GREAT MOMENTS IN COALITION BUILDING: Kamala Harris Mocks Audience Members for Proclaiming ‘Jesus Is Lord,’ Says ‘You’re at the Wrong Rally.’
At a rally in Wisconsin on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to hecklers saying “Jesus is Lord” by telling them they were in the wrong place.
Yikes!
That “clap back” as USA Today called it came the same day Harris chose to skip the Catholic Al Smith Dinner in New York City. The last Democratic nominee who did that was former Vice President Walter Mondale, who lost to Republican Ronald Reagan 49 states to 1.
While speaking about abortion at a rally the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Recreational Eagle Center, Harris said, “We’re not gonna be gaslighted on this. We remember, Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court, with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.”
The issue has now been returned to the states to decide, which Trump has argued is where it should stay. At the presidential debate last month, Harris would not say what restrictions on abortion she would support, if any.
Trump then asked the moderator to question Harris on whether she would allow abortions for any reason at the seventh month of the pregnancy and beyond, but the Democratic nominee again would not answer. Most nations set limits, with 12 weeks (3 months) being the most common, Time reported in 2022.
Some shouted in response to Harris’ Thursday rally abortion comments, “Jesus is Lord!” This prompted Harris to say, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally. No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
America’s Newspaper of Record reported the moment thusly: Kamala Harris Begins Melting After Rallygoer Says ‘Jesus Is Lord.’
Sadly, the damage was already done as Vice President Harris steadily melted. “This was a security failure of the highest order,” said aide Denise Thompson. “It is simply unconscionable that a man who believes Jesus is Lord was allowed to get so close to the Vice President. This sort of thing should never happen.”
At publishing time, the Democrats had reportedly replaced Harris with an actual witch, who immediately got a substantial bump in the polls.
Heh, indeed. But the Democratic Party is sure a long way away from JFK’s Catholicism and Jimmy Carter’s born-again Christianity. (Whatever their excesses in private.) Steve Hayward wrote in his 2012 obit of George McGovern: that “McGovern was unable to counter the image that Republican Senator Hugh Scott indelibly attached to him as ‘the candidate of acid, amnesty, and abortion.'”
But on the last issue—abortion—we can see how radical the Democratic Party has become since. McGovern’s position at the beginning of the campaign was that abortion was a matter that should be left to state legislatures (which is the default Republican position today), and although he resisted attempts at including a pro-abortion plank in the Democratic platform in 1972, he gradually conceded to the pro-abortion views of insurgent feminists. (Muskie and Humphrey, it is worth adding, both opposed abortion. “I am not for it,” said Humphrey. “It compromises the sanctity of life,” said Muskie. The Rev. Jesse Jackson had an even tougher opinion at that time, describing abortion “as too nice a word for something cold, like murder.”) While McGovern conceded under pressure from feminists, he wouldn’t embrace abortion-on-demand. There must be regulating legislation, McGovern thought: “You can’t just let anybody walk in and request an abortion.”
Flash-forward to 2024. As CNN reported last month: Harris puts abortion rights at the center of her campaign.