KAMALA HARRIS VS DONALD TRUMP
- Trump has an enemies list and will work on getting revenge.
- Kamala has a to-do list will work to help Americans have better lives.
- With Trump we lose our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy. Our country will become a dictatorship. Trump will not leave office.
- With Harris we keep our constitutional democracy, rule of law, and shore up our rights and freedoms.
I do not know for certain if Harris will win or lose this election, but I think she has been making the best possible case for herself and for the continuation of our country as a constitutional democracy with a rule of law. She and Tim Walz are positive about our country and its potential; they sincerely want to help working Americans get ahead. She talks about the common good, how real strength is about lifting others up not putting others down. She has clearly articulated her values and goals that will inform what she plans to do as president to make lives better for Americans: more housing and money for first time home buyers, Medicare to pay for the elderly to be supported at home as they age, protection of reproductive rights, money to help small businesses to start up. As a woman she brings a different perspective to the fore that come from her experience as a mother, a daughter, a wife and a professional woman. She is empathic, has the ability to fight back, respond in the moment, has poise, a sense of humor, is authentic. These are wonderful assets.
Harris also has the skill and ability to respond in the moment to threats or attacks with laughter and a quick retort, like when she was doing a rally and a bunch of MAGAs heckled her, she laughed and said “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally…No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.” Or when she called out Bret Baier in the Fox interview (debate) she did with him. Baier showed an edited clip of Trump cleaning up his comments about the enemy from within instead of showing Trump’s full-throated threat to vengefully pursue people like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi using the military, if necessary, who he darkly labeled as enemies from within.
Trump continues his negative, angry ranting attacks in which he talks about our country as a cesspool of crime and failure. He is still lying about FEMA not helping enough after Hurricane Helene, which was debunked by every Republican governor of the states that were hit by the hurricane. He seems to get a pass when it comes to his lawlessness, but the contrast between the candidates: one is a convicted felon and the other a prosecutor, is bound to influence many voters.
Harris is polling better when Americans are asked who would handle the economy better and who would be better at handling taxes on the middle class. There is some erosion of support for Trump with non-college Americans.
In many ways Harris is the best candidate we could have hoped for in this moment. Her background in the courtroom as a prosecutor helped her develop the skills she uses now on the campaign trail and making her closing argument. I doubt anyone else could do better than she is doing.
So, if she is doing everything right, then why is the race between these two candidates so close?
1. THERE ARE TWO BIG CULTURAL MOVEMENTS BEHIND THESE TWO CANDIDATES
This is a fight between two big cultural movements: Trump’s leading a movement to consolidate power in the president, turning the president into a dictator who can get whatever he wants done by the flunkies and loyalists who surround him. Trump offers deals to people who are very wealthy to get them to support him: deregulation and tax benefits, the ability to be corrupt without consequences. With the help of Citizens United (permitting the flow of obscene amounts of money into politics) he consolidated support with many tech bros, fossil fuel industry guys, and ultra-wealthy corporate types (who got to be billionaires thanks to our democratic rules-based country that supports innovation and entrepreneurship and now seem ready to turn their backs on our form of government). The ultra right ultra wealthy have joined forces with the religious right: Christian nationalists and evangelicals. Trump also appeals to some men (including White, Black and Hispanic men) who are feeling underappreciated and unsure of their futures and their value as men in a world where women are getting ahead.
As I have written before, Trump is the archetypal strongman fearmonger who is ginning up fear about a rising tide of Black and brown people coming to America- “Immigrants” is a stand in for that rising tide. If Trump wins, it will be mostly because of this multiethnic shift in the racial composition of our country and the angst of White Americans about being “replaced” that created a huge backlash.
These anti-democratic forces found a home in what used to be the Republican Party. They want Trump to win because the will make them wealthier and will let the Christian nationalists move the country back in time to a period when women were subservient, and men had a greater advantage just because they were men. (Beware men of color, they want your support, but this is really about White supremacy.)
