During its exhilarating convention, the Democratic Party rebranded itself. It was impossible to miss the sea of American flags, which everyone periodically waved in unison, or the loud chants of “USA! USA!”
It was impossible to miss the frequent paeans to FREEDOM and the signs in the audience emblazoned with the word FREEDOM.
As the brilliant writer Anand Girihadaras wrote on his blog “The Ink,” Democrats reclaimed five words that had been captured by the Republicans:
Governor Tim Walz was a key figure in exemplifying these words. A guy animated by love of family. A coach. A hunter (who favors common-sense gun control). A member of the National Guard for 24 years. A guy.
Kamala Harris, Walz, and others focused on Freedom: the freedom to make your own healthcare decisions, the freedom that comes from knowing that your child will not be shot dead in school, the freedom to afford a home, the freedom to vote. Walz said, on more than one occasion, that the government should not insert itself into your doctors’ office or your bedroom. He repeatedly invoked what he described as a small-town virtue: “Mind Your Own Damn Business.”
Harris and Walz deliberately snatched those words away from the Republicans and claimed them as their own.
At the same time, they doubled down on criticizing Trump for his affinity for tyrants, like Putin. In their display of dignity and patriotism, they contrasted their party with Trump’s unhinged rants and childish personal insults. They emphasized the importance of telling the truth, as Trump tweeted that the next round of a Trump administration”would be great for women and reproductive rights.”
And they showcased JOY, as they laughed and danced in the aisles. The contrast was especially sharp during the states’ roll call vote: Republicans announced their votes to polite applause; Democrats announced their votes to music and dancing and flashing lights. Harris radiated joy, with her vivacious smile and her celebrated laugh. Trump evoked fear, frightening images of a nation in decline, divisesiveness. Which America do you want to live in?
The Republicans spoke wistfully about turning back the clock to a mythical time when America was “great.” An era of white male supremacy? An era of Christian dominance? The Democrats spoke hopefully about a better future, where everyone has the opportunity to live a decent life. The past or the future. Your choice.
The biggest contrast was the difference in the delegates themselves. The Republicans were, with minor variations, the party of white people. The Democrats overflowed with ethic and racial diversity.
Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post, was at the convention in Chicago with her colleagues. She made a sage observation. The Democrats have a strong bench of new and young faces. The Republicans do not.
She wrote:
It has become evident during convention week that Democrats are blessed with three groups of leaders. The wise first group — Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, former speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and now Biden — has guided the party for the past generation, nationally making strides and keeping the Democratic coalition together. The domestic accomplishments they have collectively made would stand up to any other generation’s output. The second group’s time has come: Harris, Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Gov. Josh Shapiro (Pa.). They are more media savvy than many in the older generation and better able to reach voters who are younger and more diverse. This second group’s challenge will be putting a stake through the MAGA movement and charting a path forward for a sustainable, center-left governing majority. The third, and most interesting, group includes the future stars, two of whom (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (Tex.)) lit up the convention on Monday night. Other less flashy but equally compelling figures have the governing chops to win legislative battles and keep the party from straying too far left. These include Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.), who is running for governor; Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), who is running for Senate; Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.); and Rep. Dan Goldman (N.Y.), who distinguished himself by going toe-to-toe with Republicans who ineptly and corruptly tried to investigate the Bidens.
Republicans have nothing comparable. Trump has hollowed out and disgraced the party. Any rebuilding, if Trump loses, will likely have to fall to a new generation. Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and a flock of House and Senate extremists have dominated the GOP, turned off a great many voters and done immense damage to comity, the rule of law and good governance. One of the most attractive features of a possible Harris victory: Many prominent Republicans will be swept aside. We can only hope a better crop replaces them.
Note that Trump and his acolytes have driven the next generation of Republicans out of the party. Trump himself campaigned to defeat any member of Congress who voted to impeach him. Trump-aligned governors have “primaried” moderate Republicans. To be successful in today’s Republican Party, a candidate must pledge to defend The Big Lie. That hollows out good people like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.
