What happens next? Anything, really, can happen in this campaign — and it usually does. So far, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have had two convictions, one debate meltdown, one “third-party” candidate revealed to be on chatty terms with another candidate and an historic, unprecedented late exit from the race. Charmed, I’m sure. Further, it is not inconceivable that, less than one hundred days until Election day, there will be more, unforeseeable tragi-comic drama of the absurdist surreal variety on the horizon.
The schematics of the gladiatorial fundament have changed significantly in the last two weeks. Trump’s Convention, far from being suburban-woman friendly, was instead an orgy of testosterone. C-list rockers; aging wrestlers; creepy CEOs. In Milwaukee, the speeches of the principals meandered into Buchanan territory — their “Fatherland.”
Could it have been anything otherwise? With Trump, simultaneously wishing to project hyper-masculinity while at the same time being, at his core, a wretched coward and a shameless liar? The lessons from his childhood stint at the New York Military Academy never took. And with a new front-runner on the opposite side of the aisle securing her nomination, Trump’s strategic “softening” — his public appeal to the suburban women — is what can only be properly construed as Shrugged.
There was a certain inevitability to Trump, 2.0 after the June debate. Now, candidate Kamala, the ultimate suburban foil against an authoritarian campaign largely based on pungent testosteronal projection (cough; cough). It is enough to drive the neofascist adjacent into neoconniptions via Truth Social:
Just sayin’! “Just think how different the world was a week ago, writes Joe Klein. “Trump’s brush with an assassin’s bullet seems ancient history now.” Such is the cyclonic speed of change. Not even Eugene Ionesco could conjure the surreal comic forces at present propelling the American Presidential race. What Bald Soprano or rhinocerii lurk around the corner of the next news cycle?
Pity Putin; Pity Trump. Both thought they were on this glide path to victory. They had strategies in place to wait out Biden and ultimately achieve their cynical political goals. “Russian state TV’s coverage of Harris—which is a carbon copy of what is playing on Fox News—was largely limited Monday to attempts at mocking her laughter,” notes Julia Davis on The Daily Beast. Davis also notes that Russian state TV is stymied in the fact that they cannot fall back on their usual, tired racist tropes because, well, that would only incite the American electorate.
Binyamin Netanyahu will be candidate Kamala Harris’s first big test. Can she handle Bibi? I ask this not to be patronizing, but to underscore the dangers of the grandaddy of modern neo-authoritarianism. He arrived today, will meet at the White House tomorrow and will deliver an address before Congress on Wednesday. He has vexed Democratic Presidents and done what no other ally in modern memory has done in openly campaigning for Republicans. Domestic interference should be considered an unpardonable breach in the protocols of allies. And yet, for whatever reasons, Democrats have put up with fascist-friendly Bibi’s boorish behavior. Even Republican former Secretary of State James Baker, an assholes asshole, found Netanyahu to be beyond prickish.
Bibi Netanyahu is not to be tossed aside lightly — he must be thrown with great force. In his upcoming speech before Congress, Netanyahu will almost certainly use the occasion to campaign for Trump. He will do this with all the subtlety of an MMA fighter. Netyanyahu — like Putin and like all the other sweaty, neo-autocrats with unresolved Daddy issues — is waiting, salivating at the prospect of a Trump victory in November. Because should Trump win, he will allow Bibi — and Putin and Modi and Museveni and Erdogan — anything their Daddy-deprived hearts desire. Game recognize game.
HarrisWorld should push back against Bibi. No one will ever accuse the multicultural Harris as anti-Semitic for issuing pushback against Netanyahu, considering the Second dude, her husband, is Jewish. Netanyahu’s approval rating in the Democrat Caucus in the House is less than Nickelbacks. And candidate Harris should avoid the generational error Biden made in hugging a fucko like Bibi. In this first test Harris can reset the generational — and racial — trap that President Biden willingly perambulated into. President Biden’s growing up in the shadows of the Holocaust led to a way of dealing with Netanyahu, a proto-authoritarian, at extreme odds with Progressives. An immediate reset by Vice President Harris would be the best way to finish out a week that will almost certainly involve her all but securing the nomination and breaking fundraising records.
