This Is How They Lose
Our election is a popularity contest between two campaigns that stand for nothing
Back in June, I wrote about how this election is about nothing. Since that time, almost everything about the race has changed. But one thing remains the same: it’s still about nothing.
Start with the Democrats: the replacement of Joe Biden by Kamala Harris has, if anything, made the Democratic side even emptier than it was before. At least with Biden as the nominee, there was a clear record of achievement to point to, or a record of failure to defend. How much of the “Biden-Harris administration” record can now be pinned on Kamala, by contrast, is not obvious at all — indeed, it’s that question that is shaping the messaging tactics of both sides. Harris can quietly distance herself from events of the last four years in a way that Biden could not.
Given this leeway, Harris’ strategy is simple: avoid talking about policy issues at all costs. At the moment, there is only downside in attaching herself to actual commitments, with their winners and losers, and mostly upside to running a campaign for as long as she can on passion and good vibes. Other than vague invocations of popular themes like abortion rights and controlling immigration, she refrains from ever discussing any specific steps she would take on any particular issue if elected. This option is open to her because the media has enthusiastically played its part by refusing to press her on the matter. Instead, they dutifully trumpet the “joy” she has brought to swelling Democratic crowds and the history-making symbolism of her candidacy.
This strategy is not without risk. The media’s slavish devotion to the Democratic Party is by now obvious to almost everyone, including, and perhaps especially, swing voters. When reporters close ranks behind a candidate, there’s always a voter backlash — the question is how much of one. The bigger hazard, however, is that as the media gets carried away with their idolatry, so does the party. The higher Harris rises, the more the donations flow in and the bigger the crowds get. The campaign responds to these rewards by doing more of the same on an even bigger scale. But what looks from the flight path of Air Force Two like soaring success can look to voters on the ground in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin like some kind of celebrity reality TV show that has nothing to do with their lives. The more excited the blue state voters whose ballots don’t matter get, the more skeptical the swing state voters upon whom victory depends become.
This is the road to a surprise defeat that the Democrats have embarked upon with Kamala Harris. Their saving grace, however, is that they’re running against one Donald J. Trump, who has both the egotism and the distractibility of a 4-year-old child.
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