The Bulwark is a Never-Trumper site, made up of angry Republicans. They have terrific content. Here is Bill Kristol, former editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, praising Kamala’s fabulous speech.
Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night was a success. It capped a Democratic convention that was a success. That convention, in turn, capped Harris’s first month as a candidate, which was a success.
All that success was by no means inevitable.
One really has to tip one’s hat to the vice president and her campaign, and say: Not bad. Not bad at all. Pretty damn impressive, in fact.
Of course past performance is no guarantee of future results. Still, it does seem that a certain amount of optimism—guarded and hard-headed optimism—is warranted. We now have a reasonable likelihood of defeating Donald Trump, and electing as our next president a vigorous and centrist leader of a healthy and mainstream political party.
The convention has sought, for the most part, to present such a party. And last night’s speech presented such a leader.
The speech began with a very effective biographical section. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Harris, was central to her narrative. The tribute to her mother ran like a red thread through this part of the speech, and indeed the speech as a whole, allowing Harris to humanize herself while deftly avoiding the grandiosity and pomposity that often mar such efforts.
Having introduced herself to the nation, Harris formally accepted the nomination of her party. But it was a remarkably nonpartisan acceptance of a party’s nomination:
And, so, on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with—people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.
The tone of that paragraph laid the groundwork for the rest of the speech. Harris spoke more as an American than as a Democrat; as a patriot, not a partisan; and as someone grateful not aggrieved, future-oriented but not at all hostile to our past.
And so Harris continued:
And let me say, I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.
The invocation of America’s fundamental principles, in turn, laid the predicate for a criticism of Trump as threatening them:
In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.
And the critique of Trump led into the last half or so of the speech, which consisted of a pitch for more-or-less centrist domestic policies— including the bipartisan border bill that Trump torpedoed—and a robust endorsement of America’s necessary and distinctive role in the world.
Overall, the vision was kind of Bill Clinton (with a touch of Jack Kemp) at home, and John McCain abroad, with a hefty dose of John F. Kennedy-Ronald Reagan patriotism throughout. Harris even offered a striking endorsement of American exceptionalism:
I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world . . . We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world.
It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American.
With this speech, and with this convention as a whole, we have come a long way—the Democratic party has come a long way—from the identity and grievance politics of the left. Harris and Tim Walz have laid the predicate for a center-oriented, optimistic, and patriotic campaign. Consider the final tally. The terms America, American, Americans were uttered 34 times; country or nation, 20 times; freedom, 12 times; opportunity, 6 times; Democrats or Democratic party, 0 times.
It won’t be smooth sailing ahead. Trump and his campaign will go after them. And the left won’t simply be quiet. So there will be challenges aplenty.
Still, the prospects for the next two months seem pretty good to me.
But enough of all this unaccustomed good cheer. We need to start worrying about the debate. It’s only two-and-a-half weeks away.
While Kamala Harris was giving her terrific speech last night, Trump was live-tweeting on his favorite site. He was outraged!
Andrew Eggers wrote:
When things are going well and he’s feeling good, Donald Trump can sometimes be cajoled by his team into something resembling discipline. When things are going badly, he’s much more prone to publicly venting some spleen.
So perhaps the greatest measure of the effectiveness of Kamala Harris’s convention speech was the truly unhinged content bender it sent Trump spiraling into last night.
It started on Truth Social, where Trump informed us he had “assembled a small group of people, GREAT PATRIOTS ALL,” to watch Harris’s “puff piece.”
At first, Trump was jocular: “A lot of talk about childhood,” he wrote as Harris told her personal history, “we’ve got to get to the Border, Inflation, and Crime!”
Soon, though, the wheels were coming off. “These Prosecutions were all started by her and Biden against her Political Opponent, ME!” Trump fumed as Harris turned to his legal troubles. “IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?”
A random sampling of what followed:
“LYING AGAIN ABOUT PROJECT 2025, WHICH SHE KNOWS, AND SO DO ALL DEMOCRATS, THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH!”
