Monthly Archives: August 2024

Facing the prospect of losing the election, Trump seems lost

This op-ed was published by The National on August 29, 2024

With less than 70 days to go for the US presidential election, Republican candidate, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is struggling in the polls. He has yet to find an effective messaging strategy against his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. And he’s persisting with an ongoing series of highly damaging unforced errors.

The initial data to emerge since the end of the recent Democratic National Convention shows Ms. Harris opening a four-point national lead. That’s not quite large enough to calm Democrats, because their voters are “inefficiently” clustered in high-population areas like cities and coastal states, whereas Republican voters are more “efficiently” spread out across rural states and districts. While it now seems certain that Mr. Trump will yet again lose the popular vote, if the percentage difference is three or less, he could still eke out a narrow electoral college victory.

However, Ms. Harris enjoys four of the most important presidential campaign advantages: momentum, vibes, likeability and enthusiasm.

Her momentum is obvious. She inherited a six-point deficit against Mr. Trump from President Joe Biden. She has regained it all and established a significant lead that might well soon expand.

Atmospherics are more important than policies. Much of the electorate are “low information voters”, who may know which policies they prefer, but aren’t clear what the two parties advocate. They typically vote based on campaign imagery and vibes, and on that score, Ms. Harris is strongly prevailing.

Her atmospherics radiate joy, optimism and upbeat humor, plus a relatable, down-to-earth, common touch, bolstered by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Moreover, the unity and intense patriotism seen at the Democratic convention, and surge into the political center – Ms. Harris’s crowd even cheered a very conservative immigration bill – should effectively counteract Mr. Trump’s efforts to label her ultra-left and even a “communist”.

Along with Mr. Walz, she has created a slightly offbeat, goofy, jovial campaign that seems relatable and likable. Mr. Trump’s efforts to “other” her, by falsely claiming that she spent her career presenting herself as Indian until she suddenly “turned black”, appear to have failed miserably.

It contrasts dramatically with the angry, grim and catastrophizing atmosphere surrounding Mr. Trump and his shockingly inept running mate, Senator JD Vance. Asked “what makes you happy”, Mr. Vance snapped: “I smile at a lot of things including bogus questions from the media.” He then reiterated how angry he is.

Mr. Trump’s flat-footed attempt at kitchen table populism backfired when he held a news conference on the price of groceries that largely ignored the topic and was bizarrely held at one of his membership hotels that costs $500,000 to join.

Ms. Harris even has the most coveted campaign advantage of all: enthusiasm. Republicans, like their dear leader, appear wrongfooted by the sudden rise of Ms Harris. Mr. Trump and many Republicans seem dejected by the reversal of fortunes, whereas Democrats evince enthusiasm bordering on elation. Their biggest problem isn’t enthusiasm but overconfidence in a race that will inevitably be very close. Yet this belongs squarely in the “problems you want to have” category.

Mr. Trump faces a daunting uphill struggle, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do next.

His latest gambit, staging a campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery, the premier burial ground for US veterans, appears to have only made matters worse. Mr. Trump apparently intended to embarrass the Biden administration by focusing on a Taliban suicide bomb attack that killed 13 US troops on August 26, 2021. But such campaign events are strictly prohibited there.

A long-serving cemetery staff member sought to enforce these rules on Mr. Trump’s photographers seeking a campaign photo op. She was reportedly berated and shoved aside by Trump staff, who ignored her warnings about the rules and then violated them.

Mr. Trump’s spokesman accused her of having “a mental health episode”, and campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita defamed her as “a despicable individual”.

This blunder reopened longstanding concerns that Mr. Trump, despite his jingoism, does not understand a military that he avoided serving in during the Vietnam War due to a dubious diagnosis of bone spurs. He has reportedly described fallen US soldiers as “suckers and losers”, and once marveled, when visiting a US military cemetery, that: “I just don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

Yet the US news media persists in allowing Mr. Trump impunity to make public comments, especially on social media, that would be treated as alarming and newsworthy outbursts if they were made by other career politicians, including Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris.

