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The Harris campaign failed in 2020 because, like most of the candidates, she didn’t know how to posture herself as a unique and compelling figure between the extremes of Sanders on the left and Biden on the right. That won’t be a problem in this election; the Democratic Party is united in its opposition to Trump, and Harris doesn’t deviate from it on policy in any meaningful way. As a result, fears that this campaign will be a rerun of the last are misplaced. The task is much more straightforward this time, and Trump is an unpopular opponent with little experience trying to woo centrist voters.

To date, there have been no major missteps by the campaign even under remarkably unusual circumstances. Harris replaced Biden without knifing him in the back. She united the party behind her in a matter of a few days. Her commercials are sharper than Biden’s. The race is now a dead heat even before the convention. Can the good news last?

Yes, it can. Will it? I don’t know.

Trump and the Republicans are basically staking everything on the border issue. To me, it’s a bad bet. Yes, the American public is concerned about chaos and cost; it wants an orderly system, and it doesn’t want to pay for it. But it doesn’t support deliberate acts of cruelty, which are exactly what the Trump campaign has to offer, and it can see for itself that the allegations about immigrants committing massive numbers of crimes and causing inflation are rubbish.

Harris needs to get out front on this issue. It isn’t enough to argue that the situation has improved over the last few months, and that Trump torpedoed a legislative compromise that would have helped sooner. Harris should spend a lot of time talking about the Trump plan, including the unlawful raids by the military, the massive deportation camps, the cruelty of family separation, and the impacts to the economy of deporting so many essential workers. The public has no idea this is on the menu. It needs to know ASAP.

The blue team is feeling much better with Harris as the nominee; she brings hope and energy where none existed before. That’s good, but partisan enthusiasm alone won’t win in November. After all, the red team feels the same way about their guy.

This election will be decided by a handful of undecided voters in a few swing states. To some extent, they will be swayed by the state of the economy in November; Harris has little control over that. The other critical factor will be whether Harris can prove she is the only candidate in the race who is fit to be president. That is an issue over which she does, in fact, have considerable say.

Job 1 for Harris is to make the election a referendum on Trump’s fitness, not on the Biden economy. She can do that by choosing a good running mate, by sounding firm and competent on the stump, by taking reasonable positions on matters of policy, and by pointing out the implications of the Trump agenda for average people. The rest is up to Trump. If history is any guide–including the events of the last week or so–he’s more than ready to destroy himself in the eyes of moderates.

The perceptive reader will see that there are two notable absences from Job 1. It is not necessary for Harris to put forth a detailed and compelling vision for the future, and focusing on Trump’s criminal past is a waste of time and energy. The first is too divisive to attract swing voters, and the second simply emphasizes the obvious.

For some reason, J.D. Vance has decided his name should be spelled without periods. I won’t acknowledge his preference. Why?

For two reasons. First, only successful rappers have the right to use initials without periods. Second, Trump deliberately mispronounces “Kamala” all the time on the campaign trail as a gesture of contempt. In light of that, why shouldn’t I misspell Vance’s name?

Some members of the New Right would attribute the increased economic power of women–and to them, the decline of the traditional family–to the failures of neoliberal economics. Their response is a combination of universal tariffs and deportations. The former is designed to revive dead or dying manufacturing and mineral extraction industries that mostly employ men; the latter is intended to create labor shortages. Put together, the idea is to create additional demand, and higher wages, for men, which will make them more desirable marriage candidates, which will lead to traditional families with one male wage earner, which will bring back the 1950s. Goodbye, childless cat ladies!

I have previously listed the reasons why the tariffs and deportations are likely to fail in their objective, so the return to the 1950s is unlikely to occur; instead, we will have higher inflation, failing businesses, and higher interest rates. In addition, many of the well-educated cat ladies like their lives just the way they are. Is it plausible that they will seek men with manufacturing jobs as mates to avoid working for a living when they actually find their work fulfilling and enjoy their independence? I think not.

So now who will be Kamala’s veep?

It’s a secret she’s managed to keep.

Do you think there’s a chance

He’ll be someone like Vance?

He’ll be white, but he won’t be a creep.

The fake interview continues.

C: I was planning to ask you a series of questions about foreign policy, but I’m going to defer those and concentrate on some matters that have arisen since the convention.

V: OK.

C: First of all, of course, we have the childless cat ladies thing. Do you regret saying that? After all, it was a personal attack on a large percentage of the voting population.