“She just called to give all Illegals CITIZENSHIP, SAY GOODBYE TO THE U.S.A.! SHE IS A RADICAL MARXIST!”
“Walz was an ASSISTANT Coach, not a COACH.”
“SHE HAS LED US INTO FAILING NATION STATUS!”
“WHERE’S HUNTER?”
But posting, it turned out, wasn’t enough to soothe Trump’s jangled nerves. After the speech, he dialed into Fox News for still more free-associative complaining, bowling right over Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum’s attempts to get in specific questions, seemingly pressing phone buttons with his face as he talked. They eventually had to cut him off mid-sentence to wrap up their show.
Not to worry, though: When they pull the plug on you on Fox, there’s always Newsmax. So Trump picked up the phone again. “I will tell you, I just watched it,” he told Greg Kelly and Mercedes Schlapp a few moments later. “She didn’t talk about many things, like interest rates, China, fracking anywhere, let alone Pennsylvania, crime, poverty, trade deficits, child trafficking, woman trafficking, drugs, the border—she didn’t talk about the most important things.”
Did he get the bile out of his system? Trump’s rallying in Arizona this afternoon; I guess we’ll find out then.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to amaze. He is a lawyer; he worked for years for environmental protection. Then he became involved in opposing vaccines and spread the claim that vaccines cause autism. Most members of his illustrious family have publicly opposed him as a candidate.
He found a very wealthy running mate, Nicole Shanahan, the ex-wife of Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. She poured millions into the campaign.
The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket has had trouble getting onto the ballot in every state. So far, they have succeeded in 19 states. Their ticket has declined in the polls, and it’s running short of money.
Kennedy has approached both of the major candidates about joining forces with them. Trump was enthusiastic and even hinted that there might be an important post for him, something like a major Cabinet post (Health and Human Services, perhaps?). Imagine RFK Jr. with the power to recall or ban vaccines.
He also tried to meet with Democratic leaders, but they rebuffed him. After Biden’s disastrous June debate performance, he offered to take Biden’s place at the top of the ticket. When Kamala became the consensus candidate, he tried to meet with her, but she was not interested.
It turns out that RFK Jr. draws more votes away from Trump than from Harris. The anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, and other conspiracy theorists like him.
The New York Times reported that Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s running mate, was interviewed in a podcast, where she mentioned that they were thinking of joining forces with Trump. She expressed bitterness towards the Democrats and blames them for undermining the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket. She said that one of the options for the future is forming a third party.
Hmmm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. working on behalf of Donald Trump? Trump is a guy who doesn’t believe in climate change. He says it’s a hoax. Will RFK Jr. abandon his many years as an environmentalist to get a shot at political power? Shameful.
I hope everyone had the opportunity to watch the Democratic Convention last night. It was exhilarating! I have watched both parties’ conventions ever since they were first televised. I remember back when conventions were contested, when no candidate had enough votes to lock up the nomination beforehand, and there were multiple votes cast to choose the candidate. There were fewer primaries back then, and the candidate was chosen at the convention. Now the convention is a coronation.
This year, though, there was a historic switch at the top on the Democratic side. Biden was determined to stay in the race until he wasn’t. Many of the party’s leaders asked him to step aside because they feared that he would drag down the Democratic Party if he stayed in. He was finally persuaded to do so because he realized that he could not unite the party. So, knowing how important it was to defeat Trump, he agreed to drop out for the good of the nation.
Given that everyone knew for certain the identity of the nominees, the challenge for the Convention planners was how to keep it interesting.
And they did it by showcasing the rising stars of the party, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who is sharp-tongued and witty; Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who gets elected and re-elected in a red state; and AOC, who hit it out of the park with a fiery speech. Actually, everyone who spoke was awesome.
Then there were the three young women who talked about how their lives had been changed by harsh abortion bans. The third speaker, from Kentucky, Hadley Duvall, talked about being sexually abused and raped by her stepfather, learning she was pregnant when she was 12. She said, “”[Donald Trump] calls [total abortion bans] a ‘beautiful thing,'” Duvall said. “What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?”” There was silence and a collective gasp in the arena.
