Destructive Kamala

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Arizona, August 2024. (PhotoJournaliste/Shutterstock)

Editor's Note

Kamala Harris has revealed her true ideology by tapping the radical Tim Walz as her running mate. Tom Klingenstein suggests that this ideology is simple: America must be destroyed, because it is — in the words of one of Walz’s own education consultants — “constructed as irreversibly racist.” Trump, Klingenstein argues, must make this division the focus of the final weeks of his campaign: one side wants to destroy America, and the other wants to preserve it. For patriotic Americans, Republican and Democrat, that makes the choice seem fairly clear.

Republicans criticize Kamala Harris for refusing to reveal her agenda, but, as Frank Cannon points out, she already has. Her agenda is the agenda of her vice-presidential pick, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota — someone Harris “ loves,” as she said recently. Unlike Kamala, Walz’s agenda and his beliefs are out there for all to see. He supports the full belief system of what I am calling “Kamalism”: a utopian society, today nominally led by Kamala, based on equal group outcomes. 

Admitting people to college or flight training school (or anything else) based on quotas is the essence of the destructive Left’s “social justice,” which is utterly irreconcilable with American justice, which is based on individual merit. Because these are two understandings of justice (as occurred in the Civil War) it’s one or the other, group quotas or merit. A house divided against itself cannot stand; it will be all one thing to another. Not to put too fine a point on it: Kamalism must try to destroy America (and of course the reverse: we must try to save it). So, let’s frame the election: “Kamalism versus America.”

This is by far the most important aspect of this election. One candidate wants to destroy our country ; the other wants to save it. This seems to me what virtually every politician misses. This election should not primarily be about immigration or crime or inflation or anything else Republican and Democrat politicians talk about. It should be about whether to elect a woman who wants to destroy America or a man who wants to improve it. But it isn’t. If we are to save America we must make the election about this choice, for every voter, right up until Election Day. 

We should brand the Democratic party as the destructive party and Kamala as its destructive leader. Former President Trump has been gro ping around for a name for Kamala. I believe he has settled on “comrade Kamala.” That’s serviceable, but it is not enough. The name “comrade Kamala” implies she is a communist. But what is communism but an ideology that must destroy everything in its path, in the same way Kamalism must destroy the American way of life? Thus, I think it would be more precise and more powerful to brand her “destructive Kamala” and the Democratic party as the “destructive party.”

How do we know that Kamalism wants to destroy America? All we must do is listen to what the intellectual influencers of the destructive Left say. Brian Lozenski, a key appointee to Tim Walz’s Department of Education charged with crafting social studies curriculum guidelines, says so directly. He is on video saying “that the United States as constructed is irreversibly racist. So if the nation-state as constructed is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with, it must be overthrown.” Walz, who has a great interest in education — he was a social studies teacher — will likely take the lead in matters of education in a Harris administration. We can only imagine what the U.S. Department of Education might look like if Harris and Walz were in charge and Lozenski or one of his allies were placed at its head. A nation cannot survive if it teaches its children to hate it.

Although now, in the middle of the election season, Kamala says she “does not think America is a racist country,” in the past she has said just that. Walz has said something similar: “America is a ‘racialized hierarchy’ defined by oppression and injustice.” The 1619 Project, today taught in thousands of schools, says, in effect, the same thing. Racism, claims the 1619 Project, is in America’s DNA. 

The 2020 riots were the most dramatic illustration to date of Kamalism in action. They were not a protest against police treatment of George Floyd, but rather an attempt to destroy America — an attempt egged on by virtually all of our major institutions.

We must make it clear that the destructive Left does not believe there is some racism in America but that America is racist to the core — “systemically racist,” as they like to say. It is this assertion that justifies the overthrow of the American way of life. They teach us that all America’s values, from excellence to patriotism; all institutions, from religion to capitalism; and all policies, from borders to oil production, are racist. Like the 1619 Project, they teach us that we were founded on racism and are committed to its perpetuation. 

Anyone who calls America “systemically racist” is, whether they know it or not, calling for the destruction of the American way of life. After all, why would we want to keep a systemically racist, evil, country? There are some people who use the term “systemic racism” but claim they do not wish to destroy America. But they can’t have it both ways. Whatever they say, the logic of the claim that America is systemically racist necessarily leads to calls for its destruction. This requires all decent and patriotic Americans, both Republican and Democrat, to reject the claim outright wherever it comes up. Our nation, and our way of life, depend on it.