Array
As you may know, Cillizza worked at CNN for years and was laid off in 2022. He then started a Substack site which he has gradually been building up since then. If there’s anything Chris Cillizza is good at, it’s stating the obvious. In this case I mean that as a compliment because most of the media has not been willing to state the obvious about Kamala Harris.
The topic of Cillizza’s piece was her recent flip-flops on a range of issues. He kicks it off with this recent example: Harris used to say she supported requiring automakers to build only electric cars, but as of last week that has changed. Why and how her views changed remains a mystery because she doesn’t give interviews. And in this case, even her campaign is keeping mum. When asked for comment by Axios, her camp refused to answer.
If it were one issue it wouldn’t be a big deal but as Cillizza correctly points out, she’s done this on a bunch of issues: Fracking, the border wall and asylum policies, the Green New Deal, gun confiscation, Medicare for All. She has done an about face on all of them. It’s a big part of her strategy to get elected.
Those, um, policy shifts are all part of a designed strategy on the part of the Harris team. This, from Axios, is telling on that front:
A big part of the Harris plan is to unapologetically change some of her more liberal positions, and claim her White House experience helped change her mind. Yes, when she was running for president in 2019, she was against fracking, for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and for single-payer health care (Medicare for All).
So here’s the obvious part. The claim that Harris has actually changed her mind because of her time as VP and that her values haven’t changed is just not credible.
Given that history, I struggle to swallow the spin that her time as vice president is what explains all of these policy shifts. Especially when you consider that every single one of them is Harris moving from a position liberals love to one centrists — and swing voters — prefer. Like, she never learned anything during her time in the White House that made her think a more liberal solution was the right way to go?
And the explanation that she and her campaign team have settled on — “my values have not changed” — doesn’t really fly either.
