(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax.)

Recently I came across a book that has received very little coverage from the mainstream media since its’ publication in January — The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party. The authors, Hunter Walker and Luppe B. Luppen, both leftists, have written an interesting history of the upheaval in the Democratic Party since 2016.

After reading The Truce, I realized why it has been ignored by the Progressive chattering class: The work depicts fairly the infighting between the younger Progressives and the old Liberal guard in the Democratic Party. And it describes honestly the faults of many of the major players, particularly Kamala Harris.

Harris spent her youth in the West Berkeley California district that was represented in Congress for years by a far-left radical, Ron Dellums. When he arrived in Washington in 1971, Dellums described West Berkeley as the place that gave birth to “the [Black] Panther Movement, the feminist movement, the Gay Liberation movement, the environmental movement, the peace movement — all of it.”

Harris embraced these movements before pursuing a political career. Walker and Luppen note that when running for office, she “kept reaching for the illusory center. She seemed to dismiss every substantive choice as a false one that a politician need only transcend. And even though she hailed from one of the most distinctively progressive regions of the country, by simultaneously trying to stake out the middle ground and a progressive brand, she risked becoming a woman from nowhere, or worse still, letting her adversaries define her in clearer, more straightforward terms.”

In other words, she was a political empty pantsuit who would say anything to get elected. And once she was sworn into office, she dropped her “moderate” persona into the nearest waste bin.

Harris supported San Francisco Sanctuary Laws, free healthcare for illegal migrants, and she backed the ballot proposition that eliminated penalties for shoplifting under $900. She also supported enrolling undocumented immigrants in training programs for jobs they were prohibited by law to hold.

As San Francisco’s District Attorney and as State Attorney General, Harris tried to appear as both tough and soft on crime at one and the same time. Harris biographer, Charles Spiering has noted, that “she became an expert at pandering to activists but also finding new ways to burnish her role as a tough law enforcement figure in California as she prepared to further her political career.”

Harris lost the respect and support of police officers when she abandoned her pledge to pursue the death penalty when prosecuting a police killer. She also pandered to violent protesters by dropping charges lodged against those arrested for assaulting cops.

D.A. Harris’s competence was challenged when a scandal was uncovered in her crime lab that affected thousands of criminal cases.

A Superior Court judge, angry about the botching of drug cases, publicly admonished the D.A.’s negligence saying, “The District Attorney’s failure appears to have been in part the result of lack of process and procedures necessary to ensure that exculpatory information is timely provided to defendants which is solely the responsibility of the district’s attorney’s office.”

The judge went on to criticize “significant errors and misjudgments” by Harris.

And then there are her poor management skills. Former employees have complained that they were blamed when Harris made public faux pas. She was perceived as lazy. She failed to prep or to read briefing papers.

Walker and Luppen reveal incidents of mismanagement during Harris’s presidential campaign.

For example, a 2019 letter of resignation from the campaign’s state operations manager, Kelly Mehlenbacher, stated: “Campaigns have highs and lows, mistakes and miscalculations, lessons learned, and adjustments made. But, because we have refused to confront our mistakes, foster an environment of critical thinking and honest feedback or trust the expertise of talented staff, we find ourselves making the same unforced errors over and over.”

The Harris campaign, in 2019, floundered due to her ineptness as a candidate. She attempted, time and again, to walk back or flip-flop on radical stands that included Medicare for all, amnesty for illegal aliens and federally mandated school busing.

Harris “seemed to be trying to straddle the left flank and middle ground but she ended up nowhere.”

Harris’s mishaps forced her to abandon her candidacy in December 2019, several months before the first presidential primary. Walker and Luppen report that “those closest to [the campaign] were left with deep-seated doubts about her ability to lead.”

Harris’s administrative skills did not improve after she was sworn in as vice president.

“The problems Harris and her team had experienced on her campaign have persisted during her time as vice president. Harris saw a heavy staff turnover, with aides describing a toxic climate riven with factionalism and mismanagement.” Sources offered a 3-word assessment of working for Harris. It was a “Game of Thrones.”

The chaos Harris breeds explains why she failed as “Border Czar” and must be scripted at all times.

Do you want in the White House an incompetent political chameleon who will be used as a puppet by the far-left administrative state?

I know I don’t.