“On the Holmes Front” with Frank Holmes
It’s no secret that Kamala Harris is not known for consistency—but Harris may have just pulled the most complete self-contradiction in modern political history.
Kamala Harris appears to have changed her position about whether she’s changing her position.
First, Harris supported taking away your ability to own a gas-powered car. Under legislation she supported, you’d have to buy an electric vehicle (EV) or hybrid—for your own good, of course.
Harris sponsored legislation. She made it part of her presidential campaign. She even renewed her promises as vice president.
Then, her campaign suddenly announced that the Democratic presidential nominee had changed her mind.
Now, Kamala has decided not to say what she believes. Will she flip-flop about the flip-flop?
The bill “presents a bold plan for transitioning the United States to 100% zero-emission vehicles,” by setting a “national zero-emission vehicle standard,” according to the press release announcing her support (and that of Bernie Sanders).
But soon, that wasn’t good enough for her—she wanted to get rid of reliable transportation even earlier.
As president, Kamala Harris committed to following an “accelerated” version of that legislation. Her 2020 presidential campaign website said President Harris “will ensure that 50 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100 percent are zero-emission by 2035.”
Last week, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance understandably brought up Harris’ years of sticking by her decision to destroy drivers’ freedom of choice during a campaign stop in Big Rapids, Michigan—and Kamala’s campaign kicked into high gear.
Anonymous campaign sources put out a press release accusing Vance of trying to “lie,” “gaslight,” and “run away from the truth.”
🚨Just in: Kamala Harris campaign says she doesn't support an Electric Vehicle (EV) mandate. pic.twitter.com/FekkYoMP9U
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) August 27, 2024
That’s a pretty big flip-flop—but wait!—Kamala wasn’t done.
Seeing this, reporter Alex Thompson of the left-wing news website Axios asked Harris if that was her final answer.
“I asked if that meant she would veto or sign the bill she co-sponsored in 2019 w/ such a mandate for manufacturers,” he said.
“The campaign declined to comment.”
New: the Harris campaign wrote in an email that she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate.”
I asked if that meant she would veto or sign the bill she co-sponsored in 2019 w/ such a mandate for manufacturers.
The campaign declined to commenthttps://t.co/ogOwDdDD99
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 4, 2024
Multiple other news outlets got the same non-response response.
“This is why she’s not doing interviews,” joked one popular account on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Is Kamala going to change her position again if the polls demand it?
It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, but Kamala Harris is abusing the privilege.
Kamala failed to adequately explain her policy position changes during last week’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. “The most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Harris told Bash. In fact, the Veep said her views “have not changed” six separate times.
Those in the know take her freedom-quashing automobile views as seriously as a heart attack. The industry has taken out a multi-state ad campaign warning voters about Kamala’s carbon-driven car-crushing crusade. “There may be someone new in the driver’s seat, but the destination is the same: a ban on most new gas cars,” say the $3 million in ads from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), referring to Joe Biden’s undemocratic ouster from the top of the ticket.
The commercials—which are running in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Montana, and Nevada—encourage voters to contact their lawmakers and ask them to “stop the Biden-Harris car ban.”
Kamala may want to back away from her position, because EVs are incredibly unpopular—even with people who buy them.”We’ve really reached peak EV market,” Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, recently told the Washington Free Beacon.
EV sales are down and buyers’ remorse is up. A survey released in July shows 46 percent of people who actually bought an electric vehicle want to go back to a traditional, gas-powered car for their next purchase—if Kamala will allow them.
The EV reversal is only the most recent volte-face in a series of walk-backs and backtracks that have Harris so turned around she looks like a presidential pretzel.
Harris has also now said she has abandoned the deeply held positions she ran on in the 2020 presidential campaign or held as vice president, including banning fracking (a policy deeply unpopular in swing states including Pennsylvania and Michigan), dropping all legal penalties for illegal aliens who cross the U.S, border (unpopular in Arizona), instituting mandatory “buy backs” as part of a national gun control policy, opposing plans to build part of a wall on the southern border, and pushing for an a bill to abolish all private health insurance plans.
“Until the vice president says otherwise, we have to believe she still stands for everything that was in her 2019 policy plan and for every policy she cosponsored as a senator,” said AFPM president and CEO Chet Thompson in a statement.
Kamala’s track record shows, even if she does say otherwise, you might be wise not to believe her. And there’s absolutely no reason to believe a press release. Whatever she or her campaign handlers say, she’ll probably have another position next week.
Maybe Kamala’s problem isn’t that she can’t make up her mind but that she doesn’t have to. May whoever has really been running the Democratic administration for the last four years—or more—tells her what she’s going to think, and say, and for how long.