Charlie Spiering wrote in Amateur Hour, ‘I was surprised to learn how few Democrats even like [Kamala] Harris, let alone respect her.’ That does not mean Harris cannot win the US presidential election in November. According to the FiveThirtyEight poll average on August 11, Harris led Donald Trump by 2 points. In July 2024, Harris had a net unfavourable score of 17 points. It is now a net unfavourable 5 points.

What changed? It has been suggested that the two old men, Biden and Trump, were holding each other up and that if one fell, so would the other. Biden fell on his sword, and Harris, who, despite her unpopularity, could not be removed because she was a ‘black’ woman, replaced him as the nominee. Harris may prove that if one old man fell, so would the other.

Then there is the fascination factor. Two months before the 2017 election, Jacinda Ardern was appointed Labour leader and won the New Zealand election, which seemed unlikely. She was a hit, a shiny new bauble in drab politics. ‘Jacindamania’ took off. Courtesy of Winston Peters of New Zealand First, she formed a coalition government and defeated a competent conservative government led by Bill English of the National Party. A young leftist ideologue and party apparatchik became Prime Minister. The rest is history.

Similarly, Kamala is a fascination, new blood. Like Jacinda Ahern, her head is full of stuff and nonsense, and it comes out of her mouth as word salads and allegedly foul and abusive language.

The major criticism of Harris as vice president is that she needs to get something done. She has either volunteered or been assigned to lead on immigration, abortion rights, broadband access, black maternal mortality, racial inequality, women in the workforce, infrastructure, voting rights, artificial intelligence, and more. No actual changes occurred as a result of her ‘leadership’. Kamala is about Kamala.

Vogue featured her in the lead-up to Joe Biden’s inauguration and hired a black photographer to take photographs. That tells you all you need to know about identity politics in the US. Still, Harris complained that she did not like the photo because of her chosen clothing. Would a bloke give a stuff about such inanity? One of her (many) ex-staffers stated in the Washington Post, ‘With Kamala, you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So, you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully. And it’s not really clear why.’

The reason is that Harris is not a politician as much as a cipher. She does the bidding of others to advance her career. In this, she excels. As Peter Schweizer found in Profiles in Corruption, Harris used her powers selectively. During her lengthy periods as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, for example, she never prosecuted an abusive priest. At least fifty other cities charged priests in sexual abuse cases during her tenure. As Schweizer concluded, it was an ‘astonishing display of inaction’. He details the financial support Harris received from various interests close to the Catholic church.

From inaction to action. The Daughters of Charity owned six struggling hospitals in California. The charity wanted to sell those hospitals to Healthcare, another nonprofit chain, to preserve them. Over the previous fifteen years, Healthcare had acquired thirty-five hospitals in the United States that were either bankrupt or in deep financial trouble and had managed to save every one of them.

The matter required approval by California attorney general Harris. Not so fast. The Service Employees International Union and the United Healthcare Workers West threatened to ‘blow up the deal.’ They offered to support her bid for the U.S. Senate if she prevented the sale.

Prime Healthcare alleged that Harris’s office informed relevant public officials that she would approve the deal only if Prime allowed SEIU-UHW to unionise the chain. They wanted full unionisation of all of Prime’s California hospitals. The California Nursing Association represented the nurses at Prime. It was a good old-fashioned union powerplay. The CFMEU would be proud. And Harris was the cipher.

Her word salads are an unmissable clue that she cannot manage complex public policy issues. She is better at plotting against opponents and delivering advantages to her masters. She could do a Jacinda, and the US would be poorer for it.

Gary Johns is the chair of Close the Gap Research