On Wednesday alone, on his bespoke social media platform, Mr. Trump unleashed a series of re-posts that ought to raise serious concerns about his intentions and stability.

He repeatedly threatened to prosecute and “lock up” numerous perceived enemies, including many Democrats, several Republicans, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and top epidemiologist Anthony Fauci. He reiterated his groundless claim that then president Barack Obama wiretapped his phones during the 2016 election campaign.

There was more besides, but nary a peep from major American news organizations. They have created a “new normal” that grants Mr. Trump alone a virtual carte blanche to blast such outrageous plans and accusations into the cultural-political ether without raising the obvious and appropriate concerns about his mental or emotional condition.

Reporters and editors might claim such misbehavior is “priced in” to Mr. Trump’s political persona. But, if so, that’s largely because the media, and not the public, is bored with reporting his endless eccentricities and daily excesses. It amounts to journalistic malpractice.

The coming weeks include Mr. Trump’s sentencing on the adult film actress hush money case, in which he could get some jail time, and a scheduled debate with Ms. Harris on September 10, which might be his last chance of significantly shifting the race again before it’s too late. It could also finish his election chances off decisively.

With just eight weeks to go, Mr. Trump needs to find some way of changing the current trajectory. If not, he faces not just another electoral defeat, this time to a mixed-race woman, but also the great likelihood of significant prison sentences at pending trials. No wonder he appears so dejected, low-energy and lost.

Kamala Harris’s good vibes offer Americans something new

This op-ed was published by The National on August 23, 2024

Chants of “USA, USA” rang out amid a sea of American flags. Patriotism was palpable. A football coach turned politician gave a locker room pep-talk. The country’s greatness was unanimously invoked. The presidential nominee emphasised freedom at home and toughness abroad, vowing never to bow before tyrants.

It was a familiar political convention. But it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans. The contrast between their two conventions revealed how much historically-defined roles have flipped. Republicans emphasised national decline and shortcomings, decrying chronic social crises, and demanding revolutionary changes in many of the most important American institutions.

Democrats embraced a straightforward, almost unconditional, patriotism, loving the country as it is and strives to be, not an alternative vision. They defended existing national structures, albeit while demanding a greater share for the middle and working class.

Republicans, by contrast, have become the revolutionaries. They are angry, alienated and rhetorically destructive if not implicitly violent.

In the 1960s and 1970s, these roles were precisely reversed. Then it was the left wing of the Democratic Party that pressed an urgent need for radical change and the elimination or fundamental restructuring of governing institutions.

There wasn’t a hint of that during the four-day Democratic convention that nominated Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. On the contrary, American liberals have not only reintroduced joy and exuberance to US politics, they have staked a convincing claim to being the centre of present-day patriotism and sincere love of country, as it is, warts and all.

The Democrats’ jamboree featured a deliberate and potentially effective effort to position themselves as the genuine patriots and thereby appeal to reachable conservatives who have misgivings about the direction of the Republican party.

Ms. Harris’s powerful acceptance speech included a direct appeal to non-Democrats, promising to be the president of all Americans, regardless of party – an implicit contrast with her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, who had just confirmed he “hates” all opponents and vows to “be mean” with personal invective.

The Democrats wisely allotted a coveted speaking slot just before the presidential candidate, to former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Addressing his fellow conservatives, he insisted that while Democrats were as patriotic as Republicans, the Republican Party is no longer conservative. It has “switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself,” he said.

Several other conservative Republicans strongly endorsed Ms Harris and condemned Mr Trump for his attacks on democracy, character flaws, misconduct and criminal convictions.

The Democrats threw a party that was as raucous and joyful as it was patriotic and purposive. But the door was thrown wide open to any Republicans, conservatives or independents who might want to join in the fun.

Politically, it could hardly have gone better. Ms Harris entered the convention having, in less than a month, already surpassed half a billion dollars in new, and mostly small, campaign donations. She has also opened a noteworthy lead over Mr Trump in national and many swing state polls.

She has even developed a crucial second path to the White House. Even if she were to lose one of the “blue wall” states like Pennsylvania, she could still win by carrying Sun Belt states like Arizona, Nevada, Georgia or North Carolina. In a radically divided America, developing two paths to victory is an accomplishment that demonstrates considerable political strength.

