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I haven’t been this excited about a Democratic candidate for president since 2008, when I was 20 years old and completely devoted to Barack Obama. That excitement had faded by his second term, as the limits of his liberalism became clear over time. Since then, I’ve moved to the left, and I’ve come to think of voting as an obligation rather than an excitement. After Senator Bernie Sanders lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016, I knew I had no choice but to hold my nose and vote for a Democrat. Four years later I did so again, for Joe Biden. Though I’m bracing myself for the same tedious exercise this year, I now have a request for the party. Don’t give me a vote for the 81-year-old who couldn’t answer a basic question about abortion last week. Give me Kamala Harris instead.
If Sanders were a decade younger, I would be writing a different article, but he isn’t, and besides, he has a significant presence in the Senate. We really have little choice. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is an impressive politician with a bright national future, even if she will never be the great hope of the American left. But she lacks name recognition outside her home state, and she has never won a national race. The same shortcomings apply largely to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. So, Harris’s case is partly diagnostic. She is familiar. She can claim Democratic legitimacy, since she has served on a ticket that defeated Donald Trump before. A new CNN poll even shows her “within hitting distance” of the former president,
Thursday’s debate was clear. Biden’s time in power is coming to an end, no matter what his family or those close to him think. Americans need a viable alternative to Trump and his dismal vision for the country. The case for Harris is not just clinical, but moral and material. A second Trump administration could destabilize the country, impoverish the working class, and strip away the rights of women and LGBT people. If Democrats are serious about protecting marginalized groups or carrying on his economic legacy, they must admit the obvious: Biden cannot win. Now is Harris’ time.
Four years ago, I couldn’t even imagine making this argument. Harris wasn’t my first or even second choice in 2020. She was a former prosecutor, she was prone to making mistakes, and her policies were technocratic to the point of absurdity. (Consider her pledge to forgive “student-loan debt for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that lasts three years in disadvantaged communities.”) She supported Sanders’ Medicare for All plan until he did, part of a broader shift from the left to the center. Of course, that strategy didn’t work. It made her a cipher, an unattractive contrast to Sanders’ religious faith or Senator Elizabeth Warren’s progressive idiocy. Online, the so-called Khiva vehemently abused her critics; offline, her donations dried up, and she dropped out of the primary election before voting began. The presidency seemed far away — until Biden chose her as his running mate.
For those on the left, voting is a compromise. The candidates we choose will not always live up to our ideals, even if they call themselves socialists. A broken political system tends to entrench them as soon as they win. Biden was not Sanders; I never thought he would overthrow the establishment that served so long. But the Biden-Harris administration exceeded my expectations in some respects. Biden has fulfilled most of his pro-labor promises, and the prospect of a GOP-controlled National Labor Relations Board should worry any union member or supporter. I want a strong labor movement that can engage as many Americans as possible, and while that prospect is not entirely, or perhaps even mostly, dependent on the Democratic Party, I would still prefer Biden’s vice president to Trump’s. I have no reason to think she would be weaker on labor than Biden. I also believe she would embrace Biden’s broadly progressive economic policies. (They’re not perfect, but they’re far better than the help we’re getting from President Trump.) The administration hasn’t done everything it could to forgive the nation’s student-loan debt, but Harris’s old Pell Grant plan still seems unthinkable now that the conversation has completely changed. Moreover, a vote for her is a vote for an administrative state that prioritizes some version of economic progress over tax cuts for the rich.
I am also driven by deep anger: at Biden, at his advisers, even at his family, who have reportedly urged him to stay in the race. To a degree, I empathize with the humiliation he feels after Thursday’s debate. But he is the president, not my relative or my friend, and it is not my job as a voter, let alone a journalist, to pamper him. If he is not willing to debate against Trump, I think it is unlikely that he will be ready for the presidency, which is one of the most difficult roles a person can possibly have. Biden’s aides have isolated him from most contact with the press or the public; it is hard to trust him or them when the party agonizes over his fitness. We all know what we saw on Thursday, and it is not “bed-wetting,” as one DNC email suggested, to be concerned. The implicit argument — that the Biden we saw last week is somehow better than Harris — insults not just Harris but the intelligence of the average voter.
If this election is truly an emergency, as the Democratic Party insists, it cannot pin its hopes on Biden. It needs a steady hand, and I believe Harris is the best choice. It’s a shame that this is how we may get our first female president, though representation has never been at the top of my political goals. I still want Medicare for all, and free public college, and student-loan forgiveness for all. I want a president whose foreign policy isn’t soaked in innocent blood. I want someone who knows codification Roe deer V Wade It’s not good enough. But if I can’t get what I want this year, I’d rather settle for Harris.
