It is no surprise that, as vice president, Kamala Harris has proven to be rather impalpable. In fact, she has never been decisive in either foreign or domestic policy. On the contrary, the current Democratic candidate seems more experienced in another subject: political about-faces. This is an element that could create problems for her in the continuation of the electoral campaign. Below we summarize the main about-faces of which the vice president has been the protagonist.
Fracking
“There’s no question, I support a ban on fracking,” Harris said in September 2019, while she was still a candidate for nomination Democratic presidential election of 2020. A position that, in recent days, the vice president has blatantly abandoned. Her electoral team has in fact made it known that the person directly concerned is no longer in favor of banning this controversial practice. It is clear that, with such an about-face, Harris aims to gain the sympathy of the blue-collar workers of Pennsylvania: a state in which the use of fracking is particularly widespread. On the other hand, this sudden change could irritate environmentalists, who were a pillar of the Democratic electoral coalition of 2020.
Health
Harris’ team reported in recent days that the current Democratic candidate no longer supports universal health care: a proposal that, on the contrary, she had promoted during the campaign for the 2020 Democratic primaries. Initially, as a senator, she sponsored Medicare for all: Bernie Sanders’ plan, which completely ended private health insurance. Then, during his first presidential campaign, he put forward a proposal that sought to harmonize Medicare for all with private individuals: a position which, at the time, greatly irritated the American progressive galaxies.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In September 2021, Harris pretended nothing had happened when a student, in front of her, explicitly accused Israel of “ethnic genocide”. A few days ago, the vice president said that the Jewish state has the right to defend itself from Hezbollah. Yet, last July 24, she had not taken part in the speech given by Benjamin Netanyahu to the American Congress. An absence that has caused much discussion.
Fighting crime
Harris’s campaign is playing heavily on her previous tenure as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, casting her as a crime-fighting powerhouse while also playing up Donald Trump’s felony conviction in May. Yet four years ago, Harris was supportive of the controversial, radical movement to defund the police. “This whole movement is about rightly saying we need to take a look at these budgets and see if they reflect the right priorities,” she said in June 2020, before going on to say that American cities were “militarizing the police” and “defunding public schools.” Then, in October of that year, she backtracked, saying she no longer supported the “Defund the Police” movement.
Death penalty
In 2004, as district attorney, Harris refused to seek the death penalty for the man who killed police officer Isaac Espinoza. However, according to Politicyears later, as California attorney general, she did not support two referendum initiatives against the death penalty. In 2019, as a presidential candidate, she instead called for the abolition of the death penalty at the federal level.
Immigration
“Trump is attempting to pursue mass deportations, denying immigrants access to a lawyer or a judge. It is vile, it is dangerous, and it must be stopped,” Harris said in July 2019. An open-minded line, which she reneged on in June 2021, when – as vice president – she gave a speech in Guatemala City. “I want to be clear to the people of this region who are thinking about making that dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border: Don’t come. Don’t come,” she said, before adding: “The United States will continue to enforce our laws and protect our borders.”
Relationships with Joe Biden
In April 2019, Harris said she believed the women who had accused Biden of inappropriate behavior toward them. The following June, she also criticized Biden for the good relationships he himself had claimed to have had, in the past, with some segregationist Democratic senators. Yet, just a year later, she agreed to become his running mate.
