Ross Douthat argues that both parties are doing their best to keep ideology out of the campaign. Is he right?
As to Harris and the Democrats, yes, and mostly for the reasons he cites in his column. For the blue team, the overriding objective is to keep Trump out of power; injecting big, expensive dreams of a better future into the campaign would be controversial and threaten party unity. In addition, the budget deficit, inflation, the Supreme Court, and the lack of votes in the Senate all make enacting an ambitious agenda implausible. It makes sense for Harris to play small ball and let Trump be the issue in the campaign.
But as to Trump and the GOP, not really, because Douthat doesn’t take MAGA seriously as an ideology. MAGA’s goal is to give Donald Trump unlimited power to do whatever he wants, which clearly includes making blue America–feminazis, whiny minorities, liberal university professors, woke businessmen, grasping bureaucrats, and the MSM– as poor, powerless, and miserable as possible. MAGA doesn’t care about policy and lacks any realistic vision of a more prosperous and virtuous America, but it knows what it hates, so it is willing to accept any position on any issue that will ultimately help Trump win power. That may not be a comprehensive ideology in the sense that the Godly Society is, but the Godly Society is unpopular with the American people and is inconsistent with liberal democracy, so it will have to wait until Trump swings his wrecking ball first.