The US was sailing toward a November election much of the electorate was not excited about. Sure, Donald Trump’s supporters are as boisterous as ever and his speeches are as long and winding as ever, but Joe and Jane American really wanted better choices than Trump and the oldest man to run for president in the 248 years of American history.
And speaking of Joe Biden, after a debate performance in which he stumbled, appeared so confused—more accurately, was confused and appeared at times not to know what was happening around him—that liberals on social media were calling in real time for him to be replaced on the ticket. Conservatives, for their part, suggested the 25th Amendment should be enacted.
Before the debate was over, President Biden and contender Trump role-played the scariest nightmare of many voters: arguing their golf game like two rocking-chair duffers outside a Cracker Barrel. Subsequently, after weeks of calls from pols in his own party, big money donors, dissatisfied celebrity supporters, and wistful would-be voters Biden announced his decision exit the race.
And in the blink of an eye, Americans did not have to choose between Washington, DC’s version of Grumpy Old men. Almost immediately, Biden endorsed vice-president Kamala Harris to run at the top of the Democratic ticket. Within days, there was near unanimity of support among the Democratic convention delegates previously pledged to Biden. Support for Harris on social media was immediate, sustained, and loud.
Donald Trump has yet to recover.
Barely a week earlier, before Biden’s announcement, as Trump was being whisked from the scene of an attempt on his life, he paused defiantly, raising a fist to the sky framing his bloodied, resolute face: a perfect photo opp. And Evan Vuccie caught it. Within minutes of the image becoming public, a friend texted it along with, “It’s over now. He’s president.” The Republican National Convention followed within days, Trump again basking in the limelight of his party’s nomination with JD Vance in tow as his VP nominee.
But the express train of his week—from Butler, PA to Milwaukee, WI, from near death to fully reborn political life—came to a stop so abrupt the caboose is still in the air. Kamala Harris burst onto the national stage, propelled by the Democratic Party machine, the insiders, the donors, many of the PACs, and hundreds of thousands of newly engaged supporters.
Joe Biden, for whom all Trump’s one liners were designed—Crooked Joe, Biden’s Border Problem, Joe Biden’s Illegals—was no longer around to be the punchline. Suddenly, Biden’s debate performance didn’t matter. His age didn’t matter. But with a new opponent, clocking in at a youthful-looking and acting 59-years, Trump’s age suddenly matters. He’s the only one left in a rocking chair.
Harris smartly abandoned Biden’s attack strategy on Trump—saving democracy—to implement a positive message, “We’re not going back,” diametrically opposed to Trump’s longtime slogan, “Make America Great Again.” In Harris’s campaign the future, not the past, is the way forward. She has practically ignored Trump altogether, save for an occasional zinger like, after expounding on her prosecution of felons as a DA, “I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Trump and Vance, meanwhile, have struggled to find policy-related messaging that can overcome Harris’s upbeat message of hope. Trump appearing at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, said of Harris in a not-atypical comment, “I did not know she was Black until a couple of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black. Is she Indian, or is she Black?” The vice-president has one Jamaican parent and one Asian Indian parent.
If Trump continues in this 2024 form of birtherism, his Kamala Harris problem may be even bigger than I think. And I already think it’s bigly. That he’s resorted to name calling and personal insults is an indication of how lost Trump is and how badly his campaign has failed adjusting toward the Harris challenge.
From the time of Biden’s announcement through the end of July, Harris raised $310M. She raised more in ten days than the Trump campaign had in its war chest with July receipts and previous money on hand. Several Zoom calls instigated by Black Women for Kamala, then Black Men, White Women, and White Dudes raised millions. A reported 164,000 women joined the White Women for Harris Zoom. More than 600 (and counting) Silicon Valley venture capitalists have endorsed her. The AFL-CIO, the UAW, and the Federal Workers Union have endorsed her. And in a historic first, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) political action committee, endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris.
All this while prominent Republicans skipped their own convention, Republicans are skipping Trump’s rallies, Republicans in Arizona are endorsing Harris, and the Trump campaign recently spent 12-hours trying to secure the endorsement…of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Electorally, Trump’s pick of JD Vance was strategic even if the GOP hopeful got off to a slow start on the stump-circuit. Trump/Vance should secure Ohio’s 17 electoral votes. But, even then, Harris presents a challenge. The Dems will almost certainly carry California and, even with Biden off the ticket, keep Delaware’s three electors in the blue column. Harris’s VP candidates excited their respective states. Her pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz brings a dynamic that will support her chances in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, all swing states. Given the campaign’s momentum and the way the VP candidates have been working for Harris, even the ones who did not make the ticket could help carry their state to a Harris/Walz win.
And if all of them succeed, it’ll be JD bar the door.
Donald Trump might very well have won the 2024 election had Joe Biden stayed in the race. The president looked tired and frail during the debate and a subsequent bout with Covid didn’t help portray strength. It would, perhaps, have been a long, demanding road to victory. But, Biden stepping down means it is no longer his problem. Kamala Harris has taken the baton and running.
And that is Donald Trump’s problem.
fides quaerens intellectum
