Who is the real Kamala Harris? Voters deserve answers.

You may have heard Maya Angelou’s powerful saying, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Sometimes, when other people tell you who a person is, you should believe them, too. Especially if the person in question doesn’t want to tell you who they really are.
That is the case with Vice President Kamala Harris.
In an interview Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent from Vermont, said something about the Democratic presidential nominee that she isn’t willing to admit to voters.
NBC News host Kristen Welker asked: “She has previously supported Medicare for All, now she does not. She’s previously supported a ban on fracking, now she does not. These, Senator, are ideas that you have campaigned on. Do you think that she is abandoning her progressive ideals?”
Sanders: “No, I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals. I think she is trying to be pragmatic and do what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
You have to give the seasoned senator kudos for saying it like it is, especially because Harris has yet to describe her own campaign with such clarity.
Voters are starting to realize this, too. Harris already may be losing her post-Democratic National Convention bounce, and nearly 30% of voters in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll said they needed to know more about where she stands on issues.
Trump leads in that poll of likely voters 48% to 47%.
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Harris’ support has “stalled” after a “euphoric” August, reads a Times’ headline about the poll. No kidding?
It’s as if much of the legacy news media had crowned Harris before her first interview as the Democratic nominee on Aug. 29 and her first presidential debate Tuesday.
Many voters also got caught up in all the laughter and joy. But when they started to look around to see what the frenzy was about, they found a record of flip-flopping on really progressive policies, running mate Tim Walz’s fabulism and a bunch of vague promises.
Sanders is right, of course. Harris’ pattern of flip-flopping on policies − like favoring a ban on fracking for oil and gas before opposing it now, or supporting mandatory gun buybacks in 2019 but opposing them now − isn’t about her growth as a leader or the evolution of her thinking.
It’s really about her campaign’s recognition that far-left ideas that played well in California won’t sell in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.
Gaslighting is not just bad form; it’s bad news for voters because it violates the principle of informed consent. Politicians have long tried to fool voters into believing they stand for one thing while they quietly support something else − as Sanders says Harris is doing now − but they deserve to be called on it as well.
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It’s possible that Harris doesn’t know what she believes, although that itself is a big problem. Yet it’s more likely that she knows exactly what she believes, but understands that her brand of extreme progressivism could make winning the White House difficult.
She’s tiptoeing around the positions on issues that won her elections in California and cautiously testing what voters will grab onto and what they will reject.
The early excitement around Harris was generated in part because she is a projection of the ideals that many Americans want. Electing as president a Black Asian American woman who talks about joy and laughs a lot instead of an angry old white man who insults anyone and everybody just feels right to a lot of people.
After covering Trump for years, I can’t blame Americans for wanting a more likable and inspiring alternative. Trump is exhausting.
Even so, when Harris is pinned down on what she would actually do as president, her carefully crafted image suffers. That’s why she has focused her campaign more on image than substance.
Harris is at a crossroads: Her standing in the polls will continue to decline if she doesn’t tell voters who she really is, but doing so also could jeopardize her campaign as moderates learn more about her far-left plans.
Kamala Harris is being “pragmatic” for now to win. And even Bernie Sanders knows it.
But that’s not good for voters or for America.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.