The full political impact of this convention won’t be measured for many days. But it would be surprising if Ms Harris does not surge even further ahead.

The contrast between the angry, alienated and dour mood emanating from the Republican ticket and convention and the energetic, joyous Democratic party may prove irresistible to many who were thoroughly dissatisfied with a choice between two unpopular old men.

Suddenly, the Democrats are offering something new and very different, and celebrating it.

Amazingly enough, Ms. Harris’s status as a potential first woman US president has garnered little debate. Democrats’ misgivings about her while President Joe Biden was still the presumptive nominee were almost entirely about her perceived weaknesses as a candidate, or even her mixed black and Indian ethnic identity (which Mr. Trump disastrously tried to mock).

But doubt has quickly given way to exuberance, with even the gender question being largely ignored. Democratic relief at Mr Biden’s heroic decision to stand aside has given way to elation at Ms Harris’s evident and unexpected political skill. Her controversial decision to select “Coach Walz” as a running mate now appears inspired.

Democrats are absolutely determined to win, and can sense victory. They’ve proven willing to move dramatically and much further to the political center than many liberal activists would normally countenance, even on immigration.

The imperative of defeating Mr Trump and preventing a potential experiment with his authoritarian tendencies and stated intentions – like his vow to be “a dictator,” supposedly, only on the first day, or his insistence that supporters need only vote for him now and, somehow, never vote again – has inspired Democrats to radical moderation.

They have seized key symbols of American patriotism and cultural tropes, such as the footballing and military past of Mr Walz, that traditionally code as Republican and “red”.

With just over 70 days to go, the Democrats are hoping that Ms Harris’s raucous honeymoon will persist just long enough to catapult her directly into the White House. Mr Trump and the Republicans are desperate for her to finally make a serious mistake, which she has thus far deftly avoided.

Several key possibilities for a misstep lie ahead, most notably the debate with Mr Trump scheduled for September 10. Democrats expect the former prosecutor to rhetorically demolish the felonious former president, but the risk is obvious. And she will soon have to sit for unscripted and challenging interviews or press conferences, which she has avoided so far.

But given her brilliant performance over the past month, and especially at the Democrats’ extremely well-executed and politically savvy convention, Ms Harris is firmly in the driver’s seat. Realising this, Mr Trump is now predictably emphasising that Democrats are preparing to “cheat”.

The country is still deeply divided and the election is therefore likely to be narrowly decided. But unless Ms. Harris makes a drastic blunder or an imponderable contingency intervenes, the US appears poised in a few weeks to elect its first woman president.

Biden’s DNC swan song was a master class in presidential humility

This op-ed was published by The National on August 21, 2024

It was bye-bye Biden on Monday night at the Democratic National Convention. US President Joe Biden, rather than being nominated for a second term on Thursday night, was bumped to the first day of the convention. Despite the thunderous chants of “Thank you, Joe” that repeatedly broke out during his address, there was an unstable air of wistfulness. It took the return of former president Barack Obama on the second day of the convention to smooth over the rough edges of what has perforce been a fairly brutal exercise in “out with the old, in with the new.”

As Democrats have discovered over the past four weeks, it’s exactly what so many of their voters and other Americans have been looking for in a political scene that had felt stagnated and trapped between two familiar figures who are both too old and, in very different ways, unpopular. But the depth of Mr. Biden’s sacrifice has yet to sink in – no matter how relieved Democrats are that he has stepped aside for his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

Mr. Biden delivered the main body of what likely would have been his nomination acceptance remarks. He was careful to strongly endorse Ms. Harris and give her credit for being his partner in the administration. But his remarks didn’t seem fully up-to-date, apart from a passing repudiation of “all this talk [from Republicans] about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down, it’s not true.”

There was, however, a hint of bitterness in his joke about being “too young to be in the Senate because I wasn’t 30 yet [when first elected] and too old to stay as president” [now].

But it was mainly his greatest hits, including a litany of his accomplishments as president and sharp denunciations of Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.

