Campaigning to the Choir

Kamala Harris and the Democrats are Tone-Deaf and don't know why

by Micah E. Weiss

Our very eyes are sometimes like our judgements, blind. -WS

Recently, commentator Andrew Sullivan pointed out the wet blanket smothering the “Joy” campaign of Harris-Waltz: 

At this point in 2020, Joe Biden, with far fewer resources than Harris, was 10 points ahead of Trump, and finished around 8.4 points ahead in the polling. Biden won the actual election by 4.5 percent, almost half the margin the polls predicted. At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was 6 points ahead, finished 3.6 points ahead in the polls, and ended up 2.1 percent ahead in the popular vote. Today, Harris has a lead of just 2.6 percent nationally — much weaker than Clinton and Biden at this point. . .If the polls underestimated Trump's national support by 2.5 points in 2016 and by 4 points in 2020, and the skew continues, then we could well be looking at the first victory in the popular vote that Trump has ever won. More to the point, nothing is really shifting. If anything, there’s a slight drift back toward Trump right now.

Depending on the aggregator, the race is essentially tied.  “Margin of error” doesn’t even begin to explain how close it really is.  So how did we get here?  

Right after the presidential debate between Biden and Trump, but before Biden’s decision to drop from the ticket, I asserted that Kamala wouldn’t be able to run because she cleaved too often and too well to the identity politics of the Democratic left-wing voter base.  After her elevation to the top of the ticket, I waited to see which direction she would choose, vis-a-vis race and gender, and it looked as if her campaign did an excellent job keeping those topics in the background, for the most part.  The infamous “White Women for Harris” zoom that raised millions and featured a TikTok influencer geysering intersectional jargon in a gentle-parenting tone of voice made me wonder if our intellectual elites were evolving into new forms of prey animals–and sure enough, dangerous imbeciles on the right must have felt similarly, as they doxxed and harassed the poor lamb, not understanding that her race-pandering, pleading, elementary-school-teacher lecture was only helping Trump. 

Other than that one incident, embarrassing though it may have been, the Harris campaign was resisting the temptation to “center” Kamala Harris’ race or gender.  Instead we got a new “hope and change” candidate: Obama 2.0.  The American people, if polling is any indicator, immediately threw some support her way, and until late September, it looked like there was going to be a tight, but Democratic win for President.  Most of the old-guard media outlets are clearly in the can for the Democrats, as Trump continues his half-baked screeds, offensive comments, and his somewhat grotesque courting of far-right elements that are distasteful, to say the least.  The Vice-Presidential candidates are proving something of a wash, both shoring up reliable base-voters, but not exactly bringing in anyone from what my brother calls the mushy-middle.  

Now, with panic setting in at Harris-Walz central, I am trying to figure out why.

I’m beginning to suspect that the left-wing echo-chamber is slowly, but surely, becoming a bubble.  In an echo-chamber, noise from outside does penetrate to create some form of response from the ideological adversaries of those within.  Take the Haitian refugee topic from the Right’s point of view.  Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Springfield, Ohio situation that made it into both presidential debates was filled with information, both fantastical and factual, that entered the somewhat absurd exchange between Trump and Harris, and the more substantive one between Vance and Walz some weeks later.  Trump’s farcical “they’re eating the dogs” claim had become a liability, and Vance had heard enough from the media to make him pivot to the refugee policies that many Americans object to, with his own echo-chamber-based spin.  The facts penetrated, and the Right adapted.  How successful was the adaptation?  Well, we’re not talking about it anymore, so the Trump campaign probably puts that down as a success.  

On the other hand, a bubble is more insulated from external arguments and perspectives, and it makes those within the bubble unable to respond coherently to those outside the bubble.  Worse still, what comes out of a bubble begins to make sense only to those within it, and the rhetoric and messaging begins to take on an arrogant and smug tone that hurts the cause without the crafters of said messaging being aware of what they are doing to themselves.  

In recent days, there have been a slew of examples that underscore this trend.  

