Dumb as a Rock? Hardly!

Vice President Kamala Harris and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Unlike former President Trump, I do not think Vice President Kamala Harris is as ‘dumb as a rock’! You don’t get to where she has in American life being dumb. She was elected to high office many times in her career and was quite successful in those positions. Ultimately she was elected US senator from California.

Then in 2020  during a debate as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President she asked some hard hitting questions about what she called racist polices once supported by fellow candidate Joe Biden. It was later during the campaign after Biden sewed up the nomination that he chose her for his VP pick.  And now she is the presumptive nominee for president of the Democratic party.

Support for Harris has been climbing with meteoric speed since Biden dropped out last Sunday. The mainstream media is downright giddy with joy over this turn of events – painting her as nearly the 2^nd coming of ‘you know who’. All while continuing to paint Trump in the most unflattering of terms (Most of which are richly deserved, unfortunately). Happy to do so not only because of his lack of morality, ethics, and character. But mostly because they can’t stand the conservative polices of his first term which he has promised to reinstate if he gets a 2^nd term. The possibility (for example) of adding yet another conservative justice to the Supreme Court scares them to death.

Harris has the momentum right now. She has gained on Trump in a recent head to head poll that gives Trump a one point lead over her – a statistical tie.

The convention will present Democrats as a unified party behind their nominee. Which would not have been the case had Biden stayed in. But now that she is the nominee she will continue to generate favorable coverage by the mainstream media while that same media will continue to trash Trump.

When it comes to supporting Israel Harris scares me. She will make her predecessor, Biden, look like a Zionist by comparison.  (Interestingly – Biden actually consider himself a ‘proud Zionist since 1973’. Which Prime Minister Netanyahu made reference to in his meeting with him yesterday.)

Harris has shown she is not ‘dumb as a rock’ in other ways that scare me. Ever the shrewd politician she knows she cannot win the election without Michigan and Minnesota. Two states heavily populated by Palestinian immigrants and descendants. Toward that end she has decided to pander to them as noted by JTA:

In her first statement on Israel as a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris struck a markedly different tone than President Joe Biden, saying after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she “will not be silent” in the face of what she called the “devastation” in Gaza. 

Fact is, she is right not to be silent about the devastation in Gaza. She’s just blaming the wrong people. She knows very well that every single Palestinian death in Gaza is the fault of Hamas and their material supporters Iran. Hamas started this war. They took hostages. They use civilians as human shields. And they rejoice at every Palestinian killed in Gaza since Israel gets blamed for it. Their leaders publicly admitted that. And Harris, the sitting Vice President, knows it.

Harris, is the consummate politician and knows how to count. She needs every Palestinian vote to put her over the top in those two states and she will therefore blame Israel exclusively without a word about any responsibility Hamas has in all that. 

Dumb as a rock? Hardly. If she keeps making comments like that, she may very well win those two states.

What about Jewish voters and their campaign contributions? She pretty much has the vast majority of them in her pocket as well since 90% of American Jews (i.e. those that are not Orthodox) are liberal Democrats. They  will support almost anyone with a D in front of their name. Besides, her husband is Jewish. That’s a bonus.

Harris also needs a few other swing states. If I understand correctly the swing state with the largest number of electors is Pennsylvania. Which is why its very popular governor, Josh Shapiro is high on her list of possible running mates. By choosing him she could very easily swing the vote in her direction. The drawback for her is that Shapiro is Jewish and might alienate her Muslim supporters.  (She could however easily counter that with some strong pro Palestinian rhetoric along the lines of her recent comments.)

On the other hand choosing Shapiro would increase her Jewish support. Shapiro is a proud Jew who attended a community Jewish day school, currently sends his children there, and claims to be Shomer Shabbos. What an ironic twist of fate that would be. She can then point to her husband and her running mate and claim to be both pro Jewish and pro Palestinian while at the same time increasing her pro Palestinian rhetoric.

Bottom line is that if Harris wins the election, she may very well be the least pro Israel president in Israel’s 76 year history. Like I said that scares me.

What are her chances? There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the enthusiasm for Harris we are currently witnessing will be on full display at the convention. She will surely get a major bump in the polls after that. The enthusiasm of mainstream media will continue throughout the campaign – as will the disparaging comments about Trump.

That ‘bump’ will not necessarily last. But with the media basically supporting her while continuing to demonize her opponent, I suspect that she may very well win the next election. And that does not bode well for Israel. Nor do her liberal policies bode all that well for this country’s future either.