It’s been nearly a year since I last posted, but the hypocrisy surrounding claims that President Trump violated the War Powers Act, and that he has engaged in a unconstitutional war by attacking Iran, needs some context.

It’s one thing to be opposed to using military force against Iran—even some prominent Republicans and conservatives are opposed—but it’s disingenuous for many prominent leaders on the left, and some on the right, to call the attack on Iran unconstitutional. Some have even gone as far as describing it as yet another example of “fascism” and a further erosion of democracy.

Not surprisingly, Americans are divided about the Iran conflict, mostly along partisan lines. According to every major poll I have seen, a large majority of those identifying as Republicans support the President’s decision to attack Iran, while an equally large majority of Democrats oppose it.

But even within the hyper-partisan world of Congress, there are exceptions. For example, Representative Thomas Massie and US Senator Rand Paul, both Republicans from Kentucky and isolationists, have been vocal in their opposition to military intervention in Iran.

Massie—who is facing a Trump-backed opponent in a bitter Republican primary—has said military intervention in Iran “is not ‘America First.’” Paul, who often feuds with the President, was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats on a Joint Resolution of Congress calling for “the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.” Paul chided his fellow Senate Republicans, saying they are “resigned to their own irrelevance” and “will gladly hand the president the power to initiate war in exchange for plausible deniability.”

A few prominent Democrats have also bucked their party line. Most notably, John Fetterman (D-PA). As reported by The Hill, Fetterman said he was “baffled” by some of his fellow senators not backing the recent U.S. military action against Iran. In a post on X, Fetterman wrote “Every member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon…I’m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that. Empty sloganeering vs. commitment to global security — which is it?” Fetterman was one of four Democrats to break with their party and vote with Republicans against the Joint Resolution.

Presidents have long chafed under the yoke of just about any limit on presidential power. From George Washington on—nearly every president, including Obama, Biden and Trump—have aggressively pushed the Constitutional boundaries of the presidency.

In 1794, Washington, for example, tamped down the Whiskey Rebellion by using federal troops to quell what he claimed was an insurrection. He was criticized for using the military to silence internal dissent and for taking a step towards a militarized, authoritarian state. Sound familiar? Lincoln questioned the constitutionality of his own suspension of habeas corpus and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. More recently, Biden tried (unsuccessfully) to unilaterally forgive student debt and the Supreme Court just ruled Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional. In fact, few presidents have tried to systematically expand presidential power like Trump.

For now, I’ll put aside whether attacking Iran was a good, or bad, idea and instead focus on the claim that by attacking Iran, Trump has violated the constitutional separation of powers by usurping Congress’s power to declare war.

Presidents and the War Powers Act

Most Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, have called Trump’s attack on Iran an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Only Congress can declare war, they argue. During debate on the joint resolution directing Trump to cease hostilities against Iran, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the US Constitution a “casualty” of Trump’s “shortcut to war.” Later in the same debate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described the President’s actions as “unconstitutional” and “unlawful,” and said “Article I of the Constitution explicitly provides Congress with the sole authority to declare war. There is nothing ambiguous about that.”

Or is there?

Presidents and Congress have sparred over the president’s power to use military force without prior congressional approval since the founding. But by 1973, Congress had had enough. After discovering that President Nixon had authorized a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia—a secret he also kept from Congress—and expanded the already unpopular Vietnam War, the House and the US Senate passed the War Powers Resolution, with bipartisan support, to limit the Commander-in-Chiefs ability to commit US forces abroad.

The Resolution, more commonly known as the The War Powers Act, was Congress’ attempt to put some explicit limits on the president’s power to unilaterally authorize military action, while also allowing a president to respond quickly and decisively when national security demanded.

It requires that the president “in every possible instance” consult with Congress before introducing US forces into hostilities (though it doesn’t require it, nor does it define “hostilities”). It requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying military forces, and mandates that forces must be withdrawn within 60 days, unless Congress declares war, or extends the 60 day period. A thirty day withdrawal period can be added if the president certifies it is necessary for the safe removal of troops. That’s it. It is, in fact, tacit permission allowing a president to commit the US military for 60 days WITHOUT prior Congressional approval.

We can quibble about whether the President gave the proper prior consultation with Congress—though I think it’s a probability that some member of Congress, or staffer, would have run straight to the press. And we can also quibble about whether Trump gave the proper 48 hour notification AFTER hostilities had commenced—though his 8 minute video the evening of the attack seems to be plenty of notice. In any event, since then he has briefed Congress several times.

