Resetting the Race
Biden’s Brave Exit Elevates Harris, Who Seizes the Moment While Trump Squanders His Best Shot
Everything changed in the last week. Suddenly, Trump doesn’t seem so strong, but Democrats do as they quickly pivot from division and disarray into unity and a winning new message.
In my last newsletter, I wrote that Trump may be unbeatable after admirably braving an assassination attempt, “unless…” Well, that “unless” unfolded quickly and has completely changed the dynamics of this presidential race.
My implication was that President Biden would withdraw from the race, as I and others have been calling for, which he did on Sunday. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how quickly Democrats rallied behind Kamala Harris and how she’s been saying all the right things.
As I recommended, Biden endorsed Harris yet they both left open the possibility of a contested primary, with Harris saying, “It’s my intention to go out and earn this nomination and win.” Meanwhile, she was effectively working the phones and winning support from delegates and potential rivals. That’s democracy in action, done well.
Harris has quickly earned enough support to win the nomination by emphasizing her career as a prosecutor defeating felons like Trump. Harris is a great choice to fight criminals: “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain," Harris said. "So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
We all unfortunately know Trump’s type, and we saw it on stage at the Republican National Convention last week when he squandered the biggest opportunity of his campaign, proving once again that he’s just a bad guy who can’t help but sound like an egomaniacal blowhard.
Public sympathy for Trump reached the high water mark after he was shot, and his campaign was smart to capitalize on that by saying Trump was a changed man who now wants to unify the country. It was a great strategy, perfectly designed for a convention that started just days after the shooting.
And for the first 15 minutes of Trump’s acceptance speech, the strategy was working, with Trump sounding humbled as he recounted the shooting, called for national unity, and said, "I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
But then, Trump descended into his usual rhetoric of petty insults, big lies, wild boasts, whiny grievances, and crazy talk — droning on and on for another 90 minutes. Yes, we all know who Trump is, and now we have a tough prosecutor on the case to ensure he ends up in jail and not back in the White House.
Incredible Shrinking Trump: After Biden stepped back and Harris stepped up, Team Trump has continued to be its own worst enemy. In attacking her using petty, racist, and sexist insults, they keep proving to swing voters what horrible people they are, and that’s only likely to get worse in the coming months.
They’ve blasted her as “dumb” and a “DEI candidate,” even though she’s whip-smart and has more political experience and qualifications than Trump and his newbie running mate J.D. Vance combined.
They denigrate her gender, forgetting that more than half of voters are women, many of them pissed off that Trump and other powerful men took away their right to reproductive freedom. Abortion could be the issue that decides this race, particularly because Harris has been so strong on it and Trump so clueless.
It was easy for Trump to savage Biden, a fellow elderly white dude whose popularity sagged because of post-pandemic inflation and two intractable wars. But Harris isn’t going to take Trump’s shit lying down, and the impudence of a woman of color calling out his lies is only going to worsen Trump’s worst traits and instincts.
Like most bullies, Trump’s taunts and bravado mask inner insecurities and fear, as we can see from his actions. Trump started praising Biden after their disastrous debate, obviously worried about facing a tougher challenger as pressure mounted on Biden to withdraw.
Then, after Biden stepped down, Trump indicated he’ll duck the September debate with the Democratic nominee that he’d already agreed to unless MAGA-friendly Fox News hosts it, only to then call for multiple debates with Harris after being seen as a coward. I can’t wait to see Harris prosecute Trump on the debate stage.
Trump’s campaign also filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission and threatened other legal actions trying to block Harris from taking over the Biden-Harris campaign fund, as the law clearly allows. Expect even more long shot lawsuits from Team Trump, for whom election denialism and hostility to democracy are central tenets.
But the Democrats are ready for whatever shit Trump and the MAGA acolytes they’ve installed as election officials around the country try to pull. The Democratic Party has laid out of a process of delegates choosing a new nominee by Aug. 7, rather than waiting for their Aug. 21 convention, largely because Ohio and other Republican-controlled states have threatened to keep the Democratic nominee off the ballot if they wait until then.
For a bunch of wannabe tough guys, Team Trump sure sounds scared of Harris.
Biden Saves the Country: Harris began her political career in 2003 when she was elected district attorney of San Francisco — the same year I started as city editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. I know Kamala and covered her rise, so I’ll have lots of stories and observations to share in future newsletters.
But for now, I want to close this edition by talking about President Joe Biden. He was never my favorite politician, and I’ve been particularly hard on him these last few weeks as we saw his age-induced shortcomings and grew frustrated with his stubborn insistence on staying in the race.
Yet I couldn’t feel more appreciation and affection for Biden as I do right now. And I think many Americans feel the same way, a feeling that will only grow over the course of this year as he finishes his term, cements a solid legacy, and helps elevate his vice president to replace him.
President Biden will go down in history as someone who put the good of the country above his own interests and desires. “Biden” will become synonymous with selfless sacrifice. He is presenting the country with an illuminating contrast to Trump, who selfishly put the country and his own followers through a terrible ordeal because he refused to accept his election defeat.
“There is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life,” Biden said last night during a touching address from the Oval Office. “There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices. Yes, younger voices. That time is now.”
Yes, the time is now to turn the page on the old Boomers who had their time in power and left big messes for the rest of us to clean up. But Trump is dead wrong that we’re a failing country only he can save, or that Biden has been the worst president ever, a title that Trump holds.
Biden has been a great president who brought the country back from a terrible pandemic and constitutional crisis, rallied the world against Russia’s imperialist ambitions, navigated through our political gridlock to sign the biggest infrastructure and climate change legislation in history, and steadfastly enforced the rule of law against the MAGA movement’s lawless extremism.
Those of us who urged Biden to withdraw never questioned his strong record of accomplishments even as we argued that wasn’t a good enough reason for him to stay in race that he seemed destined to lose. And Biden, ever the humble public servant, heeded that call and saved the country from Trump … again.
Thank you, Mr. President.
