What She Didn’t Say

The more I think about Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech last week the more I come to believe that what she didn’t say is every bit as significant as what she did say.

Notably absent from her speech was any reference to climate change and to diversity, equity and inclusion, two important causes on the left. Moreover, she treated Trump as more of a crazy uncle at Thanksgiving than as an “existential threat to democracy.” She wants to portray him as less Goldfinger and more Wiley E. Coyote.

It’s remarkable that in a party whose activists build their lives around DEI and existential threats from Trump and climate change, these concepts didn’t so much as earn a mention in Harris’ speech — and she didn’t pay a price. I’m a little surprised especially that I didn’t hear any complaints about her silence on climate change.

Moreover, among the words she did use was “the opportunity economy.” That’s a phrase coined by a Republican. Congressman Jack Kemp built his campaign around that idea when he ran for President in 1988. He later ran for Vice President with Bob Dole in 1996 and served as HUD Secretary.

Kemp wanted to use the free market aggressively to improve the lot of those left behind. He believed that the market was the solution to most problems if you simply let it work. By all accounts he was sincere in that belief. He really did want to improve the lives of women and minorities and he thought that the best way to do that was through the market-based “opportunity economy.” His ideas probably formed the basis for George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.”

Now, while Kemp backed up his rhetoric with specific policy ideas (remember “opportunity zones”?), it’s not at all clear what Harris means when she uses that phrase. Still, I’m glad she’s using it for both political and philosophical reasons.

Politically it works because it’s both inoffensive and aspirational. People can read into it whatever they want. Conservative independents and Never Trump Republicans can hear echos of Kemp while progressives could think she means the kind of discrimination in favor of victimhood groups that they mean when they say “equity.”

But philosophically I think most of us hear “opportunity” in the tradition of American individualism, self-determination and personal responsibility. It shades much further in the direction of equality (the removal of barriers) than toward equity (the use of current discrimination to make up for past discrimination). And it’s a word that seems more appealing to men (where she needs to do better) than the other phrase she uses, the “care economy.”

In addition to words she didn’t say, there were policy details she didn’t spell out. She should resist doing that for the remainder of the campaign. Let me offer some reasons for that.

First, nobody cares except pundits and policy wonks. No average voter ever reads a white paper.

Second, actually two other groups do care. One group is opposition researchers. Even in the most benign document their job is to dig out a footnote and use it as evidence of communistic tendencies and a hatred of puppies. The other group is the hard-left. They love detail because they use it as reason to be unhappy when a candidate doesn’t adhere to every comma once elected. You expanded health care to 40 million Americans who didn’t have it before? Yes, but it’s not a “single-payer” system!

Third, details proffered in a campaign mean nothing when it comes to governing. Governing is more like captaining a sail boat than a power boat. With a power boat you pick a destination and go there. In a sail boat you have to tack back and forth to reach your destination. So, it’s much better to say, for example, that your goal is to make housing more affordable than it is to offer a specific plan to do so. Then once you get into office, you can survey what you have to work with, what is possible in the environment you inhabit and shape your exact proposals for success.

Fourth, you need proof of all this? I direct your attention to the Heritage Foundation’s Agenda 2025. It’s 900 pages packed with policy detail and it creates a huge problem for Democrats because they can’t decide which of dozens of proposals — some extreme, others just nuts — to highlight in their attacks on Trump. And Trump, meanwhile, is out of breath as he tries to run away from a document that his closest aides helped shape.

Harris can’t avoid offering some details, but she should endeavor to provide as few as possible and to keep even those “details” as general as possible. What’s her specific housing plan? Well, it’s to make housing more affordable for both prospective homeowners and renters through use of tax policy and regulatory reform. So, there.

Harris is a bit of an enigma. In her career she’s been all over the political spectrum. That’s a good thing because it allows her room to move to the center, where she needs the votes and “opportunity” is a wonderful word for that purpose. She should just keep repeating it and leave it out there without defining it any more than she has to.

We have a rule here at YSDA: if you hear it on NPR, don’t say it. And Harris didn’t. Keep this up and she has an excellent chance of winning in November. Details to follow.