Many presidents have argued that the War Powers Act is itself unconstitutional or is situation dependent—and that the president has no obligation to get prior approval to commit US forces if they decide the national interest dictates. During the US Senate hearings on Libya and War Powers in June 2011, John Kerry, then Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, noted that “for 40 years, Presidents have taken the view that this language does not include every single military operation. Presidents from both parties have undertaken military operations without express authorization from Congress.”

In an interview in 2007, then Presidential candidate Obama told the Boston Globe, ‘‘The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the Nation.’’ But as President, as most presidents do, he embraced a very different view of presidential power.

Do as I say now, not as I did then

In March 2011, now President Obama authorized US military force, without prior Congressional approval, against Libya to oust its leader, Muammar Quadhafi—the autocratic dictator who had ruled Libya since taking power in a coup in 1969. Quadhafi was known to support and harbor terrorists, and in response to a popular uprising, his government had begun strafing crowds with gunfire and dropping bombs on those protesting his rule.

“Now, here is why this matters to us,” President Obama said in a press release defending his decision, “Left unchecked, we have every reason to believe that Qaddafi would commit atrocities against his people. Many thousands could die. A humanitarian crisis would ensue. The entire region could be destabilized, endangering many of our allies and partners. The calls of the Libyan people for help would go unanswered. The democratic values that we stand for would be overrun.” Gee, that also sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

But, you might ask, what about the War Powers Act and his pledge “not to unilaterally authorize a military attack?”

“The President,” his Justice Department argued, “had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force in Libya because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest. Prior congressional approval was not constitutionally required to use military force in the limited operations under consideration.“

Many Democrats stood with him, including Speaker Pelosi, who publicly praised President Obama “for his leadership and prudence,” and US Senator Chuck Schumer. “We have two goals,” Schumer said during a March 2011 press conference, “the humanitarian goal of preventing Muammar Qaddafi from rolling in and massacring innocent civilians,” and “to disrupt the command, control and supply” of Qaddafi’s forces. Not a word about Congress’ role in declaring war, only obedience to President Obama. By 2026, however, Schumer seems to have had the change of heart that often comes with a change of presidents. On the Senate floor, he described the Iran conflict as “a war of choice, not necessity,” and said that “Congress must act to rein in Donald Trump’s belligerence.”

I get it. In politics hypocrisy is almost a job requirement. And to Democrats, Trump is akin to the devil himself. But certainly, Iran is a greater threat than Libya ever was. And many of the reasons President Obama gave for using military force against Libya in 2011 apply to Iran now: atrocities against their people; destabilization of the region and endangering our allies and partners; and the overrun of democratic values that we stand for. Not to mention that Iran would otherwise be undeterred in securing a nuclear weapon. I don’t see how Iran in 2026 is less a threat to the national interest than Libya was in 2011.

And politicians aren’t the only hypocrites. In a 2011 editorial, the New York Times wrote “President Obama correctly agreed to deploy American forces” (in Libya), though not one word about questioning the constitutionality of his actions, or the War Powers Act. In 2026, however, the Times’ Editorial Board sings a different tune, criticizing Trump for not involving Congress, “to which the Constitution grants the sole power to declare war,” while admitting “The regime has wrought misery since its revolution 47 years ago — on its own people, on its neighbors and around the world…and killed hundreds of U.S. service members in the region, as well as bankrolled terrorism that has killed civilians in the Middle East and as far away as Argentina.”

Some might argue that since NATO was part of the Libya mission, and Libya was already in violation of a UN Security Council resolution, military intervention was justified. That might be true. But as the Washington Post reported, both Israel and Saudi Arabia—our strongest allies in the Middle East—urged the US to attack Iran. According to the Post, Saudi leaders “warned that Iran would come away stronger and more dangerous if the United States did not strike now, after amassing the largest military presence in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.” And with both China and Russia permanent members of the UN Security Council, with veto power over any resolution, good luck getting the UN to issue a resolution condemning Iranian aggression or for violently repressing its own people.

I hear people complain about existential threats to democracy all the time. Iran is an actual and literal existential threat. Certainly to Israel, and possibly to the rest of the Middle East. Iran’s brutal theocracy is committed to destroying Israel, and spreading its Shia version of Islam, not only throughout the Sunni Middle East, but the West as well. Through its proxies, like Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, it has been waging war, almost unfettered, on Israel and the West, including the US, for decades.

