Update, September 9, 2024: New polls indicate that Harris is not doing well against Trump. With less than two months to go till the election, Harris is still struggling to define herself as anything other than “not-Biden” or “not-Trump.” In her first televised interview, with Dana Bash, her opening remark concluded with the words, “I think sadly in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans — really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that.” Harris couldn’t offer a concrete vision of the future, and instead began with an indictment of the “last decade”—but that includes four years of her vice presidency. Voters need and demand more.
Her first debate with Trump is tomorrow, September 10. I’ll be watching.
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I know this goes against the popular narrative about Kamala Harris, especially after the recently concluded Democratic National Convention (DNC). But I think she is headed for a loss, and that we may well see a repeat of 2016. I thought of adding “probably” to the title, but matters are pretty stark right now. I wrote this as a quick take on the events of the past few weeks, but it’s a fair rendition of matters as they stand, given that the candidate has told us a lot about who she is, but nothing about what she will or can do. A lot of this is based on social media comments I’ve been making over the past many weeks, on Facebook and Twitter, and you can follow me there.
Here are some major reasons why I think Kamala Harris will lose.
Harris Stands for Nothing
The Harris/Walz campaign is still running against Trump, but fails to give reasons why people should vote for the two new candidates, who have fewer than 75 days to make their case before the election. The recent Democratic National Convention (DNC) was a firecracker of vibes, but these conventions inevitably fade in memory. As election day approaches, voters will continue to think about their lives—and those are increasingly constrained by the rising costs of housing (rentals and home sales) and groceries, and economic precarity.
In her acceptance speech, Harris offered several jazzy phrases, like “an opportunity economy,” but what does that mean, exactly? She describes it as one “where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed.” The problem with the American economy is that people have lost their security nets and have to keep making their own “opportunities,” desperately hoping that a TikTok will propel them to fame and, perhaps, money to pay for some months of rent. We’re leading lives powered by GoFundme campaigns. We don’t need an “opportunity economy”: we need one where our needs—for housing, food, transportation, and schooling—are met without us having to push ourselves to the limits by taking multiple jobs and hoping that tomorrow will, somehow, be better because of “opportunities.”
On abortion, she has no strong agenda of her own, and instead berates Trump’s anti-abortion platform. But for herself, all she can say is, “And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.” Here, she speaks with all the vigour of an upper-level administrator: “Bring me the requisition form and, by God, I will sign that thing.” We have no sense, at all, how Harris the candidate will bring about legislative change to guarantee people’s absolute right to abortion: free, no questions asked, and on demand. The Times tells us about her past positions, but has nothing to say about any future plans.
The majority of Harris’s speech was about her past, including her family history and her work as a prosecutor, and about Trump. But an inspiring (to some) personal narrative can only go so far in a presidential election, and Trump, like the Kamala Harris who made her way up through the political world of California, is also the past. Does it matter that voters understand how phenomenally bad he would be in another presidential term? Yes, absolutely, of course: the man is pure evil and must be stopped. But Harris gives voters no reason to believe that she has actual plans for, well, anything, really. The vibe, if you will, is simply, “Trust in me, don’t look for details.” The New York Times, which has been falling over itself to promote Harris (as it did with Hillary Clinton in 2016) found, in an earlier segment of The Daily, that even voters who don’t like Trump aren’t more likely to vote for Harris: they want her to tell them what she will actually do to make their lives better.
Democrats are Taking Voters for Granted
When the Uncommitted movement first began, I was among those excited to see such a clear sign of dissent from the Democratic agenda on the genocide in Gaza. I also worried that it would eventually become prey to the softening and de-fanging that inevitably dulls dissidence, and I fear I’m right. Failing to gain a speaking spot at the DNC, the movement released the speech it had planned to give: the word “genocide” doesn’t even appear in a text filled with bromides about patriotism and unity, indistinguishable from any of the liberal spiels that flooded the DNC stadium over four (unending, tiresome) nights. In her own words about Gaza, Harris repeated the long-disproved canards about sexual violence and vowed that she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.” In other words, the bombing will continue. (Ali Abunimah, of Electronic Intifada is among those who have criticised the Uncommitted movement for its conciliatory posture.) Uncommitted has yet to address these points.
Still, while leftists (like me) might be critical of Uncommitted, the DNC and the Harris campaign have made a strategic mistake by so forcefully insulting and denying a voice to a key set of players who are extremely popular among progressives and many leftists. Sure, the DNC’s four-night spectacle gave it excellent exposure to that amorphous entity we call “the American people,” but spectacles, like fireworks, fade quickly from view and memory. Even those unsympathetic to Uncommitted, from any part of the political spectrum, will have to admit that its spectacle, of calling attention to the refusal to let it speak (there was much drama about a deadline), and of making its way into the DNC as a singular group, with linked arms, on the night of Harris’s acceptance, may have a more lingering effect. And will be bolstered by Uncommitted’s continued presence in national and international media outlets (who love a good fight, for the eyeballs it brings them).