First, there was the recent exchange on Bill Maher’s show Real Time–one of the only popular talk-shows that draws an audience that has a wide variety of ideological backgrounds, featuring long-form debates from similarly diverse guests.  The right was represented by Buck Sexton, a conservative commentator, and Laura Coates, a left-wing TV legal analyst.  On the topic of why the Harris campaign is slipping, Sexton offered practical arguments, some questionable, and certainly all debatable; Coates responded by playing the Race and Gender cards (prefiguring the explanations that will follow a Harris loss, should that happen).  Essentially, bigots are the reason why Harris is losing–as if all the bigots weren’t already accounted for before the polls started their slow delivery-van-beeping reversal in recent weeks.  Then, Sexton offered arguments (some weak, some strong) on why the Harris campaign is struggling with the gender gap of the usual kind–that men have concerns that Harris isn’t addressing.  Coates responded sarcastically with “I’m so sorry that men have had to endure the inequities that women have.”  Then she elaborated with the same old argument that men are bitter about not being in charge anymore, which may be true for some men (see: already voting for Trump, above), but it doesn’t at all explain why Harris is having trouble reaching out to the rest of men, is hemorrhaging black men, and losing hispanic men.  It does explain the bubble that surrounds Coates, because a presupposition in that bubble that men, definitionally, can’t suffer enough to be worthy of comment or consideration.   

To address these concerns, the Harris campaign has responded by deploying VP candidate Tim Walz on a new-masculinity mystery tour that seems to be falling pretty flat.  Michael Strahan smacked Walz around on his strange lies about his military service and his time spent in China; Walz went on a media-friendly hunting expedition photo-op where he looked awkward and out of place, appearing as though he had never loaded a shotgun before; and even Saturday Night Live hit Walz for his debate performance, highlighting when he called himself a “knucklehead.”  

The Democratic for male voters continues in tone-deaf fashion.  What explains the campaign ad aimed at working class men featuring manly men doing manly things?  In that ad, men sit on truck beds by piles of hay and in gymnasiums near piles of free weights, explaining that they aren’t “afraid of women,” and that’s why they support Kamala Harris.   It was supposed to be funny, but most of the jokes didn’t work, not that that’s a crime.  However, it is political malpractice to release a campaign ad that has no viable target demographic.  After all, who is convinced by such an ad?  How do you tell a misogynist,  “You’re a bigot because you're scared!” and expect that to change his mind?  

Ultimately, though, a campaign is about a candidate, and here is where the bubble really reveals itself.  

After running a campaign devoid of a single substantive interview, Harris herself has engaged in what the media calls a “media blitz,” trying to get some kind of message out that might staunch the slow-bleed of her lead.  Most of these interviews have been shallow affairs: several questionable podcast appearances, a friendly town-hall for Univision, an appearance on The View wherein the hosts simply fawned over her, and a visit with an even more bootlicking Steven Colbert (whose steady decline into NPC Democratic Party shill saddens my heart).  

The results?  If Obama 2.0 is about joy and the future and change, Harris simply doubled down on the Biden administration’s policies.  It was on Colbert that the bubble ceased to be transparent and shimmered for all to see.  After sharing a beer together in an attempt to humanize her that seemed relatively authentic, and after both spent some time agreeing about how bad Trump is, Colbert asked her this question: “Under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be, and what would stay the same?”  Her response was somewhat baffling.  First she said: “I’m obviously not Joe Biden, I mean that would be one change,” and she paused and mugged for the crowd who obliged her with a sycophantic round of applause.  Then she said:  “And I’m not Donald Trump.”

But she continued: 

When we think about the significance about what this next generation of leadership looks like were I to be elected president. . . Frankly. . . I love the American people, and I believe in our country.  I love that it is our character and nature to be an ambitious people.  We have aspirations, we have dreams, we have incredible work ethic, and I just believe that we can create and build upon the success we’ve achieved in a  way that we continue to grow opportunity and in that way grow the strength of our nation.

