Here’s a very exhaustive 2019 article demonstrating it’s not a new concern:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/kamala-cop-record/596758/

I can forgive a politician a vote on a crime bill that looks ill-conceived two decades later, or a too-slow evolution toward marijuana legalization, or even a principled belief in the death penalty, something I adamantly oppose. I find it far harder to forgive fighting to keep a man in jail in the face of strong evidence of innocence, running a team of prosecutors that withholds potentially exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys, and utterly failing as the state’s top prosecutor to rein in glaringly corrupt district attorneys and law enforcement.

At best, Harris displayed a pattern of striking ignorance about scandalous misconduct in hierarchies that she oversaw. And she is now asking the public to place her atop a bigger, more complicated, more powerful hierarchy, where abuses and unaccountable officials would do even more to subvert liberty and justice for all.

And here is a recent article about her campaign, which discusses some of the related points, including her own staffs refusal to admit the same: (more detail within the article) To be fair, it does not claim that was the only factor (nor do I, but IMO it was enough to make the difference, and it was fucking disappointing)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/kamala-harris-what-went-wrong-1235183829/

Here’s what that conversation didn’t include: any mention of voters who may have sat out the election in disgust over the American-underwritten atrocities in Gaza; any meaningful engagement with the critique that attempting to court Republican voters might have come at the expense of turning out party faithful;

Here’s where she agreed to ensure Republicans would have a seat at her cabinet, and a discussion of her Republican-targeted campaign ads in AZ: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/14/kamala-harris-ad-trump-arizona-00183578

Here’s an article discussing the national strategy to target Republicans:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-campaign-launches-new-ad-aimed-persuable-republicans-rcna173907

And another:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/politics/harris-rural-red-county-strategy/index.html

Even fox news got in on the action: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harris-campaign-organizes-target-republican-voters-touts-support-from-gop-dissenters

You can read more about it in your pick of articles here:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kamala+campaign+targeted+republicans

And ultimately - you don’t have to agree. To me it was readily apparent as it was happening, but if not, I think several of those articles describe the phenomenon persuasively.

Republicans showed their asses all through 2017-2020 worse than they have in recent decades. By any reasonable measure, the party should have imploded. Instead, it compelled the supposed opposition party to move to the right to compete with open faced fascism. That’s not OK.

old traditional Republicans like Liz Cheney

Just one more thing - you may want to do some reading about the history of the Cheney family, and consider whether anyone in their right mind would say “Yes, it’s a good idea to put a Cheney up on stage at the DNC while simultaneously disallowing anyone, even elected representatives, to speak for a single moment in support of the people of Gaza.” Because no one needed tea leaves to see that was a bad idea even without the Gaza angle.