Why you'd still rather be Donald Trump today

A conversation with Damon Linker.

One thing that is too rare in journalistic circles these days is intellectual bravery — a willingness to say what you believe to be true even if that means willingly siccing the X horde on yourself.

Damon Linker, who writes the “Notes from the Middleground” Substack newsletter, is one of the most intellectually brave people I know. Speaking of which, subscribe to his newsletter!

Damon’s willingness to write without fear or favor makes him an invaluable voice in the political world. He’s someone I regularly seek out when trying to make sense of, well, where we are now in the 2024 campaign.

In the wake of Joe Biden’s debate disaster and the subsequent scramble by Democrats to insist everything was JUST FINE, I decided to publish an extended email exchange between Damon and I.

The response was overwhelming. And positive.

So, with Biden now out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris inserted as the de facto presidential nominee, I reached back out to Damon to talk about how much things have changed (and how much they have stayed the same) since we last talked.

Our full conversation — conducted via email over the past 24 hours and edited only for my occasional typo! — is below.

This post is free because I think it’s important that as many people see it, read it and share it as possible.

If you value these sorts of thoughtful conversations, I hope you will consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. It’s $6 a month or $60 for the year.

Damon,

So…..were are we now??? 😂😂😂

I think both you and I agreed that Joe Biden was NOT going to win this race.  And that he might cost Democrats down ballot.

Which means that at least my most basic assessment of his decision to drop from the race — and Kamala Harris’ rapid ascension as the Democratic nominee — is that it is a good thing for the party. 

But, I also think that once we get beyond this honeymoon period with Harris — and we are ABSOLUTELY in it right now in terms of media coverage and the reaction of Democrats to her — that she has a lot to prove.

She was NOT a particularly good candidate — aside from a single debate performance in June 2019 — when she ran for president. Reviews for her as VP have been, um, mixed. (And I am being nice.)

She has a long record as a prosecutor, as California Attorney General and as a California Senator that provides Donald Trump lots and lots of places to attack.  

She is clearly more liberal than Biden in a country that I believe to still be, at root, center right.

And then there’s this ugly fact: She is a black woman in a country that has elected a total of 1 black president and 0 female presidents.

So, I want to start with a simple question: Is Kamala Harris the best candidate for Democrats to beat Trump?  

Chris

Chris,

Good to be back hashing out the political scene with you.

Yes, we definitely agreed about Biden. In the weeks since his abysmal performance in the June 27 debate with Trump, he had become something pretty rare in presidential politics: an incumbent sure loser. The Trump campaign was measuring curtains for the Oval Office and preparing for a landslide. So really, anyone other than Biden would have been an improvement, provided the alternative nominee could form complete sentences, craft cogent arguments, and deliver sharp attack lines, both in front of a teleprompter and extemporaneously at campaign stops and in debates. Kamala Harris can do all of that quite well. So by that minimal standard alone, she represents a huge improvement for the Democrats. I expect polling through this and next week or so to reflect that, with Harris pulling close to even with Trump both nationally and in several of the swing states.

Note, though, that I said “close to even,” not “leave Trump in the dust.” Biden had been running even to slightly behind Trump for months when the debate knocked the president onto a downward trajectory. It makes sense that an alternative candidate who is unburdened by what has been (to coin a phrase) would return the race roughly to the status quo ante June 27. Then the question becomes whether the race will stabilize in that place or Harris will end up a few points above or below where Biden was through the spring and first week of summer. 

My sense is that she will end up roughly (within a couple of points of) where Biden was before the debate. That’s because of her distinctive strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, she’s young and charismatic and energetic and articulate—all things Biden is not. All of that will help, mainly in bringing some demoralized Democrats back into the fold after drifting away from the president. As a woman, she will likely be more effective at keeping abortion front and center through the general-election campaign, which should keep female Democrats highly motivated to show up on Election Day.

