A Progressive Prosecutor at the Нelm of the US?

The National Convention of the US Democratic Party was held in Chicago on August 19-22, 2024. The delegates nominated incumbent Vice President K. Harris as a candidate for the US presidency and adopted the Party Platform 2024.
The convention gave a good boost to the Democrats in the election race and showed that replacing J. Biden for K. Harris was very correct and timely. Mr. Trump was quite unhappy with that.

There were a lot of speeches at the convention. It's interesting to read a good fact checking by CNN of the opinions of different speakers on the first day. Most of the speeches contained inaccurate, incomplete or simply false information, but the audience did not pay any attention to that (as always there was no time for details) and did everything as the organizers of the show intended.

The show reminded me the meeting of Amway distributors, which I happened to attend in the summer of 1996 in Budapest (Hungary). The event was held in a large sports arena for 10-15 thousand people. Women wore evening dresses, men were in suits and ties despite the heat, all of them were happy, hugging, laughing, the best distributors were speaking from the stage and a desire appeared to be a part of this celebration and some feeling of being energized. As it turned out later, this was the main purpose of the event.

The Democrats' platform has slid to the right.

The party’s Platform was approved on the floor by a voice vote despite the fact that it mentioned Biden's «second term» many times (Trump's team counted 19) because the Democrats haven't changed the text since the document’s preliminary adoption on July 16. I don't think the convention delegates read the Platform and if it said that the goal of the Democratic Party in 2024 was to abolish the US constitutional system and shoot all members of Congress, they would have probably accepted it, too.

Democrats' Platform 2024 has undergone some fundamental changes comparing to the party's previous platforms and generally points to the Democrats' drift to the right clearly in favor of changed voter sentiment.

The Democratic Party in its new platform:
- does not propose an end to military aid to Israel, but calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, without explaining how this can be achieved.
- is already in favor of “funding the police, not defunding it”. It calls for more police on the streets in order to protect communities. There are no any mentions of “police brutality” and the “overhaul of the criminal justice system from top to bottom.”
- for the first time in more than a decade the Democrats (and Mrs. Harris as Democrat’s nominee) say nothing in the Platform of abolishing the death penalty.
- does not declare a national climate emergency and ban of fracking; it supports electric vehicles and investing in clean energy.
- supports the immigration reform and securing the border (but at the same time urges the Congress to approve a pathway to the US citizenship for “long-term” people which are in the country illegally).
In addition, the Democrats' Platform 2024 keeps committing to restorе and protect women’s access to abortion and contraception, reduce childcare prices for low-income families, expand Social Security and Medicare, permit states to legalize cannabis, ban assault weapons, advance the voting rights and once again calls for «making the wealthy and big corporations finally pay their fair share”.

A familiar stranger K. Harris.

I wrote once that the Democrats had no strong candidates in reserve and called Mrs. Harris “featureless”, judging about her very superficially because of her apparent unwillingness to address the immigration issue at the southern US border about a year ago. Now I read her bio and saw that I was wrong. Mrs. Harris is very much “featured.” Even too much.

The vice president is usually in the shadow of the president and few people are interested in him or her, so the nomination for the nation's top office and K. Harris' speech at the national convention gave many Americans (including me) a chance to get to know her better.

K. Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination and said in the speech to the present among other things:
«I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know: I promise to be a president for all Americans … You can always trust me to put country above party and self. … I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads — and listens. Who is realistic, practical and has common sense.»

Well, let us also try to listen carefully to Mrs. Harris while being “realistic, practical” and adhering to “common sense”.

Good wishes. Both candidates want «to be a president for all Americans» without a unifying idea.

K. Harris: “I promise to be a president for all Americans.”
It's just a good wish. Mr. Trump also wishes for that very much.

I found no unifying message for the nation from Mrs. Harris. She has nothing to say to Republican fans despite she should have something for them if she wants «to be a president for all Americans». On the contrary, the convention was built on the opposing Mr. Trump’s ideas and one of the main narratives was “Prosecutor vs. Felon”. It's been said by many, but it is weak and alienating to Trump's followers. They don't believe it because, in particular, he is not sentenced yet in any of his few criminal cases. And if it is so, there's nothing to sentence him for, it's all a lie, and then «a Felon» is a fighter against evil.

Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything. Presidential candidates and their supporters are pulling the country in different directions. This is what divides America now.

Good wishes. Taxes on the wealthy and big corporations? Ok, but what about cutting the expenses?

K. Harris suggests to raise top marginal rates on the top earners from 37% to 39.6% and to tax «unrealized capital gain».

1. Democrats have been proposing something like a “billionaire tax” for quite some time now.

2. Many years it doesn't produce any results because it's “unrealistic”. The bees do not fight honey. The elite of Democratic Party have been promising for years to make themselves (and the elite of Republican Party) pay their «fair share». Even Mr. Trump is more honest in that regard — he believes that «keeping taxes low for the wealthy will supercharge investment and lead to more jobs» and says that explicitly. Whether he is right or wrong here is another question.

3. The main issue is not only to increase the amount of taxes levied (budget revenues), but also to reduce the unnecessary spending. The country needs the efficient allocation of the budget, but the politicians are unable or unwilling to «stretch the legs according to the coverlet». The federal budget deficit is now almost $2 trillion and tends to increase, i.e. the government's expenditures exceed and will keep exceeding the revenues (collected taxes). A few recent US governments have been living in debts. They are wasting taxpayers' money and therefore, in particular, the country is not developing, but degrading.

The renowned economist K. Rogoff wrote in his good and small article recently: “Neither Trump nor Harris seems particularly interested in reducing the deficit.”
Indeed, almost no one in the US pays attention to the federal budget deficit, which is actually very important because the debts can destroy any union — family, business or state.
A famous billionaire-investor Ray Dalio warned: "Don’t have debt rise faster than income because debt burdens will eventually crush you".

Good wishes. “A new way forward.” Ok, but where is “forward”?

K. Harris said to the convention: «A chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.»

There are calls from various politicians and their sympathizers to “go forward in a new way” before every US presidential election, and they all pretend to know where the way “forward” is.
Mrs. Harris sees «a new way forward» as rebuilding the US middle class, and she is going to fulfill that by running a pro-union agenda, increasing child tax credits, giving subsidies for childcare and first-time house buying, and lowering the prices of food, housing and medicine.

However:
- this would require significant spending of a budget that already has a deficit of about $2 trillion (see above).
- the entire US economy is based on a policy of targeted inflation (2% per year) of the Fed. Increased prices for food, housing and medicine are mainly the result of this policy, not just broken global supply chains due to coronavirus or wars. Fighting prices means fighting the consequence instead of the cause which is the Fed's misguided monetary policy.
It turns out that Ms. Harris (like Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump) does not understand the nature of the inflation she is going to fight.

Good wishes. Ms. Harris's «Freedom». Ok, but someone's freedom always turns into someone else's unfreedom.

There were, I think, around 20,000 people at the Democratic convention including 4700 delegates from all over the country. The stage and the hall were decorated with “Freedom” signs and there were many of the same posters in the hands of the present.
К. Harris and other speakers explained what they meant by the word “freedom”:
«In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence—in our schools, communities, and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others. The freedom to vote.»

Democrats have also contrasted their own “democratic” freedom with “republican” one: «When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations—free to pollute your air and water. And banks—free to take advantage of customers.»

Thus, the Democrats believe that there are two “freedoms” in the US. “Democratic” freedom is, of course, better than "Republican" one, so the Americans have to vote for it. Republicans did the same at their National Convention in July. However, this is an illusion of choice because both proposed «freedoms» do not free the US from its major problems - destructive hatred, stagnation and division of the nation.


In my opinion, everyone should be careful with such words as “freedom”, “love”, “equality”, “kindness”, etc. For example, China's freedom to build artificial islands in the South China Sea turns into unfreedom of maritime navigation. Mr. Putin's fight for the freedom of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine turned into a brutal war of conquest. Americans' famous freedom of speech turns into clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and the police in Chicago (not in Gaza Strip). The freedom to own firearms in the US turns into tens of thousands of deaths in the country. Freedom to vote in America is limited to voting either for Democrats or Republicans, which is unfreedom, too.
Someone's freedom is always someone else's «unfreedom».

Good wishes. «Kamala Harris, for the people.» Ok, but do the people really need that?

