Kamala Harris lost the US election long before election day

FR Kamala Harris lost the US election long before election day Article by Foreign Policy • 2 hours • 9 minutes reading time Kamala Harris lost the US election long before election day Despite a program focused on winning back the working class, Harris had already lost too many of them. The Democrats overestimated the importance of the economy. Young men are attracted to Trump's macho demeanor. This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by Foreign Policy magazine on November 6, 2024. The analysis of US Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat by Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election will continue for a long time. Many books will be written, experts' reputations will be made and destroyed, and academic careers will be launched as the polling data behind this confusing, unprecedented election will be analyzed in the years to come. But as a rough first draft of the story, there are a few ominous observations that stand out. Reminiscent of Hillary Clinton: Harris' core message ahead of US election aimed exclusively at Trump After a remarkable start to her campaign, Harris failed to make her campaign a success. In an unfortunate echo of Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016, Harris spent far too much time arguing that Trump was unfit for the presidency and too little time delivering a coherent message about why she would be better. Although Harris outdid Trump in their only debate on September 10 and raised more than $1 billion in donations in just three months - a new record - she often stumbled when asked to deliver a convincing summary of her agenda on key, thorny issues like the economy and immigration. US election: Harris failed to distance herself from Biden She also blundered in explaining her shifts in opinion on issues such as fracking (which she once opposed and later supported, but failed to point out the simple fact that improved technology had made it more environmentally friendly). This prompted Wall Street Journal commentator Peggy Noonan to label Harris as "clumsy and prevaricating". And in the end, Harris failed to distance herself in a politically astute way from her unpopular boss, US President Joe Biden. Trump adviser sees reason for Harris' defeat in friendly TV interview In an interview with Politico in the final weeks before the election, Trump's campaign manager Jason Miller summed up the so-called turning point of the campaign. This came after weeks of polls favoring Harris after she abruptly - and by some accounts undemocratically - moved to the top of the ballot box on July 21. Miller said it was Harris's botched response to a simple question from a TV friend, Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View, who asked Harris on Oct. 8 if she had done anything differently than Biden over the past four years. "I can't think of anything," Harris replied awkwardly, horrifying her advisers and sparking a cheer from Trump fans online. In the weeks that followed, Harris tried to recover, telling CNN, '[My administration] will not be a continuation of the Biden administration,' but the damage was done. 'Who would have thought that Sunny Hostin of The View really dealt the death blow to Kamala Harris' candidacy?' Miller said. "But you can argue that Sunny did." US election: Biden believed in his own wisdom until the end In fact, Harris may have faced an almost impossible task as she tried to overcome Biden's persistently poor approval ratings, with about two-thirds of voters or more believing the nation was on the wrong track. For most of 2024, Biden and leading members of his party convinced themselves that he was well deserving of a second term because of his remarkable legislative record - including a major bipartisan infrastructure spending bill, historic climate investments and the CHIPS and Science Act - which poured billions of dollars into industry and energy transition. One reason Biden refused to step down for so long, despite concerns about his age and mental capacity, was that he was convinced that sooner or later voters would realize how effective he had been as president. US Election 2022: Biden got cocky and thought he could beat Trump In fact, Biden sounded rather cocky after the 2022 midterm elections, in which the Democrats did far better than experts predicted and this was attributed to anti-Trump sentiment. The day after the midterm elections, the president was asked by reporters what he would do differently to allay voters' concerns about the economy and the widespread belief that the country was generally moving in the wrong direction. He replied: "Nothing." Avoided recession and still lost the US election - Biden, Harris and the Democrats And the economic news only seemed to get better. To the surprise of almost every economist, the Biden administration managed to avoid a recession (with a lot of help from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell). In the spring and summer of 2023, inflation began to decline, and polls showed that Biden's age and competence, not his agenda, were the main issues. Inflation overshadowed Harris' candidacy in the US election But Biden's approval ratings barely moved above 40 percent, even after he dropped out of the race on July 21 under pressure from his party and passed the baton to Harris. Inflation - driven in part by Biden's huge spending programs - remained a nagging issue, and voter sentiment toward Biden's agenda remained strongly negative, making Harris' candidacy an uphill battle. Harris had three months before the US election - Trump campaigned for eight years Trump won the decisive battle for interpretive authority, albeit for the wrong reasons. After Biden withdrew from the campaign very late, Harris stepped out of the shadow of the vice presidency into the spotlight, but had little more than three months to sell himself. Trump had eight years to do the same—including the four years of his first term as president and the four years afterward. This culminated in a primary battle against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Trump's former UN ambassador Nikki Haley that allowed him to absurdly redefine his presidency as one of the best in U.S. history. Trump represented a pre-pandemic world in U.S. election Faced with inflation and two foreign wars, many voters fondly remembered a pre-pandemic world that lived largely in peace and economic prosperity under Trump. After Trump clinched the Republican nomination, even Republicans like Haley