There are many uphill climbs ahead. Who will she pick as her running mate? Can she get Trump to debate her? That’s important, for sure, but there is very little upside in this for Trump, who has profound issues with women of color in positions of authority and already defeated her predecessor. Trump has little loyalty to the institutional norms of democracy, so Presidential debates, unless they are to his advantage, will be a difficult negotiation. But perhaps more important than these domestic housekeeping issues are the international events — war (Ukraine, Gaza plot twists), testing by foreign adversaries, weather events (particularly hurricane season with warming oceans) — that will almost certainly pop-up.
Biden, her partner, is now all but a lame duck. Further, the reason for his dropping out can be perceived by other nations as a sign of weakness. Harris’s Presidential campaign and the waning days of Biden’s first and last term are one. It will be interesting to see how the two navigate these shifts in the roles of President and Vice President in office and on the trail. Finally, of course, there is always the possibility of some unknown variable taking us all by surprise and shifting the sands in such a way that event he current, topsy-turvy landscape is altogether unrecognizable. Though it must be said, such an event — unless it were to fall under the category of immigration — would probably serve to the advantage of the Vice President.
But you never know.
”History will surely remember Biden dropping out as a direct consequence of the debate; indeed, its first draft is already talking in such terms. In doing so, it might gloss over an intervening moment that has been fascinating in its own right—a frantic, three-and-a-bit-week window in which a presidential race that journalists had widely written off as soporific suddenly became a seat-of-your-pants drama. It is a moment that has been telling, too, of the proclivities of those journalists, even if its lessons, at least for now, remain a matter of conjecture.” (Jon Allsop/CJR)
“While (Taylor) Swift kept mum about her political opinions early in her career out of fear of alienating potential fans, the 2020 documentary Miss Americana showed the world the moment she broke rank in 2018, publicly endorsing two Democratic candidates in midterm races in Tennessee. ‘I need to be on the right side of history,’ she says in the doc, clutching her phone and preparing to push the button to post her political message on Instagram as her mom and publicist look nervously on.” (Kase Wickman/VF)
“Harris is a bigger proponent of action on the environment than Biden, Bloomberg noted: She proposed a $10 trillion climate deal and backed the Green New Deal when she ran as a candidate in 2020, and vowed to ban fracking. She has also become a key voice in the abortion rights movement — a strong voter issue for the Democrats nationally. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, she also introduced laws to ban police chokeholds and no-knock warrants, reform qualified immunity, and establish a national standard for use of force. But as an attorney general, she also supported California’s death penalty, which drew criticism from progressives, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant noted. She’s also been a vocal supporter of student debt relief.” (semafor via Bloomberg)
“Biden’s approval rating was mired below 40%, and he was trailing by expanding margins in all the states that will determine the outcome of the election. As his support dwindled, the battlefield expanded. States such as Minnesota, Virginia, and New Hampshire, long regarded as safely Democratic, suddenly became competitive. Many Democratic elected officials feared that if Biden lost badly, Republicans would keep their majority in the House and take control of the Senate, allowing Trump to implement his program without effective resistance from Congress. What comes next? Many senior Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are urging an open process to choose Biden’s replacement, and indications are that party leaders will do so. The question is whether any of the leading contenders will step forward to challenge Vice President Harris. There is no evidence that anyone will, and they have good reasons not to do so. Contesting her nomination would antagonize her supporters, diminishing challengers’ support in future presidential races. Besides, they would start from scratch with no money and modest name recognition. As this article goes to press, the most prominent alternatives to Harris have not taken themselves out of the race or endorsed her, but it’s a good bet that many will in coming days.” (William Galston/Brookings)