The counter movement led by Harris/Walz is a revitalized pro-democracy, pro-rule-of-law movement. Democrats welcome the reality that we are already a multi-ethnic country. We don’t need to be afraid of each other. We can rise together and do much more when we accept each other. This counter movement has been joined by the all-important suburban women of America who had their right to bodily control taken away by Dobbs. Women want to be able to have careers and have children on their own timing. They don’t want our country to turn into The Handmaid’s Tale. There is a lot of energy that powers this movement which has faith in the American people.
2. DISINFORMATION PUMPS TRUMP UP
There are other reasons that Trump is up in the polls. We are living in a time of rapid change, post-pandemic turmoil, and rampant mis and dis information amplified by social media, especially Elon Musk’s “X”, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox and other right-wing so-called conservative (should be called extremist) media outlets have joined the MAGA disinformation machine. They are helping Trump maintain his fact-free propaganda universe, the fantasy world in which he won the 2020 election, is being unfairly criminally indicted by “radical left lunatics”, and is an aggrieved victim instead of a law-breaking recidivist and the real threat from within to our democracy.
When confronted with Trump’s own statements that if elected he plans to go after the “enemy from within” with the military and names Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as more dangerous than our foreign adversaries, these Trump apologists deny what he said and reframe what he said to try to make it pass the “he’s not really a fascist” smell test.
3. PREJUDICE HELPS TRUMP
We also still live in a misogynistic, xenophobic, racist country and Harris has three strikes against her: she is a woman, she is Black, and she is Asian. Can Americans open their minds and imagine that a woman could be the commander-in-chief? In the future as our country becomes more and more multi-ethnic, it will become more and more common that our leaders come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. But now it is still kinda new.
WHAT HELPS HARRIS:
1. WOMEN ARE MOTIVATED TO SHOW UP
On the other hand, Harris may have a singular advantage as a woman in this particular election cycle given the energy of angry women of all ages and political stripes (and includes younger Americans of both sexes who are revved up to vote for the first time), who have had a 50 year Constitutional right taken away from them by an extreme right-wing Supreme Court that Trump installed. As everyone knows, three anti-abortion judges were chosen for the Court by Trump for the express purpose of overturning Roe and they did just that. Harris has been reminding supporters WHO took that personal freedom away from them and empowered state governments as their overlords instead. Harris was a proven champion for reproductive rights before she ended up at the top of the presidential ticket, which increases her credibility on this issue. If Harris wins, it will probably be women and younger voters even in small towns in those purple states who will get her across the finish line.
2. TRUMP’S CLOSING ARGUMENT HAS A TRUMP PROBLEM
By way of contrast, Trump is trying to appeal to Americans as a strong MAN. He is glorifying masculinity in a bid to get them to support him, but he does it in a very yucky way. On Saturday, Trump attended a rally in Latrobe, PA. He entered the stage to Pro-Wrestler music, and then went into a ramble about Arnold Palmer, the famous golfer, that lasted 15 minutes. Trump talked about Palmer’s massive wealth and then alluded to Palmer’s big dong. “Arnold Palmer was all man…This man was strong and tough… when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said ‘oh my god. That’s unbelievable’.” Trump’s comment was so gross and cringey it’s hard to believe men will think that what he said was cool. But who knows.
That strongman image also raises the question of whether Trump is more of a weak man instead of a strongman. Trump is no longer a vision of masculine capability and strength. He is fat, rambling, unhinged, unfocused, too “exhausted” to do tough interviews or maybe any interviews- he has cancelled over 6 of them recently, and when he speaks, he is vulgar, unpresidential, venal, mean-spirited and nasty. He offers Americans more chaos. Is this what Americans want from their leader?
3. OTHER SIGNS OF WEAKNESS FOR TRUMP
Trump’s rallies are in fact not as well attended as they used to be. And people really do leave en masse at a certain point. There appears to be a reason for that.
There are widespread allegations on X & other social media that #Trump rally attendees are bussed in, promised coupons for free meals at Popeyes and other places, And the moment the coupons pop up in their Venmo accounts, folks get up & leave — while Trump is speaking.
Paying people to show up at his rallies tells us that Trump is not the draw he used to be.
