The US Isn’t Moving Right — the Democrats Are
As the Kamala Harris campaign lurches rightward, pundits want us to believe she’s just following the will of the voters. The facts don’t bear that out.
Vice President Kamala Harris laughs as Liz Cheney speaks on stage at Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, on October 21, 2024. (Nic Antaya / Washington Post via Getty Images)
Some alarming news is brewing for the Left. It turns out that after a brief flirtation with progressive and socialist politics, the United States is now turning back to the right.
“Five years ago, as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, Harris catered to the social justice Left. Now she tells Oprah she’ll shoot intruders with her Glock. That’s what I call progress,” the American Enterprise Institute recently celebrated, pointing to Harris’s moves to “catch up” with a more conservative voting public. “Kamala Harris is running to the center-right because America is center-right,” National Review blared last month. Dave Weigel argues that Democrats have “adjusted to an electorate that’s shifted to the right” by making several major policy concessions “that they didn’t want to, or think they needed to, in 2016 and 2020.”
Don’t be so sure.
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