“Put up or shut up.” It’s something you might’ve said as a kid on the playground, you and your classmates growing weary of a bully’s braggadocio concerning his or her reported ability to dominate a contest you’re all engaged in.
Or it might’ve been a rival coworker who claimed his or her method for completing a task is superior to yours. Or perhaps even a warning to a friend to stop the trash talk in a gentlemanly game of basketball in your backyard.
The setting and circumstances don’t matter compared to the vow itself. Everyone’s faced claims from someone who swears they’re better at something than they appear to be and need to be called on it by a person who can enforce accountability.
Such is definitely the case in 2024 politics, where Democrat presidential nominee cackling Kamala Harris and running mate “Tampon Tim” Walz have been going around the country making a slew of promises no one can say for sure, at least at the moment, that they’re serious about keeping if and when they are entrusted with power by American voters. Republican nominee Donald Trump has been countering Kamala’s pretention with a simple question, “If you’ve got all these plans, why aren’t you doing them now.”
Sure, it could be said all politicians make assurances they may or may not keep if the opportunity arises, but rarely do they possess the power to do something about the issue before they’re even elected to the office. Seeing as Kamala Harris fell into the Democrat presidential nomination without going through the primary process this year, she’s in a special position to promise, promise, promise and boast about “Day One” plans without gullible people remembering she’s in the seat of power right now.
Why can’t Democrats acknowledge the conundrum with this scenario? Or do they believe Kamala Harris doesn’t actually do anything in her day job and is such an afterthought she hasn’t had any impact on the performance and record of the Biden/Harris administration?
Inquiring minds want to know. In a piece titled, “If Kamala Has Such Great Plans, Why Hasn’t She Implemented Them?”, Kylee Griswold wrote recently at The Federalist after the veep debate:
“[S]ubbing in Harris for Biden didn’t change a thing. There’s a reason it’s called the Biden-Harris administration. Kamala Harris is Biden’s No. 2, and considering the president’s brain is pudding, she is exceedingly culpable for the sorry state of our once-great nation — especially since she lied about his health and vigor for years. Biden’s vice president, ‘border czar,’ and ‘last person in the room’ doesn’t get a free pass, no matter how hard she and her new running mate try to clean her slate with joy and vibes.
“’I’ve been in politics long enough to [know] what Kamala Harris does when she stands before the American people and says that on day one she’s going to work on all these [energy, homeownership, safety, and fentanyl] challenges I just listed,’ Vance said in his closing statement. ‘She’s been the vice president for three and a half years. Day one was 1400 days ago, and her policies have made these problems worse.’ Yes, they have. Exponentially so.
“So when politicians like Harris and Walz drone on about what they’re going to do in the future, you really only need to look at what they’ve done in the past. Based on what Kamala Harris has done since her day one, voters should deny her a day 1,500.”
As a multitude of commentators have remarked, Vance has an uncanny acumen for narrowing down the argument and articulating it in such a way everyone understands it. It’s easy, for example, to think about 3 ½ years as a big chunk of time, but it’s much more descriptive to put a number of days to it.
What were you doing 3 ½ years ago? I’m guessing a lot of folks would do the mental calculations and come up with early 2021, so if your kid is now a senior in high school, you can rationalize that he or she was a freshman back then. Or, what team won the Super Bowl in 2021, sports trivia experts?
But ask them to list what they were doing 1400 or 1500 days ago, it’s a much more daunting-sounding test. “Day One” doesn’t sound so impressive when you’ve had over a thousand “Day One(s)” in the interim, opportunities to get something accomplished but didn’t achieve a darn thing.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been doing more than his share of “Day One” promising himself, though Trump has already been president, so when he suggests he’s primed to work hard right away, he’s got the institutional know-how to do it. Trump would re-enter the Oval Office understanding what it takes to move the needle quickly.
But Harris? She doesn’t have a clue what to do. So why does she still vow to make changes?
Tongue-in-cheek (sort of) reasons why Kamala makes her “put up or shut up” type boasts:
First, Kamala has been so preoccupied with the Biden-given tasks of “discovering the root causes of illegal immigration” and shepherding through “voting rights” legislation in Congress and promoting the administration’s NASA initiatives to paid child actors that she simply hasn’t had time to get anything else meaningful done. After all, it takes time to not visit the southern border and have daily or weekly lunches with fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, so actually working on “stuff” has taken a backseat to such important duties.
