In the world of politics, where self-reflection is rarer than a day without a government blunder, Kla Harris seems to be serving up a piping hot bowl of business-as-usual with her latest “no bad ideas” strategy chat. This effort was cheerfully presented on a podcast, which might lead some to mistakenly believe it was a brainstorming session for a youth soccer team’s halftime pep talk rather than a serious political discussion. But alas, this is the grand playbook for the Democrats as they gear up for the midterm elections.
Let’s take a closer look, shall we? Harris rolled out ideas like revamping the Electoral College, reforming the Supreme Court, and granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. These are oldies but goodies in the Democratic playbook, never failing to provoke a collective eye-roll from conservatives. Critics have sharply noted that scrapping the Electoral College wouldn’t have suddenly crowned Harris the winner in her ill-fated presidential run since she lost the popular vote as well. It’s as if they believe changing the rules of the game post-defeat can somehow retroactively ensure a win. Spoiler alert: It can’t.
The Democratic obsession with what many see as “process politics” doesn’t stop there. Apparently, Harris thinks expanding the Supreme Court is the answer to some unspecified question. It’s as if the Democrats believe that if they keep adding justices, they’ll eventually come across one that magically solves their woes. This smacks of a desperation that would be comical if it weren’t so glaringly transparent.
What more, the very notion of Puerto Rico and D.C. achieving statehood pops up like a recycled sitcom plot. Sure, it sounds like progress, but behind the curtain, it feels more like an attempt to tally up a few more reliably blue votes. Meanwhile, Republicans are urged to adopt their own “naked political calculations” — suggesting sacrifice of principles just to keep up with the Democrats’ own wily schemes. It’s politics as a game of chess, but with players willing to switch sides of the board just to checkmate their opponent.
As we watch this political saga unfold, one can’t help but notice that Democrats appear to be scouring the bottom of the idea barrel with a fervor unrivaled since Indiana Jones’s search for the Holy Grail. Harris’s calls for suggestions almost imply that her party has run aground on the rocky shores of creativity. Heaven forbid we suggest that better policies might serve as a more effective strategy to win over the electorate, rather than changing the mechanism by which voters express their will.
The question lingers: Are the Democrats planning to run Harris again as a candidate? If so, perhaps they are hatching a “Hillary Clinton Redux,” repeating mistakes and offering up a candidate who didn’t quite click with voters the first time. They say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. For conservatives, maybe it’s a cheeky silver lining to hope for — after all, history has been quite kind to Republicans when it repeats itself in such ways.
