Harris, Trump, and the American Backlog
Since July 21st — the day that President Biden announced that he would be ending his campaign for a second term and that he was endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate — there’s been what media outlets and pundits have identified as an unprecedented surge in enthusiasm and participation in the political process. Countless new campaign volunteers, hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to the Harris campaign, and — perhaps more noteworthy than either of those things — a groundswell of optimism not only about the campaign itself but also about the future direction of the nation.
The unprecedented nature of this support is due in part, it would seem, to the relief that the voting public seemed to feel a sense of relief from no longer having to choose between two elderly white men. (Of course, that framing of the race implies that there somehow was parity between the two candidates; nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, one candidate is a twice-impeached convicted felon and sex offender and lifelong con artist and failure while the other has devoted decades of his life to public service. But that is an entirely separate discussion.)
But I haven’t heard any of the pundits or op-ed writers discuss the elephant in the room: the phenomenon of millions of voters who have been existing just below the political surface, waiting for someone to reawaken their hope and optimism. Living in the gloom of Trumpism is a condition that many have become accustomed to, whether they intended to or not. It’s been nearly a decade of quiet resignation to his more barbaric form of politics.
There are hundreds of thousands of voters who will cast a ballot for the first time in the 2024 election having lived through their entire adolescence under the dark cloud of Trump. For the rest of us, who may have lived through multiple election cycles, the last nine years of Trump hogging the spotlight, whether in office or not, has often felt like an inevitable decline of our entire political landscape.
The shock to our collective psyche of Trump’s daily aberrant behavior, his lies, his racism, his assaults on decency, his aspirations for brutality have been met with shrugs of helplessness, even by those who have despised all that he has stood for since the day he paid all those Craigslist readers to cheer him descending his tacky outdated escalator. That descent became an inadvertent metaphor for the many descents to follow — descents into depths that this nation had never previously experienced.
So when President Biden patriotically and symbolically passed the baton to Vice President Harris, millions across the nation unleashed a gigantic burst of newfound optimism. Harris’ choice of Tim Walz as her running mate only magnified that optimism. Even among Biden loyalists, this optimism is being acknowledged and cheered on.
We Are Not Going Back
Harris’ five word campaign slogan (or at least one that has emerged in these first days of her campaign) sums up the forward momentum that her throngs of supporters have been latching onto. Making real progress as a nation has seemed out of reach, even while President Biden has been in office. That’s not to discount the progress that President Biden has made against all odds. But it has been just that: against all the obstruction, the nay-saying, the subversion of common goals, the sudden politically motivated opposition on the right to legislation designed to implement their very own objectives (I’m talking to you, border security zealots).
Polls have shown that many on the right, when polling is about issues, often support fairly progressive positions. The vast majority of Americans favor so called “progressive” policies like bodily autonomy and marriage equality. People generally don’t want government meddling in their private affairs. (As VP candidate Tim Walz puts it, “Mind your own damn business.”)
It stands to reason that a campaign that places issues like that front and center, instead of apologizing for or running from them, is going to win any number of crossover votes. On the other hand, a campaign whose only messages are vengeance, intolerance, and negativity is unlikely to attract any new voters.
Let’s not forget that Trump has never won a majority of votes, nor has he ever represented majority views. His political leverage has come solely from triggering the most negative impulses in his devotees and fomenting zealotry based on lies and bigotry.
Conversely, the Harris-Walz campaign seems to be reigniting the most positive impulses in its supporters. The backlog of positivity that has been conspicuous in its absence for the last several years now seems to be breaking the floodgates and spilling back into the nation’s consciousness.
It remains to be seen whether this enthusiasm is sustainable for the remainder of the campaign. It also remains to be seen whether that same enthusiasm will turn into actual votes. That will be determined by the success of the other five word Harris-Walz campaign slogan: When we fight, we win.