Ever since his disastrous debate performance against Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden has made it clear that he felt, and evidently still feels, that his undoubted accomplishments against considerable odds, especially in domestic policy and legislation, earned him a second term.

There is little doubt that the President is still wrestling with his wrenching and nearly unprecedented agreement to voluntarily surrender his party’s presidential nomination and a potential second term. He implicitly framed it as a last act of national service, which it undoubtedly was. And it’s understandable that, in a mere month and while continuing as president, he has yet to fully process the depth and historical significance of his own sacrifice.

Many commentaries have recalled the example of the Roman general Cincinnatus who, according to tradition, having been granted complete power to save Rome from a potentially mortal threat, then gave it up to return to his farm. The founders of the American Republic, steeped in classical traditions of the Enlightenment, regarded this as the apex of political and civic virtue. It certainly informed the decision of George Washington to return his commission to Congress at the conclusion of the war of independence from Britain, and also his choice not to seek a third term as president (even though he would certainly have been easily elected again).

But neither Cincinnatus nor Washington are the best historical analogs to Mr. Biden’s magnificent and heroic suppression of his own ambition and ego in the party and national interest. A more apt comparison is the decision of the second president under the US Constitution, John Adams, to accept the will of the people and the outcome of an extraordinarily bitter election won by his archrival Thomas Jefferson and accede, for the first time in US history, to a peaceful transfer of power.

Washington was a unique figure in American history, whereas Adams was the first of many subsequent presidents. And it was his decision to accept the will of the voters and voluntarily accept defeat at the ballot box that set the template for two centuries of the rule of law and primacy of elections as the ultimate arbiters in US politics.

This tradition remained unbroken until Mr. Trump’s set of elaborate schemes to unlawfully overturn the result of the 2020 election that culminated in the violent insurrection against Congress on January 6, 2021. Mr. Biden did not accept an election defeat. But he did accept the evident judgment of most of his colleagues and much of the public that he was too old and in decline to plausibly stand for another presidential term.

One of the reasons that Mr. Trump has been so discombobulated by the sudden emergence of Ms. Harris as his opponent – even though this seemed likely long before it happened – may be that he simply couldn’t imagine any rational person making Mr. Biden’s sacrifice. He appears to have been certain that the President was going to soldier on no matter what in hopes of somehow eventually winning. And, indeed, his chances were never all that bad.

To Mr. Trump, the idea of putting the interests of others, let alone abstract principles and convictions, above narrow personal interests, is simply unfathomable. This perspective also informed his notorious reported remarks, which he has unconvincingly denied, describing fallen American soldiers as “suckers and losers,” and marveling: “I just don’t get it. What was in it for them?” That’s also why Mr. Trump was so taken with fantasies that Mr. Biden would burst into the convention and somehow try to reclaim his nomination that he aired them in public in both speech and writing.

It isn’t just that Mr. Trump likely cannot imagine behaving in Mr. Biden’s civic-virtuous manner. He was projecting his own grandiosity on Mr. Biden’s humility (no matter how reluctant). It wasn’t just that Mr. Trump desperately wanted to run against Mr. Biden rather than Ms. Harris, although he has made that abundantly clear. It’s more that not stepping down is exactly what Mr. Trump might have done if he somehow found himself in Mr. Biden’s shoes.

Mr. Biden’s actual convention speech was essentially underwhelming and certainly failed to take advantage of the grand historical context his extraordinary gesture of selflessness occupies. But if it’s too soon for him to seriously and publicly reflect on all of that, it’s surely understandable. He still may be coming to terms with the bitterness of the pill he has forced himself to swallow.

He probably won’t command an audience of this size again, but with five more months left in the White House, he still has ample opportunity to find a suitable forum for public reflection on his brave and unprecedented decision.

Both the Democratic Party and the American public are evidently relieved to be moving on from Mr Biden. And the country may be preparing to similarly bid farewell to Mr Trump.

But in the long run, the judgment of history is likely to echo the crowd at the DNC with a resounding “thank you, Joe.”

