Did Joe Biden Sink Kamala Harris' Political Future? - Vice-President Kamala Harris was touted as the vanguard of the next generation of highly competent Democratic Party leaders.

Since ascending to the vice presidency, though, Harris has been a bit of a dud.

Even the declining President Joe Biden has expressed frustration with his number two at key points throughout his first term. 

Given the situation that Harris finds herself in, running-mate to the oldest man to ever run for the White House, one would have thought she’d be a shoo-in. But even Democrats are expressing dissatisfaction with Kamala Harris.

How could Harris be such a disaster when she held so much promise for the Democrats who supported her (including former President Barack Obama)?

According to LeTosha Brown a few months back, the founder of “Black Voters Matter,” an organization dedicated to turning out African-American voters, Harris has been sabotaged from within her own administration. 

Specifically, by people who are loyal to President Biden and who were concerned that she would “outshine” the forty-sixth president because of the yawning age gap between the two. 

Kamala Harris is Hated

A Fall 2023 poll conducted by NBC News found that Vice-President Harris has the lowest approval rating of any modern vice-president from either party since the poll started being taken. And things have not gotten much better. 

But there’s something to LeTosha Brown’s theory. After all, Harris was a successful attorney general in California. She comes from a successful background. Harris, whatever your opinions about her stances, was highly regarded and viewed as a riser (even if she did jumpstart her career by dating an older, married Democratic politician, Willie Brown). 

So, what happened? 

Kamala Harris' Poison Pill Policy Portfolio

Well, we know that the moment she and Biden were elected to the White House, Biden handed Harris a policy portfolio that can only be described as a poison pill. 

Think about it: Harris comes from the party that not only willfully ignores the crisis at the southwestern border but appears to support policies designed to encourage illegal immigration into the United States. Yet, at the top of her list was a call by President Biden to resolve the crisis quickly.

Short of restarting the Trump-era border and immigration policies—nonstarters for the Democrats—there was no way for anyone to resolve the matter.

Once the War in Ukraine erupted, Biden handed resolving that matter to his vice president as well. Unless Harris had some special connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin, given her administration’s commitment to Ukraine, there was no resolution to be had—and she had no real power to implement any real policies, which everyone knew. 

But she was the public face of that mess. 

That’s not to remove the stink from Harris. Clearly, she’s in over her head. Thank goodness her incompetence is coming out now as opposed to when she was president. 

At the same time, though, she’s been given impossible situations that really should be handled either by the entire administration or should be left to the president and his top advisers to handle. 

Not Ready for Showtime

The only reason they are not is because they want to hang the failures around her head; they want to diminish Harris, especially as they head into the 2024 reelection.

You see, when Harris was made Biden’s running-mate, the implicit understanding was that she was heir apparent. Virtually no one in the Democratic Party—including the Obamas—believed that Biden was up to the challenge of being president. 

So, they picked someone as his second-in-command who could immediately succeed him. Part of Biden’s pitch to voters in 2020 was that he was merely a “transition” candidate (which, of course, begged the question to what?) 

It was obvious to all that Harris was being groomed by the Democratic Party’s elites to immediately succeed Biden, not just after two terms in office. But to have Harris prepared to be made president at a moment’s notice, given Biden’s rapid decline. 

But the Biden people—especially the First Lady, who is basically running the country presently—did not want to give up power. 

To Save Biden, They're Sacrificing Harris

To preserve their unlikely status as top of the Democratic Party, then, the Biden team must bring Harris and any other possible replacement for Biden down to their level. 

By giving her a poison pill policy portfolio, they’ve done that. 

She’s now more unpopular than her boss, who is widely disliked. If you cannot see how the Biden team has steadfastly worked to undermine their own number two in order to prevent her from being viewed as a rapid replacement for their boss, you’re blind (that’s not to say that Harris is any way a better potential president than Biden. They’re both awful).

About the Author 

An energy analyst at the The-Pipeline, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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