The presidential race has just received an historic reboot, thanks to Joe Biden’s selfless decision to stand down in the national interest. For those of us who loathe the looming totalitarian threat to our democratic values, the president’s passing of the torch feels like a shot of adrenaline to our aching hearts.
For starters, the baggage of the Biden Age Issue has been magically swept away. The focus now shifts to the MAGA nominee – the oldest presidential candidate in history, a convicted criminal who’s been found liable for rape and financial fraud, indicted for plotting a coup, and determined to rule with a fascist blueprint drawn up by 140 former aides.
Maybe this existentially consequential election is winnable for the Dems after all. As evidenced by all the polls (including the Dems’ internal soundings), Biden had a very low ceiling. But now it feels like there’s room to grow. Kamala Harris – anointed by Biden and not seriously challenged – comes to the fore with a message tailor-made for ’24 combat: She’s an ex-prosecutor running against a felon. She’ll put Trump on trial in the public square. Since the judges won’t do it, she will.
Plus, she can string sentences together without losing her train of thought (“Ultimately, in this election, we each face the question: What kind of country do we want to live in?”); indeed, she can make the case for the Biden administration’s major achievements – infrastructure, climate change investment, lower drug prices, the western world’s strongest economy – far more coherently than her lame duck boss.
She’ll zero in on the MAGA ticket’s biggest vulnerability: its war against women’s bodily autonomy. She’s been doing that for more than a year (“We have worked too hard and for too long to see our daughters grow up in a world with fewer rights than our mothers”), and she’s already connecting the abortion issue to the broader fight to preserve all the freedoms that are currently imperiled.
Biden was tanking with young voters (especially voters of color), age 18 to 29. She’ll bring them out en masse. She might be a tougher sell for white voters than Biden was in 2020, but she can address that potential deficit in the swing states by teaming up with a great White guy – one of the many successful governors, or perhaps Mark Kelly, the Arizona Senator and ex-Navy combat vet.
The bottom line is that the campaign narrative has been overhauled; whereas before the Dems were drowning, now they’ve surged to the water’s surface. On Sunday, July 21, after Biden endorsed Harris, one Democratic group raised $46 million in just a few hours. An activist group led by Black women held a Zoom call and expected 1,000 participants; they got 40,000.
Granted, the MAGAts will unleash a tsunami of attacks – highlighting border immigration (Biden gave Harris that thankless issue early on), tying her to the inflation that long plagued the Biden team (although inflation has been ebbing), and of course serenading her with racist and misogynist dog whistles. They don’t like the way she laughs, and Kellyanne Conway told Fox News that “She does not speak well. She does not work hard.”
But Trump is clearly freaked out. On social media Sunday, he signaled that he may try to weasel out of the scheduled September presidential debate (the last thing he wants is to risk getting stomped by a Black woman). And best of all was his plaintive whine; with Biden out and Kamala in, “Now we have to start all over again.”
What we’re seeing now is the starkest contrast between a pro-democracy party and an authoritarian cult. Much as the Democrats loved and respected Joe Biden for the great work he has done, they openly questioned whether their leader had the skills to win again. Whereas the cult is led by an aging criminal who brooks no dissent, who inspires the mindless to bandage their ears.
This will be an election season like no other, and we should salute Joe one last time for teeing it up. In 2020 he saved democracy by running against Trump. In 2024, if Harris wins, he will be hailed in history for saving democracy by standing down. The entire chessboard has been reset. Let’s get to work.
Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net and is distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2024
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