Kamala 'The Cop' may be what Dems need

Of all the responses to Joe Biden’s entirely unsurprising selection of Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, the most hilarious has come from The Federalist, a right-wing and reliably Trumpist website, which ran an article depicting Harris as a dangerous hard-core leftist in moderate’s clothing.

Why hilarious? Because the site’s merchandise section hawks a T-shirt that says, “Kamala Is a Cop” — a line that was often thrown at Harris by her left-wing detractors during the Democratic primaries, referring to her erstwhile role as a prosecutor and then as California’s attorney general.

This contradiction offers a clue to why having Harris on the ticket may be the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party in 2020.

Many progressives are dismayed and downright despondent over the Harris selection because of her history of positioning herself as a tough-on-crime moderate (and other issues on which she occupies a firmly centrist position, such as support for Israel). But it’s not only leftists who loathe “Kamala the Cop”; she elicits a vampire-to-garlic reaction from some of my libertarian friends as well.

A year ago, Reason magazine, where I am a contributing editor, ran a long feature by Elizabeth Nolan Brown critically examining Harris’ record as a prosecutor. The piece raises genuinely troubling issues, noting her drug enforcement zealotry (including an effort to deny the option of drug addiction treatment as a prison alternative to addicts who had sold any quantity of drugs at any point) and an anti-truancy initiative that could jail parents if a child missed 20 days of school without a documented excuse. In 2006, Harris deplored mass incarceration and its effects on poor and Black communities in a speech at Yale even as her office in California boasted about stepped-up arrests and prosecutions.

Yet, ultimately, Brown’s indictment of Harris — that she wants to get credit for being both “leftist and centrist” and to be “all things to everyone” — means simply that she’s a successful politician.

And, at this particular point in time, her background as a tough “cop” could be just the thing the Democratic Party needs.

We are at a complicated moment when there is a strong demand for criminal justice reform (which Harris supports, whether opportunistically or not), but also for law and order. With homicides spiking in major cities and riots up in Portland, Seattle, Chicago and other places, fears of lawlessness are on the rise, and the progressive call to defund the police is meeting with a strong pushback — including from Black and Latino communities.

Donald Trump and his supporters have tried hard to depict Biden as a supporter of violent anarchy. It hasn’t worked. Harris as the vice-presidential candidate will make this strategy even more dubious. When Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) tweets that Harris is a radical who “wants to recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” it simply doesn’t ring true. In that sense, “Kamala is a Cop” helps Democrats far more than it helps the Republicans.

For me as a center-right libertarian-leaning independent, Harris’ overall record certainly leaves much to be desired. Her embrace of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal during the primaries, with no explanation of how to pay for these programs, raises real concerns given that she may have a major policy role in a Biden administration. But her very opportunism — “all things to everyone” — promises flexibility.

Now, if progressives can stop giving dumb advice like The Daily Beast headline exhorting Harris to stop “pandering to white America” (otherwise known as voters), we’ll be fine.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor to Reason magazine.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.