On the negative side, as you note, Harris performed terribly in her primary campaign of 2019. That includes her staking out a series of left-wing positions that GOP attack ads will highlight in order to define her as much further left than Biden. (Dave McCormick, the Republican running to unseat Sen. Bob Casey in my home state of Pennsylvania, has what might be the first ad like that running now. It’s pretty potent.) That isn’t going to bother Democrats, but it may well bother the crucial block of independents/swing voters. 

If I had to guess, I suspect Harris will run a little ahead of Biden with black and white women and a little behind Biden with black, white, and Hispanic men. I’d also predict her to appeal more to upper-middle-class voters and less to working-class voters than Biden. Put it all together and we’ll have some shifting around in the Democratic electoral coalition, but with little change on net.

Does this make her a suboptimal candidate to beat Trump? I guess so. But I’m skeptical that anyone would do much better, especially without a primary campaign to test out various personalities and messages, and less than a month out from the [Democratic National Convention]. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer seems great, but she’s not widely known outside of Michigan — and like Harris, she’s a woman. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is an excellent politician who exudes moderation and competence. But he’s also strongly pro-Israel (in addition to being Jewish), which could provoke a loud and damaging rebellion from the left wing of the party. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is a handsome, articulate spokesman for progressivism, but he would have to answer for every problem plaguing California. Etc.

My point is that the country is very narrowly and deeply divided, and so there is no magic candidate who will blow it all wide open. The electorate as a whole seems somewhat more open to giving Trump another try than I would have predicted a year ago, mainly because it hasn’t loved Biden’s presidency, and I see that as the baseline fundamental reality of the 2024 contest: Trump has a slight edge. That doesn’t mean he’s a sure thing. But it does mean the race will be a battle over inches of territory no matter who’s running (provided they are capable of running a halfway competent campaign, which is a test Biden failed on June 27). 

Damon

Damon,

One thing I wanted to pick up on that you mentioned is how the race has both a) changed and b) remained the same.

Which, on its face, makes no sense.  They are contradictory notions and should not go together.

But, both are TRUE in this case.

I agree with you on the Harris coalition. She should do better than Biden among black women and affluent whites (aka the Obama coalition). She is likely to do worse than Biden among lower middle class white voters and voters without college degrees. 

But when you balance it all out, she's probably in a similar position to Biden — behind by a few points nationally and in swing states.

The same contradiction holds true with the electoral map.  A Harris adviser said this week that the Midwest is less of a focus for her but that she will run stronger than Biden in. Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. I can totally buy that.

At the same time, when I go through the various electoral college scenarios for Harris — I did this this week! —  I come to the same conclusion I did when Biden was in the race: The map favors Trump — he has many more paths to 270 electoral votes.

Now, to be clear and I as I said earlier, I think Harris’ ceiling is considerably higher than Biden’s. He WAS going to lose. She is not definitely going to lose. I think she is an underdog but not a heavy one. 

Which brings me to a question I have been meaning to ask since we started: How much (or little) attention do you pay to the negative reviews — generally speaking — that Harris drew as a presidential candidate in 2020 and then during her four years as VP?  It seems to be that Democrats want us to believe is totally awesome now and the candidate they desperately wanted and needed. But, Harris hasn’t, to date at least, ever been that candidate.

Am I being unfair?

Chris

Chris,

I thought Harris was pretty terrible back in 2019 (she dropped out of the race before the primaries began in early 2020). But then, I thought the whole field except for Biden was terrible back then. Living under President Trump drove a lot of liberals and progressives a little insane, and that was reflected in the stances most of the candidates, including Harris, took that year. The series of huge debates that took place roughly once a month through the second half of 2019 were bizarrely disconnected from reality: Candidates competing to be most unapologetically in favor of expanding Medicare for all Americans; in favor of decriminalizing border crossings; in favor of banning fracking; and so on. It’s normal of course for primaries to be addressed mainly to partisans and then for candidates to moderate for the general election, when they’re trying to woo swing voters, independents, and dissenting members of the other party. The last of those doesn’t happen much anymore in our maximally polarized country. But the battle for swing voters and independents still does. Yet it was as if the Democrats competing for the nomination that year wanted to pretend the entire country was made up of progressive single-issue activists. That isn’t the ideological composition of the country, and it’s not even the composition of the Democratic Party primary electorate, which is divided between white, urban and suburban, highly educated progressives; culturally moderate urban minority (black and Hispanic) voters; and culturally moderate exurban and small-town white working-class voters. 

