Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are changing their positions on key issues. We the People have a right, and the news media have a duty, to find out why. Do the candidates have sound reasons, based on facts and logic, for changing their minds? Or are they simply saying whatever they think will win them more votes in the belief that We the People are too stupid to catch on?
“What made you change that position at the time?”
It’s a key question raised by CNN news presenter Dana Bash during her interview with Kamala Harris last Thursday night. Bash was questioning Harris on why and how she had changed her position on fracking. Running for President in 2019, Harris had said she would ban fracking on “Day One” of a Harris presidency. But, noted Bash, Harris now supported fracking. Why?
After some polite but persistent questioning from Bash, Harris said she had concluded that the Biden-Harris Administration had made enough progress through other programs to promote clean energy to indicate fracking was no longer necessary. Whether one believes her answer—I personally think she now supports fracking because it’s popular in Pennsylvania, which she needs to win the White House–she at least had to produce an answer which can be subjected to further analysis—and attack—from both the media and the GOP. So while Dana Bash and CNN have frequently been derided as Democratic mouthpieces by Donald Trump and his allies, at least on this point they did their duty by making a politician own up to what seems to some to have been an egregious flip-flop.
And that’s the way it should be. It’s only to be expected that politicians will change their positions on various issues, and some of our greatest statesmen have also been among our greatest flip-floppers as well. At the beginning of his presidency, Ronald Reagan famously denounced the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” But near the end of his presidency, Reagan, when asked whether he still believed that, said that given the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, he no longer thought so. And to try to prevent the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln said his goal was to preserve the Union and not abolish slavery. Indeed, he even voiced support for a constitutional amendment to preserve slavery where it existed in order to preserve the Union. But by the end of the war he was supporting an amendment to abolish slavery instead, given its inherent cruelty and immorality, as well as the fact that it had been the root cause of the Civil War in the first place, according to his 1865 inaugural address. In each case, however, it seems that the abandonment of old policy stances and the adoption of new ones were the products of sincere and heartfelt changes in views based on new facts.
Of course, none of the issues on which Harris has apparently changed her mind—fracking, police defunding, decriminalization of illegal border crossings, for example—nor are as serious as the issues on which Reagan and Lincoln changed their minds. But it’s still both fair and necessary to ask why she changes her position on these issues? Has she really changed her mind through rational analysis of new facts?
Or is she simply willing to say anything to get elected? After all, the progressive policy stances she took when she first ran for president in 2019 got her exactly nowhere: She won not a single vote in a single primary. So much for progressivism.
And Donald Trump could, and should, also be challenged on his flip-flops—especially on abortion. Running for President in 2016, Trump selected a hardcore pro-life advocate, Mike Pence, to be his vice-presidential running mate, promised to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, and pledged to have a pro-life administration. Conservative pro-lifers didn’t really care that in all probability Trump was making these promises only to win votes and not out of any genuine convictions on the matter. He simply wanted the presidential nomination from a pro-life political party and if making promises to promote the pro-life position would get him the nomination and the presidency, so be it.
But now, the GOP at Trump’s direction has abandoned the pro-life position it first adopted in 1980 under Ronald Reagan’s leadership. He’s said he opposes a nation-wide abortion ban while supporting the right of each state to determine its own policies. Moreover, he’s pledged that should he be returned to the White House, his new administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” As the New York Times noted, Trump’s comment “sounded as if it could have come from the head of Planned Parenthood rather than a Republican candidate for President.”
It’s easy to guess why Trump has changed his tune on abortion. The biggest obstacle to implementing nationwide pro-life policies is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the American people support an unrestricted right to abortion during the first trimester of a pregnancy. It’s probable that anti-abortion zealots in the GOP have probably strengthened support for the pro-choice view with their harsh and inhumane demands that abortion should be outlawed under almost all circumstances except, possibly, to save the life of the mother. Knowing that abortion policy is the only major issue on which the public trusts the Democrats more than the Republicans to handle, Harris is making the vigorous support for “reproductive rights” the centerpiece of her campaign. So the abandonment of unpopular pro-life policies may seem to make some political sense (but not necessarily—Trump may lose more pro-life voters than he wins pro-choice voters).
But we needn’t have to guess. Basic fairness demands that Trump should be subjected to the same rigorous questioning from both Harris and the media that Harris must be made to undergo. In the upcoming debate (or debates) and throughout the remainder of the campaign, Trump and Harris should each be made to explain policy positions and especially changes in their positions. Trump and Harris should vigorously question each other, and the news media should question both. We the People will
thereby have more knowledge with which to decide whom we want to be our next president. Specifically, we’ll be in a better position to determine whether our candidates’ changes on the issues are the products of fact and logic used to determine what’s best for America, or of the cynical demagoguery of those who care for nothing other than winning.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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