Kamala Harris Deserved Better
The former VP became the fall guy for everyone else’s cowardice.
Let me say something before the pundits pounce and the Twitter politicos start “well actually”-ing me to death: I admire Kamala Harris. No, not blindly. No, not because she’s flawless. And no, not because I think she ran a perfect campaign. But because she is a Black woman in America — and somehow, after everything this country has done to women who look like her, she still had the audacity to try.
In a perfect world, Joe Biden would’ve run again in 2024. Yeah, I said it. Call me nostalgic, call me delusional — but hear me out. If he’d won, he would’ve been called old, mocked for slurring his words, and told he wasn’t the Biden of old. If he’d lost? We’d still be under President Trump, except now Harris would’ve had time to define her political identity on her own terms and come back in 2028 with a full, earned mandate. Instead, the Democrats gave her a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing and then acted shocked when the image didn’t come together.
They set her up. The same people who now complain about her campaign being lackluster are the ones who never wanted her to run in the first place. According to a Democratic megadonor, even Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi didn’t want her as the nominee. That’s right. The same Obama who famously declared “Don’t boo — vote!” was privately booing her behind closed doors. Biden gave her the nod, but it was hardly a coronation. It was more like a reluctant passing of the torch after everyone else forgot to bring matches.
Once she got the nomination, the donor class — those brave keyboard warriors of capitalism — didn’t rally behind her. They just waited for her to prove them wrong. And when she couldn’t pull a miracle out of a flaming dumpster, they bailed. No George Clooney op-ed was going to change that. Not when Democrats were still wandering the political desert trying to manifest a mythical unicorn candidate instead of backing the one they had.
And now, after all that, they want to Monday morning quarterback her entire campaign. “She moved too far to the right.” “She shouldn’t have stood next to Liz Cheney.” “She should’ve gone full AOC.” Okay — and what if she had done all of that and still lost? Would these clairvoyant consultants be holding up a mirror, or would they still be roasting her over artisanal flames?
This is what we call the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy — Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” In plain English: Just because she lost doesn’t mean everything she did caused her to lose. But try telling that to the Democratic commentariat, who are all majoring in psychic hindsight and minoring in “hot takes nobody asked for.”
And while we’re at it, let’s toss in a little hindsight bias for good measure. That’s the fallacy where people suddenly “knew it all along” even though there’s zero evidence they saw it coming. Everyone’s a genius after the results are in. If Harris had won, half these same critics would be writing glowing Medium thinkpieces about her “masterstroke in centrist coalition-building.” But she didn’t, so now they act like her very existence on the ballot was a tragic misstep. Sure, Jan.
Let’s be clear: Kamala Harris is a winner, even if the 2024 election didn’t go her way. She won when she became the first Black woman and first South Asian woman to be elected San Francisco D.A. She won when she became the first woman, Black person, and South Asian to serve as Attorney General of California. She won when she beat a crowded field to become a U.S. Senator — and then made history again as Vice President. California doesn’t hand out participation trophies. You don’t rise through the cutthroat hellscape of Golden State politics without grit, smarts, and strategy. And as CalMatters lays out, she made tangible contributions to that state — on consumer protection, criminal justice reform, cybersecurity, and more.
But folks want to pretend like she just lucked into every job she ever had. As if she didn’t battle the same system that would’ve eaten a less agile politician alive. You want to talk about courage? Try campaigning for the highest office in a country where tens of millions of people looked at Donald Trump — after the coups, the cages, and the classified documents — and said, “Yup, give me another four years of that.” That’s the reality Harris faced.
And before we go any further, let’s not gloss over what it means to be a Black woman running for president in America. Or an Indian woman. Or both. Because you can’t talk about her candidacy without talking about identity and how America weaponizes it. In the words of Malcolm X in 1962:
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.
The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman.
The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
Now imagine being that woman — in a country where roughly half the electorate was cool with Trump 2.0 — and still daring to lead. You don’t have to agree with everything Harris did. But you do have to acknowledge that she gave this everything she had, even when her own party couldn’t decide if they wanted her, didn’t want her, or wanted someone else but forgot to order them in time.
Whether she runs for governor, starts a podcast, teaches a masterclass on surviving political gaslighting, or disappears from the spotlight entirely — I respect Kamala Harris. I don’t know what her next move is. But I know this: She made history, and she did it with more class, more brains, and more composure than most of the fools trying to rewrite her legacy right now.
And let’s be honest — if Harris had become president because Joe Biden won and then had a health crisis in 2026 or 2027, the country would’ve survived.
Hell, it might’ve actually thrived.
People act like Harris would’ve wandered into the Oval Office in a blind panic, tripped over the nuclear codes, and started Googling, “How does NATO work?” Please. She was the sitting Vice President of the United States. She already had the security clearance, the briefings, the cabinet access, the experience navigating foreign leaders, federal agencies, and domestic crises. The idea that she would’ve somehow been worse than Donald Trump’s second-term nightmare is not just insulting — it’s logically indefensible. (That’s reductio ad absurdum, by the way —taking an argument to its most ridiculous end to show how laughable it is.)
Let’s play it out: Trump’s “Big Ugly Ass Bill” is already a disaster. His creepy little immigrant camp rebrand, “Alligator Alcatraz,” sounds like a deleted scene from The Purge: Nativist Edition. He’s sabotaging the judiciary, stockpiling executive power, and holding daily rallies like it’s 1937 Berlin cosplay. And we’re supposed to believe that Kamala Harris — a lawyer, a senator, a two-term state attorney general, and former VP— would’ve been the greater risk?
Be serious.
She wouldn’t have needed to be perfect. She just needed to be competent, decisive, and grounded in reality — which, let’s be real, already puts her miles ahead of the dude who wanted to nuke a hurricane.
And here’s the part nobody likes to admit: If that transition had happened — if Biden had passed the baton through circumstance instead of choice — Harris would’ve been in a position to lead with clarity, not campaigning. There would’ve been no primary bloodbath, no George Clooney fan fiction, no split-the-vote speculation. Just a new president, already in office, tasked with doing the job. And from everything we know about her — her record in California, her Senate performance, her global diplomacy as VP — she could’ve done it. She would’ve risen to the occasion. Because that’s what she’s always done.
She didn’t fail the country. The country, once again, failed someone who dared to lead it while Black, while female, and while not asking for permission first.
Harris did the best she could with what the Democrats gave her — and frankly, she deserved better.
Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton. He is the author of the upcoming book Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons. Read the original column here.
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I will always remember how Kamala Harris won the debate against Donald Trump. Whatever path she treads she will do it with intelligence, grit, and grace.
FINALLY! I couldn't agree more with you. I can't stand the endless dissection of her campaign, as if *that* mattered, when the undeniable reality is that the "they're eating the pets!"-"I have concepts of a plan" guy won. Thank you!