Her occasional graduation ceremony, funeral or other public function also took Harris away from accomplishing meaningful exploits. Kamala’s had a hard life; it’s the reason she has such a difficult time keeping staff in her office.
Second, senile Joe Biden never gave her anything authentic to work on, so her staff put together a list of things she’s been wanting to do – a “wish list” for “Day One” activities! Things like handing out a $6000 per child tax credit (on a monthly basis) and doling out $25K to first time homebuyers – it’s a smokescreen for having intended to enrich Democrat voters, but up until now, hasn’t been able to do.
Three, the geometric growth of senile Joe’s mental and cognitive deterioration meant he’s hardly ever awake to meet with Harris about her ideas, so therefore, most of them have sat on the backburner waiting for a “What I’d do on Day One” hearing from someone who had the power to grant her an audience.
Four, Harris must lend the impression she actually has ideas. Anyone who’s had children realizes they’re full of all sorts of thoughts about what they’d like to do if set free to dream and fantasize. Kamala, with her childlike mind, understands not everything is achievable and she didn’t know if she’d ever get the chance to be in charge, so she’s airing everything now – including the crazy and unworkable stuff – to make it seem like she had original thoughts.
It's better than being an empty head, isn’t it?
Five, Democrats feel government exists to solve problems, even where there aren’t any. Ambitious, egotistical politicians like Kamala Harris recognize they need to be needed, and if she’s not using the federal treasury to enrich Democrat donors and contributors, she’s not solving problems, period.
Allowing free markets to work or the Supreme Court to decide cases by original intent means they aren’t trying earnestly enough to do something – anything – to solve problems. The same goes for trusting private citizens to make up their own minds and decide for themselves on whether to own a firearm or use their property as they choose – but responsibly. Why leave a perceived problem alone? If you don’t have a problem, make one up!
It's kind of like the current controversy surrounding football helmets and concussions. Legislators can’t trust the league governing body to police themselves, so lawmakers must invent a crisis to tell them what to do!
Six, Harris’s resume doesn’t contain many achievements, so she must look to voters like she’s actually done something in her past that lends itself to expertise and capability. It took her the better part of a month to compile a “Day One” list, which appears to be sufficient for Democrat base voters to go crazy over her.
Of course, all she had to have on the list was “abortion” and that’s plenty for most Democrats.
Seven, Harris sees having solutions to perceived problems as her ticket to being seen as “middle class” and understanding average people.
Eight, senile Joe actually despises Kamala and resents her implication that he hasn’t solved all the problems in his years as president, so he has no inclination towards doing anything that will bolster her campaign.
Right now, Biden and Harris are competing over who gets credit for which administration “accomplishment”, though strangely enough, neither seeks to claim sky high prices, inflation or the Afghanistan debacle. Here’s thinking they both deserve all the recognition!
Nine, Kamala realizes she’ll never get Congress to agree to much of what she’s advocating – like mass amnesty for as many illegal aliens as she can sneak into the country – so she feels like she can promise outlandish proposals without much worry she’ll actually have to produce on them.
Kamala’s already set up to blame Republicans in Congress for stonewalling her “100 day agenda” if she ever gets to be president. If that’s the case, she’ll amuse herself by taking lots of rides at taxpayer expense on Air Force One, a la Barack Obama in his early years.
Ten, she’s promised a solid left agenda to give her street cred for the movement but has no intention to do anything but live large on the American taxpayer for the years she’s in office.
At the same time, First husband Doug Emhoff has let it be known that he doesn’t want to work anymore, feeling that he’s being discriminated against because he’s a cisgender guy in an administration full of weirdos.
No one can say for sure why Kamala Harris felt a need to say what she’d do on “Day One” when her first day in office was over three and a half years ago. Couldn’t she just do as Donald Trump suggested and have a conversation with senile Joe Biden if she felt a strong urge to get something done quickly? Hypocrisy is in plentiful supply in Democrat-land these days.
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