We finally learned this week that Kamala Harris has been chosen by Joe Biden to be his running mate.  Perhaps more accurately, the establishment has chosen Harris to be Biden’s running mate.  Maybe even more accurately, the establishment has chosen Harris to be president of the United States.

I wasn’t sure if Biden would actually be the Democratic nominee.  I guess they are going forward with him for now, gaffes, blunders, and all.

If Biden wins and takes office in January 2021, I think it is highly unlikely that he would finish a full four years in office.  He would be 78 years of age when taking office and 82 when finishing.  It would be hard to imagine that his cognitive decline would stop, especially with how rigorous the job is.

Even if Biden stayed about the same from where he is now, that may not be acceptable.  There are moments where Biden seems ok, but you never know when he will get off track and say something really stupid or start tripping over his words.  The establishment media can often provide cover-up for scandals, crimes, corruption, personal affairs, and a host of other things, but it is hard to disguise continued verbal gaffes, especially when that person is president of the United States.

Biden serves one purpose at this point.  In the eyes of the establishment, he has to defeat Trump in November. After that, they can discard him like an old rag.  Biden already did the establishment a major favor in defeating Bernie Sanders. They just need Biden to hold on for three more months and give them one more victory.  They are hoping he doesn’t say anything too outrageous during that time.  That is why his campaigning will be limited, at least when it comes to him speaking.

If Biden wins, Kamala Harris will likely become president.  She was soundly defeated in the Democratic primaries, but her path to the presidency looks clear now.  She is just hoping that Biden doesn’t do anything really stupid and that the anti-Trump vote is strong enough to provide victory in November.

A Winning Message?

Biden and Harris appeared together after the announcement had already been made and people were talking about the impacts.  In a joint press conference in which they didn’t take questions, Biden went on about how everyone should wear masks and that wearing masks for the next three months will save 40,000 American lives, according to the “models”.

Why three months, Joe? Why not until the end of the year? You could have at least said for the rest of the year to not make it so obvious.  He said this with the election being just over three months out.  In other words, let’s make life as miserable as possible for the next three months so that people will feel like any change (i.e., getting Trump out of office) will be good.

After Biden’s spiel about mask wearing, Harris steps up to the microphone and said that that is what real leadership looks like.  I guess she got over all of the allegations of sexual abuse and the racial bussing that she hammered Biden on in the primary debates.

Kamala Harris then goes on to talk more about mask wearing, and then about contact tracing and vaccines.  She is criticizing Trump for not giving us a timeline on when “we” will get vaccinated.  In other words, she wants Trump to lie. But if Trump did offer such words, I’m sure she would have criticized him for lying about it.

So is this the winning message that we will hear from Biden/ Harris over the next three months? Wear a mask, social distance, line up for a vaccine, and allow the government to trace your every move in case you come into contact with someone who may have had the virus.

I understand the anti-Trump message.  Most people aren’t voting for Biden/ Harris.  They are voting against Trump.  There are many people holding their noses in voting for Biden. The anti-Trump message unites a large segment of the country.  That in itself could be a winning message if enough people hate Trump at the beginning of November.

But what’s with the obsession over masks?  I know the political left tends to be more onboard with the mask wearing and obeying government orders to shut down and everything else.  But you have to imagine that there is a decent percentage of people who would not necessarily identify as conservative or libertarian who think the mask thing and the over-response to the virus is way overblown.  As I have said before, when they showed crowds of people packing the beaches for spring break, do you really think most of these people were Trump voters?

What will be the final slam-dunk message from Biden/ Harris?  Everyone should wear face shields?  Everyone should walk around in an astronaut suit?  All candidates have a marketing problem right now, but the Biden/ Harris message of major fear really seems to be the worst.  I mean, there are probably at least 30 million people who don’t have a job or have a job that is paying them less now.  There are tens of millions of people who are on pins and needles about their own job or their own business and worried that life will never be the same again.  There are major cities in flames.  But the Biden/ Harris message is to double-down and mask up.

I also have to think about Bernie Sanders, whom I haven’t heard much from.  Bernie never was the revolutionary that he was made out to be.  He did the same thing in 2020 as he did in 2016.  The establishment worked hard to deny him the nomination, so Bernie lines up and dutifully supports the Democratic nominee.

Still, as bad as Bernie is, I have to imagine that he would be selling a little different message right now if he were the nominee.  He would certainly be anti-Trump, and I’m sure he is enthusiastic about everyone wearing a mask.  However, if Bernie appeared with his new running mate, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have spent his time talking about masks, vaccines, and contact tracing, or at least his time on those things would have been minimal.

Bernie would have been talking about healthcare as a right.  He would have been talking about the need to raise wages (through legislation, of course) for lower and middle-income Americans.  He would have shown some empathy for the tens of millions of people struggling to pay their bills.  He would have at least tapped in somewhat to the real problems facing Americans, even if we disagree with his solutions.

Instead, we get the Biden/ Harris message of wear a mask and line up for vaccination.  Are they sure that is the message they want to sell for the next three months in order to beat Trump?

President Harris?

If Biden (i.e., the establishment) defeats Trump in November, I give it a much greater than 50% chance that Kamala Harris will be the president by the beginning of 2023.

Harris is an authoritarian to the bone.  If you think I’m criticizing her heavily now just because she is now Biden’s running mate, read some of my blog posts from the Democratic debates. I pointed out, several time, that she was the scariest candidate of them all, and that she is an authoritarian. She is bad on almost every issue.

I said: “Tulsi had some great moments in the debates.  She took down the worst person of them all – the authoritarian Kamala Harris.”

I said: “She [Harris] is still an authoritarian.  She is still unlikeable.  Luckily, I think others are not finding her likeable either.”

I said: “Kamala Harris is still the scariest of all the candidates.  She is an authoritarian leftist.”

I said: “Kamala Harris is still, I think, the scariest candidate.  She is very authoritarian.”  I also said” “Harris would be horrible in almost every aspect.”

I quote myself here only to show that I am not especially attacking Harris now just because she is now the VP candidate.  I would have been critical of any establishment pick, but I was very clear during the primary debates that I thought Harris was the worst of them all.

It’s funny, in a sick sort of way, that Biden delivered Harris as the black female candidate. I have my many criticisms of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, but there are areas where I find common ground with some people.  I do believe that police brutality is an issue, even if it may not be the most important issue in my eyes.  I believe that we need prison reform.  I believe that the war on drugs should be ended and that people should not be locked in a cage for drugs.

Yet, Kamala Harris has been horrible on all of these issues.  Before becoming a senator, she was a prosecutor and attorney general in California.  She has a record of locking people up for non-violent crimes.  She has a record of enforcing a police state.

I have heard a few hardcore leftists criticize Harris since becoming Biden’s running mate. Unfortunately, most leftists ignore her record and just cheer on the fact that she is a black woman.  If she is a friend to the black community, I hate to see what an enemy looks like.

Harris is just bad in every way, especially to a libertarian.  She favors a police state at home.  She favors more government spending, more taxation, more cronyism, and more government control.  She is also a major war hawk.  She is like Hillary Clinton without quite as much personal baggage.

My only hope is that if Harris does become president, there will be sufficient resistance to her authoritarian plans.  I have seen the American people roll over easily in 2020.  If we have an all-out authoritarian who is not shy about her intentions in the presidency, then maybe it will wake some people up. That’s my hope anyway.