More importantly, Harris stands to lose votes in the election if she continues to dismiss Uncommitted and other voting blocs who don’t agree with her on Gaza. All of this is new territory for Democrats, who are used to taking people of colour for granted. They ignore the strong and growing alliance between progressive African Africans, other communities of colour, and Palestinian-Americans and their communities. “If you do this, you’ll get Trump,” is not going to scare such voters—who have faced and survived decades of disdain and repression from both the left and the right—and will only anger them as they see it for the scare-mongering it represents.
Even Liberal and Progressive Values are Being Shunned
What’s left of Harris’s agenda is something that looks exactly like something George W. Bush would have put forward. On immigration, she didn’t even bother with vague promises, only saying, “We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.” The word “can” is doing an awful lot of work here: we can, after all, do anything we want when “we” are the president. In fact, even a vice president “can” do a great deal right now: the issue is that she won’t.
Harris is more confident in what she will do: “As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” These fighting words are not unexpected given the occasion, but it’s worth noting the raw brutality of the words here, the lack of even a tepid liberal blanket over “lethal.”
COVID Is Still Around.
What the CDC kept trying to wish away as merely a “summer surge” is now a full-on wave, because COVID never went away, as many, many experts have been warning for years. The news that a new vaccine will be available very soon might be comforting to some, but we have reason to worry about the ongoing pandemic and its long-term effects on the economy, people’s lives, and the election. Fewer people are getting vaccines: this report states that there is a 32% decline in vaccinations among adults. But vaccinations are only part of the solution: masking is still one of the best ways to prevent transmission, as is a degree of social distancing. Yet, the CDC has taken on the role of National Health Denier, dropping its recommendation that people should mask in public spaces and isolate for a minimum of five days after infection. Instead, it now recommends “that people stay home until they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without medication and their symptoms are generally improving.” The People’s CDC and experts like Dr. Lucky Tran have pointed out the dangers to people’s health. As Tran put it, the end of the five-day minimum period recommendation is “a reckless anti-public-health policy that goes against science, encourages disease spread, and puts everyone at risk.”
As for the new vaccines: due to a widespread belief that COVID is “like a cold” and the denial of Long Covid (with its severe effects in many people, including children), fewer people are vaccinated (it doesn’t help that there’s also a great deal of misinformation about the effects of vaccines). The Bridge program, which allowed under-and-uninsured people to access vaccines, will end this month, before people can access the new ones. This means that as the current surge continues, a vast number of people will not be able to protect themselves through vaccinations. It doesn’t take a doctor to predict that all of this is disastrous for the entire population (think of a vaccination as analogous to a seatbelt, and imagine what might happen if everyone stopped using seatbelts).
COVID, long disappeared from the national conversation, may seem unconnected to the elections. But we’re already seeing vast numbers of people felled by infections, losing workdays, forced to go into work too quickly and thus infecting co-workers, trying to survive in conditions that make it impossible for them to truly get better in the long run. While there is much denial about the prevalence of COVID, the truth is that all of us can already see the differences it has brought in our daily lives, whether (for now) minor supply chain issues (your delivery is very late), or that there are fewer people staffing places (and a lot more coughing). Most of all, COVID is a widespread health issue that will have long-term economic effects. I will leave it to you to imagine what the effects of the pandemic might be in terms of even the basic issues, like voter turnout, and a larger sense of despondency among people who have been lied to and whose ill health is being explained away as “just a cold.”
The Harris campaign is taking American voters for granted. The DNC, described perfectly by my friend S. as a “fuzzy, woke Triumph of the Will,” saw the reappearance of dinosaurs like Hillary Clinton, and an overall smug and arrogant attitude that voters should vote for Harris because they have no choice. But that’s exactly what brought down Clinton in 2016: “I’m the last thing standing between you and the Apocalypse.” Voters told Clinton where to go then, and Harris shows an even greater arrogance towards voters, with her complete absence of policies or plans for future action. Vibes make for a great conference, but they may be the end of her chances of becoming president.
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Update, August 29: As I write this, the DNC has been over for a week, and we still have no policy details from Harris, on her website. Meanwhile, Covid rates of infection have been spiralling and reports of infections from the convention are steadily pouring in, along with news that schools are closing due to the virus. (and, for entirely unscientific reasons, focusing on cleaning surfaces rather than concentrating on masks and ventilation). Covid is the factor that neither party will take into account, but which may well have an untold effect on the elections.
As of this writing, Harris and Walz have yet to post a word about how their policies will be different from Trump’s or even prove better than Biden’s. Many people are furious with my prediction that Harris will lose; I would be delighted to be proven wrong, but so far her campaign shows little signs of moving the needle in her favour and voters are being taken for granted.
See also:
On Cat Ladies and Culture Wars
“Hillary Clinton Needs to Retire.”
“Some Quick Updates and an Introduction.”
Critical Race Theory Won’t Save Us
Thomas Friedman Is a Dinosaur, and a New World Is Here
On Palestine, Israel and the Failure of Liberalism, and a Quick Update
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