President Kamala Harris should terrify us all

They say the definition of insanity is mindlessly repeating the same action over and over again, hoping to achieve better results: in America they call that politics. After months of speculation, it’s official: Joe Biden will run for president again in 2024. Given recent developments in the Republican Party, the great joust of verbal incontinence that will be a Biden vs Trump rematch looks the most likely outcome. Between Ron DeSantis’s recent blunders, the widespread Republican backlash against the Trump indictment, and the sheer volume of likely GOP contenders, the Florida governor looks up against it.

A recent poll by NBC News found that 70 per cent of Americans believe that Biden should not run again; including more than half of Democrats. Realistically, there should be a serious challenger in the Democrat primaries. But with the party fully aligned with Biden and refusing to host any primary debates, it will be far harder for other possible candidates to set out their stall.

Should this result in Biden returning to the White House, we should be clear about the consequences. Given his age, Kamala Harris, his vice president, could well find herself president during his second term. “The vice president has two duties”, said John McCain in 2000, commenting on the prospect of serving as his rival George Bush’s VP. “One is to inquire daily as to the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of Third World dictators.”

Already by far the oldest president in US history, Biden would be 82 at his second inauguration, and 86 on leaving office. Harris’s re-appointment must therefore rank as one of the most consequential in US history – yet her underwhelming personal qualities make her, in a crowded field, perhaps the least consequential figure ever to grace the role.

As McCain suggested, the VP role is often more that of foreign dignitary. Yet here Harris has signally failed to shine, showing herself as verbally inept as her boss. Visiting the Demilitarised Zone in 2022, she managed to confuse North and South Korea, praising the “important relationship” and “alliance” between Washington and Pyongyang. She was widely mocked after appearing in a saccharine promo video for space exploration alongside a group of winsome youngsters, who, it emerged, were professional child actors who’d auditioned for the roles.

The liberal media prefers to dismiss such moments as “gaffes”. But are they gaffes at all, or simply evidence of a woman out of her depth, unable to formulate a coherent sentence?

Some politicians just do not command confidence, radiating unease with every syllable. Harris is a shining example of the breed, with the manner of a malfunctioning animatronic doll. She specialises in buzzword soup, delivered in a hallucinogenic drone.

Her press conferences resemble a kindergarten teacher explaining something basic to the remedial readers. “Seems like maybe it’s a small issue,” she said of public transport. “It’s a big issue. You need to get to go, and need to be able to get where you need to go, to do the work, and get home.” Not since Pippa Middleton and her book on throwing parties has someone so excelled at stating the bleedin’ obvious.

When asked a sensible question that she can’t answer – and there are plenty – she cackles. As a fellow nervous-laugher, I would sympathise; except I’m not one heart attack away from being leader of the free world.

Harris’s invisibility in public life has become a hot topic. Other Democrats will often openly snub and undermine her, with Elizabeth Warren refusing to endorse Harris as VP in a recent radio interview. Though Democrats might deny it, Harris’s anointing was clearly a diversity hire. President Biden made no bones about it at the time. “If I’m elected president… I commit that I will, in fact, pick a woman to be vice president.” He later boasted of choosing between “four black women”.

VP Harris is a useful reminder of the drawbacks of selection based on anything but merit, for there’s nothing progressive about tokenism when it backfires. From Margaret Thatcher to Baroness Boothroyd, we are inspired by gifted, charismatic female leaders, not Potemkin politicians. Democrats, with an eye on history, rolled out Harris, then swiftly and humiliatingly sidelined her. There’s nothing progressive about that, either.

Given her performance, or lack of it, the question remains – why didn’t Biden parachute in someone more reassuring? Perhaps replacing the US’s first ever ethnic minority, female VP would have appalled a party trapped in the quagmire of identity politics. Or maybe a weak and unpopular deputy would simply be less of a threat to him.

As Biden vs Trump looms – the rematch no one wanted – it’s hard to believe this is the best this extraordinary country of 330 million people can do. For all its problems with addiction and gun violence, America retains much of the frontier spirit which made it great; its Puritan work ethic and distinctive can-do attitude, in stark contrast to much of Europe. Its dynamic business environment means Britain’s growing firms increasingly choose to float in New York rather than on the London Stock Exchange.

Yet amid all this, one dispiriting fact remains. If DeSantis fails, if legions of suburban women turn out to give Trump a kicking, Kamala Harris will yet again be one heartbeat from the White House. And that is a terrifying thought.