencies, some of which are literally killing/oppressing us with chronic health diseases from our food and medical products, (in case anyone hasn’t heard the evidence or looked around. Listen to Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with the Means’)
VDH,
Last nights Kamala Harris and Tim Walz interview with Dana Bash was a disgrace. The ongoing complicity of the mainstream -on this occasion CNN and Dana Bash -in it’s failure to not only report the truth, but it’s ruthless and uncaring disregard for the American people.
Think about this, the complete take over of three apartment buildings in Colorado, a “sanctuary state” by Venezuelan gang members is going unreported by the mainstream media.
VDH, let’s take the gloves off. Everything the mainstream media does is perfect and they are the best at it, from the way the stall, lie to our face, edit, alter, and take out of context abject truths. The intentional way they start all their shows, the poker faces, great lighting, the guest arranged for maximum effect.
VDH and Jack you guys are big movie buffs.
If this were a movie,
The screen door shuts perfectly, “oh that sound”, the window’s look great, and the shades would be pulled down to just the right spot, some moving a bit when catching a mild burst of wind.
Idyllic. They wouldn’t have it any other way.
Really? Hmmmm. It seems that Husein Obama has instituted all that you say, yet again.
With the $600 million she raised, she can certainly buy a lot of lipstick. She would still be a sow.