Kamala Van Winkle woke up from a three-and-a-half-year slumber last night to deliver a speech that both defied reality and sent thrills up the legs of her brand-new besties in the Leftmedia.

Harris began by thanking her boss, our nation’s current president and the man most responsible for our current mess. “Joe,” she said, “I am filled with gratitude. Your record is extraordinary, as history will show.”

Then she told “Coach Tim Walz,” the deployment-dodging, valor-stealing, ChiCom-sympathizing former unpaid assistant high-school football coach and current governor of Minnesota, that he’s going to be “an incredible vice president.”

After droning on at length about how inspiring her own personal story is of being raised by a single mom — we’re detecting something of a pattern here among Democrat candidates for president — she got down to the business of promising to fix everything she’s helped to wreck during her time as vice president.

Among other things, she talked about growing the economy, reducing inflation, fixing illegal immigration, and ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. (Conspicuously absent from Harris’s speech was any mention of the commie price controls she floated last week, no doubt because even her friends in the mainstream media conceded the idiocy of the idea.)

The question that kept looping around in my brain was: Are we really this stupid? To elaborate, are we really going to buy the Democrats’ ruse that Kamala Harris is the outsider, the change agent, the insurgent candidate in this election? Are we really dumb enough as a people to think that the administration and the policies of this political lightweight are going to be radically different than those of the guy she’s been tethered to for the past three and a half years?

Harris spoke for 37 minutes, and she trotted out many of the same lies that Tim Walz did a day earlier, including the vile one about how Trump will “enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.” And she also peppered her delivery with platitudes, much the way Barack Obama did. Indeed, in many ways, she sounded like a female version of Obama circa 2008, but without the brains and the charisma and that Mussolini chin thing. Get a load of this, and listen for the keywords:

Our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction but as Americans. And let me say: I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law to free and fair elections to the peaceful transfer of power. I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens. Who is realistic, practical, and has common sense, and always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has always been my life’s work.

Just like Barack: It’s the cynicism, stupid. And it’s the “divisive battles of the past.” And just like Joe Biden, she promises to be “a president for all Americans.”

“Every day in the courtroom,” she said, reflecting on her career of public service, “I stood proudly before a judge, and I said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the people.’ And to be clear — and to be clear — my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.”

Hmm. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe, when you’ve been on the government dole for the entirety of your adult life, it shapes the way you think about the primacy of The State.

“I fought against the cartels,” she said implausibly, “who traffic in guns and drugs and human beings. Who threatened the security of our border and the safety of our communities.”

So now she’s a border hawk.

The cheerleaders at The Washington Post list three big takeaways from the Harris speech: that she’s offering “normalcy and competence,” a transition from “darkness into light,” and “a more muscular message on police, veterans and foreign policy.”

This last part is interesting, and it brings to light a subtle but entirely deliberate outreach strategy. Call it “hick-libbing.” As with Harris’s “Coach Tim Walz” thing, and how he’s from a small town in Nebraska, and how he served in the military, and how he was a football coach, and how he is a gun owner and a better shot than most Republicans — messaging like this shows how desperate the Democrats are to claw back some of the blue-collar white votes that they’ve been chasing away for the past 16 years with their racialism and radical leftism.

More of this hick-libbing could be found in Harris’s words about the tiny Middle Eastern nation that has roiled her party’s base. “Let me be clear,” said the wife of the Jewish Doug Emhoff, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7th. Including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”

Then came the inevitable “but” — a savvy bit of outreach to the Democrats’ Jew-hating base: “At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”

Toward the end of her speech, Harris found a sliver of common ground with Donald Trump: “Fellow Americans,” she said, “this election is not only the most important of our lives. It is one of the most important in the life or our nation.”

Trump has said the same thing, though for entirely different reasons.

“In many ways,” Harris continued, “Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

Consider the power he will have — especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security. But to serve the only client he has ever had: Himself. And we know what a second Trump term would look like.

“We are not going back,” she said, basking in the adulation of a crowd that a month ago had been popping Xanax like M&M’s. “And we are charting a new way forward. … and building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”

Again, are we really this stupid? Are we going to let her get away with memory-holing the past 1,300 days?

That will be up to Donald Trump and, to a lesser extent, JD Vance.

Kamala Harris is eminently beatable — not because of her weird cackle or her dim-wittedness or the toxic work environment she fosters, but because of the terrible policies and the ruinous record that she and Joe Biden have put together.

If Donald Trump can make that case, then we’ll get the government we deserve. And if not, then we’ll still get the government we deserve. Good and hard.