A 47-day eternity until voters show their hand
Will America move forward with Kamala Harris, or backward with Donald Trump?
Hello dear readers, and I’m sorry for the lapse in this newsletter. There has certainly been no lapse in historical happenings. In fact, history has been happening at warp speed for the last two months, without pause.
The Joe-Biden-for-Kamala-Harris trade was monumental, and great fodder for political junkies like me. Here’s what you may have missed (the headlines are links to the full pieces):
July 29: Suddenly, the Election Is About Weird vs. Normal
Eight days into the brand-new Harris campaign, I wrote an early entry on the other big swap-out — “Existential dread isn’t saving democracy. Maybe making the campaign a referendum on weirdness will work.” I was keeping close tabs on campaign communications and they were … different.
DONALD TRUMP IS “old and quite weird.” He is “someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant.” JD Vance is “a creep.”
…
The Vance-is-a-creep email made me blink in surprise. But by the time the weird-guy-in-restaurant statement showed up a few hours later, with the word “strange” in the subject line, I laughed. Who wouldn’t relate to that? Could it be that Democrats are . . . onto something?
It turned out that yes, they were. Even now, Trump and JD Vance are continually adding material that makes “weird” a more apt adjective each day.
Aug. 6: The Walz Pick and America’s Urban-Rural Divide
Harris represents an emerging America—a biracial lawyer born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, both immigrants, both professionals in Northern California. Walz, a Nebraska native, represents “the course-correction on class, rural & regional messaging that Dems have needed for decades,” writes author Sarah Smarsh, a chronicler of working-class rural America who grew up on a Kansas farm.
That balance is the difference between Democrats and today’s MAGA Republicans under Donald Trump, and what could save them this year. They get what the late columnist Mark Shields called a “semi-iron rule” of politics: It’s about addition, not subtraction.
Aug. 14: The Scary Trump Superpower Hiding in Plain Sight
A nightmare in the making, and they’re well prepared.
In short, Trump and Vance are planning a government-wide, personnel-driven “war on woke.”
Researchers for Project Sovereignty 2025 are compiling what’s essentially a blacklist—determining from social media and other sources who’d be first out the door in a second Trump term. Project 2025 itself has reportedly built up a database of 10,000 to 20,000 vetted-for-Trumpiness true believers lined up as potential replacements.
“We want people who’ve been canceled, who’ve figuratively given blood for the movement,” Paul Dans told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last month, a few weeks before he stepped down as Project 2025 director. “These are mums who’ve challenged school boards. These are people who’ve stood up in their companies and said, ‘Enough with DEI and the woke agenda.’”
Aug. 19: Kamala Harris Is No Communist, Socialist, or Nixon
Give me a break, man, as President Joe Biden might say. Communist? Socialist? Nixonesque? Not even close.
Many states—those vaunted laboratories of democracy—already have laws that ban price-gouging. At its core, it’s simply consumer protection. And while we don’t yet know the details of the Harris plan, let alone how it would evolve when enacted or what impact it would have, as a political calculation it’s never a mistake to empathize with consumers during inflationary times.
Aug. 19: Trump Dangerously Misunderstands How Voters Feel About Abortion Access
To say this year’s Republican presidential ticket does not know how to talk to or about women, or figure out what matters to them, would be the understatement of the century. And I sure hope they keep it up.
It’s all mind-boggling, from nominee Donald Trump’s racist, sexist ramblings about Vice President Kamala Harris to the, ah, unusual views of his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, on parenthood. Now the hapless pair are digging in deeper as they try to cope with the post-Roe vs. Wade world.
Aug. 23: Harris–Walz Is a Food Fusion Ticket as Diverse as America
This was a fun one. Harris really can cook, and it’s possible Walz can, too, but not the same way. She’s in videos all over the web, hilariously explaining to people (including a senator and an actress) how to make Thanksgiving turkey, tuna melts and Indian dosas. His contest-winning hotdishes reflect “absolutely violent levels of Midwestern,” as one social media critic put it.
HE SAID HE LIKED “WHITE-GUY TACOS.” “What does that mean, like mayonnaise and tuna?” she interrupted. “Pretty much ground beef and cheese,” he said. “Do you put any flavor in it?” she asked, trying again. “Uh no,” he replied, adding that “black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota.” By then she had burst out laughing.
In a movie, this would have been the “meet cute” scene at a restaurant. In reality, it was a conversation between Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, shortly after she picked him as her running mate. In politics, it was the perfect metaphor for the Democrats’ fusion ticket: Northern California + Southern Minnesota, with food preferences as diverse as America.
Sept. 3: Harris Is Smart to Say She’d Tap a Republican for Her Cabinet
I wrote a biting column on the last day of December 2020 arguing that President-elect Joe Biden should “just say no” to having a Republican cabinet secretary. But when Harris said it was a good idea, and gave her reasons why, I approved. What had changed? In this column I worked through why I would now welcome the kind of bipartisan outreach that I adamantly opposed in that piece closing out our plague year.
When Biden took office, that particular kind of inclusiveness would have seemed like a reward for the sins of a party following its outlaw leader. The timing was all wrong. Now it feels appropriate and realistic. The Democratic National Convention alone showcased several Republicans who, despite the inevitable MAGA blowback, might be open to jobs in a Harris-Walz administration—among them John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, and Olivia Troye, the homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence during the Trump administration.
Sept. 12: The Remarkable, Unexpected Competency of the Harris Campaign
This is my analysis of why Harris was underestimated (political and geographical reasons only, nothing to do with anything else), and the thrill of realizing that somehow we have ended up with the exact person we need, running the exact campaign we need, against Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.
My own personal assessment is that Harris has found her groove, running as a patriotic rule-of-law and national-security hard-ass, with a passion for reproductive freedom and an economic focus on housing, raising families, and household costs.
WHEN YOU’RE IN TROUBLE, you call a lawyer and hope for the best. America’s emergency call went to Kamala Harris, and she’s been a revelation at every step.
Tuesday night’s ABC debate was no exception. I had great hopes for Harris rooted in her experience as a prosecutor and Senate interrogator, and she did not disappoint. I posited years ago that lawyers, contrary to the constant jokes about them and the idea that governors make the best presidents, actually have invaluable training for White House races and service. They know how to evaluate multiple perspectives, build the strongest argument possible, and make their cases to an audience—a judge, jury, or country—with confidence and skill.
Not to be overwrought, but the current presidential race is akin to a death penalty case. It’s a relief that Harris is treating it that way, and that she’s turned out to be every inch the tough, confrontational prosecutor called for at this moment.
You are now all caught up, and I promise, I’ll try to write more often.
Reminder: Links to all of my writing at The Bulwark and History Keeps Happening are available at substack.com/@jilllawrence. A more complete list, at www.jilllawrence.com, also includes non-Substack platforms like the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic.
Trump will win