It’s faint praise at best to describe someone as not smart or dumb.  In fact, I don’t know that Kamala Harris is dumb.  She may have brains, but she doesn’t much show them.  She comes across as a woman who’s well over her head, and that should disturb anyone who cares about the welfare and safety of the nation.  After all, this Californian who spent a chunk of her formative years in Montreal is, as the cliché goes, “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” 

Harris mouths talking points and reads from scripts like a robot.  She often displays an inappropriate, grating cackle-of-a-laugh, which suggests nervousness and lack of confidence.  Her recent interview with Lester Holt was sophomoric.  Does anyone not think that profilers in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea aren’t taking copious notes?  Wonder if tyrants Xi Jinping and Vlad Putin wake up in cold sweats at night dreading Harris’ ascendency to the presidency?  Key question is, does the long corrupted and daft Joe Biden have enough gas in his tank to stay president for the full ride?

Word is that Biden fancies himself an uber “progressive” who aims to surpass Wilson, FDR, and the corrupted and vain LBJ.  Biden wants to leave his lefty forerunners in the dust, hypercentralizing government and whacking away at our God-given constitutional rights on an eye-popping scale, thereby catapulting him into the pantheon of great white lib presidents.  Not that we’ll hold Biden’s whiteness against him.  And not that Joe expects a statue erected anywhere in his honor.  The living memorial to Joe is his vaunted son, Hunter.  Okay, so, we won’t go there.    

We’re not quite sure if Biden’s illusion of grandeur is a product of his deteriorating mind or predates it.  From the time Joe was a young whippersnapper in the U.S. Senate, he was a man stuffed with conceits. In his salad days, he was vindictive, snarky, and bullying (traits he shares with Harris).  Remember the “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas?  You’d think that antiracist Biden would have shown tons of respect and deference for a soul brother.  Otherwise, at very best, Joe served as a mediocre for years in a body that views mediocrity as a resumé enhancement. 

Yet, as FDR is reputed to have said about a disreputable politician, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” 

As strange as this seems, Joe is our son of a bitch.  Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.  Okay, not that we’re jumping into bed with Biden or care to, so let’s put this another way.  For the time being, Biden is like a tree fallen across a road.  His handlers have to work around him to try to enact the Democrats’ fiendish agenda.  That’s a tougher challenge than you might believe.    

Don’t discount the power of a fully engaged, dynamic president.  The president who should still be president, Donald J. Trump, is living proof of what a vibrant, gutsy man can accomplish as the nation’s chief executive even when confronted with implacable hostility from Democrats, the corporate media, and establishment Republicans like Paul Ryan.  History will bear out that Trump had, perhaps, the most successful one-term presidency (though James K. Polk gives Trump a good run).    

The claim that Harris is serving as de facto president now is overdrawn, in my estimation.  No doubt Harris has a prominent seat at the White House table, but she doesn’t exhibit anything in the way of executive savvy.  Her quasi-on-the-job training earns Fs.    

Moreover, as a recent former senator, is there any hint that she has standing among Senate Democrats?  The Biden administration’s agenda is stymied in the Senate.  If Harris is trying to lead from behind the scenes, to date, she’s doing an awful job. 

How about Harris’s inept nonleadership with the “border crisis” ongoing?  Come now, there’s no border crisis for Democrats.  It was, is, and will continue to be an opportunity to flood the nation with illegals, whom Democrats want to make welfare dependents, maids, yard boys, and their voters.  A sharp, if devious, pol would appear to be leading in this “crisis” while actually not leading.  Harris lacks the chops to create the illusion.                

Biden, the obstacle, ceases to be if his faltering mind drives Jill, Ron Klain (Biden’s chief of staff), and party grandees to nudge Joe into retirement.  Not that President Kamala Harris would be an unleashed leftwing version of Prime Minister Margret Thatcher, but there are aspects of politics that could give a Harris presidency impetus initially. 

Politicians are often quick to glom onto novelty and hitch rides on spikes in popular sentiment.  They keep wet fingers in the wind.  If Biden shuffles off to Delaware and Harris occupies the Oval Office, the MSM, the entertainment racket, and Democrats will have a field day ballyhooing her as the first “female president” -- of color, no less.  They’re itching to set precedent.  A portion of the public could be swept up in media-pumped Harrismania.  You know, those blue state denizens having a hard time ditching masks.   

Though it wouldn’t be stated as overtly as this -- or maybe it would -- a key talking point that Democrats and the MSM push is that the first female president of color cannot be allowed to fail.  Harris mustn’t be a caramel-hued female Jimmy Carter -- or worse.  She must be a superwoman.          

The legislative logjam that now exists in Congress -- thanks, in part, to institutional checks and balances, Senate Republican intransigence, slippery Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and a growing public backlash -- could be undone if tons of pressure are brought to bear on the aforementioned Manchin and Sinema. 

The “historic” Harris presidency with the ginned-up wind of popular sentiment at its back might serve as cover for Manchin and Sinema to buckle.  Yet the Harris boomlet would be temporary.  Thrust into the limelight, leading from behind the Resolute Desk, Harris’ many flaws and deficiencies (not to mention her off-putting personality) would soon erode that first blush of goodwill.  It’s that window, though -- that gap when buyer’s remorse, of sorts, hasn’t set in -- that’s concerning.  We need to keep intensifying the fight.  Keep the pressure on Manchin and Sinema.  If that gap happens, we need to close it fast.                                       

Biden retaining his gnarled grip on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue through the 2022 midterm elections has benefits.  Inertia helps here.  Barring brazen fraud, the GOP is poised to capture the U.S. House.  We need to work our tushes off to that end.  Though more Republican than Democrat seats are up in the U.S. Senate, the GOP has brightening prospects there, too.  Regardless, taking the House alone would unquestionably bottle up the Biden or Harris administration’s efforts to pass the most corrupt, radical agenda in the country’s lifetime. 

The betting here is that Biden is a goner.  It’s just a matter of timing.  Do Democrats roll the dice and give Joe the hook before the midterms?  Will they wager that with Biden gone before next year’s contests, and Harris installed at the White House, a short-term Harris bump gets their corrupt elections measure (the diabolically misnamed “For the People Act”) passed, among other contemptible legislation?  Or do cooler heads calculate that Kamala Harris is so terrible, so not a leader, so able to turnoff even rank and file Democrats, that they dare not tempt a huge voter backlash in the midterms? 

Dunno.  But do believe this: Xi Jinping, Vlad Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong-un aren’t losing any sleep at night anticipating a Harris presidency.     

J. Robert Smith can be found on Parler @JRobertSmith and at Gab, again @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.                  

Image: Gage Skidmore       

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