Kamala Harris Moderated Because Donald Trump Stopped Being President
Kamala Harris Moderated Because Donald Trump Stopped Being President
And now she has the running room she needs to explain her changes of heart.
Kamala Harris’s personal charisma and the widely shared determination to defeat Donald Trump once and for all have worked in tandem to give Harris the greatest advantage a national politician can have: the room to maneuver.
It’s hard to overstate just how precious this latitude is, and how rare. Harris could’ve easily been forced to spend weeks and weeks consolidating the Democratic base. Without partisan loyalty sewn up, she would have had to devote much of the time she’s spent growing her lead and attacking Donald Trump to the precarious task of appeasing natural allies. Had Joe Biden called for an ersatz primary, instead of endorsing Harris outright, she (or whoever won) could easily have entered the general election damaged, without time to heal. Harris could’ve launched her campaign on a different note, and regretted it for months or a lifetime.
Instead, she’s been able to mount a candidacy that has won the admiration of progressives, moderates, and independents alike. Her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention last week stitched together a carefully crafted combination of appeals, such that almost everyone listening found something kindred in it. Her outreach to swing-voters and anti-Trump conservatives doesn’t register as an affront to progressives, and her appeals to progressives haven’t made any of her Republican endorsers reconsider.
Earlier this month I wrote, “the special sauce of politics isn’t to clumsily punch left or right, in order to demonstrate simpatico with independents. It’s to build a foundation of good will so that people across factions will view your conduct generously.”
Harris has discovered this, mixed metaphors and all, and begun putting it into practice. With a foundation of trust now laid across the anti-Trump coalition, she can focus on shoring up her weaknesses and exploiting Trump’s, without worrying that her supporters will drift away. She can promise to sign Republican-authored border-security legislation, and most people understand her to be drinking Trump’s milkshake, rather than selling out progressive ideals; she can give short shrift to any number of issues at her convention, and her supporters trust that she hasn’t gone squish or turncoat.
Prior to Biden’s departure from the race, most voters claimed to trust Republicans more than Democrats on just about every issue other than abortion and health care. Now look.
It is remarkable. But it is also a double-edged sword. The flipside of having room to maneuver is that some people will start to wonder why your views on things seem so fluid. Voters can be forgiving, but most presumably don’t want to hear a candidate explain that they evolved on an issue out of pure political expediency. They’re going to want to believe these shifts reflect sound substantive judgement, too.
NO KAMA, OBAMA
Donald Trump serves as a cautionary tale here.