Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris is easily dismissed by conservatives as an out-of-touch California progressive, a glittering embodiment of her party’s leftward lurch, unviable as a presidential candidate forced to compete between the coasts. But beyond her performative interrogations of Trump nominees, Harris’ approach to party politics is more nuanced than your average #Resister.
This first struck me last April, when the freshman senator offered a sharp and substantive rebuke of identity politics. A Los Angeles Times profile of Harris included an anecdote about her appearance at a meeting of progressive activists that left them gaping. “We can’t afford to be purists,” Harris reportedly said. “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? Or can you understand that you may not agree with 50 percent of their policy positions, but I can guarantee you will disagree with 100 percent of their replacements’ policy positions. So that is part of the question. What do we have to do in this movement to be pragmatic?”
It sounds perfectly logical, but endorsing pragmatism over purity, and embracing centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is downright subversive in progressive circles today. It’s certainly not the path of least resistance for a rising star like Harris, who further argued, “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.”
“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,” she said. “They are full people, as multifaceted as the other people we know.”
Such sentiments may seem harmless, but it’s hard to understate how bold of a statement that is from a progressive Democrat in today’s environment. Fast forward one long, polarizing year later, and Harris hasn’t budged.
A Politico profile published Thursday explored her surprising relationship with the Democratic Party’s centrists. “Harris wants to be a part of the campaign to save her party’s endangered moderates and is enthusiastically backing Feinstein against a liberal challenger,” the article reported. “And Harris is prepared to campaign for senators whose views on climate change, immigration and social issues diverge from her own. Her extensive fundraising efforts for Senate Democrats facing reelection have netted more than $2.5 million so far, according to her aides.”
Meanwhile, other potential 2020 candidates like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand are actively sprinting away from the center. At Netroots Nation last August, I watched the crowd of progressives activists — Harris’ target audience in a potential presidential bid — enthusiastically cheer Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s condemnation of resurgent nostalgia for centrism.
Though it’s largely flown under the radar, Harris’ calculated, gentler approach to her party’s battle over identity politics and centrism is extremely interesting — and probably smarter than the approaches of other potential 2020 candidates.
To be clear, there is a key distinction between governance and rhetoric, and Harris governs like a progressive. But that may be exactly what allows her to challenge the self-defeating instincts of her peers.