V: It was sarcasm. It was meant as a statement about the Democratic Party and its policies, not as an attack on voters.

C: So you’re saying you should be taken seriously, but not literally?

V: Yes.

C: That works for Trump. What makes you think it will work for you? You have a long paper trail setting out your views–why shouldn’t people believe you mean what you say?

V: It’s a matter of context. Most of the time, I mean exactly what I say. Other times, I don’t. People need to be able to tell the difference.

C: Let’s take your book as an example. If you make a habit of saying things that you don’t really mean for dramatic effect, why should I believe anything in the book, particularly since you have completely changed your views since then?

V: Again, it’s a matter of context. I meant what I said then. I don’t mind if people take what I said literally. That doesn’t mean I believe it now.

C: I ran into a quote from you in which you discussed the rule of law and indicated that conservatives would have to go to some places that weren’t comfortable. I take that to mean you believe a Trump Administration will have to violate court orders to accomplish its objectives. Is that a fair reading of your words?

V: That’s hypothetical. We’ll just have to see how things turn out.

C: Do you think a right-wing government is entitled to violate the law in the pursuit of what it believes is a higher good?

V: Maybe. We’ll see. I hope we never have to find out.

C: I ask this because you insist that you and Trump are not authoritarians. If you claim to have the right to violate the law to save the country, why wouldn’t I believe you would put your political opponents in jail and stifle dissent in this country? Why wouldn’t that meet your standards for violating court orders?

V: We wouldn’t do that. You just have to trust us.

C: Why are you entitled to the benefit of the doubt?

V: Because Trump didn’t do it in his first term. He has a way of expressing himself that may sound authoritarian at times, but that’s just his way of communicating with the base. He isn’t an authoritarian at heart.

C: Are you familiar with a manifesto on national conservatism that was issued by a number of your ideological allies about a year ago?

V: Yes, but I didn’t sign it.

C: Among many other things, that document indicates that Christians have the right to control the public sphere when they are a majority. Is that your view?

V: There are statements in that manifesto that I agree with, and some that I don’t. The manifesto doesn’t speak for the Trump campaign.

C: But the people who signed it are your friends and allies. Why shouldn’t the public believe they speak for you, and that you are just keeping quiet today because you know it will cost you politically?

V: Again, you just have to trust us. Donald Trump was a great president in his first term. He didn’t shut down the New York Times or shoot protesters. He didn’t try to impose Christianity on pagans. It will be the same way this time around.

C: What about his statement that Christians only need to vote this year? It sounds like one man, one vote, one time.

V: I hate to sound like a broken record, but Trump has a special way of communicating with his followers that shouldn’t be taken literally. His actions speak louder than words. He’s not a dictator.

C: Thank you for your time. I will come back to foreign affairs later.

In the 1980s, right-wing Christians were confident enough of their position to call their organization “The Moral Majority.” Today, largely due to the connection between Christianity and unpopular right-wing political figures, Christians concede they are a minority, and a beleaguered one at that. They have responded, not by attempting to convert the pagans by argument, but by embracing anti-democratic views and demanding a monopoly on power. How can they get to their promised land in a liberal democratic society when they don’t represent a majority?

The battle is being fought on several fronts. First of all, the right-wing Christians have been successful in convincing a Supreme Court that is stacked with their allies to overturn precedents and permit open expressions of support for Christianity by state and local governments. Second, Christians in red states typically despise secular public schools, or as Rick Scott likes to call them, “government schools;” they have responded by with voucher systems, book bans, public displays of the Ten Commandments, and curriculum changes incorporating the study of the Bible. Perhaps, in the long run, these “reforms” will result in more Christian children. Finally, they support authoritarian pro-Christian political figures, from Orban to Putin to, in our worst fears, Trump.

The frontier for Christians consists of a test act and the censorship of the views of non-Christians. These ideas aren’t being discussed now due to their complete impracticality, but they will be as soon as the Christians have the monopoly on power to which they believe they are entitled.

The New Right position on LGBTQ people is simple and clear: they are perverts; they are a threat to the moral fabric of the nation; they are not entitled to any legal rights; and they need to be stamped out. But fairly recent Supreme Court precedents provide protections to all but trans people. How can that be fixed?

With the current Supreme Court, many things that were previously unthinkable are now possible. The pending case on trans medical care should be an easy kill. As to the gay marriage and sodomy decisions, who is to say they can’t be overturned? Don’t be surprised if a few of the really deep red states start pushing the envelope in the near future; after all, that’s how reactionary change typically comes about.

