The closest historical analogue to the Biden-Harris White House might be a bruised colonial potentate punishing its recalcitrant subjects after finally crushing an uprising, or perhaps the restored Bourbon Dynasty determined to roll back the clock. They’ve learned nothing and forgotten nothing, as the saying goes. Rather than attempt to unite the country or forge some new consensus, the administration resorted directly to cynical demonization: not just of the bulk of its political opposition, broadly smeared as violent insurrectionists equivalent to the thousand or so loutish rioters of January 6, but also of the legions of vaccine-hesitant citizens steadily hounded out of government and adjacent institutions for choosing “their body, their choice” over arbitrary whims of public health authority. ...

It all amounts to why this pro-choice bleeding heart Upper West Side public interest journalist just can’t muster the rationalization to support the Harris/Walz campaign. I can’t say that I particularly like or dislike Kamala Harris—I’m not even sure if there’s enough substance there to form an opinion. In the same way that people felt George W. Bush would be a fun guy to share a beer with, I don’t doubt that she’d be pleasant enough company over a glass of wine. She’s reminiscent of a ton of people I met in my career as a professional progressive: glib, devoid of any discernible vision or values, and as ambitious as she is vacuous.