Tag Archives: #KamalaHarris

Harris is impressing audiences, while Trump’s views remain fringe

This op-ed was published by The National on September 24, 2024

It’s raining cats and dogs of conspiracy theories and paranoia in the U.S. election campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris has opened a small but significant lead in the latest polls, ranging from one to six points nationally and in a number of key swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and even the prize of prizes: Pennsylvania. Former president Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, are responding with an intensification of wild allegations devoid of fact and racist fabrications.

This week the specter of political violence once again raised its ugly head, as Mr. Trump survived an apparent second assassination attempt. Another deranged gunman was apparently hoping to kill him at his golf course in Florida, but he was thwarted and captured by the Secret Service. No shots were fired at Mr. Trump.

The former president was quick to blame Democrats, once again claiming that “they” were trying to kill him. The suspect appears to be another deranged individual with a largely right-wing political history, plus some donations to Democrats. There is no evidence that either would-be assassin was inspired by warnings from Democrats that Mr. Trump is a threat to US democracy and constitutional rule (which, given his actions and statements, is an unavoidable fear).

On social media, Mr. Trump posted: “Because of this communist left rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse.” In addition to yet again smearing Ms. Harris and other Democrats as communists, there is an obvious thinly veiled threat at the end of that sentence.

The assassination attempts don’t seem to be helping Mr. Trump much in the polls, for an obvious reason: it is he, and not the Democrats, who has consistently deployed the rhetoric of political violence – and its reality on January 6, 2021 – in the American political scene.

Democrats reacted to the latest assassination attempt impeccably, by denouncing political violence absolutely, expressing relief that Mr. Trump is safe, and calling for an investigation of how the threat emerged and urging greater Secret Service protection for the former president. Mr. Trump and his sons, by contrast, continue to mock and make light of the hammer attack on the 80-year-old husband of former House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, and have specialized in violent rhetoric unheard-of at this political level in the modern US.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance also continue to harp on the fabrication that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, despite the insistence of the mayor, police and governor that there is no evidence of this ever happening. In a recent interview, Mr. Vance, who could not identify any victimized pet owner, admitted the story may be fabricated, but said: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually has to pay attention to the suffering of American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

The result has been devastating to Springfield, which has been inundated with violent threats that have resulted in the evacuations of hospitals, schools and threats to the safety of the family of the mayor. Yet Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance continue to insist that the legal Haitian immigrants in that city are stealing and consuming pets.

This sort of anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t new. Exactly these charges were made against Vietnamese immigrants in the 1980s. But horror stories about food and pets, the essence of American domesticity, get repeated because they’re effective. Another new target is pop superstar Taylor Swift, who endorsed Ms. Harris, prompting thousands of new voter registrations. Mr. Trump responded by posting in all caps: “I hate Taylor Swift.” It is, to say the least, unusual conduct from a former US president.

Mr. Trump is now carefully and ominously laying the groundwork for a repetition of his refusal to accept his defeat in 2020. He’s once again denouncing the “terrible” US election system.

In his 16th interview with a particularly loopy conspiracy theorist called Wayne Allyn Root, Mr. Trump insisted that the recent presidential debate (which he claims to have won, although it was a fiasco for him) was “rigged”, and that even the US Postal Service is “rigged” against him. He’s back to insisting that postal voting is inherently rife with fraud, a fixation for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

Mr. Trump’s lurch to the extreme fringe of the US political spectrum is personified by his latest close adviser, the hatemonger and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. She is an intolerant, homophobic and Islamophobic extremist who has called, for instance, Islam “a cancer”, while insisting that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a US government “inside job”.

Her closer-than-ever association with Mr. Trump began with her accompanying him to the recent debate. This so alarmed some of his most right-wing allies in Congress that Thom Tillis, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lindsey Graham issued a joint statement denouncing her influence on Mr. Trump. She responded by describing all of them as his enemies and making scurrilous claims, subsequently removed, about Mr. Graham’s supposed preference for the company of men.

