Kamala Harris Can’t Hide Her Progressive Loyalties

• Kamala Harris promoted hard-left political policies during her 2020 presidential run

• She also introduced radical legislation during her time in the Senate

• Despite forcing to moderate on certain issues for her current presidential run, she is still doubling down on her progressive instincts

The story

Four years ago, Kamala Harris ran for President of the United States on a strong progressive platform. She backed a modified version of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Medicare for All plan and supported the Green New Deal with a net-zero emissions target by 2045.

Her criminal justice reform proposals included ending private prisons, cash bail, and mandatory minimum sentences, all of which are policy prescriptions only seen on the fringes of the Democratic Party.

Harris pushed for reinstating DACA and creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal migrants, while her gun control measures threatened Americans’ Second Amendment rights, including wanting to ban “assault weapons,” even laughing in Joe Biden’s face when he contended that such a move would be unconstitutional.

She drastically ran to the left in the 2020 primaries and had nearly nothing to show for it, dropping out with only low single-digit support. Now that she has inherited the Democratic nomination from the relatively moderate President Biden, she has begun moderating some of her positions to appeal to the more centrist voters in key swing states that will determine the election.

However, with her nomination of progressive Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) and with her long history of hard-left policy proposals, Harris seems comfortable approaching the election from a more leftist orientation. She is following her progressive instincts, regardless of whether that is the strongest political move, because she lacks both the experience and the desire to run as a moderate.

The politics

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) made the case for Kamala Harris’ radicalism in The American Conservative. Tuberville asserts that Harris will transform the United States into the far-left California in which she served as Attorney General. “More mass death tolls from fentanyl, more mass human trafficking numbers, and more mass crime” are what awaits America if Harris is elected president, according to the Alabama senator.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) likewise attacked Harris for being too radical for the American people, claiming she wants to “take away your health insurance on the job” to give to illegal migrants, also claiming Harris “wants to decriminalize” illegal migration into the US. He also pointed out her other extreme positions of being “a radical trans activist” and “wanting to ban cows” and ban “oil and gas production.”

Many conservatives believe that today's Kamala Harris is no different from the Kamala Harris of 2020 and earlier, despite any attempts she makes to appear more moderate.

On the left, many are acknowledging that Harris’ previous positions will, at the very least, come back to haunt her in this election cycle, if not pose a major problem. For instance, Kamala Harris used to espouse the more radical notion of wanting to ban fracking, though her campaign now backtracked on this position. Even Democrats acknowledge that it comes off as a calculated political move rather than a sincere change of heart.

Beyond the headlines

The Harris 2020 campaign offered some truly fringe policy ideas like ending cash bail and court-ordered fines, all of which were part of her plan to “transform the criminal justice system.”

While cash bail “disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color,” according to a memo released by her 2020 campaign, eliminating it would lead to hundreds of thousands of criminals being released back onto the streets, posing significant public safety problems.

In the same year that Kamala Harris' team released their memo, California voters rejected Prop 25, which aimed to uphold a 2018 state law that repealed cash bail. Even in Harris' heavily Democratic state, voters considered the policy too extreme.

During the height of the George Floyd protests, Kamala Harris backed the Los Angeles mayor’s decision to slash $150 million from the police department’s budget: “I support investing in communities … I applaud Mayor Garcetti for doing what he’s done.” She also cheered on the riots amid bipartisan calls for them to cease, saying the rioters “are not going to stop, so everyone beware. They’re not going to let up… nor should they.”

Around the same time as the riots, Harris promoted the notion that society’s goal should be to aim for “equity” instead of the traditional American ideal of “equality.” She remarked that “equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.” Such an idea is far closer to Karl Marx's orthodoxies than anything in the history and tradition of the United States. Prioritizing equity in public policy has the potential to lead to such policies as, for example, distributing vaccines based on race, not medical necessity.

Her record in the Senate further exposes her hard-left loyalties. She introduced a bill to force DEI hiring at the Federal Reserve, the “Climate Equity Act of 2020,” which would require an analysis of the racial climate impact for every new piece of legislation, and the “RELIEF Act,” which essentially legalizes squatting for renters who are up to 18 months late on paying rent.

Much of the media is allowing Kamala Harris to get away with flipping her positions on a time, suggesting that she is just “calibrating” her stances amid attacks from Donald Trump and conservatives.

Why it matters

Kamala Harris’ history of hard-left policy positions, and particularly her selection of Tim Walz to run alongside her, reveals her true political nature, contrary to her newfound moderation. Though her record reflects her radical views, one defense she can use is her prior career as a prosecutor.

An open letter signed by over 150 members of criminal justice reform groups urged Harris to use softer and less stigmatizing words like “criminal” and “felon” to describe Donald Trump. Those who are to the left of Kamala Harris view her history as a public prosecutor troubling, even as most Americans view such a role favorably.

However, as her 2020 run proved, even her time spent putting criminals behind bars will probably not be enough to convince moderate voters that she is one of them. Since Harris has committed to running her presidential campaign as a progressive, she now faces the challenge of convincing the American people that Trump, not her, is the real outlier.