Post #24 - Buckle Up
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump meet tonight in Philadelphia. The candidates will not give opening statements. They will receive two minutes to respond to each question from the moderators, two minutes to rebut, and one minute for follow-up, clarification, or response. They will make two minute closing statements. Only the moderators will be permitted to ask questions, and the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak.
Grace Widyatmadja/NPR; Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
This is Harris’s best chance yet to make her case to the American people. Beyond the obvious opportunity to draw the contrast with Trump while sharing a stage with him, some of that is because debates draw eyeballs that speeches, interviews, and press conferences don’t; another part of it is because Harris and Walz have given just six interviews since late July, while Trump and Vance have given 39.
As of Sunday night, there is now an issues section up on the Harris-Walz campaign website—until now, if you wanted to know her policies, you needed to parse her speeches or read reporting based on those speeches. Not a lot of people are doing that. It isn’t surprising that the latest New York Times/Siena College survey found that 28% of likely voters said they needed to know more about Harris, while only 9% said the same of Trump.
In the sit-down interview Harris and Governor Tim Walz did with CNN’s Dana Bash on August 29th, Harris claimed that her “values” had not changed since her 2019 primary campaign, but there’s no question that some of her policies have. Bash pressed Harris specifically on her 2019 commitment to ban fracking on day one in office, asking her if there was “some policy or scientific data” that she saw that caused her to say, “‘Oh, okay. I get it now’[.]” Harris responded by saying that “What I have seen is that we can — we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”
It’s not an unreasonable answer: the end—a thriving clean energy economy—remains, while the means—banning fracking or not—change. And I think people can get on board with the idea that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. But Harris’s answer also isn’t complete: she didn’t say what made her change her mind—what made her see we can “increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.” When politicians can’t convincingly explain why they changed their mind on something, the assumption is going to be that they stuck their finger in the air and followed the wind. That reputation has followed Harris for years. Is it going to lose her all her support? Of course not. But it might prevent her from gaining votes she needs to win.
The Harris-Walz issues section includes segments on “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda.” I don’t think it’s a bad idea—to me, the perfect campaign website would include (1) a clear statement of an issue or problem facing Americans; (2) a clear statement of the cause of the issue or problem; (3) a clear and fair statement of the opponent’s proposed solution; and (4) a clear and fair statement of the candidate’s proposal, ideally with a point for point takedown of the opposing position and a game plan for putting the proposal into action (relatedly, the article on Congress is still forthcoming. One would think I’d stop making promises, but one would think a lot of things). The Harris-Walz site isn’t perfect or especially detailed, but it’s thoughtful. In an ideal world, it would have been ready earlier, but it’s ready now.
With respect to Project 2025, even though it has proven to be impressively unpopular, and even though Democrats have had some success linking it to Trump, Trump does have his own platform, and it isn’t Project 2025. Perhaps tying every unpopular Trump proposal to Project 2025 gives him an out—“that one isn’t me.” Can he effectively make that distinction during the debate? Maybe. I think even his biggest supporters would acknowledge he’s not especially good at sticking to a tight message.
Which brings me to his running mate, Senator JD Vance. Vance remains unpopular (a good deal less popular than his counterpart), which I assume has a lot to do with him spending too much time on podcasts offending half of the potential voting pool, and something to do with him also not being very charismatic.
But Vance is smart, and he’ll talk to just about anyone at any time of day. I stand by the article I wrote about him in July—his story isn’t over yet. Vance already responded to the Harris-Walz issues page with a lengthy, substantive X thread that should serve as a warning to Walz to prepare thoroughly for their debate in October. At least in that thread, Vance does a reasonably good job of using specifics to distinguish the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance proposals—I’m not sure I’ve seen Harris or Walz do the same, at least at that length.
In the CNN interview, Harris brought up the child tax credit three times. Walz brought it up once. It was the very first specific policy that Harris mentioned:
“Day one, it’s gonna be about one, implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I’ve already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we’re gonna do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re gonna do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re gonna do to invest in families.
For example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There’s the work that we’re gonna do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now. So there are a number of things on day one.”
That’s all well and good—the child tax credit is popular. But it’s also part of the Trump-Vance platform! “Republicans will make permanent the provisions of the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that doubled the standard deduction, expanded the Child Tax Credit, and spurred Economic Growth for all Americans.” Vance has specifically expressed support for a $5,000 child tax credit.
I know there are plenty of people who think it’s absolutely outrageous that the race is close at all, who are offended that Harris can’t win in a landslide solely by virtue of not being Trump. And for millions and millions of Americans, not being Trump is enough! It’s not like Dick and Liz Cheney woke up after a lifetime of espousing conservative policies and decided that taxes on the wealthy might be a little too low, or that pumping up government spending is a great idea. No—they are voting for Harris because they are more opposed to Trump than they are married to certain traditional Republican policies.
But I don’t think Democrats should be surprised that many Republicans, including those who do not like Trump personally, are not willing to take the same step. This isn’t a perfect illustration of the issue, but how morally reprehensible, how threatening to democracy would a Democratic candidate need to be before you’d start stumping for Ted Cruz?
A case can be made that a vote for Harris now is a vote for the future of conservatism—especially fiscal conservatism, which is currently suffering a steep drop in popularity. A case can be made that a vote for Harris preserves our democratic institutions—a case strengthened by the number of Communists (as previously noted, I follow a rather eclectic group on Twitter) who will be enthusiastically voting for Trump because they think he increases the chances the country will destabilize enough to permit the rise of a new egalitarian order. I’m not sure I follow the straight line reasoning from Trump to Communism, but, then again, I am an awful Communist.
But, whatever your reasons, a vote for Harris is ultimately a vote for her policy priorities; a vote for Trump is a vote for his.
I hope those policy arguments get a little clearer tonight.
Random Fact
Dutch-American painter Willem de Kooning painted Interchange in 1955. De Kooning was one of the early members of the abstract impressionism movement, the first American modern art movement.
In 2015, hedge fund gajillionaire Ken Griffin, who famously enjoys some pretty swanky living arrangements (like, a lot of them), bought the painting for $300 million.
I don’t really have a grand takeaway, but if anyone knows how to forge paintings well enough to fool Ken Griffin, let me know.
Not-Random Request
Two Fridays ago, my sister-in-law’s husband’s little brother, the quarterback for his high school team in Bremen, Georgia, was tackled hard and suffered a broken neck and serious spinal cord injury. His road to recovery will be long, unsure, and expensive. If you have the means, please consider donating.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-carsons-spinal-injury-recovery
I don’t know if you’ve ever spent time on the gofundme home page, but it’s moving. It’s a powerful reminder of how many people need help and how many other people are willing to help them.