EDITORIAL: Kamala Harris joins Biden on the Democratic ticket

To the surprise of nobody, Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that Sen. Kamala Harris of California will join the Democratic ticket as his vice presidential nominee. Sen. Harris becomes the first Black woman to become a major party’s VP selection.

The move signals that Mr. Biden’s leftward tack is no illusion. During a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Harris — who clashed with Mr. Biden on a number of issues — glommed on to many hard-left policy positions in an effort to attract the party’s vocal collectivist base. She all but disavowed her years as a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general. Prosecuting criminals is now taboo in progressive circles.

Among other things, Sen. Harris supported the budget-busting “Medicare for All” proposal put forth by socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who admitted it would require large tax hikes on the middle class. She’s also an avid proponent of the Green New Deal offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Together, those two boondoggles would cost taxpayers upward of $11 trillion a year — almost triple what the U.S. government spent in fiscal 2019.

In addition, Sen. Harris has made clear she would repeal the Trump tax cuts. Never mind that the 2017 reform resulted in simplified returns for most middle-class wage earners and allowed the great majority of Americans to keep more of their own money. Sen. Harris is also an ardent gun control advocate who argues the Second Amendment conveys no individual right to bear arms. She favors “free” college and is an opponent of most school reforms, preferring instead to throw her lot with the entrenched education establishment, which seeks to force students to remain captive in failing public schools.

If Sen. Harris has her way, the government will play a much more active role in Americans’ daily lives and hijack a much larger chunk of their bank accounts.

None of this means that Sen. Harris’s perspectives will prevail if Mr. Biden wins the November election, of course. As John Nance Gardner said of his tenure as FDR’s second in command, “the vice presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.” But given Mr. Biden’s advanced age and his penchant for rambling gaffes, Sen. Harris may be much more influential and active than your traditional vice president should the Democrats prevail.

Moments after Mr. Biden announced his selection, President Donald Trump tweeted out a video about the Democratic ticket. “Voters rejected Harris. They smartly spotted a phony. But not Joe Biden. He’s not that smart,” a narrator says. “Slow Joe and phony Kamala. Perfect together, wrong for America.”

According to NBC News, Mr. Trump twice donated to Harris when she was an attorney general candidate. You can’t make this stuff up. On to November.