Column: The case for Kamala Harris for president

The most basic case for Vice President Kamala Harris is that her election would protect our democracy from the damage Donald Trump would do. But the positive case for a Harris presidency is also strong.

(Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press)

By Doyle McManusWashington Columnist

Nov. 4, 2024 3 AM PT

The case against Donald Trump is clear: He would use the federal government as an instrument of his whims.
The fundamental case for Kamala Harris is that her election would protect our democracy from the damage Trump would do.
But the positive case for Harris is also strong, if not as stark. Here are six reasons she would be a better president.

WASHINGTON — It’s easy to argue why Americans should vote against Donald Trump.

The former president neither understands nor respects the Constitution. He would use the powers of the federal government as an instrument of his whims, prosecuting political opponents and rewarding donors instead of serving the public interest. Armed with a grant of immunity from the Supreme Court, he would run roughshod over the rule of law.

The most basic case for Vice President Kamala Harris, then, is that her election would protect our democracy from the damage Trump would do.

But the positive case for a Harris presidency is also strong, if not as stark.

Here are six reasons Harris would be a better president:

Consensus

She has promised to seek consensus and compromise, two words Trump has rarely uttered. We could use a dose of both.

“For too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust,” Harris said in her “closing argument” speech last week. “It doesn’t have to be this way.... Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”

Economy

Harris’ economic policies are less likely to produce runaway inflation and deficits than Trump’s. Most economists say his high, indiscriminate tariffs would raise prices on both imports and domestic goods. Nonpartisan deficit hawks say his ever-expanding tax cut promises would increase the federal deficit by almost $8 trillion, twice as much as Harris’.

Housing, childcare, elder care

Harris has offered serious proposals to address three pressing problems: housing, childcare and elder care. Critics have raised doubts about the details, including the uncertain effects of her plan to subsidize down payments for first-time homebuyers, but she has at least made those issues high priorities.

Immigration

She has fully embraced Biden’s belated toughening of asylum rules on the border — and since she’s been stung by the issue, she’s likely to follow through. But she would do so in a measured, humane way, unlike the mass deportations and deliberate cruelty her opponent has promised.

Foreign policy

Harris says U.S. foreign policy should be based on strong alliances with other democracies, not cynical partnerships with tyrants like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. She has pledged to maintain the U.S. commitment to help Israel defend itself, but has also signaled — without offering any specifics — that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not get a free pass for attacks on Palestinian civilians.

Reproductive freedom

And, of course, she would work to ensure that women can make decisions about abortion without state governments endangering their lives.

No, Harris isn’t a perfect candidate

Harris isn’t perfect; no candidate is. But in the 15 weeks since she became the Democratic candidate, she has proved herself an abler politician than her critics expected.

She took a distressingly long time to define a clear, overarching vision. Early in the campaign, her answers to tough questions often devolved into word salad. She struggled to explain how her presidency might differ from a second Joe Biden term (“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she said on “The View”).

Put some of that down to the fact that she had only three months to construct a platform instead of the usual two years. Put some of it down to the fact that she spent four years as vice president avoiding any daylight with Biden, only to face demands for a detailed list of differences. Still, those wobbly moments raised doubts about her readiness for the job.

Over time, though, she supplied more clarity. “My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different,” she said in her speech on the Ellipse in Washington. “Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs.”

Other complaints have come from both ends of the political spectrum: Trump charges that Harris is “a radical left Marxist,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders complains that she’s moved too close to the center.

Harris’ 21-year record in elected office — more experience than Trump or Barack Obama had — solves this non-riddle: She’s always been a center-left pragmatist, not a progressive ideologue. In her very first election in San Francisco in 2003, she defeated a progressive district attorney by promising to raise conviction rates.

“She’s a mainstream Democrat, but she’s a product of California — which makes her a left-of-center Democrat,” her biographer, Dan Morain, told me.

Like Biden, Harris has generally aimed at what she saw as the center of gravity in the Democratic Party. That led her into the biggest mistake of her career, her attempt to impersonate a progressive in the campaign for the 2020 presidential nomination. Voters saw through it, and her candidacy ended before the first primary.

A move toward the center

This time, she has moved relentlessly back toward the center.

Biden talked of being a “transformative” president, but Harris has framed her agenda more modestly, as solving problems incrementally. There’s nothing as ambitious as Sanders’ “Medicare for All” on her wish list.

“I’m a capitalist. I believe in free and fair markets,” she told business leaders in Pittsburgh.

She has even, on a few issues, staked out positions a little to the right of Biden’s. The president has proposed raising capital gains taxes to a top rate of almost 40%; Harris said she would raise them to a more modest 28%.

This outbreak of centrism may include a dose of election-year calibration. Still, most presidents stick to their campaign promises, if only because they know voters will be angry if they don’t.

Besides, by reaching out to corporate executives, national security hawks and conservatives like former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Harris has built a potential foundation for broad support that could restore a measure of bipartisanship to Washington.

If she’s elected, that will prove harder than it sounds, just as it did for Biden. When President Harris makes mistakes in office, as she undoubtedly will, her supporters — and columnists like me — must hold her to account.

And that returns us to the bottom-line choice in this election: One candidate will preserve the Constitution and the rule of law; the other will erode them.

As my colleague Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post put it with admirable concision: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president because I like elections and would like to keep having them.”

Or, to paraphrase President Biden: Don’t compare her to the almighty. Compare her to the alternative.