In our politics, shamelessness is a virtue. It is now best practice when running for high office to avoid even the appearance of fallibility. Make a mistake? Deny it. Lie? Deflect blame. Do others harm, inadvertently or otherwise? Whatever you do, never apologize.
That indecorous feature of the political landscape was on full display in CNN’s Thursday interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Dana Bash only touched on the wholesale personality makeover to which Harris has committed herself amid her presidential campaign — it was a 27-minute interview, 16 minutes of which featured Harris, so we can fairly say that CNN was constrained by “deadlines around time.” But Bash did manage to ask Harris about her conversion to the pro side of the ledger when it comes to fracking. Harris insisted that she made it “clear on the debate stage in 2020” that her 2019 support for a fracking ban was no longer operative.
But why? “What made you change that position at the time?” Bash asked. “Let’s be clear,” Harris replied. “My values have not changed.” Climate change remains a crisis, she added, and it needs to be addressed. “And to do that,” Harris said, “we can do what we have accomplished thus far.” Okay. . . . But “was there some policy or scientific data that you saw that you said, ‘okay, I get it now?’” Bash queried. “What I saw was that we can grow, and we can increase a thriving clean-energy economy without banning fracking.”
Harris didn’t articulate a conversion narrative because she doesn’t have one. What Harris said “on the debate stage in 2020” was not that she had changed her views — rather, she was merely an ambassador for Joe Biden’s views. “Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has been very clear about that,” Harris said at the time. The vice president’s views were informed then by the singular political imperative that she needed to have different views. That’s it. And that prime directive is all that has compelled her to divorce herself from the persona she crafted in 2019. You might think you deserve a fuller explanation that displays some respect for your intelligence, but Harris disagrees.
Walz was similarly pressed on his fraught relationship with the truth. Why did he say he had carried “weapons of war” in battle when he had not? Well, he was het up following news of a school shooting. Walz speaks “candidly,” he said in response to being accused of the opposite trait. He wears his “emotions on his sleeve.” And, as his wife tells him, sometimes “my grammar is not always correct.” And because these allegations are all coming from Republicans, Walz continued, they should be dismissed as quickly as one would the GOP’s attacks on “my children” or “my dog.”
What about his claim that his family benefited from in-vitro fertilization procedures when they had not, or his congressional campaign’s dissembling statements about a 1995 drunk-driving arrest? “I won’t apologize for speaking passionately, whether that’s guns in schools or reproductive rights,” Walz replied. After all, “I own my mistakes when I make them.”
He did no such thing. He obfuscated, deflected, and offloaded responsibility for his “mistakes” onto those who merely noticed them.
And what about the lie Democrats promulgated for the better part of Joe Biden’s presidency — the notion that he was mentally fit to serve in office right up until his unfitness was laid so glaringly bare before the country that it could no longer be credibly denied. Does Harris have any regrets? “No, not at all,” she said.
“He cares so deeply about the American people. He is so smart and loyal to the American people,” Harris continued, clearly lapsing into a practiced refrain from a time when defending Biden’s mental acuity irrespective of what our powers of observation lead us to conclude. “He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president.” Why, then, did Democrats band together to force Biden out of the race if he’s so sharp?
Even if Harris was an artful rhetorician, which she is not, she might have put together a more believable explanation for her behavior, both before and after Biden exited the race. But there are no incentives to be honest with the public. To even try to thread that needle would be to expose herself to criticism. If she had claimed that Democrats were not fully aware of Biden’s condition until the first debate, that would still be false, but it would at least acknowledge our shared reality. And yet, she can’t even do that. To concede fault — even a modest one like being guilty of overlooking Biden’s condition — would be to assume a defensive posture.
Likewise, Walz cannot admit to his clear mendacities, even though he is guilty of exaggerating his own story. That’s a sin, although not necessarily an unforgivable one. But no concessions to his critics are permissible. Why can’t Harris admit that her political views evolved only so she could appeal to the median voter in a general election? Because that’s what politicians do, and Harris must preserve for the benefit of her dewy-eyed supporters ensconced in information silos that their candidate is no mere mortal. She is a paragon of virtue, unlike the other guy.
But this conduct is just like the other guy. It’s hard to blame the political class for concluding that the best way out of a trap is to muscle your way directly through it as brazenly as possible and with utter disregard for empiricism. You get no points for honesty, integrity, or just affirming your own human frailties. Shamelessness is currency. In that sense, the problem isn’t our politicians but the marketplace for dishonesty that voters and their respective media ecosystems have created.