It went on like that for a little while.  Finally, a minute and a half after starting to answer the initial question–and to her credit–Harris gave a pretty small-scale policy proposal about a small business tax credit that I found to be a good answer to a specific policy question that Colbert never asked.  Colbert, in a roundabout way, then repeated the question by framing it thusly: “Your opponent and his vice president said: ‘Well, Kamala Harris has been Vice President for three and half years, why hasn’t she fixed everything already?’” He then set the ball on the t-ball stand and handed her the bat asking, “Have you described to [Tim Walz] the vast powers of the Vice Presidency?”  implying, of course, that given how weak the office of the Vice President is, what could she possibly have done?  I won’t toy with your intelligence by transcribing the long meandering answer she gave, but I will mention that she concluded by affirming that she chose Tim Walz as her running mate, and how proud she was of that decision–one that came from her “gut.”    

She had given a slightly different answer on The View just that morning.  Responding to the question from a View host, “Would you have done something differently than President Biden these last four years?” with the response: “There is not a thing that comes to mind, and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” 

This quote, and the one about being “Obviously not Joe Biden,” have been running on a loop in the media these last five days.  They are strangely dissonant, contradicting each other in two back-to-back interviews on the same day!  It’s pretty shocking how her campaign failed to prepare her for such an obvious and predictable softball  t-ball question.  Not anticipating this question better, and then answering it, essentially, two different ways, is beyond mere political malpractice: it’s a full-on campaign felony.

This is the bubble.  In the bubble, bigots just need to realize that their bigotry comes from fear to self-reflect and change their ways.  In the bubble, the Joy and Change Election will mean doing things just like last time.  In the bubble, “I’m obviously not Joe Biden,” with a side of Caesar-Word-Salad really means “Can’t you tell I’m a black woman?  That’s different!”  In the bubble, the Orange Menace is goofing his way to another victory because of racists and misogynists, and the Harris campaign can’t seem to target a message to disaffected working class men who don’t fear women, but who have, nonetheless, fled from the tone-deaf Democratic party in recent years.  

Even, especially, and perhaps most tragically, President Obama is showing himself to be in the bubble.  Most recently stopping at a Harris campaign office, the former president–who I voted for twice–not at his best, spoke some “truths” to “the brothers.”  He meandered around for a minute or two, but then came to the point that the “brothers” were “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” for not supporting Harris.  His explanation?

I’ve got a problem with that because part of it, part of it makes me think, and speaking to men directly, now, that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman becoming president.  And you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.

Former President Obama, deep in the bubble, playing at psychoanalysis for black men as a group, explaining why they are misogynists who rationalize not supporting Kamala Harris.  And then he went further: 

Now you’re thinking of sitting out, or even supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you?  Because you think that’s a sign of strength?  Because that’s what being a man is?  Putting women down?  That’s not acceptable.   

When the best explanation you and your allies can come up with about your opponents’ beliefs and actions is that they are suffering from some sort of deep psychological character flaw, you might merely be in the echo-chamber.  But when you lecture your opponents in public about that character flaw as a method of persuasion, on camera, in the age of the internet?  That’s the bubble.     

It’s not as if Trump isn’t pulling his usual bone-headed nonsense, of course.  Harris and her campaign spend a lot of time talking about his past and future tyrannies, his present and persistent outrages.  But, the American people, or at least enough of them, aren’t afraid of Trump threatening our democracy and have grown numb to his blathering offenses.  January 6th was a terrible day, and Trump should be roundly condemned for his rank irresponsibility then, and for damning the integrity of our elections from election day in 2020 to the present.  However, everyone knows that January 6th is a day that cannot be repeated, because the circumstances cannot be repeated.  No one seriously thinks that he would try and run for a third term; no one thinks he would pursue dictatorial powers; no one seriously considers it a possibility that he will end American democracy–and if they do they need a Civics lesson.  His rhetoric has always been irresponsible and at times dangerous, but his actions as President were more banal–even January 6th was a matter of inaction, rather than overt action.  For many, his dangerous words are easy to dismiss, and what’s left of Trump’s presidential legacy is the memory, however flawed and inaccurate, of an administration that wasn’t really that bad till the end.  

