An acquaintance told me he and his wife are voting for Kamala because Trump can't be trusted to do what he says he will do.
I told him that I reject the premise that Trump can’t be trusted because we have already a full term to see how he operates. I said it is remarkable to me how people are inventing things that Trump didn’t do during his first term and in similar fashion, inventing things Harris did do during her time as VP.
So, being the curious type, I asked what it was that swayed him to Harris. I said that in my mind, there are only four options:
Complete willful ignorance of what she has done/not done as VP (with heavy emphasis on the latter)
A simplistic belief that she has really changed the "strongly held" views she has espoused for the past 20 years or so (and in doing so, moved closer to Trump’s position).
A cynical belief she is just lying to win an election and will be the person she has always been after the election.
An irrational hate of Trump due to what the Harris campaign alleges Trump is for.
I noted that all four carry significant falsifiability.
First, knowing what she has and has not done is easily discoverable to anyone who has been watching for the past four years. The VP position is not normally a high profile, high impact role but Harris has taken it to new lows in both categories. Her staff once blamed the White House (more specifically, the old white dude in the Oval Office) for not “positioning her for success”. In October of 2023, The Atlantic published an article titled “The Kamala Harris Problem” that stated:
“Ease and confidence have not been the prevailing themes of Harris’s vice presidency. Her first year on the job was defined by rhetorical blunders, staff turnover, political missteps, and a poor sense among even her allies of what, exactly, constituted her portfolio. Within months of taking office, President Joe Biden was forced to confront a public perception that Harris didn’t measure up; ultimately, the White House issued a statement insisting that Biden did, in fact, rely on his vice president as a governing partner. But Harris’s reputation has never quite recovered.”
And it wasn’t just The Atlantic, several leftist outlets lamented that nobody knew what the Hell Harris was doing. Some, as late as June of 2024 wanted to dump her from the ticket because she was viewed as a drag on the Biden presidency.
So it is simply unbelievable that people don’t know what she hasn’t done. What is unbelievable that Harris, in a matter of months, went from zero to hero.
As to the second charge in the indictment against Harris, nobody with two brain cells to rub together believes she has changed her “values”. She has campaign underlings claim she has “always” been for or against whatever she is now against or for, so at the appropriate time she can disavow what her campaign said (after the election, of course).
Item four says more about the person supporting her for this “wink and a nod”, extremely dishonest and cynical that it is just fine to fool the moderate/independent rubes just long enough to get their votes and then scream “Sucker!” when the election is over.
Almost as bad is the last item, that people will dismiss Trump’s known actions as president and their results and replace those with what lying social media content creators (like KamalaHQ on X) are claiming. Democrats are also screaming Trump is a dictator in waiting, that he is going to implement a national ban on abortion, and he will destroy democracy – none of which is true. They have also memory holed two assassination attempts on Trump while claiming, as Democrat historian Douglas Brinkley said that people needed to “wake up” because it would be a “doomsday scenario” if Trump were to win again in November.
I told him I can respect anyone who can give me concrete reasons for opposing any candidate. I gave him my concerns about Harris’s complete lack of qualifications for the Presidency. My acquaintance disagreed with the four options, but he still couldn’t express a rational reason why he and his wife support Kamala.
I was leaning toward a combination of option three and four, when I glimpsed something that led me to think I might have discovered a fifth possibility as we wound up the chat.
It could be he is a beta male who is afraid of his wife and agreeing with her will prevent conflict.
One wonders if this emasculated group is large enough to be the deciding vote. If it is anywhere as close as predicted, they might make a difference.
Tell him, just between us guys, the wife will never know how he really voted. And promise not to tell.
I've always been struck by how ferocious beta males can be... bullying and swaggering - until pressed.