Is Kamala Harris really trying to win? Are the Democrats as a party determined to not win? While current projections have Harris leading Trump in the polls, and she’s pulled in record fundraising cash since jumping to the top of the Democratic ticket, her greatest attribute is that she’s running against Trump, followed by the fact that she’s not Biden.

Apart from some modest economic proposals and vague word-salads about the positive things she’s going to do for the “middle class” economically, her platform is essentially, “more of the same.” She’s going to deliver more of the conservative, militaristic, right-wing policies that would have been the purview of the Republicans in past decades, with a few moderately socially progressive crumbs to appease the party’s credulous base.

She’s committed to continue fracking, accelerating the climate catastrophe, promised to further militarize the southern border, however ineffective and in violation of human rights the results of that will be, and declared that she will continue to support Israel by giving them all the arms they want for their genocidal colonial project, without restrictions or scrutiny. These are not liberal positions. At least, they shouldn’t be. They’re certainly not left-wing or progressive positions. They are not the positions of the majority of the Democratic party’s supposed base.

The Democrats frame so much of their messaging around this election as a fight to preserve democracy. But if their presidential candidate refuses to serve the will of the people and act in our interests, then how exactly are they preserving democracy? Harris is an alternative to the outright fascism of Trump, but she’s no representative or champion of democracy. The Democratic party’s notion of democracy amounts to little more than the opportunity to vote for a person whose principles and actions are simply comparatively less repugnant than those of their opponent. If they and Harris cared about democracy, she would be committing to give us, the majority of the public, what we want and need.

Would it be so hard to lie to us? Can’t she just pretend to be a decent person who will give us what we want? Isn’t that supposed to be what politicians do?

Maybe we should view that as a positive. Maybe it’s good that we have two presidential candidates who actually sometimes tell the truth. Because Trump, despite being a pathological liar, occasionally lets bits of truth slip, primarily about what a horrendous asshat he is and the deplorable things he intends to do. So Harris, who is honest about her intransigence on issues that are important to voters, the future of the country, and the survival of the human species, makes a decent balance. Both candidates are telling us that they are caustic shits who won’t do the right thing when it comes to the most consequential issues, but one of them has said and shown that they will do significantly worse things. So, that’s where we are, once again forced to pick the lesser of two evils, knowing both that our choice, unless we live in one of the few “swing states”, will have no real impact, and that even if we win, we’re in fact just losing more slowly.