It’s becoming clear how much Trump misses Biden

This op-ed was published by The National on August 14,2024

Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s mounting panic, at times bordering on hysteria, is hardly surprising. It is not just his sudden and complete reversal of fortunes in the election campaign. Mr. Trump isn’t merely running to get back into the White House. He is running to stay out of prison.

Less than a month ago, he was presiding like a Roman emperor over his coronation at the Republican National Convention, sitting in his sky box receiving lines of ring-kissing high-ranking supplicants. He had just barely survived an assassination attempt and appeared on a glide path to re-election against an evidently declining President Joe Biden.

Suddenly, he is instead facing the dynamic and heretofore underrated Vice President Kamala Harris who in no time has opened a significant lead in national and key swing state polls. More importantly, she has captured the cultural momentum by fostering an optimism and joy unwitnessed in US politics for decades.

Her sudden dominance and Mr. Trump’s inability to regain control over the pop cultural register he is used to effortlessly dominating is clearly profoundly disturbing. He’s facing the terrifying twin specters of losing to a black woman and going to prison.

He faces sentencing over his adult film star hush money convictions, and, if he loses the election, trials over pilfered top-secret government documents and extensive efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In the documents case, in particular, he has virtually no defence and could face a significant prison term.

He has moved quickly to begin establishing a narrative to challenge the validity and legality of a potential defeat. Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed, for example, that it was “unconstitutional” and “a coup” – and of course deeply “unfair“ to himself – for Ms. Harris to replace Mr. Biden as the Democrats’ nominee, which is all laughable. But his campaign manager, Chris LaCivita – a notorious practitioner of the political dark arts– ominously insisted that: “It’s not over on Election Day. It’s over on Inauguration Day”.

Given Mr. Trump’s myriad efforts to overturn the 2020 election, highlighting the interregnum between voting and inauguration is deeply ominous, especially since over 70 election-denying activists now occupy state-level positions of election-related authority.

Mr. Trump may be tempted to go further this time, given the much higher stakes, but his options will probably be limited to sowing chaos and doubt, and ultimately attempting to get either courts or the House of Representatives to supersede the voters.

But most of Mr. Trump’s responses to his unexpected political crisis have been visceral and instinctive. He has been mystifyingly denouncing popular Republican governors, reportedly lashing out at his aides and referring to his opponent in sexist and derogatory terms, and publicly questioning her ethnicity and intelligence. But he still lacks any effective counterattack.

Mr. Trump and Mr. LaCivita are attempting to repurpose successful tactics from earlier contests. By absurdly claiming that Ms. Harris always presented herself as Indian until she suddenly “turned Black”, Mr. Trump is reprising his effective attacks on Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” because of her questionable claims of Native American ancestry. “Here’s another phoney”, he’s implying, but with no apparent success.

Worse, his running mate, Senator JD Vance, is leading a despicable effort to replay the mudslinging or “swift boating” attacks – orchestrated by Mr. LaCivita – denouncing Senator John Kerry in his 2004 election loss to then-president George W Bush. That barrage of defamation tarnished Mr. Kerry’s record as a Vietnam war hero through unfounded accusations ranging from cowardice to dishonesty.

This tactic has been revived against Ms. Harris’s running mate, Governor Tim Walz, claiming that he showed cowardice and disloyalty by retiring after 24 years in the military because his former unit was subsequently deployed to Iraq.

The biggest danger of such political ordure is not that it will stick – it almost certainly won’t – but rather that it could make military service a liability for potential candidates. It dishonestly disincentivizes National Service, even after no less than 24 years of honorable soldiering. Mr. Vance himself served only four years, largely writing articles for the military. And Mr. Trump received a highly dubious medical deferment for alleged bone spurs that, if they existed at all, were so insignificant he can’t remember on which foot.

But mostly Mr. Trump has been pining for the good old days of a few weeks ago, and his much-missed former opponent, Mr. Biden. At a recent rally, he attacked Mr. Biden almost as much as Ms. Harris. “Why did I debate him?” he plaintively lamented, though he is now demanding three additional debates with his new opponent (an unmistakable sign of political alarm).