And right here is where I can almost sense a torrent of complaints about the Dobbs Decision–but to that I say: get out of the damn bubble.  Access to an abortion is important for some voters, and less important to others, and Trump has quite clearly backed off a hard-line pro-life position–going so far as to have that position removed from the Republican Party Platform document at the convention.  He successfully undercut the issue for enough persuadable voters that we are where we are, and all the shrieking eschatology around women’s rights the Harris campaign keeps engaging in isn’t going to change the thickness or the angles of the wedge the issue will continue to be.  According to Pew, abortion ranks 8th amongst registered voters in importance, so running on it is just another curve in the bubble.  The longer the issue is presented by bubble-bound Democrats, the more it looks like all they care about is ending pregnancies.  If you are nominally pro-choice, as most Americans are–pro-freedom, but deeply uncomfortable with abortion in the abstract–then there is a macabre little voice that creeps in that sounds like Bill Burr or Chris Rock, saying: “All the Dems really care about is killing babies.”  

In the time since the meat of this essay was written, Kamala has emerged from her bubble to appear on Fox News for a short interview with Bret Baier.  It seems only fair to address this first ever interview with an adversarial journalist to determine if there are cracks forming on the bubble.  The answer, in brief, is clearly no.  She held up well to the questions, a few pretty loaded and unfair, and pivoted to hit Trump at every turn.  She looked tough, proposed some policy minutiae, but also dodged a few questions clumsily, particularly the one about Biden’s health.  But she never took the opportunity provided to show that she was anything other than bubble-bound.  In the interview, one moment was instructive.  

Bret Baier: More than 70% of people tell the country is on the wrong track. They say the country is on the wrong track. If it’s on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president and President Biden being president. That is what they’re saying, 79% of them. Why are they saying that? If you’re turning the page, you’ve been in office for three and a half years.

Kamala Harris: And Donald Trump has been running for office since-

Bret Baier: But you’ve been the person holding the office.

Kamala Harris: Come on, come on.

Bret Baier: Madam Vice President-

Kamala Harris: You and I both know what I’m talking about. You and I both know what I’m talking about.

That was the moment that caught my ear.  Harris assumes agreement on a point not yet made.  When I first saw this, I thought that perhaps Baier and Harris had spoken before the interview started, and in the informal manner of conversation something was mentioned that we all missed.  I even thought that maybe Harris was breaching some off-the-record protocol with Baier, and raised an eyebrow.  However, the report of the interview is such that Harris arrived 15 minutes late to the 5pm shoot, and that the producers had to jump right into the interview because it was set to air at 6pm.  That explanation out of the way, there is little more to explain this exchange beyond a habit to reach out for agreement, with the expectation of receiving it.  A habit born of the bubble.  

This was the Democrats' election to lose, and the voters who will make the difference are outside the bubble that the Democratic leadership has created for themselves.  The end is nigh.  The silly season in electoral politics is coming to a nail-biter ending, that, if the past is any indication of the future, we’ll have four more years of Trump.  The Democratic Party seems to be unable to see why that is happening.  There is early confusion, frustration, and a preview of the upcoming four years of excuses the Democratic and the left aligned commentariat will be making.  Four more years of blaming racism and sexism.  This isn’t the party of Clinton anymore, nor is it the party of Obama (Obama doesn’t even seem to be Obama anymore).  This isn’t even the party of Bernie Sanders.  The money is shifting to the Dems, the educated elites are shifting too, even the old-guard Republican elites like the Chaneys are shifting as well.  

This is the Elite Party now.  An Elite that doesn’t seem able to hear what anyone outside their coterie is saying.  Trump is winning because these Elites cannot fathom why people disagree with them, they cannot empathize with or imagine the mind of anyone with different ideas or concerns.  How could anyone possibly support the Orange Menace?  These Elites have arrogantly assumed that everyone thinks just like them, but meanwhile the working class is slipping through the fingers of the party that is supposed to champion working people’s interests.  Slowly but surely a bubble has formed around the new Elite Party and in a few weeks we will see the results, and risk reaping the whirlwind.