Saagar Enjeti unpacks why Kamala Harris’s campaign didn’t work

Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti

Former top tier candidate Kamala Harris dropped out of the race yesterday finding out that standing for absolutely nothing, spouting vague platitudes on race, picking dumb fights on the debate stage is not in fact enough to become the Democratic nominee for president. Before Kamala even hit send on the tweet button officially announcing the end of her campaign, we saw the most predictable response of all time from elite democrats that Kamala’s campaign was a commentary on the internalized racism within us all and that there is no other possible explanation for her failure other than that.

Famed uh..person.. Lauren Duca tweeted almost immediately that the end of the Harris campaign means that all of those who currently qualify for the December Democratic debate are white! And that “white supremacy is not just a Fox News problem folks.”

And Leah Greenberg of the Invisible Team got in on the action. 

No matter your candidate, you have to recognize that going from the most diverse field ever in January to a potentially all-white debate stage in December is catastrophic.

The implicit racism and sexism of “electability” is deeply damaging to democracy.

— Leah Greenberg (@Leahgreenb) December 3, 2019

These ladies left it to Christine Pelosi, she’s the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, to deliver perhaps the worst take of all. That “We can’t tell the story about Kamala Harris 2020 without speaking of sexism, misogyny, and big money in politics. Kamala has the integrity to see she couldn’t overcome 1 or 2 but not all 3. Whichever candidate you choose as a democrat for president, fight to dismantle all 3.”

As my friend Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute pointed out in response to second of these horrific takes, first of all, the Democratic slate is quite diverse. Bernie Sanders is Jewish, Elizabeth Warren is a woman and if we believe her, even one of color. The end result of this logic is that the black voters who massively support Joe Biden are in fact the racist ones for refusing to pick Kamala Harris or Cory Booker for their support!

Oh and if you don’t like those, there is a combat veteran woman of color you can choose alongside an Asian American businessman with some pretty crazy ideas. I doubt any of these people actually care though because they don’t toe the neoliberal party line.

Duca, Greenberg, and Pelosi’s tweets all come from clear signals sent by Harris herself just a few short weeks ago when she blamed voters for being too sexist or racist for her failing campaign. Let’s relive that just for good measure.

After her disgraceful statement refusing to take responsibility, she tried to make excuses again in the video announcing that she would drop out of the race blaming billionaire spending for her failures and lack of ability to fundraise. This is actually laughable and ridiculous claim.

Kamala Harris received the most number of billionaire donations throughout this campaign. In fact, it appears that the moment Wall Street and the billionaire class realized that she had no shot, that’s when she had to shut down her campaign because no actual people believed in it enough to keep funding it. The ridiculous blame game by Harris and her supporters on race, big money, and her gender is insulting to the actual African American voters in this race who have made their choice of Biden, Bernie, and Warren absolutely clear.

Kamala’s campaign failed because she had no theory of the case. On Medicare-for-All she waffled, on climate change she said we should ban plastic straws, on Wall Street she expressed concern but still begged for their money, and on technology, the deepest she could think about it was trying to get President Trump banned from Twitter.

The only question remains now is who will primary her during the 2022 Senate campaign in California given that at various points she was polling at 4th or fifth in her own home state. She’s a top tier candidate no more.