He’s even conjured a bizarre scenario, floated in speeches and social media, in which Mr. Biden bursts into the upcoming Democratic national convention and reclaims the nomination. This very public pipe dream has even some sympathizers wondering if the aging Mr. Trump is beginning to lose touch with reality.

Such concerns were further stoked by his promotion of an incredible conspiracy theory that Ms. Harris is using artificial intelligence to generate fake crowds around the country, based on a supposed reflection in a photograph of her parked aircraft. He has long been obsessed with crowd size, but questioning the reality of her numerous large rallies – a claim even more ridiculous than, for instance, fantasies of the moon landing having been faked – could well be more reflective of emotional deterioration than any form of political calculation.

Mr Biden unquestionably showed serious mental decline, and media scrutiny of that was entirely appropriate. Yet the US press has remained largely silent on Mr Trump‘s own strikingly decreased acuity.

Even an actual “stable genius”, as Mr Trump has famously described himself, at a crossroads between the White House and “the big house” – with only an election determining which it will be and suddenly staring at an unexpected potential defeat and hard time – might be hard-pressed to maintain psychic equilibrium.

It’s high time the country’s media, after an inexcusable eight years of self-imposed silence, finally interrogates Mr Trump’s emotional stability, grasp on reality and mental acuity. Anything less is tantamount to deceiving the public by implying there’s nothing to warrant such concerns even though the evidence suggesting that Mr. Trump may have serious “issues” has become overwhelming.

In picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris is signaling confidence

This op-ed was published by The National on August 7, 2024

In selecting Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, US Vice President Kamala Harris is strongly signaling confidence and a broad, rather than region-specific, campaign strategy aimed at the whole country. It reportedly came down to Mr. Walz or Pennsylvania governor Joshua Shapiro. Apparently she went with personal chemistry and midwestern homespun rhetorical power over the mathematics of a potentially narrow victory.

If Ms. Harris were primarily focused on clawing her way to a winning 270 votes in the electoral college, she surely would have selected Mr. Shapiro. He’s the extremely popular governor of Pennsylvania, a state she cannot afford to lose. Polls show Pennsylvania currently running as a dead heat between Ms. Harris and her Republican opponent, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. Picking Mr. Shapiro would have been a sounder choice if Ms. Harris were nervous about the outcome.

Her decision suggests she’s not.

Arguments against Mr. Shapiro included his outspoken condemnation of anti-Gaza war protesters and unwavering support of Israel (although not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). Alarm about this on the left was overblown, because, as vice president, he would have no policy role on Israel and the Palestinians, and would perforce support Ms. Harris’s policies.

But foregoing the potential advantage he might supply in Pennsylvania also avoids reopening now largely healed wounds over US President Joe Biden’s strong support for Israel’s brutal Gaza war, especially in its first few months. Within their administration, Ms. Harris took the lead in calling for ceasefires and expressing concern about the desperate plight of Palestinian civilians facing Israel’s terrible vengeance. Selecting Mr. Shapiro might have unduly reopened an internal Democratic controversy best postponed until after November at the earliest.

She could come to regret the choice. Mr. Shapiro is known for his polished public speaking, strikingly reminiscent in tone and style to former president Barack Obama.

Nonetheless, Mr. Walz was also almost certainly selected for his own, very different, messaging ability. After a long career in the military and education, the House of Representatives, and two terms as Minnesota governor, he has perfected a traditional but now rare brand of distinctly liberal “prairie populism”.

He often looks like he just climbed down from a tractor, and employs a plainspoken, unadorned yet powerful verbiage honed in farmhouses, diners and truck stops across the American Midwest. If he can’t get through to winnable heartland independents and Republicans, maybe no one can.

Although long-favored by Democratic center-leftists and progressives, Mr. Walz shot to national prominence in recent weeks by pioneering a novel yet effective Democratic attack on Mr. Trump and his followers. He recently began branding Maga movement leaders, particularly Mr. Trump and his running mate, senator JD Vance, as just “weird”.

In one simple word, he managed to distill the gut feeling most Democrats and many other Americans have towards Trump-inflected Republican extremists (a reaction not provoked by traditional Republicans): that they are downright strange folk whose conduct, values, and apparent mental landscape often seem inexplicable.