That the israelis would attack a senior Hezbollah military figure in Lebanon after the ghastly attack on their civilians was to be expected. Nothing about that upsets me much.

But to kill a purely political Hamas official responsible for the cease-fire negotiations inside Iran? What possible good will that do? Is Bibi actually trying to provoke a wider Middle East war in order to stay in power indefinitely?

I never believed the Israeli cabinet was serious about a cease-fire, but this is ridiculous.

I am old enough to remember a time in which presidential candidates chose running mates on the basis of geographical balance. On occasion, the VP was picked to deliver a particular key state with which he had a strong connection. Ideological balance occasionally entered into the decision, as well. Identity played no role in the process because all of the candidates were white men.

That has changed. Today, the Democrats are primarily concerned with maintaining some sort of identity balance. You no longer see blue team tickets featuring two white men, and you will probably never see one with two women. That is why Harris will pick a white man with ties to the moderate wing of the party as her VP.

it will be Biden-Harris in reverse.

The New Right thinks women have way too much power in today’s America; as Mark Robinson says in a Josh Stein commercial, men should be “leading the charge.” This is primarily an economic phenomenon; the shift to a knowledge-based economy has devalued the male advantage in strength in the marketplace, to the benefit of women. Ideology also plays a role, however; women have argued forcefully that they are entitled to the same rights as men to exploit their talents and enjoy sex, which is incompatible with traditional American notions of family life.

What can the government do to reverse these trends? The New Right economic solution is to use tariffs and deportations to raise wages and revive dead manufacturing jobs, thereby making it possible for a single male breadwinner to support a family. I will discuss this prescription at more length in a subsequent post. On the ideological front, the idea is to use government to discourage sex, but encourage procreation. This includes limitations on abortion and the active promotion of traditional Christian values.

The mainstream of the GOP has done its best to distance itself from efforts to eliminate access to birth control because they are hideously unpopular. It is difficult for me to see how the apparently self-contradictory New Right agenda item on sex and procreation can be accomplished without birth control restrictions, however. Look for the GOP to start pushing them as soon as it believes its grip on power has become unassailable, particularly in red states with gerrymandered electoral districts.

Donald Trump, in some respects, is best understood as an insult comedian; like Don Rickles, he says nasty things about his opponents, but in a way that permits him to argue that he doesn’t really mean it. He’s just joking. He shouldn’t be taken literally. That’s what his fans say, and a lot of people believe it.

But what works for Trump probably won’t work for Vance, or any other Republican. Vance tried to explain his “childless cat ladies” comment by saying it was just “sarcasm,” but the explanation isn’t working. Like most people, Vance has a history of meaning exactly what he says–at least until his interests cause him to change his mind–so nobody is going to accept that he is suddenly taking on Trump’s persona.

If Vance has any sense, he will learn to keep his mouth shut and his head down instead of inflaming the public discourse. That’s Trump’s job.

There are plenty of overt white supremacists on the right, but they aren’t the mainstream. After all, America, unlike any European or Asian country, is a nation of immigrants, so trying to pin down an American identity purely in racial terms is not realistically possible. There is no practical way to make the tens of millions of people of color just go away. The best the right can do is to lock in the existing advantages of white people by pretending that America has completely shed its past, and by controlling further changes to the nation’s racial composition.

How will this be done? First of all, by precluding additional immigration, and by deporting as many illegal immigrants as possible. Second, by ordering public schools to teach students that racism in America was just a blip and is long gone. Third, by completely eliminating all forms of affirmative action. Fourth, by defanging the Voting Rights Act. Finally, the New Right is a pro-natalist party; perhaps the problem can be solved by having lots of white babies.

None of this will make public discussion of our country’s racist past impossible. Will the right go so far as to censor the ideas of adults on racial issues? That’s the frontier on this point; it will be discussed at some point if the right’s political position becomes unassailable.

The New Right vision for America is clear. A white man returns to his large suburban single-family home after a long day at his manufacturing job and is greeted enthusiastically by his stay-at-home wife and his three children. They eat together, watch TV together, and say Christian prayers before they go to bed. It’s an idealized version of the 1950s.

But it doesn’t even slightly resemble the America of 2024. How does the New Right get from Point A to Point B? How does it propose to overcome the powerful legal, economic, and cultural forces that will oppose it every step of the way?

That will be the topic of a series that will occupy this week.