Yet Mr. Trump continues to back her, saying she is a “free spirit” entitled to say anything she wants. But she has quite clearly emerged as his chief enforcer.

Mr. Trump’s paid adverts are making the politically normal case that Ms. Harris is responsible for a surge in border crossings and inflation that has bedeviled the Joe Biden administration. That could win him many votes. But in “earned media” appearances, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance appear uninterested or incapable of moving beyond the “cat-eating” level of highly dangerous racist and anti-immigrant calumny. It’s off-the-wall but on-brand and, unfortunately, not ineffective in creating its intended fear and hatred and keeping immigration – and themselves – in the spotlight.

All this prompted the influential and apolitical magazine Scientific American to endorse Ms. Harris, pointing out that the election now pits reality-based policies against the politics of fabrications, phantasms and flimflam.

Mr. Trump’s pivot to the most extreme conspiratorial fringe may remind many key swing voters what bothered them enough about him that they elected Mr. Biden in 2020. Between that and her outstanding debate performance last week, it’s no wonder that Ms. Harris appears to be slowly but surely moving ever closer to the presidency.

Harris shines in the debate, but Trump remains a potent candidate

This op-ed was published by The National on September 11, 2024

The presidential debate performance on Tuesday night by US Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t perfect, but the glitches were rare and unimportant, as she executed a well-crafted, relentless attack on her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump. He could certainly still win the election. But he was constantly, and most unusually, on the defensive.

Ms. Harris is now bolstered by a crushing victory that accomplished virtually every goal – many in complex tension with each other – that the occasion demanded. The campaigns are battling for a few remaining persuadable voters in six or seven swing states. It’s unlikely many switched to Mr. Trump after his dismal performance.

Ms. Harris faced especially daunting challenges. She had to demonstrate “presidential” mettle by standing up to him, yet avoid seeming snippy, obnoxious or unpleasant. This is especially challenging for women, who are typically judged harshly for assertiveness often considered admirable from men.

She rattled him immediately, confidently marching into his stage space and forcing a handshake that he evidently neither expected nor enjoyed. It was a subtle exercise in the physical dominance Mr. Trump well understands. She initially overdid her incredulous facial expressions at his rhetorical excesses. But even these became increasingly effective, almost seeming concerned for him, in stark contrast to his scowls and smirks.

 

TV debates are often best evaluated on mute. Ms. Harris appeared relaxed and confident, while Mr. Trump looked alternately irritated, infuriated or uncomfortable, a stereotypical grumpy old man. She smiled broadly as he fell into trap after trap. Her attacks were so effective that she essentially transformed him into the incumbent, and herself into an upstart challenger, even though she’s in the White House and he isn’t.

She launched stinging salvos against his criminal convictions, dependence on lies, and key vulnerabilities such as reproductive rights. She consistently baited him, so successfully that he sometimes appeared to lose his temper, barking “quiet!” at her and several times being reduced to shouting.

Ms. Harris was clearly well prepared, continuously pivoting to directly address voters, explaining what she would do for “you”, while insisting that Mr. Trump has nothing to offer “you”. He seemed unprepared, although when she lured him into relitigating the 2020 election, he apparently suddenly recalled that was a mistake, quickly affirming the past is unimportant. It was an unconvincing correction.

The debate was predictably short on substance, but Ms. Harris made the only serious efforts to talk about policy ideas, and several times appealed for a discussion about their proposals. Mr. Trump variously claimed she has no plans, that she intends to “destroy” the country, and even, mystifyingly, that she has now embraced his governing philosophy. The incompatibility of the three appeared lost on him.

Mr. Trump returned almost compulsively to his signature issue, immigration. But he handled it clumsily, relying on outlandish hyperbole and even regurgitating a racist urban legend about Haitian migrants eating other people’s pet cats. When moderators noted that officials in Springfield, Ohio – the purported site of this mythical feasting – flatly deny the fabrication, he responded that he had seen it on TV. He thereby botched a potentially potent issue.

