It's going to be Harris
Getting to acceptance - and even enthusiasm
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The past ten days have been really hard. It was hard to be confident about the state of the presidential race before Biden’s debate disaster in Atlanta, but it was possible to tell yourself a story about why he was going to win. I tried it in this newsletter, with caveats attached. But whatever else you think about the debate, it certainly did not show that Biden was going to turn around a race which he was already likely losing before the debate even happened. Then came the Trump immunity decision, which dramatically raised the stakes of the presidential election. Right-wing influencers have become emboldened since, with the Heritage Foundation talking about a “second American revolution” and Elon Musk suggesting that people who oppose the GOP ought to be executed.
ON TOP OF ALL THAT, it feels like the left is in meltdown. In my more detached moments, I can see that this is mostly a Twitter phenomenon. The Democratic Party is actually moving with unaccustomed speed and effectiveness to pressure Biden to step down, and I am reasonably confident they will ultimately succeed. But a small, influential group of Biden die-harders has ferociously attacked anyone who refuses to stick their hand in the sand about Biden’s condition and inability to win this race. It hasn’t felt particularly great to be subject to abuse, un-follows and worse from people who I previously considered my allies in the struggle against MAGA. I can only hope that when this storm has passed, we can all realize we’re still in the same boat.
After a week or so of freaking out, I’ve now arrived at a sort of equilibrium. There’s a narrow path forward, and it’s one in which the Democrats can still win this race. Thanks to the colossal arrogance and stupidity of the White House, that task is much harder than it needed to be. But it’s still possible. Believing it’s possible is the beginning of the fightback. Here are the fragments that I’ve shored against my ruin:
The pressure campaign against Biden is escalating quickly. Sitting elected officials are starting to call for him to drop out, and when Congress returns from the four-day weekend on Monday, the tide will become a flood. Every Democrat in elected office in America is staring down a race which is much harder than it needs to be because Biden is clinging on. They’re not going to stay silent. It won’t be long until senior party leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Jim Clyburn are starting to publicly demand that he should go. Donors have also already organized effectively and are starting to defund his campaign.
There is an alternative available and her name is Kamala Harris. Accepting this is a heavy lift for a lot of people who have come to see the Vice President as politically ineffective. It’s true that if you were going to manufacture a new Democratic presidential candidate in a factory according to the precise specifications needed to beat Donald Trump, she would not be Kamala Harris. But at this stage, there are important practical and political reasons why it has to be Harris.
Before getting into those, it’s worth underlining one very important thing: Donald Trump is an incredibly flawed and eminently beatable candidate. The strange thing about this presidential race so far is that pretty much any candidate other than Trump would have walked all over Biden, and pretty much any Democrat other than Biden would have had a much better chance against Trump. Trump is unpopular and compromised in a way which is unlike almost any other president in America. He staged a freaking attempted coup! He raped somebody! He says that immigrants “poison our blood”! Beating this guy should not be difficult if only Democrats get out of their own way and put forward a candidate who can finish their sentences.
Campaign finance law and political practicalities argue in favor of Harris. She is the only person who can seamlessly access the money that the Biden-Harris campaign has raised so far, an incredibly important point. Picking someone else would lead to massive wastage and organizational disruption to the campaign.
Passing her over would also cause big political problems for the Democratic Party, particularly with black and female voters. This is often framed in a way that I find frankly bizarre, with Harris labeled as an “affirmative action” candidate or “the DEI Vice-President”. You’d think from these attacks that no previous American Vice President had been picked on the basis of their demographic or ideological characteristics.
Biden picked Harris as his running mate in 2020 not because of some weird social justice imperative, but because he struggles with young, black, female, and Latino voters. These are important parts of the Democratic coalition, and Biden’s struggles with them today are even more severe than in 2020 - so severe, in fact, that they were already imperilling his re-election effort even before the debate. Harris is likely to make up some of this deficit, whereas passing over her would make it even worse.
Harris is vetted. This is vital. Many of the other names floated as potential candidates - Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore - have not already been through one and a half presidential campaigns. Harris has been subjected to years of GOP media attacks and oppo research. Her weaknesses are already known. There are unlikely to be any major skeletons in her closet - what you see is what you get.
Harris is an effective spokeswoman on two of Democrats’ most important issues: abortion and general voter dissatisfaction with the weirdness/authoritarian tendencies of MAGA. These are the issues that powered Democrats to surprisingly excellent results in the 2022 midterms. They are issues that are hardly being talked about right now - even after the immunity ruling! - because Democrats lack an effective spokesperson. Harris can be that spokesperson.
A “mini-primary” right now would be unhelpful because we would see a month or so of Democrats attacking each other rather than attacking the Republicans. The flaws of Harris and every other candidate would be paraded around at a time when there’s precious little time left to repair the damage before the election. A return to unity is necessary as soon as possible.
A lot of people’s skepticism about Harris stems from the weird campaign she ran in 2020. In the last primary, Harris tried to run from the left because she sensed that was the mood of the primary electorate. The fact she couldn’t do this convincingly is one reason that she failed. It meant staying out of her natural lane, which if you look at her record in the Senate and as California Attorney General is actually the moderate path. This time she could run a different campaign, embracing the centrism of the Biden-Harris administration. It would be both more natural for her and more politically effective.
As I’ve written before, I think that over the the past year or so Democrats have become prisoners of their own low expectations. They have come to accept having a low-energy candidate who is incapable of energetically making the case against Trump. Relaunching the campaign with a younger, vigorous candidate will be a shot in the arm for the party and even for the country. No longer will the choice be between two old men who most of the country are sick of. Harris can draw a sharp contrast between herself and Trump - and win this race.
One last thing: Harris’ campaign would be helped immensely if Biden would not just step down from running, but also resign the presidency. Nothing will hamstring Harris faster than the perception that she’s involved in some ongoing cover-up of Biden’s continued mental incapacity to be president. Republican calls for Biden to resign or for the 25th amendment to be invoked are currently muted because they want to run against Biden, not Harris. But once Biden is no longer running, they’ll become a flood - and pose a serious risk to Harris.
That’s the path. Is it fantastic? No. Is it the best possible option? Yes. I’ll come back for more on this in future posts. For now, enjoy the weekend - and don’t give up hope.
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