OPINION:
Sen. Kamala Harris favors higher taxes on businesses, higher taxes on higher-income earners and social justice — that last, a catchall phrase that gives her carte blanche to press progressive policy into every hot button issue of the day, from the environment to coronavirus stimulus disbursements to housing to education.
She’s a far leftist, all right.
But she comes at a time in history when words like “socialism” and “collectivism” don’t carry the same negative connotations they once did, and economic descriptors like “capitalism” and “free market” are sold as code for unfair, unjust, racist even.
That makes her dangerous. So do her many flip-flops of recent months. At first a Bernie Sanders-like believer in “Medicare for All,” Harris, from the presidential campaign trail, later watered and pressed a more hybrid version that didn’t completely kill the private insurance market.
At first a critic of legalized marijuana, Harris, in a 2018 tweet, announced support for Sen. Cory Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act “making marijuana legal at the federal level.”
At first a willing partner with federal immigration and drug enforcement officials, Harris, in 2018, compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.
At first a staunch supporter of the women — the many women — who accused Joe Biden of sexual harassment, saying at a campaign event in 2019 that she “believe[d] them” and “respect[ed] them being about to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” Harris, now, is a staunch supporter of Joe Biden. It’s #MeToo, with a twist.
Would the real Kamala Harris please stand up?
Harris, like many politicians — from both parties, too — is undoubtedly opportunistic and ambitious. But it’s her combined unprincipled far leftist views that set her apart from the average political bear.
If Biden is the candidate who can’t put together a coherent sentence, Harris is the pit bull prosecutor who will stop at nothing to take advantage of his weakness to steamroll her progressive-to-the-point-of-socialist policies into the White House. She’s a social justice warrior who’s just been handed, via the VP ticket, one of the largest, most influential platforms America has to offer.
“Let’s speak the truth,” she told Cosmopolitan in June. “People are protesting because Black people have been treated as less than human in America. Because our country has never fully addressed the system racism that has plagued our country since its earliest days.”
“Student loan relief for Pell Grant recipients is just one component of our plan to reduce the opportunity gap for Black entrepreneurs,” she wrote on Twitter in July, 2019.
It’s a world view that promotes victimhood, not personal accountability. And frankly, that’s not American.
Social justice, racial justice, criminal justice reform — these are action calls that have been commonly used by leftists to further the designs of Big Government while circumventing the limits of the Constitution. Think about it. If the case can be made that the primary reason Blacks, say, end up in jail is because of unfair policing rather than personal choice, well then, the whole criminal justice system becomes cause for suspicion. It becomes incumbent on government to make it fair. So, too, with housing, with education, with access to clean air and clear water, with job opportunities, with health care — if these are all seen as matters that are unequally doled and distributed to some, at the expense and unfair labors of others, then once again, it’s Big Government to the rescue.
It’s Big Government who must step in and serve as the social justice reformer.
That’s Kamala Harris, in a nutshell.
Her flip-flops are problematic. It’s her political focus on pretend and fabricated disparities that makes her a real threat to America, though.
America’s founding and governing documents aren’t inherently racist, inherently unjust; rather, they open up opportunities for all to shine, based on individual drive, motivation, persistence and determination.
But Harris doesn’t represent the Constitution, the concept of limited government or the idea of individual over collective rights. And she’ll use her soft and squishy social justice phraseology to fundamentally change the shape of America so that citizens’ rights mean only what the government decides, allows and bestows.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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