Suddenly, Kamala Harris
And a new 2024 presidential election campaign
Peter Hamby writes, “In stark contrast to the prolonged, bitter intraparty fight over Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, the ascension of Kamala Harris as his successor was swift and apparently drama free. Sure, one or more Democrats could still challenge her at the now open convention next month. But in reality, the Harris nomination was essentially sewn up within a few hours of Biden’s announcement. A critical mass of congresspeople, senators, interest groups, delegates, party chairs, and pundits quickly fell in line behind her, along with leaders and elders. ‘We got where we’re meant to be, and landing the plane is everything,’ a Democratic consultant told me, audibly relieved.”[1]
It looks to me much the same. The fear of and revulsion against Donald Trump is—and has been—palpable, inescapable, the most recent rationalization for #VoteBlueNoMatterWho. He is the ultimate evil, the penultimate “other guy [who] is worse” whom Democrats have been running against for decades. Indeed, I have called him a black hole, as he keeps getting unfathomably worse.
But an apparent assassination attempt reminds us that death will come for Trump, as it does for all of us, perhaps even before election day, and Democrats might then be the dog that caught the car. For now, Hamby again:
“The surge of Democratic excitement has Donald Trump’s campaign on its heels, at least for now. They were counting on running against ‘a corpse,’ as one Trump official told me recently. In recent weeks, polls showed Trump opening up comfortable leads in every battleground state, Mar-a-Lago viewed the G.O.P. convention as a (mostly) on-message success, and the assassination attempt on Trump earlier this month gave the campaign an almost divine sense of inevitability against a hapless Democratic incumbent. Instead, we now enter the final 100 or so days with a completely new presidential race—one in which the Trump campaign has to rejigger its messaging against a woman of color while grappling with a level of Democratic enthusiasm that [Joe] Biden had been failing to summon all year.”[2]
Hamby, of course, alludes to the sharp contrast between Trump and Kamala Harris[3] that will likely make this one of the more interesting contests certainly in my life, if not U.S. history. Trump’s entire schtick is white Christian nationalism, the umbrella under which he united the seven tendencies of conservatism I had identified in my dissertation.[4] The question Hamby reaches for (borrowing Sam Blewett’s words) is, how does a “78-year-old convicted felon who has made well-documented (and utterly gross) boasts about grabbing women”[5] (and whom a judge has called, for all practical purposes, a rapist[6]) run against a “a [59-year-old] former prosecutor who focused on tackling sex crimes?”[7]
This makes the Democrats seem positively savvy, having thrown Trump’s white resentment and misogyny right back in his face in a way that will be difficult for him to answer. They couldn’t possibly have planned this, certainly not when they lined up behind the geriatric white male Joe Biden. But, accidentally or not, Democrats now have an answer—albeit an inadequate one with Harris’ mixed record as a prosecutor[8] and her probable support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza[9]—to the relentless surge of white Christian nationalism.
I don’t know that that will hold. My impression of Harris is that of a craven politician, meaning her path to power relies on sycophancy. Telling people what they want to hear works in the moment, but only in the moment. There will be contradictions. Time will tell if Republicans can exploit them.
[1] Peter Hamby, “Exclusive Harris Polling, Pelosi Aftershocks & Dems’ New Consensus,” Puck, July 22, 2024, https://puck.news/newsletter_content/exclusive-harris-polling-pelosi-aftershocks-dems-new-consensus-2/
[2] Peter Hamby, “Reintroducing Kamala,” Puck, July 22, 2024, https://puck.news/defining-kamala-harris-will-be-crucial-for-both-campaigns/
[3] Sam Blewett, “Biden bows to the inevitable,” Politico, July 22, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/biden-bows-to-the-inevitable/; Philip Bump, “The remarkable contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,” Washington Post, July 22, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/22/harris-trump-differences-presidential-election/
[4] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[5] Sam Blewett, “Biden bows to the inevitable,” Politico, July 22, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/biden-bows-to-the-inevitable/
[6] Aaron Blake, “Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll,” Washington Post, July 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/
[7] Sam Blewett, “Biden bows to the inevitable,” Politico, July 22, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/biden-bows-to-the-inevitable/
[8] German Lopez, “Kamala Harris’s controversial record on criminal justice, explained,” Vox, August 12, 2020, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/23/18184192/kamala-harris-president-campaign-criminal-justice-record
[9] Jeremy Scahill, “Can Kamala Harris Wipe the Blood Off Her Hands?” Drop Site, July 22, 2024,