Hillary Clinton received a standing ovation that went on and on. And she delivered an eloquent, pointed speech. At one point, the audience broke into chants of “Lock him up!” She didn’t join in, but she smiled.
The highlight of the night was Joe Biden. His introduction by his daughter Ashley was moving. The audience welcome was ecstatic, and the cheers for him continued for several minutes. He was bathed in love and admiration. He spoke honestly, passionately, powerfully about his career, his love of country, his devotion to democracy, and his determination to keep Trump out of the White House. He said his decision to ask Kamala to be his running mate was the best decision of his long career. He said wistfully at the end of his speech that when he was first elected to the Senate at the age of 28, and now he is “too old” to run again.
Biden gave a cleared-eyed and incisive analysis of why this election is consequential. If you were not watching, I urge you to watch it now.
At the time of the Republican Convention, Trump felt sure he was on his way to a landslide victory. He had centered his campaign on the theme that Biden was senile. The attack ads were ready to roll. But only days after the lights were turned off in Milwaukee, Biden announced that he was stepping aside, and he endorsed his Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Trump was furious. How dare Biden decide not to run! Trump began to claim that what the Democrats had done was “unconstitutional” and that it was a “coup.”
Biden was pressured by party leaders to withdraw because, after his awful performance in the June debate, they feared that not only would he lose but he would hurt the chances of Democrats running for other offices. The switch at the top was unprecedented but was certainly not unconstitutional. The nation’s political parties are not even mentioned in the Constitution. They make their own rules. But facts never get in Trump’s way.
Trump continues to insist that there was a “coup,” and some in the media believe he’s setting up the basis for another violent attempt to restore him to power. His most rabid followers believe whatever he says, and this article by Colby Itkowitz and Hannah Allan in the Washington Post shows that they now believe that Harris’s substitution for Biden was illegitimate, intended to cheat Trump of the Presidency yet again.
The article reminds us that Trump predicted that the election in 2016 was rigged, that the election in 2020 was rigged, and now he’s back to the same bogus claim. The only election results he accepts as valid are his own wins.
They write:
From the moment Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the surprise Democratic presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump began arguing that she was anointed through a “coup” rather than chosen by primary voters. After barely mentioning election integrity at the Republican convention in July, Trump is now casting the upcoming election as “rigged” against him and baselessly labeling any hurdle in his path as election interference.
“This was an overthrow of a president. This was an overthrow,” Trump said at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday, referring to Harris replacing Biden on the ticket. He later added: “They deposed a president. It was a coup of a president. This was a coup.”
Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in this year’s election are reminiscent of the tactics he used in the 2020 campaign and indicate how he could again seek to delegitimize the results if he loses, setting the stage for another combustible fight over the presidency, election and national security experts said.
“This is Donald Trump’s playbook: ‘There’s a deep state, they’re all out to get me,’” said Elizabeth Neumann, who served as a senior Department of Homeland Security official during the Trump administration and is now among his conservative critics. “Even here — as he’s going to have to face a stronger, harder candidate to defeat — his default is, ‘Well, this couldn’t possibly be legal. This is a coup. This is wrong,’ even though there are no facts to back that up.”
While some of this is “just for show,” Neumann said, Trump and his allies are also setting up the “next version of ‘Stop the Steal.’”
Trump has long insisted that his political failures are the result of some malevolent force trying to keep him out of power, and he has weakened faith in the U.S. election system despite widespread evidence that the results can be trusted. When asked to comment for this article, Trump’s campaign responded with a statement attacking Harris and again characterizing her nomination as part of a “coup.”
“President Trump and our campaign have never been more confident that we are going to win this election,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
When Trump first ran for president in 2016, he falsely claimed that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) stole the Iowa caucuses, and he told his supporters that the general election was “absolutely being rigged” against him. After winning, he falsely said his loss in the popular vote was due to “millions of people who voted illegally.” In 2020, he baselessly claimed the influx of mail-in ballots amid the global pandemic led to widespread fraud that cost him the election, and as Congress gathered to certify the results, Trump supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol and tried to halt the process.
