By Grace Vuoto
On Tuesday evening, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivered a speech on The Ellipse in Washington DC, as a means of closing the campaign in the final week. Ironically, it seemed more like another beginning rather than an effective endgame. She stated that despite serving as vice president during the Biden administration, many voters do not know her yet. At the 11th hour, she is introducing herself…again.
Why do voters not know who she is? Why do they not know exactly what she will do? Why do they not even clearly know what she did during the last few years, alongside President Joe Biden?
There are still so many unanswered questions one week before Election Day. Her campaign in effect declared before approximately 75,0000 in attendance, and those who watched on television, that it has failed dismally: the basic facts about the candidate vying for the highest office in the land are not yet widely known.
The problem with Harris is that apart from a few biographical snippets about her so-called underprivileged upbringing, she mostly defines herself as an alternative to Republican nominee Donald Trump. She does not compete as a worthy candidate in her own right. The central argument of her campaign is that she is not him.
On Tuesday evening, she stoked more fear and dread of Trump. The venue was selected to remind viewers of where he stood on January 6, 2021, before the Capitol was breached. She stated that it is time for the nation to “turn the page” from the chaos and division he causes.
During the speech, she also abandoned her progressive record and suddenly reinvented herself as a pragmatist. She pledged to work with Republicans, if necessary, to find “common-sense solutions.” She vowed to be a president “for all Americans” and to give even those who disagree with her a “seat at the table.” She declared her presidency would differ from that of Biden’s too, mostly because the circumstances the nation faces have changed.
All of it remains vague, flowery, lacking in substance and in the large shadow of him, the Grand Destroyer of All Good Things. In her view, Trump is an Imminent Threat to Democracy Itself. It is a hysterical argument, not rooted in reality. Even if Trump truly wanted to be a dictator, he could not overtake our system of checks and balances, dispersed powers, local and state rights and millions of gun owners who would resist tyranny. These forces would make erecting a dictatorship here extremely difficult. Harris needs her running mate, Tim Walz, a former teacher, to give her a civics lesson.
Moreover, it is astonishing that for a progressive female such as Harris, steeped in left-wing ideology, nimble in the woke social circles of California, she has now committed the most glaring and objectionable faux pas of all: she defines herself almost exclusively in reference to a man.
For decades, feminists have taught women to stand on their own two feet, not to put themselves in an identity box created by their family or a man. We are not to be known simply as the wife of John, the mother of Sally and Billy, the daughter of Joe and Mary, for example: we are unique, strong and capable. Right? Well, Harris is “not Joe Biden” and “not Donald Trump,” as she has said in interviews. The “patriarchy” invades every one of her thoughts.
When Harris speaks without a speech crafted for her by others, she fades away. She does not come sharper into view as woman full of accomplishments and convictions. Instead, she vanishes into the background, mumbles incoherently, loses her focus and talks with rehearsed platitudes stitched together by her team. There she is, channeling former President Barack Obama’s stirring rhetoric in that sentence. There she is, bashing Donald Trump in that sentence, like Biden has. There she is, echoing the talking points of the Democratic Party, in that moment. Harris disappears through the words she utters, while the voices of others emerge.
Is she likable or dislikable? Who cares?
Donald Trump might be either extremely likable for some or totally detestable for others, but Americans know who he is, what he stands for, what he has done and what he will do if reelected.
Instead, Harris should read Feminist Ideology 101. If you want others to think you are strong, capable and worthy of their vote, you have to be strong, capable and worthy of each vote. You have to define yourself in your own right, not by contrast to a man.
This is the main reason she has lost ground in areas Democrats have previously been effective: Black men, Latino men, and lack of endorsements by The Teamsters Union, The International Association of Firefighters and The Arab American PAC. In addition, Harris has not won endorsements by liberal bastions of opinion such as The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. Key factions within the Democratic base are starkly stating that she is just not that convincing.
So, as a final, bold election maneuver, on Tuesday night, Harris stood on The Ellipse, as Trump did in 2021, and boldly declared that he is a threat to the future of America. And again, all we hear is Trump, all we remember is Trump, all we discuss next is Trump.
-Grace Vuoto, Ph.D. is a political commentator and columnist. She can be heard Wednesday mornings at 9:00 am on The Kuhner Report WRKO-AM 680.
-Photo courtesy of Andrew Harnik of Getty Images