Why did Mr. Trump go to a convention of black journalists and aggressively launch a sustained barrage of obviously racist attacks on the moderators, and against Ms. Harris’s ethnicity, apparently unable to comprehend that someone can be both black and Indian due to mixed parentage?

For a candidate professedly seeking greater support from African Americans, the performance, yet again, struck most Democrats as simply weird. So do his incoherent stories about sharks and electricity, self-indicting poems about treacherous snakes, and many other greatest hits.

Why did Mr. Trump then, in his own must-win state of Georgia, unleash a tirade of abuse against popular governor Brian Kemp and even his wife? And why does Mr. Vance refuse to moderate or amend his offensive and misogynistic charge that the US is being brought to ruin because it’s run by “childless cat ladies”?

The whole cult of personality surrounding Mr. Trump in the Republican Party is unprecedented in modern American history and, to Democrats, certainly appears very “weird”.

Mr. Walz is, in part, being rewarded for pioneering this extremely effective attack. However, Democrats must be careful. Many within their own ranks could be plausibly cast as “weird” to a broad swathe of American voters, including the ultra-left, extreme environmentalist and radical transgender activists, anti-police fanatics and other fringes. They have to be scrupulously specific about what, exactly, is “weird” about Maga Republicans to avoid a boomerang effect.

But the Minnesota Governor wasn’t selected for stumbling upon this bon mot. Ms. Harris is calculating he can help her launch a lightning-strike appeal to a huge swath of “middle America” where Democrats once held sway by appealing to middle class economic interests and appearing to champion “the little guy”. This may prove impossible, but it’s a commendably bold and gutsy strategy.

Ms. Harris is, like Mr. Trump, appealing to her base with her vice presidential selection, deciding to try to maintain her striking momentum – in some national polls she suddenly holds a slight lead over Mr. Trump – by presenting an apparently all-progressive ticket. Yet both Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz will surely continue to tack to the political center despite their strong liberal credentials.

At the black journalists convention, Mr. Trump was asked if Mr. Vance would be “ready on day one”. Rather than affirming this, as any normal presidential candidate would about his running mate, Mr. Trump simply averred that vice presidential candidates don’t matter. Apparently he couldn’t bear admitting that anyone else, even his running mate, is a plausible president.

Apart from the appalling slight to Mr. Vance, no doubt a small foretaste of the callous disrespect he can expect to come, Mr. Trump wasn’t entirely wrong: most Americans vote for the top of the ticket.

The past six weeks have, at a dizzying pace, reshaped American politics as Ms. Harris displayed unexpected poise, charisma and mass appeal. She’s gambling Mr. Walz can hold the party together and speak in their own language to a large segment of the American people that the Bay Area prosecutor, Ms. Harris, can’t. That’s arguably a long shot given his staunchly liberal record, but it could be a winning formula.

Still, Ms. Harris has all the momentum, with just three months to go. Mr. Trump appears justified in his evident panic.

The energy of the Harris campaign has reframed the US election

This op-ed was published by The National on August 1, 2024

In just a week, US Vice President Kamala Harris has transformed both the 2024 presidential election and the entire American political scene. President Joe Biden’s withdrawal was no surprise, but her ability to secure the nomination in days, unite the party and inspire a new political and cultural atmosphere was stunning.

She grasped the nomination unchallenged, almost immediately gaining the support of thousands of convention delegates and all leading Democrats, seemingly effortlessly.

When Mr. Biden stepped aside, Democrats proved every bit the suddenly-unleashed coiled spring I described in these pages a few weeks ago. Ms. Harris raised an amazing $100 million in small donations, many from first-time donors, in the first 24 hours of her campaign. Within a week, she passed the $200 million mark. She has also evidently inspired a wave of new voter registrations around the country. In a few days, she reversed Mr. Biden’s collapse and drew even with the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in the polls.

More importantly, her display of unexpected political skill, including several devastating speeches against Mr. Trump, has clearly shocked him and other leading Republicans.