I could go on and on…and maybe I have. But the point I am laboring to make is this; if Trump is wrong to use military force against Iran in 2026 then Obama was equally—if not more—wrong to use military force against Libya in 2011. I understand why many Democrats think it’s politically expedient to claim Trump is, yet again, trampling on the Constitution—it’s their whole political playbook. And they are not always wrong. Trump, like many other Presidents, pushes the envelope of presidential power.

However, I believe it’s damaging the nation. Not because they don’t have the right to argue that attacking Iran is wrong—but because they are misleading Americans about WHY they believe it’s wrong. And in that, much of the mainstream media is also complicit—which might be more wrong.

As the saying goes, “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” The fact is that Trump’s attack on Iran is not unconstitutional—at least not yet. Whether it’s a bad idea or not, only time will tell.

It’s no exaggeration to describe Donald Trump’s first three months back in the White House as a roller coaster ride. Wild, historic swings and ups and downs have whipsawed the stock markets. Tariffs are on, then off, then on again (and higher), and then some are back off and some are back on.

Trump often uses the phrase “nothing like it” to highlight, many would say exaggerate, his achievements or in announcing his policies. And so far, not even 100 days into his reign, there’s been “nothing like it.” According to the Pew Research Center, most Americans are so “concerned about what the administration is doing” they’re following the news more closely than ever before.

It should come as no surprise that he’s embroiled the US in a trade war. He all but promised one during his Presidential campaign. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it’s my favorite word,” the then candidate for President told Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during an interview back in October 2024. But captains of industry, hedge and pension fund managers, and ordinary Americans—who have watched in horror their withering 401k’s—have some other words to describe their feelings about tariffs. Words you won’t find in Webster's dictionary.

Trump had billed April 2, the day he planned to raise tariffs on the rest of the world—friends and enemies alike—as “Liberation Day.” It instead wound up liberating American investors and retirement funds from about $5 trillion of what had been a year and a half of steady stock market gains. During the campaign, Trump had promised an economic “boom like no other.” The boom, unfortunately for investors, was the sickening sound of a crashing market.

“The volatility began last week after Trump shocked investors, economists, business leaders and trade partners with a barrage of tariffs that were far steeper than anyone expected,” wrote Ryan Dzember and Sam Goldfarb in the Wall Street Journal. “A four-day selloff ensued, but it was Wednesday when the wild ride peaked.”

That left even some of Trump’s most ardent supporters and billionaire buddies complaining.

“Other nations have taken advantage of the U.S. by protecting their home industries at the expense of millions of our jobs and economic growth in our country,” wrote billionaire and Trump supporter Bill Ackman on X, “but by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.”

“When markets crash,” Ackman added, “new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers.” Even Elon Musk, Trump’s new BFF (Billionaire Friend Forever), has said tariffs are “bad policy” and called Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor and University of California professor, a “moron,” “dumber than a sack of bricks,” and “Peter Retardo.”

Tariffs are taxes

Tariffs are taxes (or" “duties” in the Constitution’s parlance) paid by the importer—not the exporter—when foreign goods enter the United States. They are added to the price of goods when they enter the US. They are not paid by the exporter nation but instead by the importer—much like a sales tax.

Since the Constitution grants the authority to levy taxes and customs duties to the Congress—not the President—you might be asking, “how does Trump get to impose all these new tariffs (aka taxes) without the approval of Congress?” Is this yet another Constitutional crisis? Possibly.

Through the years Congress has, by passing legislation, abdicated much of its authority to impose tariffs to the President by allowing the President to raise (or lower) tariffs during a national emergency or to protect national security. Who gets to declare a national emergency or decide when tariffs are needed to protect national security? Not Congress, but the President! And in his usual “give me an inch I’ll take 100 miles” style, that’s exactly what Trump has done.

“President Donald J. Trump declared that foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency,” proclaimed a White House statement on April 2, Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, "and his order imposes responsive tariffs to strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American workers.”

But it’s not only billionaires, like Musk and Ackman, who are complaining about Trump’s tariffs. Democrats and more than a few Republican members of Congress are as well—even those well-known for their MAGA leanings.

