Column: Kamala Harris won’t cure what ails the Democratic Party

William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the USA, was the final commander in chief born a British topic and the primary member of the Whig Get together to win the White Home. He delivered the longest inaugural tackle in historical past, almost two hours, and had the shortest presidency, being the primary sitting president to die in workplace, simply 31 days into his time period.

Oh, there may be yet one more little bit of trivia in regards to the man who gave us the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison was the final politician to lose his first presidential election after which win the subsequent one (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson managed that earlier than him). Richard Nixon misplaced solely to win approach down the highway. (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the one two to win, lose after which win once more.)

Everybody else since Harrison’s period who misplaced on the primary try to ran once more within the subsequent election misplaced once more. Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and misplaced twice. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan every ran thrice in a row and misplaced (Clay ran on three completely different celebration tickets). Voters, it appears, don’t like losers.

These will not be encouraging outcomes for Kamala Harris, who introduced final week she won’t be working for governor in California, sparking hypothesis that she desires one other go on the White Home.

However historical past isn’t what she ought to fear about. It’s the right here and now. The Democratic Get together is wildly unpopular. It’s web favorability ( 30 factors) is sort of triple the GOP’s (11 factors). The Democratic Get together is extra unpopular than any time within the final 35 years. When Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Democrats must be having the alternative impact, 63% of People have an unfavorable view of the celebration.

Why? As a result of Democrats are mad at their very own celebration — each for dropping to Trump and for failing to supply a lot of an impediment to him now that he’s in workplace. As my Dispatch colleague Nick Cattogio puts it, “Even Democrats have discovered to hate Democrats.”

It’s not all Harris’ fault. Certainly, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who inspired him to run once more.

Harris’ dilemma is that she symbolizes Democratic discontent with the celebration. That discontent isn’t monolithic. For progressives, the objection is that Democrats aren’t preventing onerous sufficient. For the extra centrist wing of the celebration, the issue is the Democrats are preventing for the improper issues, having lurched too far left on tradition struggle and identification politics. Uniting each factions is visceral want to win. That’s awkward for a politician finest recognized for dropping.

Nearly the one motive Harris was positioned to be the nominee in 2024 was that she was a variety decide. Biden was specific that he would decide a girl and, later, an African American working mate. And the identical dynamic made it unattainable to sideline her when Biden withdrew.

After all, most Democrats don’t see her race and gender as an issue, and within the summary they shouldn’t. Certainly, each VP decide is a variety decide, together with the white guys. Working mates are chosen to enchantment to some a part of a coalition.

So Harris’ drawback isn’t her race or intercourse; it’s her incapability to enchantment to voters in a approach that expands the Democratic coalition. For Democrats to win, they want somebody who can flip Trump voters. She didn’t lose due to low Democratic turnout, she misplaced as a result of she’s uncompelling to a altering citizens.

Her gauzy, usually gaseous, rhetoric made her sound like a dean of scholars at a small liberal arts faculty. Apart from reproductive rights, her convictions gave the impression of they had been crafted by focus teams, at a time when voters craved authenticity. Worse, Harris acquiesced to Biden’s insistence she not distance herself from him.

Such clubby deference to the institution mixed with boilerplate pandering to progressive constituencies — discovered from years of San Francisco and California politics — makes her the proper resolution to an issue that doesn’t exist.

Her alternative to seem on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Present” for her first interview since leaving workplace was telling. CBS just lately introduced it was terminating each Colbert and the present, insisting it was purely a enterprise determination. However the motive for the printed community’s determination stemmed partly from the truth that Colbert narrow-casts his costly present to a really small, very anti-Trump slice of the citizens.

“I don’t need to return into the system. I feel it’s damaged,” Harris lamented to Colbert, decrying the “naïve” and “feckless” lack of “management” and the “capitulation” of those that “think about themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy.”

That’s all catnip to Colbert’s ideologically dedicated viewers. However that’s not the viewers Democrats must win. And that’s why, if Democrats nominate her once more, she’ll most likely go down in historical past as a solution to a trivia query. And it gained’t be “Who was the forty eighth president of the USA?”

@JonahDispatch