Will Demos Dump Harris?
There is no way Biden will boot Harris from his ticket … or will he?
There is an old adage: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
Apparently, Joe Biden and his incompetent cackling side kick Kamala Harris are so entrenched in their leftist Beltway bubble that they keep digging deeper with their socialist surge shovel, believing they can do so with impunity.
The rejection of their compounding domestic and foreign policy failures is reflected in the abysmal Biden/Harris national approval ratings.
We are skeptically cautious about the most reputable polling organizations, viewing most political opinion surveys as what we call “Pollaganda,” the use of polling by Leftmedia outlets as propaganda for their favored candidates. However, at this point, even the most Demo-friendly Leftmedia sources are confirming the Biden/Harris approval dive. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News survey, feckless Biden is way underwater with just 41% of Americans approving. That is down 11 points in recent months, another drop from his October low-water mark. Moreover, his disapproval is now up to 53%.
Notably, Biden’s approval is at 38% in the latest USA Today survey and just 36% in the latest Quinnipiac poll. He is counting on a polling boost if his Bilk Bucks Better tax-and-spend boondoggle passes. Fortunately, no House Republicans voted for that bill today, as they did his so-called “infrastructure plan.”
As for Harris, things are worse — much worse. As you recall, before dropping out in the Demo primaries last year, she was at the bottom of the pack — and still asserting correctly that Biden was a racist. Now as VP, she has earned a record-low approval of just 28%. Yes, Harris checked off the race, gender, and generation boxes for the Biden ticket in 2020, and a lot of the Democrat support for the non compos mentis Biden ticket was because of confidence in Harris. But she has become increasingly toxic to the Biden administration.
Arguably, Biden’s failures are a drag on Harris, and he had a hand in sinking her further by decreeing she was his “border czar” for what is, in effect, Biden’s open-border policy. Biden is now responsible for a flood of more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants, who will be competing for blue-collar labor jobs, thus lowering wages for American workers.
Even CNN trashed Harris this week under the headline, “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice president, quoting White House insiders who say they are "throwing up their hands” about her “entrenched dysfunction” within her VP staff and her “lack of focus.” Of course they also put a racial spin on it: “‘It’s hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a White man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves,’ said a former Harris aide, reflecting conversations last month among several former aides and current allies.”
Harris has been described by her staff as as a “bully” who has a “soul-destroying” management style. According to former Harris aide Gil Duran, Harris’ “destructive patterns” accounted for the departure of longtime aide Symone Sanders and her communications director Ashley Etienne.
According to Duran, “One of the things we’ve said in our text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her.” He adds rhetorically, “Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have [them] pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons?”
Biden spokesparrot Jen Psaki came to Kamala’s defense, highlighting Harris’s “vital” role: “For anyone who needs to hear it, [Harris] is not only a vital partner to [Biden] but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country.”
Yeah, uh, actually, no. Though much smarter and more dynamic than Biden, she is an empty suit who is downright unlikeable, especially among women. Perhaps that is because nobody would know her name if not for an affair she carried on with a married man her father’s age, then-California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who launched her career.
Harris fired her communications director in an effort to deflect discontent, but the problem isn’t communications; it’s Harris.
Before the 2020 presidential election, I asserted that Demos would create a path for Harris to bump Biden after he took office, noting that the ticket was then, in reality, “Harris/Biden.” I wrote that if Harris waits until at least half of Biden’s first term is over, she could step in and qualify for both the 2024 election and, if elected, then again for reelection in 2028. But Harris’s standing with the public has tanked, and Demos, already worried about their declining 2022 congressional prospects in the wake of the Virginia Republican sweep, are concerned that if Biden became more incapacitated and Harris had to step in, that would seal their fate in 2022 and 2024.
Demos are holding their breath today, as Biden will be under anesthesia for several hours for a medical procedure, and technically, Harris will be temporarily in charge.
So, where to go, Joe? Could Biden’s handlers attempt to blame-shift his failures to Harris in an attempt to win back popular approval, since he has already worn out his “blame Donald Trump” card?
Some Democrats are floating the possibility of replacing Harris with a more popular sidekick for Biden — which they would need to do ahead of the 2022 midterm.
The speculation is that, as justification for this move, Harris would be nominated for the Supreme Court seat of aging leftist Stephen Breyer. Demos would stand better prospects in that nomination battle now than they will if they lose Senate control to Republicans in the midterms. But given the fact that then-Senator Harris endeavored to sandbag Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, she will face vigorous opposition from Senate Republicans. Maybe the strategy is to let that nomination fail and get rid of Harris altogether.
So, who would fill her VP slot?
If Harris resigns, in accordance with the 25th Amendment regarding vice-presidential vacancies, Section 2 stipulates that the president would be charged with nominating a replacement VP, and that nominee would be subject to confirmation by both House and Senate majorities. The last time this happened was in 1973, when then-House Republican leader Gerald Ford became vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew.
And who would Biden nominate?
Certainly not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, given the fact that she is 81 years old and her approval rating is just 32%.
The name at the top of the speculative list is Biden’s gender-confused Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who apparently merits such consideration because he has done such a great job resolving the national supply chain crisis. Of course, since Pete identifies as the “wife” to his “husband” Chasten, perhaps Biden can still claim a “woman” on the ticket.
The other thing this transition would accomplish is removing the prospect of a Harris v. Buttigieg primary contest ahead of the 2024 election.
However, all being said, I think it is highly unlikely that there will be any Harris and Buttigieg tradeoff, most notably because, despite Harris’s low approval rating in general, her support among Democrats is still substantial, and at this point the socialist Democrat Party can’t afford to lose a single vote. But Biden’s leftist puppeteers may see it differently.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
(Updated)