Staff Reports
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s safe to say it’s probably a duck. But when it comes to Vice President Kamala Harris and her “czar” title, the media appears to have adopted a decidedly more flexible approach. Axios recently found itself in the politically precarious position of rewriting history after Harris stepped into the spotlight for the Democratic Party’s 2024 primary presidential race. The question is: why is the media scrambling to distance itself from a title it once embraced?
When Harris was originally appointed as the “border czar” to tackle the chaos along the southern border, she was touted as the solution to a long-standing crisis. Back in 2021, the narrative was glowing. Axios itself remarked on the surge of unaccompanied minors flooding across the border, emphasizing Harris’s supposed focus on “root causes” of migration. Fast forward to present day, and suddenly that title seems more like a political albatross than a badge of honor for the administration. It seems the left has realized that the “border czar” title just doesn’t sell well in the 2024 election cycle.
Outlet Edits Article to Protect Kamala Harris, Claims She Was Never Biden's Border Czar via @WestJournalism https://t.co/grBWhJvjWi
— Marian Clough (@marian_clough) July 24, 2024
In light of Harris’s lackluster performance, which featured a grand total of one trip to El Paso, it raises the question of whether she truly ever deserved that title. Reports have surfaced that, during her visit, Border Patrol agents were essentially put on cleanup duty to create a “photo op” that accidently turned into a national joke. The only problem is, the joke seems to now be on Harris herself as she faces mounting criticism and accountability for her approach—or lack thereof.
As the election looms closer, Axios has jumped on the revisionist bandwagon, attempting to reshape the conversation around Harris. The publication has now tried to downplay her role by claiming that the “border czar” title was just a concoction of Republicans looking to tarnish her image. In a desperate bid for damage control, Axios has even added an editor’s note acknowledging that it had, in fact, referred to Harris with that very label in the past. Talk about backpedaling!
What seems particularly amusing is how the left is increasingly recognizing that they can’t erase their own history, but they certainly can attempt to rewrite it. Once an enthusiastic cheerleader for Harris, Axios is now attempting to shove the “border czar” title down the memory hole before it does any more damage to a candidate whose prospects are already looking dim against Donald Trump.
As election season heats up, it’s all but guaranteed that the media will step up its efforts to polish Kamala Harris’s tarnished reputation, hoping that voters forget about her abysmal handling of the border crisis. Ultimately, whether voters will buy the shiny new narrative is another question entirely, but with the path ahead cluttered with chaos and confusion, they might just have to wing it.
