Perhaps no member of Congress better represents the new #Resistance movement than freshman Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
The progressive former California attorney general has cast herself as one of the most vocal opponents of Trump in Washington — a high bar for a city he less-than-affectionately refers to as “The Swamp.”
Nevertheless, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Thursday, Harris defected from the ranks of her fellow #resistors and dispensed some surprisingly sharp tough love for Democrats.
Recalling an effort she made to convince her suspicious peers to embrace centrist Democrats such as Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., Harris remembers saying, “We can’t afford to be purists … You have to ask that question of yourself: Are we going to be purists to this resistance to the point that you let these guys go?”
This fairly reasonable sentiment, Harris claims, elicited responses ranging from “What happened?” to “Why are you saying this?” from baffled supporters.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, Harris laid into liberal identity politics, explaining, “when we wake up at 3 in the morning or something is troubling us, it is never through the lens of, ‘am I Democrat or Republican,’ or on our identity based on what other people have decided is our identity.”
Harris pointed instead to more practical economic problems including bills, jobs, and health insurance as the issues that “weigh on” people, according to the Times.
“We, as Democrats and progressives, cannot afford to be guilty of putting people in these narrow boxes based on what we have decided is their identity instead of seeing that they have lived full lives,” the first-term senator declared. “They are full people, as multifaceted as the other people we know.”
Why that concept appears to be novel for members of the progressive movement remains a mystery. But as that movement continues to commit itself to appeasing its most radical wing, it’s at least notable that one of its ascendant champions plans to swim upstream.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