Ms. Harris, by contrast, gave an artful response regarding Palestinians and Israel, a dangerously divisive issue among Democrats. She denounced the Hamas attack of October 7 and pledged to defend Israel against Iran or its proxies. But she bemoaned the suffering of Palestinians and strongly endorsed a two-state solution, insisting Palestinians must enjoy “self-determination, freedom and the dignity they so rightly deserve”. That gave as much to each side as plausible. Mr. Trump’s response – claiming that she hates Israel but also hates Arabs – was incoherent, ad hominem and hostile.

Mr. Trump tried to corner Ms. Harris on the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he ended up defending his own record of dealing with the Taliban. He refused to say that he wants Ukraine to defeat the Russian invasion. And he repeatedly praised and cited the “strongman” Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban.

Ms. Harris repeated her convention pledge to maintain the US military as “the most lethal” in the world, hawkish phraseology atypical of Democrats but appealing to many independents.

She hammered him on issue after issue, didn’t “lose” a single exchange and carried most of them decisively. He appeared particularly irked when she questioned the size and enthusiasm of his rally crowds, once again demonstrating his predictability. Indeed, one of her strongest selling points is that she offers something new and different, an opportunity to turn the page on a political environment defined by Mr. Trump, US President Joe Biden and their generation.

Stylistically, despite her determination to demonstrate “strength” by being assertive and even combative, she managed to be forward-looking, offering voters a new era in US politics. A glowering Mr. Trump, by contrast, was unrelentingly negative. Swing voters may prefer her optimism and the opportunity to move away from ongoing divisions, although economic discontent could prevent that.

She was especially effective in her response to his attacks on her mixed ethnic heritage, urging Americans to put racial and other divisions aside and unite as a single people. This is something Mr. Trump has never even hinted at in his political career, which has been based almost entirely on dividing the country.

The closing arguments summarized the evening: Ms. Harris appealed to Americans for unity and optimism for a new future, while Mr. Trump bitterly denounced his opponent, her administration and the supposedly “failing” and wretched state of the country.

Mr. Trump suffered a devastating defeat, and he knows it. He’s claiming he prevailed despite it being “three on one”, suggesting that the moderators were biased for occasionally correcting some of his falsehoods. When someone is complaining about the moderators, they know they’ve lost.

Mr. Biden’s meltdown on June 27 demonstrated that debates can reshape elections. If Ms. Harris wins in November, this debate may be recalled as a key inflection point moving late-breaking voters into her camp.

She clearly won the debate. That doesn’t mean she’ll win the election. But her chances seem better than ever.

If nothing else, Ms. Harris has just executed one of the finest and most effective debate performances in US political history.

Trump’s flip-flop on a woman’s right to choose is an electoral liability for him

This op-ed was published by The National on September 6, 2024

In US presidential elections, early September initiates a typically combative, fluctuating last two months. Vice President Kamala Harris has a small lead over former president Donald Trump, but the race remains a toss-up, ripe for daily intensification.

This campaign stage typically features accusations of flip-flopping, interrogating how and why candidates have altered their previous positions.

Ms. Harris has clear exposure but also some protective padding. Most of her independent positions predate becoming President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020. She has shifted on several important issues, such as petroleum extraction through fracking (which she now supports), single-payer public health care (now opposes), and immigration (now much tougher).

Ms. Harris and the Democratic Party in general have shifted significantly to the center. On immigration, in particular, it was stunning to watch her convention pledge to sign the “Langford bill” – a virtual wish list for Republicans on border issues – greeted with thunderous cheers by a Democratic crowd. And she is using Mr. Trump’s cynical opposition to the bill as a powerful rebuttal on border-related criticism.

Confronted with such so-called flip-flops in a recent interview, she acknowledged some of her views have changed, but insisted her values haven’t. She suggested that she’s learnt a great deal after almost four years in the White House, and developed a keener appreciation of the need to “build consensus”, a clear nod to lessons from Mr. Biden who has championed bipartisanship. Spending the past four years perforce supporting Mr Biden’s positions allows her to insist that his popular policies will continue but his unpopular ones won’t.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with political, or other, consistency is far more tenuous. Despite decades as a public gadfly in New York and almost 10 years in national politics, it’s much easier to list the few issues on which he’s held firm: opposition to immigration and free trade, plus a long track record of racist and misogynistic words and deeds.