Trump refuses to say whether he will accept the results of the 2024 election, even as he tells his fans that the Democrats are cheating.
In an Aug. 6 post on Truth Social, Trump presented a fantastical story that envisioned Biden, “whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him,” crashing this week’s Democratic National Convention to take back the nomination.
“They forced him out. It was a coup. We had a coup,” Trump said of Biden at an Aug. 9 rally in Bozeman, Mont. “That was the first coup of the history of our country, and it was very successful.”
This post-election time will be different from January 6, 2021. If Trump calls up his Proud Boys and his other militias, D.C. will be prepared. And Trump will not be in charge.
The New York Times reported on the latest poll: Kamala Harris has a significant lead over Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin!
The politics of joy beats the politics of hate.
Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald J. Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College, the latest indication of a dramatic reversal in standing for Democrats after President Biden’s departure from the presidential race remade it.
Ms. Harris is ahead of Mr. Trump by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters in each state. The surveys were conducted from Aug. 5 to 9.
The polls, some of the first high-quality surveys in those states since Mr. Biden announced he would no longer run for re-election, come after nearly a year of surveys that showed either a tied contest or a slight lead for Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden…
Much of the newfound Democratic strength stems from improved voter perceptions of Ms. Harris. Her favorability rating has increased 10 percentage points among registered voters in Pennsylvania just in the last month, according to Times/Siena polling. Voters also view Ms. Harris as more intelligent and more temperamentally fit to govern than Mr. Trump….
Les Lanser, a retiree from Holland, Mich., who typically votes Republican, said he was considering backing Ms. Harris in November. While he disagrees with some Democratic policies, he said he could not stand Mr. Trump’s “disrespectful” and “unacceptable” attitude.
“Some of her character is real appealing to me. I’m not so sure I agree with a lot of her policies,” said Mr. Lanser, 89, who regrets supporting Mr. Trump in 2016. “But the alternative is just not acceptable at all in my mind — because character is everything.”
The polls offer an early snapshot of a race that was transformed in little more than two weeks. The whirlwind of political change seized the nation’s attention and reinvigorated some voters who were approaching the rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump with a deep sense of dread.
Republicans were blindsided when President Biden announced that he was stepping down, and he endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris. All of their planning and strategy was targeted on Biden, who—they said—was too old, senile, sleepy, confused, and unable to lead the country. They had ads and video clips ready to roll. They were not at all happy to learn that Biden was taking himself out of the race. They had to redirect their slime machine to Harris, not Biden.
Sad, very sad, as Trump might say.
They quickly recalibrated their attack ads. First, they insisted that Biden could not leave the ticket. It wasn’t fair, they said. Then they said Harris could not have access to the money raised for the Biden-Harris ticket; they threatened to sue. Then they said it was undemocratic to put Harris at the top of the ticket because primary voters didn’t choose her. But of course they did vote for her. They voted for Biden and Harris.
They said that Kamala Harris was “a radical Communist.” They said she was the “worst Vice President in American history.”
None of these claims caught fire, so they settled on attacking Harris because she laughed too much. Really. They called her “a cackling hyena.”
It’s true, Kamala smiles a lot and flashes her joyous smile at crowds. And she laughs often. Her laugh is genuine and it is contagious. She makes people happy.
So the Republicans thought they could diminish her by denouncing her expressions of happiness.
They must have thought that people would recoil at the sight of Kamala Harris laughing.
But they haven’t, they didn’t, and they won’t.
People see Trump and they see him scowling and angry. He likes to look angry. When he had his mug shot taken in Atlanta, he posed with a dark scowl.
Have you ever seen him laugh or smile? I haven’t. Does he have a sense of humor. I think not.
Imagine if you were offered an hour with either Trump or Harris. Which would you choose? The angry one or the happy one? The one who was embittered by his grievances or the one who would take an interest in you? The one who was angry or the one who was joyful?