“Seven Senate Republicans and a dozen House Republicans,” reported The Washington Post, “had signaled that they would try to wrest tariff power from the president,” including Sens. Thom Tillis (NC), Rand Paul (KY) and “MAGA” Ron Johnson (WI). Tillis wondered “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Paul criticized Trump’s tariffs as based on a “fallacy.”

The China Syndrome

Why would Trump risk the ire of his billionaire buddies and the support of MAGA Republicans in the Senate and House? For a clue, you can begin by looking at the following graphic.

Since the 1980’s the trade balance, the difference between the goods that American companies sell abroad (exports) and the goods that Americans buy from other countries (imports) has been steadily growing. It has, instead, become a trade imbalance. Americans buy more than $1.2 trillion of foreign goods than other countries buy of American-made goods.

In explaining why Trump was declaring a national emergency the White House cited the “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits,” which have led to the “hollowing of our manufacturing base” and “rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.”

The trade deficit, according to the White House statement, “is driven by the absence of reciprocity in our trade relationships and other harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes (VAT) perpetuated by other countries.”

Trump is not wrong to want to recalibrate some of the United States’ trade relationships. Some of our closest trading partners tariff US goods or use non-tariff trade barriers that make it more difficult for US companies to compete abroad. But while Trump likes to blame tariffs for the trade imbalance, some US companies have also been keen to seek cheaper labor elsewhere, or as Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has explained, companies (like Apple) have moved some, or all, of their manufacturing to countries with more specially-skilled labor, like China.

Speaking of China, Trump is obsessed with China. And he’s not wrong. Take a look at the following graphic. It shows the six nations with the largest US trade surpluses and the six with the largest US trade deficits. Deficits are much larger than surpluses—but one stands out. About one-fourth of the US’s total trade deficit of $1.2 trillion results from trade with only one country—China. Trump is right to be angry with China, whose trade policies, especially non-tariff barriers, discourage American imports.

According to a study by the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, “Non-tariff barriers, like administrative hurdles, inspections, or quotas, were responsible for 50% of the overall reduction in China’s imports from the U.S. during the height of the U.S.-China trade war in 2018 and 2019.” The study’s authors went on to conclude that “non-tariff barriers were a primary instrument used by China in the U.S.-China trade war, with implications for China’s trade conflicts with other countries.”

Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist and former NY Times columnist has said that while Trump’s tariffs are “bad economics” and “bad politics,” “we have real grievances against China.” But tariffs, argues Krugman, are a “bad way to address those grievances, not the least because he’s alienating everyone who should be on our side.”

Many conservative economists are also concerned about Trump’s tariff frenzy. "It's painful to see a ruinous decision from back in the 1920s being repeated. Now insofar as he's using these tariffs to get various strategic things settled and that he's satisfied with that," former Standford professor Thomas Sowell said during a podcast interview last Wednesday, "but if you set off a worldwide trade war, that has a devastating history. Everybody loses, because everybody follows suit, and all that happens is you get a great reduction in international trade."

What many fail to grasp, Sowell has written, is that “if the goods and services available to the American people are greater as a result of international trade, then Americans are wealthier, not poorer, regardless of whether there is a ‘deficit’ or a ‘surplus’ in the international balance of trade.”

Donald Ducks

With right-leaning members of Congress threatening to join with Democrats to limit the President’s unilateral tariff powers, condemnations of his sweeping global tariffs coming from economists on the left and the right, and the stock market meltdown, did Trump duck by pausing most of the tariffs for 90 days, and then, days later, making exceptions for semiconductors, cellphones and electronics?

It’s seems obvious that Trump’s scorched-Earth tariff roll-out didn’t go as planned, even to him. Explaining why he had suspended most of the tariffs for 90 days (except for China), he said “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line…They were getting yippy, you know?” Yes, I know! People do tend to get a bit “yippy” when the stock market tanks and overnight your 401-k turns into a 301-k, or worse.

And yet while the president was busy waving the white flag, some of his advisors and the Republican Speaker of the House were busy claiming victory. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters, “This was his strategy all along.” House Speaker Mike Johnson gushed (the Washington Post’s description): “Behold the ‘Art of the Deal.’” But what deal? The President didn’t pause many of the tariffs because Europe and our other trading partners fell to their knees and kissed the tariff ring—he paused them because the stock markets revolted.

I’m not an economist, and I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I’ve read enough about economics to know that tariffs are generally not a good idea. When broad-based tariffs have been used, they have usually failed and hurt, rather than helped, the American economy. That’s the consensus among economists—even more so among conservative ones.

