Kamala Owes You Nothing

One hundred and seven days.

For one hundred and seven days, Kamala Harris gave her blood, sweat, and tears to her country. She was asked to do the impossible; to somehow assemble a team to traverse the country in three-and-a-half months, when the average major party nominee had two-plus years to do so. She was asked to bring together a fractured party at the Democratic Convention less than a month after Joe Biden had recommended her as his successor. She was asked to crisscross the country, prioritizing the seven key swing states. She was asked to give interviews to legacy media while simultaneously giving interviews to social media influencers and podcasters. She was asked to debate Donald Trump, a task where truth-telling and traditional debate preparation would be thrown out the window. And she was asked to think ahead and to create a transition team along with the 4,000 presidential appointees that would make up her new administration.

Had she won, she would have been revered. Historians would be writing books left and right. Her campaign and its tactics would have been a model for all future Democratic campaigns. Bringing in Liz Cheney. Giving social media influencers access to the Democratic National Convention. Doing progressive podcasts. Ignoring traditional media. Not bending the knee to a seemingly desperate Joe Rogan. Every decision she and her team made over the 107 days would be seen as brilliant. Kamala Harris' 2024 presidential campaign would go down as the Democratic Party's greatest gamble, and greatest success, at a time when the party simply had to do everything possible to prevent a second Donald Trump administration. 

But she lost.

She lost because 89 million Americans couldn't be bothered to get off the couch and vote. She lost because of hundreds of thousands of Gaza groupies who were too naive to realize they were being used as a patsy by foreign adversaries. She lost because of the high cost of eggs, due to the ongoing avian flu epidemic, which was seen as more important to everyday Americans than reelecting a criminally indicted authoritarian hellbent on punishing his political enemies. She lost because our media once again normalized Donald Trump, and our major newspapers bent the knee by withholding critical Harris endorsements. And she lost because a majority of Latino men were convinced that their White-adajacentness would protect them while Donald Trump went after the "bad" immigrants instead of them and their families.

So, when Kamala Harris reemerged last week and said she has no interest in running for governor of California, we should be neither surprised nor shocked that her reason for doing so is due to how fractured and broken our political system has become. During a recent interview, Harris said: 

“That has been my career and recently I made the decision that I, just for now, I don’t want to go back in the system. I think it’s broken,” Harris said in an interview with CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“I always believed that, as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles, and I think right now, that they’re not as strong as they need to be,” Harris added.

“For now, I don’t want to go back into the system. I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people. And I don’t want it to be transactional where I’m asking for their vote.”

"...Perhaps it's naive of me, someone who has seen a lot that most people haven't seen, but I believed that on some level, there are many, there should be many, who consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy who just capitulated. And I didn't see that coming," she said.

"I think there are a lot of people who think they are riding out the storm as an excuse to be feckless," she added. 

Three words:

Good. For. Her.

This ungrateful country doesn't deserve her like they didn't deserve Hillary Clinton in 2016. Kamala Harris gave her all for the 75 million of us who loved and admired her, and since we had half a brain, we recognized that voting for her was one of the easiest votes we would ever make. There is no doubt that Kamala Harris could run and win to become California's governor in 2026. But why? Why would she go through another primary process where thousands of moronic leftists would again call her "Killer Kamala" or "Kamala the Cop"? Do we really think the Sunrise Movement will all of a sudden realize she has the most progressive environmental agenda of all the candidates? Do we really think DSA will suddenly come around and endorse her? Do we really think that California's Muslim community will realize the error of their ways in 2024 and understand that Kamala is actually an ally rather than an enemy? And do we think that Katie Porter stans will play nice and not once imply that Kamala Harris somehow got to where she was by sleeping her way to the top? 

Of course not. Because like Hillary Clinton before her, Kamala Harris has become a lightning rod for those who are adamantly opposed to having a woman in power. But Harris brings the added element of race to the picture. As a woman of color, she is not only subjected to the sexism that Hillary Clinton faced, but also the racism of the far left, which becomes more and more visible when groups like Justice Democrats and now David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC try to primary sitting legislators of color. Added to the fact that Harris is married to a White man, we have even a percentage of Black men who feel that Harris is a "race traitor" and is someone unworthy of their vote. While Harris more than likely has enough support from Californians who voted for her in 2024, that's not to say that "Democrats" who previously opposed her wouldn't do so again for the governor's race in 2026. These people like nothing better than to tear down a strong Black woman under the guise of doing it "for the good of the party."

Like Barack Obama before her, Kamala Harris remains a dedicated public servant. She deserves to write her memoirs and be the "Mommala" she loves being. She gave her all one year ago, and 166 million Americans were either vehemently against her or not motivated enough to support her. The rest of us are being forced to endure this real-life Hunger Games because of their actions. When Kamala, who worked harder in 107 days than most of us do in a lifetime, says she doesn't want to be the next governor of California, we need to respect that decision because it is hers and hers alone to make. 

She has damn well earned that right.