There may also be some hanky panky going on with the polling data as there was in 2020 when a red wave was predicted but it never materialized. According to pollsters Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier there have been over 80!! junk Republican leaning polls that got thrown into the polling data mix intentionally to shape the the polling averages in Trump’s favor.
Boosting polling data so that it looks like Trump is doing better than he is not only helps Trump feel better and the MAGAs feel hopeful, it might also help to depress and suppress the hopes of Democrats. In addition, it sets up the post-election storyline that Trump was cheated out of the presidency once again. The fact that the Republicans are gaming the system in this way is another sign of weakness.
And there are other possible signs of weakness for Trump. People can now bet on who will win the presidency. A lot of crypto currency bros have been betting big that Trump will win, setting up a question about whether that was also a ploy to make it look like Trump is more popular than he is.
Trump’s small dollar supporters have petered out. Harris’s small dollar supporters have grown.
4. TRUMP FATIGUE SYNDROME
Trump is 9 years older now than he was when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower and called Mexicans rapists. He has a track record from the 4 years when he was president. 2024 is not 2016. Trump is a known entity.
We know Trump will disregard the law and will be a dictator on day one because he told us so. He also has a track record of ignoring rules and laws: He was criminally indicted 4 times, found guilty of 34 felonies, sued for refusing to follow the laws governing businesses and found guilty in that civil trial as well. John Kelly, his former chief of staff, has come out with his warning that Trump 2.0 will be a vindictive dictator and is a fascist. General Milley, General Mattis and Mark Esper, who were Trump’s closest military aides, all agree he will be a dictator if he is elected again. (He will find a way to stay in power as dictators do- creating an emergency and calling for martial law is favorite ploy.)
In 2016 he appealed to many of the White low education low information Americans who get a kick out of celebrities and reality TV dramas in which the audience cheers for the villain and sees the bad guy, the rebel, as the underdog. Trump became the villain his cult followers cheered for and still do. Trump’s bad boy antics have become predictable and like many reality TV shows his need to be more and more outrageous may be leading to a sense of ennui with more Americans. It’s a “there he goes again” response to his endless chaos.
By now everyone knows what Trump did to rev up an insurrection and how he sat by watching TV while the mob stormed the capitol . Americans have decided to either pretend not to see what they saw or refuse to forget what they saw that day. What you saw then is what you will get with Trump 2.0 but far worse. Trump creates messes wherever he goes and whatever he does.
Is Trump fatigue a real thing? We will find out.
WHAT HAS BROKEN THROUGH
Americans are cynical about government. They have been encouraged by the Republicans to be cynical because Republican lawmakers have refused to act in a bipartisan way in an effort to prove that democracy doesn’t work. It was remarkable that Biden was able to pass sweeping bipartisan pieces of legislation that did help Americans after the pandemic. Our economy avoided inflation (unlike countries in Europe).
Perhaps some truth has broken through about how successful the Biden/Harris administration has been for the America economy because Americans are making more money, prices for goods are coming down, the price of gas is down, and our stock market is at an all-time high. Our economy is the envy of every other country on earth.
If Trump slaps 20% tariffs on everything we buy, as he promises to do, Americans will pay the price. Goldman Sachs predicts it will cause inflation. Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump’s proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target. (AP)
Americans could also be getting wise to the fact that Trump is not a real populist. He is all in for the ultra-wealthy like Elon Musk, the Uleins, the Kochs and other billionaires on the extreme right, not for the average American.
Project 2025 seems to have broken through as the right-wing blueprint to deconstruct our democracy and replace it with Christian nationalism which wants to put government in your bedroom to check on your menstrual periods and interfere with your medical care, throw out our educational system, ban books, end social security and Medicare, undo protections for same sex marriage, and along with the Supreme Court immunity decision, it will make the president into a king with too much power.
We are voting for much more than this election. We are voting for the future of our country as a viable constitutional democracy where our government helps working Americans get what they and their families need in life and makes sure they are safe and protected, instead of helping corporations and the ultra-wealthy get what they want and to hell with the little guy. This election is a stark choice.
If Americans understand this choice, Harris will win. If not, we are in for a very dark period not only in American history, but in our own lives.