OPINION:
Democrats are fond of slandering political rivals as enemies of our system of government. Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the worst offenders in this respect, asserting in a stump speech earlier this month that “Donald Trump wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship.”
That’s a bold statement from someone who has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination without receiving a single vote in a free and fair primary election. At her campaign kickoff event this past Tuesday, the presumptive nominee described her run for the highest office not as the culmination of a lifelong lust for power, but as “a choice between freedom and chaos.”
The authoritarian streak emerged during her aborted 2020 run for president, in which she articulated a vision of top-down power concentrated in Washington, freed from quaint concerns about the separation of powers.
Even Joe Biden noticed. At a 2019 CNN town hall, then-Sen. Harris called for a massive gun control plan to be implemented by executive fiat. Mr. Biden told Ms. Harris, “You have no constitutional authority to issue that executive order — the ones they’re talking about.”
In an ABC News debate, Ms. Harris shot back on the stage, “Hey, Joe, instead of saying ‘No, we can’t,’ let’s say ‘Yes, we can,’” before bursting into laughter.
While most of the 2020 Democratic primary field advocated “Medicare for All,” Ms. Harris called for outlawing private health insurance plans. She also said, “There’s no question, I’m in favor of banning fracking” — infringing on property rights and state sovereignty.
In the twilight of her first presidential foray, Ms. Harris sponsored the Do No Harm Act, with the goal of watering down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a way that would coerce Americans to act contrary to their religious beliefs.
She’s also not a fan of the other First Amendment privilege: free speech. She called on Twitter to censor the 2020 GOP candidate, taking away then-President Donald Trump’s ability to address the public directly.
Ms. Harris has even found a way to crack down on speech related to abortion — even though she otherwise advocates access to abortion without any government restriction whatsoever. While serving as California’s attorney general, she “co-sponsored” (her word) the state’s Reproductive FACT Act, a law that forced pro-life clinics to provide information about getting abortions.
In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, the Supreme Court found this law violated the First Amendment, one of many instances in which Ms. Harris finds herself on the wrong side of history.
While vying for the presidential nomination, Ms. Harris also floated a proposal to give the Justice Department veto power over any state abortion restrictions, an unworkable plan in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Armed with executive power, however, a President Harris might follow the example set by President Biden with student loans, using federal power to promote abortion in open defiance of the Supreme Court.
Despite her record, Ms. Harris will continue to insist Mr. Trump is the “threat to democracy.” This is her projecting her own flaws on others. The policies she champions would accelerate the current administration’s destruction of norms and the assault on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
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