Policy
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September 23, 2024
If he wants to build a governing majority, Harris needs a populist message and strategy that appeals to disaffected working people looking for change.
Kamala Harris has brilliantly launched her pre-shortened campaign. It turned out to be brilliant that he chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as his running mate. The energy at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was contagious. Harris presented himself as an agent of change and Trump as a reminder of the fallen past. During their debate, Harris eviscerated Trump, prompting him to expose how delusional and demented he is. Taylor Swift’s endorsement followed, and celebrities, pundits, and comedians joined her. It bolstered support for Democrats and energized youth, women, and minorities.
Yet, with all this, the election is less than 50 days away still a toss upTrump and Harris are virtually tied in various swing states. And now Harris must fight his way out of the Trump Delusion Trap (TDT).
The trap is that Trump’s grotesqueries infuriate his opponents, consume the media, and start a campaign about him. “Eat dogs,” he says in the debate. The media goes into overdrive. He and his noxious running mate feed the defamation which they know to be false. Haters make bomb threats; schools close in Springfield. Experts condemn his racism. Harris almost literally disappears from the news.
She is inevitably forced to respond to his outrages. He will be the question. In the debate, in the face of his provocations, Harris highlighted his racist history. “We’re Not Going Back” he said“It’s time to turn the page…. and end the chaos.”
But for most voters, the election isn’t about Donald Trump. It is about their own struggle. Americans know Trump; they are just now learning about Harris. With Over 60 percent Members of the country are convinced that the country is on the wrong track, they could care less what you think of Donald Trump. They want to know who he is for himwho he has asked for and who he will fight against, and how he plans to help them with the challenges they face. TDT suppresses your efforts to answer these questions.
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign focused on Trump’s preposterous lies and antics and glossed over the legitimate anger of workers left behind in the neoliberal economy. In 2020, in the wake of the pandemic and the economic collapse, Trump’s trap didn’t work. Joe Biden won, promising to end the chaos of Trump’s presidency and restore calm and composure to the White House. But today, calm means more of the same thing. Voters—especially working-class Americans who rightly feel this economy isn’t working for them—want change, not calm. The main reason the race remains a toss-up is that Harris is falling behind, according to pollsters. those without a college degree, especially among white men.
Current number
Many of these voters are now full HIMSELF. Some are put off by Trump’s malice, but they think he’ll at least take over. The failed establishment, the “deep state”, and the “loser” generals are coming down against them. As he inflames division with his race-baiting policies, he proclaims himself their champion and makes sweeping economic promises: sweeping tariffs to force companies to build in America, deporting millions of immigrants to create jobs and housing. It will “drill the baby drill” and repeal the “green scam”, reduce energy prices and end inflation. And of course, he promises lower taxes, less regulation and stronger growth. This cycle, he made specific promises aimed at people struggling paycheck to paycheck — not having to pay taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security earnings. Institutional economists can rightly point to that toxic effects of this concoction — but they have far less credibility among the struggling than Trump.
Attacking Trump as incompetent is not an appropriate response. Neither are the empty political brand names – “new way forward”, “opportunity economy”. Falling into Trump’s trap and endlessly responding to his misdeeds is a losing game. With little time left, Harris needs to find her populist voice — and stay focused on what working people need, not Trump’s latest outrage.
He set the frame for it. Emphasizing his experience as a prosecutor, he described who he fought for — “Harris for the people” — and who he fought against — big banks defrauding homeowners, private universities defrauding veterans, foreign cartels engaged in drug, arms, or human trafficking. He is exposed new plans On basic concerns about the kitchen table: They vow to go after price gouging by grocery oligopolies and Big Pharma, offering a blueprint for affordable housing. He promised help for young families with a tax discount for the first home, a renewed child tax discount, affordable day care, and a tax discount for the first year of newborns. He offered $50,000 in tax credits for small business startups. And he made himself a champion of personal freedom — most of all, of course, for women’s right to choose.
But what’s missing is a bold strategy to make this economy work for working people, one that’s more compelling than Trump’s fever dreams.
Given voters’ concerns about inflation and immigration, Harris didn’t say much about Biden’s economic strategy. But in reality, Biden represented a break from the failed policies of the past — and unlike Trump, the Biden-Harris administration accomplished big things. He delivered key elements of industrial policy that, combined with Buy America requirements, union incentives and targeted tariffs, resulted in the construction of new plants and the creation of hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs. Trump, meanwhile, has relied on “reductionist” economics — tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations — and has failed to create manufacturing jobs or prevent factories from moving overseas. Biden and Harris put construction workers to work rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure. Trump repeatedly mentioned an “infrastructure week” that never happened. They introduced America into the global race for emerging industries of renewable energy and cutting edge technology. Trump denies the reality of catastrophic climate change encouraging Big Oil CEOs to hand over their entire agenda in exchange for contributions to his campaign. You’ll leave America with more expensive energy, out of the growth industries of the next few decades, and lunch on the climate crisis.
In stark contrast to Trump, Harris can support growth from the bottom up — raising the minimum wage, empowering workers to organize, and cracking down on companies that fleece their workers while trampling on labor and health and safety laws. Trump and his Republican colleagues do blocked all tours in the minimum wage, opposed the empowerment of employees, accumulated by the NLRB with corporate lobbyists, and gutted the defense OSHA in the workplace. Trump talks about inflation, but offers plans that only feed it. Harris can counter this not only with the fact that inflation is coming down, but promises to crack down on corporate collusion and corruption. braking price fixing in food, rental housing and more.
Ironically, to date, Harris has distanced himself from Biden’s economic initiatives while embracing his foreign policy, particularly in Gaza and Ukraine. This will exactly reverse it. Biden’s foreign policy stance qualifies Trump to run as a peace candidate, warning of World War III. Worse, when Harris enlists the support of generals and national security operatives, everyone from Dick Cheney to Leon Panetta, he ties himself to a foreign policy establishment that has led this nation into endless wars—wars where, as JD Vance said, the Republican convention “our children were sent to war, America’s ruling class wrote the check, and communities like mine paid the price.”
In contrast, on economic policy, Harris can do what Biden did not: outline the bold strategy the administration has launched, the results so far and the next steps. What’s more, it may expose Trump’s empty promises, illustrating that his expensive policies are part of a larger fraud, even as he pockets campaign contributions from the vested interests he actually serves.
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Harris, clearly worried about appearing too liberal, is moving cautiously toward the supposed “middle ground.” But what he needs is a populist promise, not a liberal wish list or a centrist status quo agenda. It’s possible you can win without it. Trump lost the vote to both Hillary and Biden. He becomes more and more unstable, his actions age with him. And its repeal Roe v. Wade mobilized women across the country. However, one thing is clear. Harris must break out of Trump’s insanity trap. If he wants to build a governing majority, he needs a populist message and strategy that can appeal to the legions of disaffected working people seeking change.
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