“If decoupling from China is Mr. Trump’s goal,” writes the editors of the Wall Street Journal, “one way to mitigate the damage is by expanding trade with allies. But Mr. Trump’s tariffs slam friend and foe alike. Mr. Trump’s pause could give the Administration time to negotiate trade deals with many of his targets. But he’s not pausing his 10% base tariff on most countries.”

What then, does Trump really want? “There’s good reason to treat China differently given its often predatory trade practices,” says another Wall Street Journal editorial, “But if Trump is serious the best strategy would be to rally allies to the cause of fighting Chinese mercantilism.”

In a back-and-forth tit-for-tat, Trump has now raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%, and in retaliation China has raised its tariffs on American goods to 125%—essentially threatening to bring trade between the two nations to a standstill—while keeping the 10% base tariffs on goods from our trading partner allies. It’s true, there’s been “nothing like it.”

Yes, Trump should be standing up to China, but not by stepping on our allies and friendly trading partners.

Back in 2008, comedian Chris Rock joked that George Bush had screwed up so badly he made it possible for even a black man to become president. We might rewrite the joke in 2024 that Democrats screwed up so badly they made it possible for even Donald Trump to be president, again.

“In private meetings and at public events,” write New York Times reporters Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein, “elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. They disagree over how often and how stridently to oppose Mr. Trump. They have no shared understanding of why they lost the election, never mind how they can win in the future.”

While “elected Democrats” might have no “shared understanding of why they lost the election,” it appears the voters do. Approval ratings for the Democratic Party are at an all time low say some pollsters. Long-time Democratic voters, including union members, are abandoning the party, and Democrats are fighting amongst themselves to apportion blame and shape the party’s post-Biden-Trump future.

According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, only “31 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, while 57 percent have an unfavorable opinion.” This, says Quinnipiac, “is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question.”

It’s certainly no surprise that 90% of Republicans hold a unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. What is surprising is that nearly 8 out of 10 independent voters do as well. That should be cause for concern—panic even—among Democrats. But why do so many voters, especially independents, have such an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party?

It’s probably because voters believe Democrats are focusing on the wrong issues. “Many Americans,” says a New York Times poll, “say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.”

When the Times asked Americans to identify the issues they think are most important to the Democratic Party, they most often mentioned abortion, LGBTQ rights and climate change. But when asked to name the issues most important to them, they cited the economy, inflation, health care and immigration. “The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years,” the Times notes, “ranked much lower.” You can see the disconnect, though apparently many Democratic office-seekers and consultants did not.

During the recent campaign—especially the Harris campaign—many Democrats strove, obsessively, to portray Trump as a fascist and as an existential threat to democracy, while ignoring other issues, like the economy and immigration. It was the cornerstone of their campaign, though even among Democrat voters this was barely a top five concern. It didn't crack the top 10 for independents, who Dems needed to woo if they were to win.

“Democrats,” wrote Democratic consultant James Carville in a New York Times guest essay, “have flat-out lost the economic narrative. The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back. Perception is everything in politics, and a lot of Americans perceive us as out to lunch on the economy — not feeling their pain, or else caring too much about other things instead.”

Maybe it’s time, demographer and liberal political commentator Ruy Teixeira argues, that the Democratic party begins to retreat from modern progressivism’s nearly exclusive focus on culture issues. “Conspicuously missing,” complains Teixeira in a post published on the blog The Liberal Patriot, is “any hint Democrats might need to actually change their position on any ‘culture war’ issue. Instead, the strategy is to change the subject immediately.”

A revealing, and troubling for Democrats, example of this is an election post-mortem given by four of Kamala Harris’ top campaign advisors—Jen O’Malley Dillon, David Plouffe, Quentin Fulks, and Stephanie Cutter—on the left leaning podcast “Pod Save America.”

Over a meandering hour and a half interview there were several recurring themes. The campaign didn’t have enough time to fully and properly define Harris. Harris was entangled with an unpopular President and was unwilling to distance herself from him. Oh, and of course, blame the voters. “There was a lot of Trump-nesia out there,” according to Stephanie Cutter, “People didn’t remember the four years of the Trump administration that badly.” It was a master class in gaslighting.

Newton’s Third Law states that for each action, there is an equal, or opposite, reaction. And what’s true in physics is often true in politics as well. As the Democratic Party has shifted further left, they have pushed many voters to the right.

