By The Squad has big plans for a Harris victory this November. Ilhan Omar and other progressive lawmakers are preparing to push Vice President Kamala Harris further to the left if she wins the presidency.
Speaking with The Washington Post, Omar revealed that she has discussed the role progressives hope to play in shaping a potential Harris administration’s agenda.
Price controls on food and attacking the Supreme Court is not enough.
The newspaper writes that while they saw Harris as an ally on reproductive rights and voting rights, many liberals have far deeper relationships with President Joe Biden and his team after he embraced the left wing to push his legislative agenda. They fear that under Harris they would lose the unique access they had to the West Wing and are pushing the Democratic nominee to embrace more populist economic policies in the closing weeks of her campaign, noting that parts of her platform are less progressive than Biden’s in 2020.
“She does her thing and had her portfolio. Most of my efforts have been with President Biden,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said when asked in an interview on what issues he saw the vice president as an ally.
As she runs the shortest presidential campaign in modern U.S. history, Harris has both backed off some of her earlier liberal positions and embraced some centrist ones, notably on immigration, fracking and parts of her economic agenda.
Despite that pivot, many progressive activists and lawmakers have held their fire and rallied behind her candidacy, seeing Donald Trump as the greater threat and hoping a united front will help defeat him. Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), another key progressive leader, had prominent speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention and are campaigning for Harris in swing states.
Omar’s comments reflect a broader strategy among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which has long been advocating for more aggressive action on issues like climate change, healthcare reform, and immigration policy. Harris, who built a reputation as a progressive ally during her time in the Senate, is seen as a potential partner for the left if she ascends to the presidency. However, her recent shift toward more moderate positions during her time as vice president and her current presidential campaign has raised questions about how much influence progressives will actually have in a Harris administration.
During her Senate career, noted The Washington Free Beacon, Harris was a vocal supporter of progressive initiatives, including the Green New Deal, the decriminalization of illegal immigration, and a ban on fracking. These positions earned her the label of the “most liberal senator” in 2019, a title that energized many on the left. But since becoming vice president and positioning herself as the likely Democratic nominee for president, Harris has moderated some of her earlier stances, aiming to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate.
This sentiment was echoed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Jayapal emphasized the importance of progressives in helping the Biden-Harris administration achieve its victories and expressed hope that Harris would continue to value their input. “I do believe and hope and expect that [Harris] understands how important progressives were to the Biden administration’s victories,” Jayapal said. She also called on Harris to surround herself with progressive voices in her administration, pointing to Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, as an example of the influence progressives could have on policy decisions.
Jayapal’s call for progressive appointments reflects a broader push from the left to ensure that Harris remains accountable to the movement. Progressives believe that the people Harris chooses to staff her administration will play a critical role in shaping the direction of her presidency. “It is important who she surrounds herself with,” Jayapal said. “She needs a team that values progressives as part of the coalition.”
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