Mr. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, privately acknowledged Ms. Harris’s striking political skills and described the switch at the top of the Democratic ticket as a “sucker punch”, that has created huge problems for Mr. Trump. That’s putting it mildly.

Not only is Mr. Trump now facing a completely different opponent than the ageing and declining Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris’s sudden emergence as an American cultural symbol has, arguably for the first time in the former president’s political career, sidelined him on the popular cultural, rather than political, stage he is used to dominating. Moreover, the prospect of losing to an African-American woman may be more than he can emotionally tolerate.

At the very least, the campaign is already back to a 50-50 proposition with the Democratic convention, vice presidential nomination and second debate all yet to come.

Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to know what to say in this new context, but Ms. Harris has already unveiled several damaging contrasts.

First, she is running as the tough, seasoned prosecutor facing a convicted felon she wants to paint as a habitual violator of the law. She boasted that she had taken on “perpetrators of all types”, including “predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type”.

Second, and in contrast to Mr. Biden, she is running as a symbol of the uplifting future, contrasting the nostalgic message of return in Mr. Trump’s “make America great again” rhetoric with her own “we are never going back” insistence.

Moreover, the age issue suddenly belongs to Democrats, because while his decline is not as dramatic as Mr. Biden’s, the 78-year-old Mr. Trump is showing unmistakable signs of ageing badly. He, too, lapses into incoherence, forgets and confuses names and frequently makes no intelligible sense in his rally speeches.

Third, she is running as a “normal” candidate against a Republican ticket that Democrats are now systematically calling “weird”, and sometimes even “creepy”. It may prove surprisingly easy to paint both Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance as extremist oddballs.

Mr. Trump may now be regretting his selection of Mr. Vance, who was the one option strikingly to his political right. Mr. Vance’s week was as devastatingly disastrous as Ms. Harris’s was breathtakingly successful.

He got into particular trouble when he stuck to his inexplicable and deeply misogynistic assertion that because of Democratic and corporate leaders, the country was being run by “childless cat ladies”. He insists this is substantially true, and that Republicans are pro-children and pro-family, whereas it is Democrats who have been pushing for legislation to help parents and aid children that has been largely blocked by Republicans, including Mr. Vance.

Mr. Trump’s own proclivity to extremism was on full display when he told evangelical Christians that they would never have to vote again if they help him win in November. It was one of his typically vague but unmistakably sinister comments that, in the context of his extensive and unlawful efforts to overturn the 2020 election and remain in power despite losing, appears to threaten the abolition of the electoral system if he returns to the presidency.

Moreover, Mr. Vance has previously described his running mate as potentially “America’s Hitler”, and even referred to Mr. Trump as “demonic”. Now, however, Mr. Vance is one of the biggest proponents of Mr. Trump’s populist demagoguery he once referred to as “political heroin”. Along with his political extremism, this 180-degree transformation may prove hard to defend.

It’s probably too late for Mr. Trump to change his mind, while Ms. Harris has numerous potentially effective running mates. The extraordinary honeymoon she’s experiencing with anti-Trump voters will undoubtedly end, but perhaps not soon enough to save Mr. Trump from defeat.

A whole range of states that seemed totally unattainable for Democrats are again in play. Ms. Harris has already proven highly effective in painting Mr. Trump as a dangerous criminal but Republicans have not yet figured out how to effectively malign her. Dismissing her candidacy as a “DEI hire”, suggesting she is only their opponent because of her race and gender, doesn’t square with her impressive resume and is blatantly racist and misogynistic.

Their best bet is to cast her as an extreme “California leftist”, but she is already tacking decisively to the political center on issues such as fracking and support for law enforcement, which may render that, too, ineffective with swing voters. And her long-established leadership on abortion and reproductive rights could prove a trump card against Mr. Trump, who is trying to disentangle himself from the near-absolute prohibitionist stance Republicans adopted under his leadership.

The reframed campaign is now a sprint to the November election. It’s once again anyone’s to win, and Ms. Harris has all the political and even cultural momentum. She also has an obvious and potent gameplan, while Mr. Trump no longer does. Anything can happen, but Democrats are suddenly energized and inspired, and their new leader is definitely in it to win it.

Game on.