Bravery Is a Choice, and Cowards Make Bad Leaders

In early September, Megyn Kelly interviewed four Minnesota veterans of the Iraq War. One of the veterans, Paul Herr, offered a memorable quote. "Fear is a reaction, bravery is a choice." Although he was talking about vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz and his decision to retire from the National Guard before fulfilling his commitment, it could easily apply to Kamala Harris and her campaign strategy. For anyone not paying attention due to the recent end of a coma, her strategy has been to avoid unscripted engagement with the press. In the time since becoming the nominee she has done only one interview. It was an hour or more edited to 16 minutes, she was accompanied by Tim Walz, and it featured very little follow up questioning. A growing chorus of political commentators are suggesting that she needs to talk more to the press to let the American people know who she is. The changing polling suggests that there is a growing awareness of her character and who she is from her continued avoidance of the press. It is impossible to make a strong case for a candidate to be president who is afraid to talk to the media.

Instead of articulating why she should be president, Harris is relying on the media to do public relations for her campaign. This unprecedented strategy matches a completely unprecedented nomination process. Avoiding the press means avoiding the vast number of questions about her candidacy and that process. She is the Democrats' presidential nominee after never receiving a single primary vote in either presidential election in which she has run. She became the nominee though backroom deals after Biden was forced off the ticket due to his cognitive decline. Mere weeks before the debate that exposed his cognitive state, the press had been telling us that Biden was at his best. It was an obvious lie shared by Harris. There are numerous questions around her public participation in that lie, including why she has not evoked the 25th Amendment to remove the cognitively diminished president. 

Prior to portraying Harris as the bloom of joyful hope, the press often reminded us that she was an historically unpopular vice president. While portraying Biden as strong, several sources suggested that her presence on the ballot would undermine his incumbency. Since Biden was forced off the ticket and she became the nominee she has consistently polled ahead of Biden, either near even with Trump or slightly ahead. This is due less to anything that she has done, she promotes many of Biden's unpopular policies. Her rise is mostly due to the media. It has so far allowed her to contradict positions she professed four years ago while spinning her as an agent of change rather than the incumbent in the race. The irony is that her strategy will prove the downfall of the strategy. Avoiding the press creates a media vacuum which the press will begin to fill. In the absence of useful material from the Harris campaign, there are numerous questions screaming to fill that void. The longer she goes without speaking to the press the greater the scrutiny when she does and the stronger the pressure on the media to scrutinize her.

Two examples come from unexpected sources, Axios and CNN. CNN provided Harris with her first highly edited interview with softball questions and no apparent follow-up. After she became the presumptive nominee, Axios denied that Harris was ever border czar as VP despite their prior reporting calling her the border czar. Both have noted the contradiction between her newly stated support for a border wall and all her prior statements.

Our report on CNN tonight: Harris called Trump’s border wall “a monument standing in opposition to not just everything I value, but to the fundamental values upon which this country was built."

Now, she’s images of wall built by Trump in an ad to say she’s tough on the border. pic.twitter.com/MLETtWu4Mk

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) September 5, 2024

Axios additionally detailed the difference between her current positions on Medicare for All and banning fracking and her prior stated positions. The honest answer to why her positions have changed is that her prior positions are very unpopular, but she can't say that. Her campaign strategy is less a choice, than a necessity. There are no compelling explanations for why she supported The Green New Deal and banning fracking and opposed the border wall and now says her position is the exact opposite on each topic. It's better to avoid explaining at all. It is a strategy that must fail, in the sense of making the candidate more attractive, while still allowing enough people to ignore the danger of electing such a cowardly candidate because they hate Trump. It allows her to be an empty screen onto which people project their desired candidate or an empty box to be filled by their political desires. This explains the diversity of her endorsements from Putin, who likely sees her as weak, to Dick Cheney, who likely sees her as in line with his neoliberal values. In the end, we are left to speculate on the reasons for their professed support in much the same way we are left to speculate on what she would do as president, because she's been too afraid to say.