This more than anything else is why Biden ran away with the nomination in 2020. He led the polls by a wide margin through most of 2019 and all of those debates, had a brief hiccup during the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, and then ended up righting himself by the South Carolina primary, after which he was all but coronated. 

Harris, by contrast, was going along with the crowd in running to the left and was so bad at it that she didn’t even get as far as New Year’s Day 2020. And the problem is that there is video evidence of all of it. We’re going to be seeing that evidence over and over again during the coming weeks, as the Trump campaign and RNC try to define her as a progressive ideologue. 

One way she could try to fight back against this effort to define her is by coming out with strong stances that show she’s actually a moderate. But will she do that and risk backlash from the left? I tend to doubt it, but we’ll see. She’s just never seemed to me like someone who’s willing to pick a fight with her own side. Rising to statewide office in California during the past two decades is something that requires placating a series of progressive activists. She tried to run for president that way in 2019, and it failed spectacularly. I’m not saying she’ll do the same thing now, when she doesn’t need to. But being as vague as possible is different, and much less painful, than saying specific things that piss off the activist groups. My guess is she’ll try the less confrontational way, which is also the path with less potential downside as well as upside. 

Damon

Damon,

To pick up right where you left off: Another way Harris could moderate is to pick a moderate as her VP.  I think that pick is going to matter more than usual because Harris is so new as the presidential nominee that people want to know who she really is and how she thinks about the direction of the party and the country.

If her entire focus in the VP pick was to a true moderate, I think the best pick she could make is Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. He’s been elected and reelected in a very red state.  He knows how to talk to rural voters.  He’s a young guy (46 years old) who could help Harris make the case that they are the new face of the Democratic Party. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper makes some sense on those logic lines too. My only issue is that he’s 67 years old. And I think after all the “too old” talk about Joe Biden, Democrats would be better to err on the side of younger candidates.

Now, to be clear, I don’t think an ideological moderate is the key criteria in how Harris is going to make the pick. I think she is going to go with a white guy (under the theory the country isn’t ready for a black female president and female vice president) who is pretty popular in a swing state.  To me, Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania is far and away the best pick if that’s Harris’ criteria.  I don’t see a way Harris win the White House without Pennsylvania. And to get over the top there, she’s going to need every little bit of help she can get. Shapiro would provide that.  I could also, under that logic, see Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly as the pick. Amazing story (astronaut, husband of Gabby Giffords etc.) and a popular figure in a state that Harris thinks she needs and can win.

I am more skeptical about Gretchen Whitmer and Pete Buttigieg. Two women or a black woman and a gay man? Harris may conclude that’s too much change to ask the electorate to accept.

Am I being too small minded here? Underrating the electorate?

Chris

Chris,

That sounds to me like an accurate statement of where we are in the veepstakes. As you indicate, there are two main considerations: conveying moderation and/or winning the upper-Midwest swing states. 

I agree with you that Beshear is a great choice on the moderation front. As a moderate myself, he would ease my mind about Harris a bit. I do wonder, though, if he’s accomplished enough. Is winning the governorship of a red state as a Democrat sufficient to qualify someone to be president? What else has he done in Frankfort, KY (population: 28,400)? 

That (mild) concern has me tilting toward Shapiro, who is pretty moderate, has showed himself capable of winning and remaining popular in a purple state, and could help Harris carry Pennsylvania, which as you say is essential to her prospects. (Beshear won’t be delivering Kentucky.) But he has his own problem: Shapiro is Jewish and an outspoken defender of Israel in its ongoing war on Hamas in Gaza, which makes him an enemy of a small but very vocal and disruptive faction of young activists. Does Harris want headlines about protests disrupting her running mate’s campaign stops? And what about the convention? Back in April and May, when protests were disrupting university campuses, there was talk about protesters showing up en masse in Chicago and making a mess of the DNC, which would bring back ugly memories of 1968. Right now, no one knows if that’s going to happen. But it would probably become slightly more likely if Harris picks an outspoken defender of Israel as her VP. 