Since Obama’s last election in 2012, voters across much of the nation have been drifting towards the political right. This is especially true for states in the eastern half of the United States, many of which had been part of the Democrats “blue wall.” Turns out the wall has come tumbling down.

Take a look at the graphics below. Almost every state east of the eastern border of state boundaries running from North Dakota all the way down to Texas, with the exceptions of Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts, have shifted rightwards since 2012. That’s 26 of 30 states.

While traditionally deep blue states like New York, or California, haven’t gone red—they are becoming less blue. In New York, for example—a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1—the current Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, barely squeaked by in 2022. In 2024 Kamala Harris garnered only 54% of the vote, compared to Obama’s 66% in 2012.

Despite numerous warning signs, national Democrats don’t seem to be paying attention. Only last week, in the aftermath of the Democratic Party’s disappointing showing (to Democrats, at least) in this year’s presidential and congressional elections, national Democrats met to elect new leaders and to start plotting the party’s future direction.

Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota’s Democratic Party, and a protege of Minnesota’s Governor (and most recently the Democrat’s Vice-Presidential candidate), Tim Walz, was elected as the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) new leader. Despite the party’s losing the presidency, the Senate, and failing to turn the House, Martin has argued that Democrats did not need to change their message to voters. “Anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong,” he is quoted as saying. “We got the right message.” Apparently he hasn’t been getting the message—at least not the one the voters were sending.

If you’ve seen the Geico commercial spoofing horror movies and the poor decision-making of victims, it’s a “let’s hide behind the chainsaws” moment.

If that weren’t enough, national Democrats doubled down, electing the 24 year old Parkland shooting survivor and gun violence activist David Hogg as their Vice-Chair. Hogg has, among other things, called for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), defunding the police, and has described the NRA as a “terrorist organization.”

But it’s more than messaging that needs to change if Democrats are going to stop hemorrhaging voters, especially left and center-leaning independents. About one-third of the national electorate describes themselves as “independents.” You can’t win a national election without doing at least one of two things—or both. You need to get more of your core party voters to vote, and you need to outperform the other party with independent voters. Democrats failed at both this past election, paving the way for Trump, the Sequel.

Some prominent Democrats are pushing back. “We need deep changes and hard conversations, not nibbling around the margins,” Representative Pat Ryan, a Democrat from New York, recently said.

Democrats have been here before. In 1989 the Democratic Party faced a similar reckoning. From 1968 to 1988 the Democratic candidate for President (Jimmy Carter in 1976) won only once in six tries. Much like today, Democrats were in disarray.

In a paper titled “The Politics of Evasion” that became the playbook for the party’s post-Reagan revival, William A. Galston and Elaine Kamarck of the Progressive Policy Institute, wrote that “Too many Americans have come to see the [Democratic] party as inattentive to their economic interests, indifferent if not hostile to their moral sentiments, and ineffective in defense of their national security.” The party, they argued, had “embraced a politics of evasion…that ignored electoral reality and impeded needed change.”

That was 1989. In 2022, they issued a renewed, yet eerily similar, warning. “In recent years,” they wrote, “a substantial portion of the Democratic Party has convinced itself that Americans are ready for a political revolution that transforms every aspect of their lives. This assumption has crashed into a stubborn reality: Most Americans want evolutionary, not revolutionary, change.”

The party’s number one priority, they argued, must be to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump. “We fear that the Democratic Party is not positioning itself to fulfill this duty. Once again, it is in the grip of myths that block progress toward victory; it does not recognize the new realities that shape American politics; and it has barely begun to develop an agenda on cultural issues that a majority of Americans can support. This triple failure is what we call the new politics of evasion, the refusal to confront the unyielding arithmetic of electoral success.”

Too many Democrats have fooled themselves, they argue, that a progressive majority is emerging. “The progressive cultural agenda does not enjoy majority support and weakens Democrats’ electoral prospects whenever it is seen as the dominant force within the party,” they wrote.

So where do Democrats turn now? Will the Democratic establishment remain blind to the irony that in Donald Trump, the billionaire, they have created a working class hero? Will they continue to live in, as Galston and Kamarck claimed, a “cultural bubble” defined by education, income, and geography? Can the Democratic Party be saved from itself?