The Harris campaign made an ad that begins with Trump saying that he hates it when people laugh at him. Then there is about 60 seconds of clips showing Kamala laughing uproariously.
They cleverly took Trump’s sneering at her laugh and made a cartoon ad featuring her laugh.
Jonathan V. Last, editor of The Bulwark, a site founded by Never Trump Republicans, explains how he sees the new situation, the withdrawal of Joe Biden and the ascension of Kamala Harris as the likely nominee:
The Democratic party is healthy. The Republican party is not.
Our greatest living president. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
1. Seven Lessons
(1) The Democratic party is a healthy institution.
On the night of June 27, the various power centers within the Democratic party began a difficult conversation: Was Joe Biden still capable of running a vigorous campaign?
Over three weeks the party reached a diffuse—if not unanimous—consensus: He was not. This consensus was the product of all levels of the party: Elder statesmen such as Nancy Pelosi, elected Democrats analyzing their own future prospects, donors making decisions about spending, and the main body of public opinion among Democratic voters.
Once this consensus was reached, the various power centers began a dialogue with the party’s leader, President Biden. The party expressed its choice. Biden pushed back. The party took up the question again and, after due consideration, held firm.
Joe Biden then stepped aside for the good of the nation.
This is how healthy institutions are supposed to work…
2. The process which elevated Kamala Harris was sensible.
The Democratic party made another institutional decision in parallel with the Biden question: It vetted Kamala Harris.
This subroutine executed in the background, but it was active. Democratic voters began to consider her as the nominee and polling showed that they were comfortable with her. Party elders evaluated her fitness. Donors and elected Democrats took her measure. The fact that no anti-Harris groundswell—or even boomlet—emerged is proof that the party decided that Harris was an acceptable nominee.
After Biden blessed Harris on Sunday afternoon, the party coalesced around her in much the way it did Biden after the New Hampshire primary in 2020.
The Democratic party will enter the election more unified than it had been pre-debate.
3. Kamala Harris can run as an insurgent, but with the advantages of an incumbent.
The largest advantage of incumbency is that a candidate does not have to take base-pleasing positions during a primary campaign that can hurt him during a general election.
Because of the extraordinary nature of her ascendence, Harris possesses this advantage. She will carry nearly every advantage of incumbency and yet she can credibly position herself as this election’s change agent.
4. Trump is holding the age bomb.
The Trump campaign spent two years creating a political bomb concerning old age. They assumed that they could plant this bomb at the feet of Joe Biden.
Trump is now the one holding the age bomb. He is not only a full generation older than Harris—everything about him looks geriatric by comparison. From his gait to his bronzed-over pallor; from the way he rambles and gets lost in sentences to his inability to keep facts straight.
Every split screen now makes Trump look old and decrepit by comparison.
5. There was enormous pent-up demand among Democrats for a younger leader.
That’s more money than any Democrat has ever raised in a single day. It’s twice as much as Trump raised following his felony conviction. If this doesn’t snap your head back, it should.
Because it’s as good a proxy as you’ll find for excitement.
It will be several days until we have polling with a more detailed view of Harris’s support from Democratic voters, but it is already clear that she will perform much better than Biden has within her party.
Here’s my advice: You should be open to the idea that Harris could ride a wave of excitement and passion that absolutely no one was seeing until Biden stepped aside. I’m talking Obama ‘08-levels of energy.
It’s not a given. But it’s in the realm of the possible. Keep your eyes peeled for it.
6. The Republican party is a failed state.
At the debate, Donald Trump also demonstrated (again) that he is unfit for office. He rambled and lied incoherently. He is a convicted felon. A jury found him guilty of sexual assault. He has said he wants to be a “dictator” and that he wants to “terminate” parts of the Constitution. He selected as his running mate a man who advised disobeying orders from the Supreme Court and forcing a constitutional crisis.
Until last week there was nothing stopping the Republican party from forcing Trump off the ticket. The party elders and elected officials could have demanded that Trump step aside. Republican voters could have said that they had no confidence in his ability to govern. Donors could have closed their wallets.
