What More Do You People Want from Kamala Harris? (Part
Deux)
She's done everything
voters could reasonably have asked for.
Oct 29, 2024
Tonight we’re going to livestream Kamala Harris’s
big closing argument rally for Bulwark+ members. The show starts
at 7pm. If you’re a member, here’s how to join us live. If
you’re not a member yet and want to join, we’d love to have you.
1. Precriminations
Kamala Harris has a 50-50 chance to
win this election.2
But I want to head off arguments that
if she loses it was somehow her fault. That she did something wrong, or didn’t
do something important.
Because here is the rock-bottom fact: No
reasonable observer could have asked her to run a better campaign.
Kamala Harris became the presumptive
Democratic nominee a hundred days ago. In that time she:
- Unified the
Democratic party.
- Reversed
Biden’s polling deficit and took the lead over Trump.
- Organized a
successful convention.
- Created a
policy framework for her prospective administration.
- Pivoted to the
center on nearly every issue: From domestic energy production, to gun
reform, to immigration.
- Absolutely
schlonged Trump in their debate.
- Performed
somewhere between adequately and exceptionally in every single media
interview.
- Spent time with
several non-traditional media outlets.
- Gave almost
unfailingly good speeches in front of giant crowds.
- Performed
heroic levels outreach to Republicans and swing voters by appearing on Fox
News and campaigning with the likes of Liz Cheney—while explicitly inviting
and welcoming Republican voters into her coalition.
Harris did not play perfect
baseball—you or I could sketch out a handful of things we wish she had done differently. Or
better. But the perfect campaign does not exist.
Seriously: This has been the most
error-free presidential campaign in memory and yet Harris hasn’t played it
safe. She combined aggressive strategy with disciplined execution. In terms of
campaigns as they exist in the actual, real world? This is as good as it gets.
Which is why, if Harris loses, it will
be incorrect to say that it was somehow her fault. That if only she had done
[this thing I like] or said [this other thing that’s important to me], then she
would have beaten Trump.
Because not only has Harris run the
best possible campaign, but Trump has run an entirely mask-off campaign. He has
told America who he is and what he wants.
He wants to round up immigrants and
put them in camps.
He wants to deploy the military
against domestic groups he disfavors.
He wants to eradicate the “vermin” who
are “poisoning the blood” of the country.
He wants to put crazy people like RFK
and Elon Musk in charge of large swaths of the federal government.
He wants to fire Jack Smith and make
the criminal charges against himself go away.
He wants to force Ukraine to negotiate
a ceasefire in terms favorable to Russia.
Believe me: If Trump wins, it isn’t
going to be because Kamala Harris gave a bad answer to a question on The
View.
It will be because some large
percentage of the American public looked at these two candidates and decided
that they wanted Trump.
Attempts to blame Harris or find an
alternate reason for why voters didn’t consciously choose an
authoritarian strongman will be an exercise in reality avoidance. It will be an
attempt to avoid grappling with who, and what, our country is.
2. Stories We Tell Ourselves
In a sense, the 2024 election has been
an exercise in creating rationalizations in order to avoid reality.
The pattern was simple: People would
come up with a rationalization for why 47 percent of the country wanted Trump.
Said rationalization would be demolished. Someone would come up with a new
rationalization.
- The only reason people supported Trump was inflation.
- Then inflation
came down, and people kept supporting Trump.3
- The only reason people supported Trump was high interest rates.4
- Then rates got
cut, and people kept supporting Trump.
- The only reason people supported Trump was crime.
- Then we had
two years with the steepest drops in crime rates in history, and people
kept supporting Trump. 5
- The only reason people supported Trump was Biden’s age—they were
deeply concerned about his mental ability to do the job.
- Then the
Democratic nomination went to a nimble and vigorous Kamala Harris; Trump
became the addled geriatric in the race; and people kept supporting
Trump.
How many times do we have to do this?
Imagine that it’s November 10 and
Trump has lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. People will
be desperate to come up with explanations.
- It was immigration. Sure, the Democrats passed the toughest
immigration bill ever, only to have Trump kill it. And sure, Biden closed
the border.
- But if only
they’d done that sooner. Then voters would have rejected Trump.6
- It was Harris’s liberal past.
- If only she
had the exact same policy positions as Tim Ryan or Joe Manchin. Then
voters would have rejected Trump.7
- It was Joe Rogan.
- If only she’d
gone to Austin and given him three hours. Then male swing-voters in
[Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, whatever] would have rejected Trump.
But none of these rationalizations
will be any more true than the arguments that what voters really cared
about was crime, or Biden’s age.
I am not a Kamala Harris super fan.
She is a gifted politician who has many of the assets and liabilities of normal
politicians. For the hundredth time: Maybe she’d be a great president. Or a
mediocre president. Or a bad president. We can’t know.
But she has been an exceptionally
good candidate. And in so doing she has rendered to America a great
service.
By running such an excellent campaign,
Kamala Harris has disassembled our rationalizations and held up a mirror to
America. When this election is over, we will not be able to retreat to
comfortable illusions.
She will have shown us who we really
are.
We may not be glad that she did. But
we’ll be better off for knowing.