Mrs. Harris told the convention that this was how she always began her prosecutor's speech before the court. I’ve read her biography and this is what I realized.

Mrs. Harris is a person of logic (logic is more of a flaw for me) which fanatically passionate about an idea and frantically implement it. And all is good if the idea is correct and all is bad if it is not. Besides, time after time Mrs. Harris changes her point of view (which is normal if it is done not too often). For example, when she was a prosecutor in California, she alternated between supporting and opposing the death penalty and the legalization of cannabis. So, her life values were not finalized yet (at least at that time).

Mrs. Harris is a prosecutor. A “progressive prosecutor” as she called herself during her 2019 presidential campaign.
She remained a prosecutor after moving on to the US Senate and the Vice Presidency.
Judging by her biography, Mrs. Harris tries to respond to every challenge of life with a new law, but this is a way to nowhere. I have always liked a line from a song by one Russian poet and composer: «We’ve built so many walls against our foes so we found thyself locked inside.»
Too many laws are just as bad as too few - they make life more difficult, take up a lot of resources, and often conflict with the common sense. For example, once I’ve read about a funny law invented in one American state that prohibited having sex with a patient in an ambulance. Apparently, the patient died there while having sex (or because of the failure of doing that), but zealous lawmakers immediately made up a stupid law.

Laws are necessary in any society, but every law is always an attempt (not always successful) to put life into some kind of framework. But life is illogical and bigger than any framework, that is why it is so difficult to formulate one comprehensive law on a particular topic and there will always be the exceptions. Then it is needed to come up with additions to the law and lawmaking becomes an endless process. This keeps Mrs. Harris busy, but it can аlso turn into a big unfreedom and mess in the society because of the abundance of unnecessary laws.

By the way, there are too many incarcerated people in the US: 1.767 million or around 0.5% of population as of 2024. That's far more than in any other developed country in the world and former prosecutor Mrs. Harris had to have a hand in that, too. Thus, there's something wrong in the US with judicial power or with the US people (from my observations most Americans are quite law-abiding citizens), or with living in the country in general. It's probably all together.
The Democrats themselves are concerned much by overcriminalization and mass incarceration in the US. Nevertheless, President Biden is convinced that “... crime will keep coming down when we put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon.”
I don't think so. It's better to keep them both out.

К. Harris will push through laws that she believes are created “for the people.” And what those laws will really be - fair or not, necessary or not, “for the people” or not - depends on her vision at that time. I mentioned above Ms. Harris' suggestion to tax «unrealized capital gain».
The essence of this populist law is as follows: the increase in value over time of every asset (land, real estate, shares, gold) of all the taxpayers with wealth greater than $100 million will be taxed every year, even though they didn’t sell it. Now this tax is paid only when an asset is sold, so the profit is made. I don't have $100 million, but I am against this law because it is unfair (the capital gain is not realized), unrealistic (wealthy Democrat and Republican donors will stop it anyway) and it is very inconvenient for tax calculations in time because of the constant depreciation of fiat money due to inflation. This suggestion is obviously beyond the “common sense”.

In 2019, then Democratic presidential candidate K. Harris said at a meeting with big donors: “I believe in capitalism, but capitalism is not working for most people.”
If Mrs. Harris is still “for the people”, does that mean she would lead the country towards socialism after being elected President of the US? Or has she already changed her mind since 2019 about capitalism?
K. Harris’s life values seem not to be finalized yet.


P.S. Mrs. Harris is scheduled to debate Mr. Trump on September, 10. It's gonna be messy, but for some reason people love to watch squabbles, so “show must go on”. The opponents will spend time left before the election in slinging mud at each other rather than toward finding a unifying goal for all Americans and getting the country out of deadlock. I've shown here 3 possible scenarios for the country after the election.

Also, in another article I asked the Americans to think about “the third” freedom - the freedom of the people from the deception of the elites, and suggested them to vote for it. Unfortunately, the people of the US cannot see and realize that freedom yet because of the lack of desire and time. They have delegated all the power to govern the country to the two major parties which just abuse their trust.

US citizens have a little influence on the politics of their country, they can do nothing about their elites and “We, the people” from the declared main subject of American political life turned into an object of manipulations of both ruling parties.
Unfortunately, it is easy to manipulate by blind, ignorant and naive people.