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.