But the plain fact is that not one single Republican called on Trump to step aside.
Not one.
Why? Because the various precincts of the Republican party understand that they hold no power—at all—over Trump. They could not ask him to withdraw from the race. Even broaching the subject would be grounds for excommunication from the party.
The Democratic party is a functioning institution, with checks and balances; constituencies and power structures. Like any institution, it is amorphous and its decision making is mostly organic.
The Republican party is an autocracy where the only thing that matters is the will of the leader. All power flows through him. All decisions are made by him. There are no competing power centers—only vassal states overseen by his noblemen.
7. Harris is an underdog.
One of the reasons the last three weeks have been so difficult is because Democrats were not choosing between a “good” outcome and a “bad” outcome.
Those sorts of choices are easy.
Instead, Democrats were tasked with deciding between least-bad options. Humans rebel against the idea of “least-bad.” When faced with choices, we want to believe that at least one of them is “good.”
When the first real Harris-vs.-Trump polling comes out next week we’ll see how big of a hole she’s in. But unlike Biden, Harris has the ability to spend the next three months on offense, all day, every day. If she can deliver the goods, she has a puncher’s chance.
2. In Praise of Biden
A slight push-back against those who believe Biden took too long to step aside:
It was three and a half weeks from the debate to Biden pulling out. That’s it.
Joe Biden is the president, but he’s also just a man. Coming to a decision like this one—an unprecedented decision—is hard. There’s a lot to weigh and there’s a tremendous responsibility to get it right.
My own view is that Biden made the call basically as quickly as possible. He couldn’t have done it the week of the NATO summit. Then Trump was shot in the ear. Then there was the Republican convention. To my mind, Biden’s timing on this was optimal, actually.
Nothing about Joe Biden’s presidency was inevitable. Not his candidacy. Not his victory over Trump. Not his withdrawal from reelection.
At nearly every turn, Biden did the right thing for America.
His legacy is assured. He will be remembered as one of the great modern presidents.
I said this last night and I’ll say it again. History had its eye on Joe Biden, and he met the moment. He did his part. Now it’s up to Kamala Harris and us to do ours.
In her column in the Washington Post today, Jennifer Rubin explains why Kamala Harris is the best person to replace Biden. She is smart, experienced, tough, articulate, and ready. She is 59, and Trump—not Biden—would be the elderly person in the race. Rubin believes that if Harris passed over, the Democratic Party would be a shambles. Harris, she believes would energize the youth vote. Furthermore, she would be able to call out Trump’s lies without fumbling. The media is prepped to call out Biden’s gaffes, pauses, mistakes, stumbles; Harris speaks clearly and decisively. Furthermore, she is well-versed in the harms of the Dobbs decision and could appeal to Republican women.
Rubin writes:
As of this writing, President Biden hasn’t said he would step away from the 2024 campaign. Democrats nevertheless seem poised to move on. In multiple appearances, including TV interviews and meetings with Democratic lawmakers, Biden has not convinced them he is capable of winning the race, in large part because the race has become about him — his age, his health, his capacity. Each appearance becomes a “Perils of Pauline” moment in which supporters gird themselves for a gaffe or stumble. A race that was supposed to be about Donald Trump is now about Biden’s infirmities.
I know the feeling. I have watched Biden’s appearances with trepidation. I admire him and respect him and marvel at his accomplishments. But I worry that the press is now primed to catch any mistake he makes and blow it up, while ignoring Trump’s obsession with “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” and his nutty insistence that he won the 2020 election.
She cancels Trump’s only issue: Biden’s frailty. And she can shift the focus to his extremist plans.
Rubin says:
Without Biden attracting questions about his physical and mental fitness, perhaps the media might finally focus on Trump’s unhinged rants, compulsive lying and utter lack of policy knowledge.
Kamala Harris is the best candidate to oppose the Insurrectionist-in-Chief.
Diane Ravitch's blog 