Kamala Harris’ most consistent political trait may be a lack of consistency. Over the course of her long career, first in California and then in
Kamala Harris’ most consistent political trait may be a lack of consistency. Over the course of her long career, first in California and then in Washington, D.C., the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee has been plagued by plausible allegations that she’s hard to pin down and lacks a stable ideological core. She’s a flip-flopper—or, if you want to be charitable, she evolves quickly.
Over the summer, Harris’ evolutions kept on coming, with her campaign issuing rapid-fire disavowals of many of her previous positions. Because she ran her failed 2020 presidential primary bid on an ultraprogressive, big-government platform, many of her new positions are noticeably more oriented toward the mainstream—and freedom.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have even embraced « freedom » as a central theme of their 2024 campaign. The word is emblazoned all over their rally sites. Lyrics about freedom pulsed over and over again between speeches at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). But what do Democrats mean by « freedom »? At best, it’s an inconsistent vision. At worst, it’s an attempt at radically redefining what American freedom means.Flip-Flop Season
Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 and first threw her hat into the presidential ring in 2019. In both roles, she positioned herself to the left of your average Democrat. For instance, she was one of just over a dozen co-sponsors of a Senate resolution in support of the « Green New Deal », whose planks included « providing higher education, high-quality health care, and affordable, safe, and adequate housing to all. » Harris also co-sponsored and promoted the College for All Act, a plan from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) for government-funded college tuition, and twice signed on (in 2017 and 2019) to Sanders’ Medicare for All plans, which would have essentially ended private insurance in favor of socialized medicine.
Harris’ positions on some matters, especially health care policy, moved around a lot. Asked on the Democrats’ presidential debate stage in June 2019 who would eliminate private insurance, Harris raised her hand. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe the next day, she said she would not do that. The plan she eventually introduced was something of an everything-to-everyone scheme, allowing private insurance to coexist alongside a Medicare-for-anyone-who-wants-it option of questionable feasibility.
Then-Atlantic writer Edward-Isaac Dovere called her campaign strategy in 2019 « don’t pick a lane. » But authoritarianism in service of left-leaning goals was kind of Harris’ thing, even if she sometimes shifted on the particulars.
Yet in recent years, and especially since picking up the nomination for president, Harris has been flip-flopping toward freedom—at least on some issues. Since 2018, she has embraced marijuana legalization. More recently, Harris has changed her tune on fracking, single-payer health care, Supreme Court expansion, a mandatory gun buyback, and a federal jobs guarantee.
With each new flip-flop, Harris has been embracing more moderate and mainstream positions—and in most cases, this has led her in a less authoritarian direction. In 2019, Harris called it « a good idea » to force owners of semiautomatic rifles to sell them to the government. In August, a Harris spokesperson said she would not push a mandatory buyback program as president.
While running for president last time, Harris said there was « no question » that she was in « in favor of banning fracking », an oil and gas extraction method that has helped lower natural gas prices and reduced reliance on coal but troubled environmentalists over concerns about potential ill effects. In July, Harris’ campaign told The Hill that a President Harris would not seek a ban on fracking.
As part of the Green New Deal Harris supported, the federal government would have « guarantee[d] a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States. » The Harris ’24 campaign has since said she does not support a federal job guarantee.
During her previous presidential bid, Harris said she was open to expanding the Supreme Court. In July, her campaign told The Hill she does not support this proposal.
The Harris campaign also recently reiterated her rejection of Medicare for All.
While Harris has not spoken out against President Joe Biden’s tariffs, she has criticized a more extreme tariff proposal from former President Donald Trump, calling it a « national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. » Meanwhile, she’s embraced Trump’s plan not to tax tipped wages.
Whether these recent positions can be trusted to last is far from clear. If she flipped this easily toward freedom, she’s just as likely to flop back once she holds power—presidents rarely become more libertarian once they are in office.
But insofar as Harris is trying now to define herself for a new era on the national stage, at least some of what she says should have sticking power. And in this new era, we’re seeing a better Harris than we saw in some past iterations.A Law-and-Order Progressive?
In these past iterations, Harris often talked big about being a progressive prosecutor while walking in a different direction—going to bat for officials accused of misconduct, for instance, or opposing marijuana legalization schemes.
During this period, her flip-flops were often away from meaningful criminal justice reform or accountability.
As district attorney (D.A.) in San Francisco, she opposed the death penalty. As attorney general of California, she favored the death penalty by fighting against a state court ruling it unconstitutional.
When she became D.A., she said she would only use California’s three strikes policy « when the third strike is a serious or violent felony. » In office, she pushed for it to be applied to someone whose third offense was simply being a felon in possession of a handgun.
Being tough on guns and alleged sex crimes are two areas where Harris has been consistent throughout her career—sometimes leading her to constitutionally dubious places. For instance, she fought to keep in place a law banning certain forms of handgun advertising and twice brought pimping charges (twice thrown out in court) against executives of classified advertising platform Backpage because it allowed sex work ads.
In this year’s election, Harris has certainly emphasized her past as a prosecutor, but mainly in broad strokes. In this version, she put away rapists, domestic abusers, and other violent offenders, but we don’t hear about her cracking down on misdemeanor offenses or threatening to jail the parents of truant children. Nor do we hear about things like ending cash bail, abolishing the death penalty, or ending mandatory minimum sentences—positions she staked in 2019, when the Democratic Party was in the midst of a criminal justice reckoning. Harris has, however, backed down on one position from back then: decriminalizing border crossings. « I would not make [illegal border crossing] punishable by jail », Harris said in summer 2019, calling it « a civil enforcement issue, but not a criminal enforcement issue. » Her 2024 campaign told Axios that « unauthorized border crossings are illegal » and that Harris’ position was the same as that of the Biden administration.The Freedom Candidate?
Nonetheless, Harris has gone all in on trying to position herself as the pro-freedom candidate in this election.
