As if further confirmation were needed, in the debate with Donald Trump last night, Kamala Harris “said she and her running mate are both gun owners, touted Republican endorsements, and referred to the ‘late, great John McCain,’ the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.”[1] McCain was another neoconservative. She is clearly running as a neoconservative.
There are multiple problems here:
1) While neoconservatives have pervasive influence inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, it is far less clear that they have many votes outside of it. Forming the bipartisan “Washington Consensus” since the fall of the Berlin Wall, they are Washington’s idea of “moderate.”[2]
2) With a muscular, imperialist foreign policy, neoconservatives routinely advocate disastrous war, notably Afghanistan and Iraq, and likely yet another, even wider one in the Middle East. The bipartisan failure to meaningfully advocate an alternative to genocide in Gaza[3] can be attributed to neoconservative adoration of Israel and of its government in particular.[4]
3) Neoliberalism is a moral imperative for neoconservatives. This means so-called “free” (when you see that word, always ask, for whom, to do what, to whom, at whose expense) trade. It means “trickle down” economics, which have never worked anywhere.
I still think Harris will win: “Trump was far less focused on appealing to moderates. Perhaps most notably, Trump amplified a story from this week about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, which has been thoroughly debunked. ‘They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,’ Trump falsely claimed.”[5] This is simply bizarre. Trump continues, for very much the most part, to appeal to his base as if they’re the entirety of the U.S. electorate. This has largely failed in elections since 2020, and while polls show the two candidates “neck and neck,” I don’t think it’ll be anything like neck and neck come November.
[1] Julia Terruso and Anna Orso, “Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spar in Philadelphia debate: She landed punches, and he took the bait,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/trump-harris-debate-highlights-20240910.html
[2] David Benfell, “Get ready to fight, kids,” Not Housebroken, September 9, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/get-ready-to-fight-kids
[3] Stephen Collinson, “America’s push for an Israel-Hamas deal is a failure on repeat. But the US can’t walk away,” Cable News Network, September 6, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/american-push-israel-hamas-deal-analysis/index.html
[4] David Benfell, “Get ready to fight, kids,” Not Housebroken, September 9, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/get-ready-to-fight-kids
[5] Julia Terruso and Anna Orso, “Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spar in Philadelphia debate: She landed punches, and he took the bait,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/trump-harris-debate-highlights-20240910.html