US Senator John Thune’s Weekly Column: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Actions Speak Louder Than Words
By Sen. John Thune

In recent weeks, Vice President Harris has attempted to reinvent herself and run away from her record in the U.S. Senate and as President Biden’s vice president. Those who know that record, however, will find it difficult to believe her sudden about-face.

As a senator, Kamala Harris ranked among the institution’s most liberal members. She was an early backer of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. She supported a bill that would mandate all new vehicles be zero-emission by 2040. She even authored a universal basic income proposal that one analyst said “could be the most expensive bill ever introduced.” Then, as a presidential candidate five years ago, she ran on an agenda that would please members of the far-left. She endorsed a fracking ban, decriminalizing drug possession, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and mandatory buybacks of certain guns.

But in just a few weeks’ time, Vice President Harris has changed – or at least she would like the American people to think so. As a senator, she called a border wall “un-American” and “a waste of money.” Now she supports one. She wanted to ban fracking, now she doesn’t. She was for a federal jobs guarantee, but not anymore. She even changed her position on banning plastic straws!

In the last few years, Vice President Harris has also played a key role in implementing President Biden’s agenda. She cast the deciding vote to pass a massive spending spree that sparked a historic inflation crisis from which families continue to suffer. A crisis at the southern border raged for years after the vice president was put in charge of the administration’s response to it. And we’ve seen uncertainty on the world stage dating back to this administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in which the vice president played a role.

Despite these sudden changes, it seems that progressives should have no cause for alarm. The vice president’s former colleague, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), was recently asked whether Harris was abandoning her progressive ideals. “No,” he answered, “I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals. I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.” I think he’s right. I suspect that one of the Senate’s most liberal members would be one of the nation’s most liberal presidents.

Try as she might to remake herself, the vice president’s record reveals a lot about her. She has been aligned with the left wing of the Democrat Party, and she’s been involved in some of this administration’s biggest blunders. No one has to wonder what the next four years would look like – it would be a lot more of the same.

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