Harris, Omar, and the Democrats' great march leftward

While progressives are more likely to be atheists than conservatives, they are religiously political. And one of the things they sanctify is identity politics. Recognizing this, Biden chose Harris not because of the votes she can bring, but for the support she can garner from the Democratic base. In other words, Biden chose her because she is a woman rather than a man and because as the daughter of a father who immigrated to America from Jamaica and a mother who immigrated from India, Harris is not white.

Biden himself doesn’t sanctify identity politics. On the contrary—some of Biden’s statements on the campaign trail have been arguably racist. In the past week alone, Biden committed two racial gaffes. He asked a black journalist if he was a junkie and he said that “with notable exceptions” all black people think the same way.

Biden is probably not a racist and he certainly isn’t an ideologue. The only thing that Biden is most assuredly is a weather vane. For more than 40 years Biden has consistently adapted his “convictions” to the prevailing winds in his party. When the party was opposed to abortion, Biden was an anti-abortion Catholic. Now that his party supports unlimited abortion on demand, Biden does too.