We Are Out of Our Minds

When Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for President of the United States on Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, she wore black. Many were expecting her to sport the white pants suit that Hillary Clinton made “a thing” to signify the women’s suffrage movement as she attempted, like a bird against an office window, to break that “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” Many women in the crowd wore white for just this reason.

But Harris wore black, with square shoulders, wide lapels, and velvet bow, in a look that was far from the theme of joy shouted from the DNC rooftops. It was a somber suit, even a sinister one—which gets at the darkness of the political theater-of-the-bizarre unfolding in the United States. Harris’s suit was mournful, despite her now-signature “brat” grin. It was funereal, vampiric. And, yes, I just said vampiric, for this is a candidate and a campaign that is out for blood—and America has lost its collective mind to the point of voting for blood drinkers while hailing them as champions of freedom.

Kamala Harris is fond of beginning sentences with, “Let me be clear.” The one thing that is not clear about her is how she (and we) got here. What has Kamala Harris done to win such praise, to be hyped as one of the most qualified people to run for president in history? It just doesn’t add up when you consider her record of unpopularity, incompetency, and awkwardness. Her meteoric rise is totally fabricated, totally forced, and totally fake. While Harris and Walz relentlessly call Trump and Vance “weird,” what’s weird is all on their side.

But if weird is a watchword of this election, let’s remember the etymological Anglo-Saxon origin of that word: “wyrd,” meaning, fate. There is something like fate in this, and we might also recall Thomas Jefferson’s adage, the government you elect is the government you deserve. While the mind-bending contradictions are flying fast and furiously, America is growing increasingly comfortable with the unaccountable and the irrational. Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech was just another piece in that scattered puzzle that threatens to be our national destiny.

Harris’s speech was short, scripted, and middle-of-the-road obvious. In one sense, it was unextraordinary. But in another, it was extraordinary for the wild incongruities that stood tall and proud considering that Harris is perhaps the most outspoken proponent of abortion rights. Many of the ideals and principles she proclaimed as enshrined within her vision fall flat on their faces when we remember that she believes a woman can murder her unborn baby and that that is entirely her right and her business.  Many of the ideals and principles she proclaimed as enshrined within her vision fall flat on their faces when we remember that she believes a woman can murder her unborn baby and that that is entirely her right and her business. Tweet This

But the cheers and applause thundered Thursday night, like an arena of demons, as Harris, draped in black with sharp shoulders and winged lapels and coffin velvet, painted promising pictures of America in the blood of children. A stark and grim representation, but it’s true—and this truth should not just be whispered in our choir stalls, but make its way into the ears of those whose voices are hoarse with cheering and whose hands are sore from clapping, that their eyes might be opened to the horror they are celebrating.

Harris called her parents’ love an “act of determination,” despite their budding careers, which “made my sister and me.” Love and marriage are acts of determination, but even as Harris praised her parents in these terms, she also stands firmly for marriage and love being anything but determinate—at least, they are things subject to new determinations that can eliminate the life that naturally springs from love. Kamala and her sister would have been prime victims in these days, but she rejoiced that her immigrant parents were determined enough to have children despite their career paths and poverty. Shouldn’t she wish that joy, to use their chosen thematic term for the convention, for all?

All the compassionate words in the world cannot color over Harris’s acceptance of disposing life. That much is absolutely clear. And she knows there is a contradiction there, as all who support abortion do; but she and they sweep it away with a blind eye and a quick rationalization. But she knows the truth. Recall when she gave a speech to mark the 50^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade last year and said, again wearing black, “America is a promise. It is a promise of freedom and liberty—not for some, but for all. A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The conspicuous omission of “life” was no accident.

In telling how she grew up amid the Civil Rights movement, Harris cited the Golden Rule of doing unto others what you would have others do unto you—another glaring illogicality given her position on abortion—and used it to tell the story of why she became a prosecutor in Oakland. Included in that reason was the discovery of a friend being sexually abused by that friend’s father. Kamala Harris said, ever since, she has wanted to defend everyone’s right to safety, dignity, and justice. Why unborn children do not have these rights cannot be explained—unless there is some secret calculus that proves without a doubt that they are somehow not human. 

“Harm against one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said forcefully, and that, as a prosecutor, she looked at “the people” as her client. As president, she would take up the interests and rights of the people in charting a new way forward, putting country above party and self. Again, only because it must be repeated, the legal reality of killing babies does not fit into these principles and promises. She said she has an eye out for predators who prey upon innocent children, as she stood like a panther at the podium, adding “the future is always worth fighting for” to loud cheers.

And here’s the kicker. When she began talking about abortion, in the same explicit way she always does, she pointed to Donald Trump as one who would continue to restrict the practice by jailing his opponents (a truly wild thing to say about Trump after what her and Biden’s DOJ has done to him), instigating a national abortion ban, and assigning a “national anti-abortion coordinator” to monitor and restrict abortions in the states. To which, Harris said, “They are out of their minds.” Again, cheers.

We are out of our minds. Kamala Harris’s ascendency is no less than a referendum on American sanity. How can Americans accept such madness? How can so many be content to call themselves free with Kamala Harris saying that the freedom that unlocks all other freedoms is the freedom to vote…when no one voted for her? Kamala Harris is the chosen one, but her strange barking bravado to close out the DNC was like an act. She is just a new puppet on a new set of strings and hailed as our new hero. We are out of our minds.

The Vice President closed her speech by saying it was time to “write the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.” The insanity on display is extraordinary, perhaps the most extraordinary insanity ever known. And Catholics must refuse to be a part of that story, because it is being written by a cackling caricature of the Wicked Witch of the West draped in black. Catholics must recognize that Harris’s ascent is the latest piece of rotten bait touted as the next best thing. It’s a trap for our minds. 

Just as Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack” before “they” (including Harris) couldn’t hide it anymore, what we have now is just in reverse: this recently ostracized, cringy, inept, embarrassing Vice President is suddenly the most qualified, the most wonderful, and the most inspiring figure in politics. Just because “they” say so—and the mindless masses are swallowing it down. Kamala Harris’s progressivism, her intense support of abortion, and her Catholic bigotry are on full display, yet there is a Catholics for Harris group and a Catholic university in Rhode Island that rented their venue to Tim Walz for a fundraiser.

Abortion is just one of the evils on the Harris ticket, and she’s not shy about the others. As president, she will push “the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.” She will grease the military-industrial complex with “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” Kamala Harris is ready to move forward with “the fearless belief that built our nation…that in this country anything is possible, nothing is out of reach…” except the right to life. “None have to fail for all to succeed,” Harris said with a benevolent smile, but the blood of innocents cries out against that lie. 

How taken in will Catholics be in the face of such fraud? Are we out of our minds? Hopefully we are, as far as Kamala Harris is concerned.

[Photo Credit: AFP via Getty Images]