See update for August 18, 2024, at end of post.
I was hoping Emma Brockes would have the receipts on something I’ve been noticing. Smart remarks like “chicken crossing the road” to avoid debating Kamala Harris,[1] “a felon versus a prosecutor”[2] tugging at the whole “law and order” “blue lives matter” schtick—these are pithy and unexpected punch lines against the vile remarks everyone had to be expecting from Donald Trump.[3]
In response to Trump’s execrable remarks at the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris sounded presidential in a way Trump has never managed, saying “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who doesn’t respond with hostility and anger when presented with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”[4] (Actually, our differences do divide us, quite obviously with polarization, but not quite in the way that white Christian nationalists imagine.)
Brockes instead focuses on the age difference,[5] which is unfortunate, because she squandered an opportunity to show how Harris is laughing at Trump all to score some cheap ageism points.
Right now, Harris is winning. She’s winning, yes, with the dam burst of pent-up frustration with Joe Biden at her back, but also, much more cleverly, by turning white Christian nationalist and toxic masculine rhetoric on its head. This is something I should have expected and didn’t.
Harris had to know how Trump would respond to her candidacy—her team had time to prepare.[6] What I don’t know is how long until she runs out of material—and what happens then.
Update, August 18, 2024: For the moment, Kamala Harris is still going strong and it is increasingly clear that Donald Trump has serious problems with his campaign, making it increasingly difficult to see this race other than as Harris’ to lose.[7]
[1] Beachnutt [pseud.] in Rhiannon12866 [pseud.], “Cable News Clips,” Democratic Underground, July 29, 2024, https://www.democraticunderground.com/132126229
[2] Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., and Sabrina Rodriguez, “Trump’s attack on Harris’s racial identity moves contest into new phase,” Washington Post, July 31, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/31/harris-black-identity-trump/
[3] Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., and Sabrina Rodriguez, “Trump’s attack on Harris’s racial identity moves contest into new phase,” Washington Post, July 31, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/31/harris-black-identity-trump/
[4] Kamala Harris, quoted in Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., and Sabrina Rodriguez, “Trump’s attack on Harris’s racial identity moves contest into new phase,” Washington Post, July 31, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/31/harris-black-identity-trump/
[5] Emma Brockes, “Trump’s usual sexist sneers don’t work against Harris – and to top it off, she’s laughing at him,” Guardian, August 1, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/01/kamala-harris-donald-trump-democrat-candidate
[6] Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., and Sabrina Rodriguez, “Trump’s attack on Harris’s racial identity moves contest into new phase,” Washington Post, July 31, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/31/harris-black-identity-trump/
[7] David Benfell, “Is Donald Trump losing his marbles?” Not Housebroken, August 9, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/is-donald-trump-losing-his-marbles; David Benfell, “Donald Trump's Achilles' heel,” Not Housebroken, August 18, 2024, https://nothousebroken.substack.com/p/donald-trumps-achilles-heel