Long before Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee, reports circulated that the then-77-year-old former VP signaled he’d only commit to serving one term if elected. This came after months of Democrats and media figures raised the issue of his age and cognitive health after a series of gaffes and flubs made during the primaries.
Even after he officially secured the nomination, the questions about Biden’s mental fitness to lead persisted. At one point when he was point-blank asked about it by a reporter in early August 2020. Days later, he announced Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.
Along with his choice of Harris came the inevitable speculation from Republicans that Biden, who was still made several incoherent statements from the comfort of his basement, would be a mere figurehead if elected. At the same time, Harris would effectively take the reins and officially take them in the event Biden was already making plans to step down after the election.
Such speculation was further fueled by reports from pro-Biden news outlets like CNN, who suggested the reason Biden chose Harris was to have someone ready to step up “if and when” he “decides to step aside.”
A month later, both Harris and Biden each talked within a day of each other about a “Harris administration.” Harris corrected herself, but Biden did not. Some suggested they’d been caught accidentally saying the quiet part out loud.
Now here we are, a month and a half after Election Day. Literally, just one day after the Electoral College voted to make the victory “official” for Biden and Harris, there are already calls from liberal circles to give Harris a “more important” job than “just the vice president.”
New York Times left-wing columnist Thomas Friedman suggested this in his Tuesday column titled “Kamala Harris Deserves a More Important Job”:
Harris is too smart and energetic to be just the vice president, a position with few official responsibilities. I’d love to see President-elect Joe Biden give her a more important job: his de facto secretary of rural development, in charge of closing the opportunity gap, the connectivity gap, the learning gap, the start-up gap — and the anger and alienation gap — between rural America and the rest of the country.
Friedman went on to argue that Harris was the answer to helping the Democratic party “bridge Silicon Valley and the rural valleys of America”:
Kamala Harris is a natural for that task. Who better to bridge Silicon Valley and the rural valleys of America?[…]Harris will soon be the first woman, the first Black and the first Indian-American vice president, which certainly resonates with a lot of urban voters. However, if she could make herself the person in the Biden cabinet who always shows up FIRST to listen in rural America and the FIRST to appreciate its concerns and the FIRST to make sure its concerns are addressed, she and the Democrats could make themselves competitive in a lot more rural counties.
In addition to Friedman’s column, there has been a month’s worth of fawning “news” reports about Harris. One of the more notable examples being a segment where anchor Jake Tapper and his colleagues Dana Bash and Abby Phillip gushed over the thought of Harris becoming the first woman of color VP. They were so giddy over the prospect that they all but kicked Biden out of the Oval Office before he even got a chance to get started:
Most recently, there was the state-run TV-like “interview” of Harris done by Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts. She fangirled over Harris so much that she neglected to press her on her pre-election campaign to undermine the public’s confidence in the coronavirus vaccine after she told her it was important to make sure Americans knew the vaccine was safe.
Watch, via MRC-TV:
Assuming the rumored challenges to Congress’ official certification of the Electoral College vote go nowhere on Jan. 6th, the American people can look forward to ongoing media-driven campaigns to promote Harris as the most amazingly effective vice president in American history, all to help pave the path to her eventual run for president, assuming Biden stays in office for the next four years.
To be fair, they’d do this for any Democratic vice president. But Harris being a woman of color, presents them with the unique opportunity to push her supposed bonafides while at the same time attempting to nuke all Republican criticisms of her because it’s “racist.”
But after eight years of “racism” accusations being leveled at them during the Obama administration and then four more under President Trump, Republicans are very familiar with such shutuppery tactics and are likely to be well-prepared to respond accordingly under a Biden-Harris administration.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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