People are scratching their heads over how or why Kamala Harris got to be vice president.  Obviously, she checks all the boxes: two X-chromosomes, other than white complexion, and sort of to the left of Karl Marx.  Other than vicious ambition, however, she lacks any actual talent.

Historically, vice presidents have served various specific functions.  Spiro Agnew was Nixon's lightning rod, attracting the incoming away from the top of the ticket.  Dick Cheney added "gravitas" to the Dubya presidency, also known as "ticket balance."  Lyndon Johnson and Bush the elder balanced their tickets by being the principal rival of the presidential nominee, assumedly to unify the party.  And there's always impeachment/assassination insurance, as provided by someone such as Dan Quayle.  Harris's role appears to be similar in being 25th Amendment insurance, for which she is well suited.

Attention is now being focused on Harris since Biden's second term has already been pre-emptively thrown into the dustbin of history.  In the spirit of intersectionality, former South Bend, Indiana mayor and current DOT secretary Pete Buttigieg is also being looked at for 2024.  How he will manage to disassociate himself from the supply chain SNAFU that is currently pissing-off most of the public remains to be figured out.

It is important to note that in the entire history of the United States, a sitting vice president has been elected president only twice.  When Bush the elder defeated Michael Dukakis in the election of 1988, he thanked Martin van Buren as the only other vice president to make the grade, sarcastically implying that Van Buren was a trend-setter.

The underlying defect in this process of winning electoral popularity only by checking off the intersectional boxes is that only what is nominated matters and not who.  An old political truism boils down to "you can't beat somebody with nobody."  Harris occasionally wears a skirt and has at least some African DNA; her ability to function as an executive was never considered.

We are witnessing the collapse of a centuries-old political institution.  Although it couldn't happen to a more deserving gaggle of demagogues, it is still doing damage to our republic.  In politics and business, competition is essential to maintain quality.  Without a credible Democrat party, the Republicans may devolve into the corrupt villainy that is destroying the Democrats. 

Meanwhile, knowledge of the impending electoral disaster has also reached the militant leftists among the Democrats.  Rather than reconcile with the "moderates" who are struggling to survive, I fear they are beginning to double down on their radical agenda.  This could be considered a form of political kamikaze, a suicide plunge into the heart of the enemy.  The next skirmish will likely be the Senate's vote on the "Reconciliation" multi-trillion boondoggle bill which got through the House by only seven votes.

I am inclined to prefer divided government.  When all the parts are unified, they tend to get more things done, most of which are bad.  Stagnant, constipated government is a good thing, since most of what they try to do is stuff better done by ordinary people acting in their own interest.  The public's attention is at long last being focused on how government is the problem and not the solution.  Where this will lead is still up for grabs.  It has a lot to do with polling and elections hence, and what kind of spin the news media injects into the mix.

Speaking of the news media, there may be a transition happening there, too.  I just heard on NPR jokes being made about Biden's age and perceived feeble-mindedness.  Really?  Harris's lack of popularity is no secret, and her ability to recover has never been shown.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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