But on most policy issues, he’s highly flexible. He began as a liberal Democrat (except on racial matters), dabbled with libertarian and independent platforms, and is now a conservative Republican. But the public and the media have largely given him a pass on his pre-2015 stances.

It’s pointless to look for such consistency because Mr. Trump doesn’t “do policy”. He does politics, and he appears mainly guided by how he thinks his base will react to developments in a 12-hour news cycle. In 2020, the Republican Party dispensed with issuing a platform altogether, simply affirming support for any of his positions – apparently because they couldn’t anticipate what he might come to favor.

This free-form flip-flopping is virtually priced into his political persona. For instance, few voters are likely to learn or care that he now supports decriminalization of marijuana in his home state of Florida, though he was a hardline anti-drug president.

Nonetheless, he’s having extreme difficulty with the policy surely most associated with his presidency: prohibiting abortion.

Evangelical and other conservative Christians were initially skeptical, but in 2016 he persuaded them that he was serious about appointing Supreme Court justices who would prioritize ending almost 50 years of constitutionally protected access to early-term abortions. They eventually became the rock-solid cornerstone of his adoring base.

Through good fortune and cynical Senate chicanery, he appointed three of the nine current justices, and in 2022 that court indeed overturned the constitutional right to choice for American women. Mr. Trump then spent years boasting that he was personally, if not single-handedly, responsible.

But in 2024, that’s all become a liability.

The court ruling, and widespread pushback against abortion access (and other vital women’s healthcare provisions) in conservative states is so unpopular that, ever since, in every competitive election in which reproductive health care has been a major issue, liberals have won (even in hyper-conservative states such as Alabama). Yet the new Republican party platform suggests that embryos do, or should, have unspecified constitutional rights, signaling a nationwide total abortion ban.

Mr. Trump is clearly nervous, and with good reason.

Eyebrows were raised when he insisted that another Trump term would be “great for women and their reproductive rights”. But his implication that he might vote for a referendum in Florida overturning the state’s highly restrictive six-week limit (when women often have no idea that they’ve become pregnant) made many of his anti-abortion supporters livid.

Inundated with criticism, he “clarified” that he would vote no, falsely claiming that the referendum would allow abortions through the ninth month. Such hyperbole is nothing new, since he has been wrongly insisting for years that Democrats support and allow for “after-birth abortions”, which is murder and unlawful everywhere.

Just as Mr. Trump has failed to develop an effective counter to Ms. Harris – his latest nickname for her, “Comrade Kamala”, unsurprisingly isn’t catching on – he hasn’t found a stance that accommodates his existing and possibly epoch-shaping anti-abortion policies while attenuating the price at the ballot box.

His main strategy in recent weeks has been to advocate leaving the matter to each state. That hasn’t appeased anyone, and it’s annoyed many on his side.

He even recently suggested universal coverage for in vitro fertilization, which is considered murderous by much of his base. But it’s likely to prove one of his offhanded trial balloons, like his recent suggestion that graduating international students at US universities be given green cards, that end up on history’s cutting room floor.

The Harris campaign is so invested in reproductive rights that it’s highlighting them through a 50-stop national bus tour, beginning near Mr. Trump’s home in Florida.

The candidates are bound to vigorously confront each other at the upcoming debate. Mr. Trump would be wise not to again accuse Ms. Harris of flip-flopping on her mixed racial identity by suddenly “turning black”. And she’s best advised to foreground women’s health care and force Mr. Trump to either stand by or backtrack further from his strong restrictionist track record. His instincts for throwing red meat to his strongest supporters could help her task, although he’s likely to stick to his “leave it to each state” formula.

Flip-flopping accusations are largely ineffective political cliches. But Mr. Trump’s close association with one of the most unpopular socio-political upheavals in recent history is almost certainly the biggest liability facing either candidate this year.

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.

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.