The gaslighting is being served out in super-sized doses. The latest example is the Future Forward PAC’s new Kamala Harris ad, in which she lays out an agenda completely at odds with her record.
In an effort to revise recent history, the Democrats are desperately trying to regain ground in America’s heartland with ads that seek to convince Americans they must not believe their lying eyes—or their bank accounts, or even their recent memories.
The Future Forward PAC is a single-issue political action committee formed to support Harris’ presidential campaign. But the Harris campaign can’t claim any daylight between itself and the PAC, because it’s her voice that narrates the 30-second ad.
“I’m running to fight for an America where the economy works for working people,” she says. “Where you only have to work one job to pay the bills. Where hard work is rewarded, where reproductive rights are not just protected by the Constitution of the United States but guaranteed for every state. Because that’s our America. And that’s the America I believe in.”
Let’s take each of those claims in turn.
It’s true that more Americans than ever are working two jobs. It’s no mystery why.
“Experts say people may be taking on extra work in response to inflation, which pushed prices up 4.7% in 2021, 8% in 2022 and 3.5% so far in 2023. Inflation has outpaced wage growth through much of that span,” USA Today reports.
Where does inflation come from? If you listen to the White House, it’s due to corporate greed, former President Donald Trump, and now even software algorithms. But the fact of the matter is that inflation is caused by the big spending policies of the Biden-Harris Administration - too much money chasing too few goods. And the amount of federal spending the Biden-Harris administration injected into the U.S. economy in the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act was massive.
Not even the Associated Press can explain that away.
“While the inflation rate is indeed down from its peak, economists say the law can take little credit,” an AP Fact Check explains.
Since there are no policy positions on the Harris/Walz campaign website, we have little to go on other than Harris’ record within the Biden-Harris administration. And the Pottery Barn Rule applies: She broke it, so she owns it.
Americans are working hard as they struggle to pay their bills, including expensive gasoline caused by the Biden-Harris anti-energy policies. The irony from Harris pointing to this is both that, as a career politician, she knows little about hard work. And, that Harris was given the presidential nomination without ever earning a single primary vote – either in 2024 or in 2020.
The PAC ad concludes with what appears to be a call for unity—“ Because that’s our America.”
But Harris’ focus has always been on “transforming” America, not celebrating America and uniting Americans.
Harris is enjoying a media honeymoon at the moment, but words that she wrote in her 2019 book “We Hold These Truths” may come back to haunt her at the polls—because they describe how far too many American families feel, after having been dismissed by the Biden-Harris administration as irrelevant.
“What are people supposed to think about a government that has left them behind? How are you supposed to feel when you're drowning and no one is coming to your aid, and then you turn on the television and hear that the economy is doing great?” she wrote, when the economy was truly working better for middle- and working-class families. “Great for whom?”
Yes, Madame Vice President, exactly who is Bidenomics working for?
The Harris ad is an example of how Americans will continue to be gaslighted for the remainder of the election cycle. But we know better.
The Honorable Robert Henneke is the Executive Director and General Counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.