Amy: We have to issue a statement.
Dan: Alright, well, standard-issue pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian—but subtly more pro-Israeli—statement. I mean, hit f9 and print that fucker out.
Amy: No this needs to be top notch—this needs to be the Gettysburg Address of tightrope-walking, say-nothing bullshit.
In response to criticisms that she was all vibes, no policy—which The New Republic foolishly declared she doesn’t need to win—Kamala Harris added a page to her campaign website laying out a series of policy statements. It’s extraordinarily thin, but here are the main portions of the foreign policy stuff.
This is Chat-GPT meets Blob. I would like to know whom the campaign thinks will find confidence in this straight-from-the-unipolar-moment word salad. From a “Who benefits?” perspective, this one is quite confounding.
I’m almost certain this was not widely circulated within her foreign policy team while it was being drafted—Phil Gordon and maybe three or four others likely contributed to something that was ultimately written by political folks who don’t do foreign policy. Politico had reported that her 2019 campaign had similar internal problems.
Weirdly, it touts the number of times she took international trips as some kind of bona fide. Took a tour of the DMZ, and somehow that’s worth a sentence in a one-page policy platform? Bubble-think nonsense.
Otherwise, her policy statement here promises literally nothing different on Gaza or weapons to Israel. It reiterates US primacy in ten different ways. It’s most definitely not worker-centered. And it’s shot-through with Sinophobia, which only makes sense either if your strategy is primacy (it is) or you’re making foreign policy statements based on raw political calculations of what’s popular in the Washington imaginary (probably also true).
It pains me to observe this because I want better, we need better, and I’m very invested in her beating Trump. But we are well and truly in the territory of HBO’s Veep and nobody wants to say it for fear of harshing the vibes that appear to be central to the current strategy.
And according to this week’s NYT/Sienna poll, vibes ain’t cutting it.
Glad that everyone realizes that politics in Washington is less West Wing and more VEEP. When I was reading the Foreign Policy section, it felt lI was reading something written by Dan Pfeiffer than someone interested in American statecraft, Just because I remember listening to a pod save america episode where Tommy Vietor was saying Pfeiffer either did not like talking about foreign policy or didn't care about it. While you're right that section is weak on details, aren't most of these campaign sites for candidates sites are more about rhetoric than say actual policy especially when discussing foreign policy? I didn't read the policy book that was released from the convention, but isn't that the place where policy wonks would be scoping out for policies?
Just plain frightening, where are the new ideas to inspire the electorate? Steady as she goes is a losing strategy against Trump - as the polls indicate.