New Yorker magazine said Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ plans to run as a “generic” candidate with zero policy details on her website or...
New Yorker magazine said Vice President Kamala Harris‘ plans to run as a “generic” candidate with zero policy details on her website or at rallies might be “good for her campaign, but not for voters.”
In a piece published Thursday, titled “How Generic Can Kamala Harris Be?,” the magazine said it appears Harris’ strategy to the White House is to offer no information about how she will govern, pointing out what Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance has said, which is that Harris has taken almost “no questions from reporters.”
“She has not explained what, exactly, happened in Washington after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate; or why she has changed her mind on fracking, which she once said should be banned, and has wobbled on Medicare for All, which she once supported; or what she plans to do with Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is said to be unpopular among some of Harris’s wealthy donors; or much about how a Harris Administration would handle the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East,” the author wrote.
The magazine pointed out that the official website for the Harris presidential campaign doesn’t even “have a policy section, or an articulation of beliefs,” only buttons for things like her bio, merch, and donations.
The author said reporters should care that Harris “has not done a sitdown interview or had to answer a substantive policy question in weeks. A generic candidate who promises nothing on the campaign trail and is unburdened by any past might be the dream of electoral-politics nerds, but it’s the job of the press in a healthy democracy to make sure that voters know whom they’re supporting.”
“An unexamined candidate can become anything, and can work under the influence of anyone, when they assume power,” the author added. “This week, Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland, suggested on CNBC that a Harris Administration would change course from Biden’s more restrictive regulatory economic policies and create a friendlier atmosphere for ‘our large industries.’ Was he speaking on Harris’s behalf? Does he know something that Harris has declined to share with the public herself?”
The piece noted that Harris has “called for an end to the war in Gaza and has coupled her concern about the suffering of Palestinians with an ironclad support for Israel. But how does she plan on bringing about the ceasefire that she says she’s for?”
Another Harris flip-flop highlighted in the piece was how the Timesreported that the Democratic presidential nominee had reportedly told “leaders of the Uncommitted Movement, seeking to discuss an arms embargo,” that she was “open to a meeting” only to have her national security adviser the next day state that Harris “was not in favor of an arms embargo. Why the seeming change in tone?”
“And how does Harris feel about the student protesters who will be returning to their campuses in the upcoming weeks?” the piece added. “We don’t know the answers to any of these questions.”
The author concludes the piece by pointing out that whether the press likes it or not, it will have to start “demanding answers.”
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