Mark Kelly gets around both problems, and Arizona is one of the southern tier swing states that could compensate for trouble in the upper-Midwest, if Kelly could deliver it for the ticket. Cooper, to be honest, is not someone who’s made much of an impression on me, so I’ll defer to your judgment of him.

Finally, I completely agree with you about Whitmer and Buttigieg. The former may be the most talented and impressive name in Democratic politics right now. But running on a two-women ticket against Donald Trump? That’s not a proposition I want to test out. And Buttigieg would be both another First Identity Politics Category and a guy whose smooth, hyper-articulate way of speaking marks him as a smarty pants who’s also a little bit too polished. That’s definitely just a vibe thing based on my gut reaction to him and trying to imagine how he sounds to members of my family who live in red states. The guy comes off like he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room and wants to demonstrate it to you. That would make me nervous — even though a vicious debate between him and JD Vance is precisely the ideological combat America deserves in 2024.

Damon

Damon,

I want to end here:  Who do you think wins? Or, maybe a more answerable question: Which campaign would you rather be right now?

I’ll go first. I would still rather be the Trump campaign.  Yes, he has MAJOR negatives and, no, he is never going to blow Harris out. But I think the economy (as express ed by frustrations over inflation and the cost of housing and rentals) and immigration are two hugely powerful issues that Trump wins on every single day over Harris.

I also think the Trump campaign is FAR better run than his past two campaigns (admittedly a low bar) and that he has done some very smart things in the last few months (trying to run away from any national abortion ban, his proposed end of taxes on tips etc.).

Would I be shocked if Harris won? Absolutely not.  But I think Trump remains the favorite — at least today.

Now you go!

Chris

Chris,

Imagining myself as the Trump campaign takes considerable exertion, since I loathe the man and would never actually use my talents and energies to get him elected president. But I’m always willing to engage in a thought experiment. If I think purely in terms of winning and losing, abstracting from the moral and policy substance of both parties and candidates, I can say that I’d rather be the Trump campaign.

I’ve had a feeling (yes, “feels,” or a “vibe”) since the spring of 2023 that Trump would prevail this year. I’ve explored the source of that feeling in some posts at my Substack, most recently here. It has to do with a sense that the kinds of images, ideological and moral appeals, and assumptions about history and progress, that one could hear in Kamala Harris’ campaign speech on Tuesday no longer resonate with as many people as they once did. The idealism, the optimism, the confidence that the way things have been going in the country and the world are better than the past, that we just need to keep on doing what we’ve been doing, only more so — all of this, I feel, has begun to lose its hold on us. Or at least on large swaths of the population. Trump contributes to it, but he’s also an expression of it. His craziness, his junkyard irreverence, his scummy corruption, his shtick of saying, in effect, “They’re all bullshitting you, and I am, too, but at least I’m honest about it,” somehow feels like a breath of fresh air to many. That’s why it’s able to gain traction and somehow “work” for tens of millions of people. 

So, I agree with you: I wouldn’t be surprised if Harris ended up winning. It will be close. But I sense that she’s going to be cutting against the grain of the country and its mood in a way that Trump will not be. That wasn’t the case in 2016, or at least it was less so then. But things have changed, after the first Trump administration, after Covid, after the comparatively normal Biden administration. It’s like a lot of Americans find themselves feeling, you know, normal isn’t good enough anymore. Normal has led us astray. We need to shake things up and try something else for a while. And Trump’s the only one ballsy enough to do it. 

Again, I don’t feel that way. But I sense growing numbers of Americans do. So it’s Trump’s year. Or so it seems to me. 

Damon