who had once opposed him kowtowed and embraced his lies—most of them, anyway. Sexual abuse and hush money payments – Trump's base was no longer fazed At the same time, the public and Trump's base had become so accustomed to the incessant negative news about him that it almost didn't seem to matter that he had been charged with 91 crimes and convicted of 34, or that he had been twice charged and found guilty of sexual abuse. Each of the outrageous names Trump gave Harris – "low-IQ person," "crazy Kamala," "comrade Kamala," etc. – generated new coverage and seemed to appeal to many voters. Trump's unmatched talent for dominating the media – always getting the bigger headline by finding something more outrageous to say – was crucial. Deepfakes, fake news – Trump poisoned the debate before the US election It also didn't seem to matter that most of what Trump said was wrong. Indeed, the 2024 presidential campaign marked – far more than the 2016 or 2020 elections – a moment of maximum polarization in the US political dialogue, in which the public struggled to find a reliable source of truth or facts. The political debate became a quagmire of false narratives, fabricated memes and deepfakes – fueled mainly by Trump’s myriad lies. By the fall, the United States had descended into a truly Orwellian universe in which Trump, the most effective hate preacher in US political history, could declare that it was Harris who was leading a “campaign of hate” and refer to the violent insurrection he incited on January 6, 2021 as a “day of love” – and still be accepted by his millions of loyal followers. By the fall, the United States had descended into a truly Orwellian universe in which Trump, the most effective hate preacher in US political history, could declare that it was Harris who was leading a “campaign of hate” and call the violent insurrection he incited on January 6, 2021, a “day of love”—and still be accepted by his millions of loyal supporters. 2024 US election targeted by disinformation from Russia, China, and Iran The 2024 presidential race was also distorted by foreign disinformation campaigns conducted by self-declared adversaries of the US, such as Russia, China, and Iran. Their influence was far more sophisticated than before and took over, while US technology companies abandoned most of their control efforts and their platforms were almost defenseless against such abuse. In other words, 2024 became an ideal environment for the return of Trump. Harris campaign underestimated hatred of "woke" issues in US election The political landscape had changed in ways that the Harris campaign didn't really understand, with cultural issues playing a much bigger role than they had for a long time - and even overshadowing economic issues. In other words, the takeover of the Democratic Party by progressive, so-called woke issues was devastating for Harris' campaign, especially as Trump and the Republicans successfully portrayed her as an incorrigible leftist. US election: Harris and Biden were not helped by "the strongest economy in the world" After a fast start, supported by media that were largely benevolent and even desperate for Harris' victory - which allowed her to avoid giving interviews for more than a month - the vice president faced a wave of voter discontent with the more progressive elements of the Biden agenda. As Fareed Zakaria recently noted in the Washington Post, “the strongest economy in the world has not paid off for Biden or Harris,” which is “another strong signal that our politics is in the midst of a major shift as economic issues give way to cultural ones.” Democrat strategist: ‘Stupid wokeness’ became Harris campaign’s problem The result was that despite a platform aimed at winning back the working class economically, Biden and Harris lost too many of them culturally, especially when it came to a working-class rebellion against so-called woke issues like preventing bans on transgender athletes in public schools, defunding police and so-called cancel culture. As Democratic strategist James Carville warned a few years ago, “stupid wokeness” had become a major problem for Democrats in getting their messages across, especially when it came to winning over male voters. Trump's team played the culture war card in the US election The Trump team exploited this vulnerability with ruthless effectiveness. In an ad that aired during major sporting events, the Trump campaign even quoted an ardent Harris supporter - a popular black podcast host named Charlamagne tha God - who questioned Harris's past support for taxpayer-funded surgeries for transgender prisoners. "I was like, 'No way, I don't want my tax dollars used for that,'" Charlamagne said in the ad. (He later filed a cease-and-desist against Trump.) 'Bro-whispering' - Trump's podcast strategy put him in the White House Many fear that despite Harris' role as the first female vice president, the United States is not yet ready for a female president. While there is no hard evidence to support this theory yet, some of the crucial polls in the race showed overwhelming advantages for Harris among women - but large and growing leads for Trump among men. Many of these male doubts about the vice president were fueled with fierce cynicism in Trump's so-called "bro-whispering" strategy - Trump gave interviews to influencers, comedians and podcasters who have large audiences of young men. Poll before US election showed: More and more Republicans under 30 Many of these target groups were young white men who felt marginalized by progressive causes that tend to favor women, LGBTQ+ people and minorities and who were not so responsive to Harris's relentless focus on reproductive rights. But Trump also appealed to young non-white voters. According to polls from the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, the share of male voters under 30 who identify as Republican has increased by seven percentage points since 2020. John Della Volpe, director of the institute, said Trump won over many of these voters "by weaving a hypermasculine message of strength and defiance into his broader narrative that undermines trust in democratic institutions." About the author Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books: Capital Offense: How Washington's Wise Men Turned America's Future Over to Wall Street and At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World. This article first appeared in English in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” on November 6, 2024 – as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.