It’s one thing to claim the moral high ground, but another to give voters the impression, real or imagined, that you are looking down at them. “There’s none so blind,” goes the proverb, “as those who will not see.” So, I guess, we’ll just have to see.

WASHINGTON - For those who have been hoping to get rid of Matt Gaetz, the disruptive Republican Congressman from Florida with the Beavis—of Beavis and Butt-Head fame—styled pompadour and acidic demeanor, there’s good news. He resigned from Congress this past week. The bad news? President-elect Trump has nominated him to be the next United States Attorney General.

If any of Trump’s picks for his upcoming administration have been an “FU” to the establishment, it’s Beavis, umm I mean, Gaetz. According to numerous press reports, Gaetz’s nomination and nearly immediate resignation from the House comes as the House Ethics Committee (led by Republicans, by the way) was rumored to be ready to release a scathing report including allegations that Gaetz “engaged in sexual misconduct,” “illicit drug use,” and corruption. By resigning, Gaetz has halted the investigation, and quite possibly the release of the Committee’s report itself—though certainly not from the scrutiny that is sure to come as his nomination moves forward.

If nothing else, Gaetz has been controversial during his four terms in the House. And while controversial politicians are nothing new in the circus that is Washington, many see Gaetz as its top clown. Washington insiders often joke that the most dangerous place in the nation’s capitol is between Chuck Schumer and a microphone. Gaetz makes Schumer look camera shy. “If you aren’t making news,” the Wall Street Journal reports Gaetz describing his legislating style, “you aren’t governing.” Beavis couldn’t have said it better.

You might remember that Gaetz was the ring leader of a small cabal of eight far-right Republicans, eight out of 218 Republicans, who ousted then Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 for reaching out to Democrats to pass a temporary spending bill intended to keep the government functioning and from defaulting on its debts. Only in the the bizarre world of Washington math is 8 greater than 210. No wonder we have a $35 trillion national debt.

Let’s Gaetz together!

In perhaps unexpected ways, however, Gaetz has brought Democrats and many Republicans together—in their shared contempt for him. “It takes hard work to be universally unpopular in Congress,” writes Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel, “but it’s the one job Mr. Gaetz has done well.”

Is this Trump, the Evil-Genius, at work? Has he nominated Gaetz, who has called for abolishing the FBI, praised the January 6 rioters, and made political enemies of friend and foe alike, because he believes he’d make a fine Attorney General—the top law enforcement officer in the United States—or has he nominated him to get rid of him?

Is he hoping the US Senate will fail to confirm him, knowing he might not have the votes in the Senate? Is Trump sending up his nomination as a sacrificial wolf so that Republicans in the Senate might flex some institutional muscle and at least appear to stand up to the President-elect? “The nomination was bad enough,” writes Strassel, “to make many Republicans wonder if Mr. Gaetz is this cycle’s sacrifice.”

Trump, or his advisors, must—or should—have known that Gaetz would be a uniquely controversial and unpopular choice. Despite being a Trump sycophant, he has little to recommend him—and reports of inappropriate behavior, including with underage girls, have dogged him for some time.

Literally minutes after Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination, two Republican moderates, US Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), said they would not vote to confirm Gaetz. Collins said she was “shocked” by the nomination and Murkowski said that he “was not a serious contender for the job.” Cabinet-level positions require the consent of the Senate—and that’s two of the Republicans already slim 53-47 majority who have pledged to vote against his confirmation.

“I have very few skills — vote-counting is one,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Post, “and I think he’s got a lot of work to get 50.” It’s virtually assured that Gaetz—who has taken great pleasure in taunting both Democrats and those Republicans he deems insufficiently right-leaning or obedient to Trump—will get zero Democratic votes.

“For me the message to the administration is simply that Matt Gaetz has a very long, steep hill to get across the finish line and it will require the spending of a lot of capital,” Senator Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) told the Washington Post. “That ethics report is clearly going to become a part of the record.”

Even loyal Trump supporters are skeptical. Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, for example, told CNN: “I completely trust President Trump’s decision-making on this one, but at the same time, he’s [Gaetz] got to come to Congress and sell himself. There’s a lot of questions that are going to be out there, he’s got to answer those questions, and hopefully he’s able to answer the questions right.”

Not unexpectedly, left-leaning media outlets like the Washington Post and New York Times have been critical of many of President-elect Trump’s nominees—but aghast at Gaetz’s. “The most irresponsible,” argues a New York Times editorial, speaking of Trump’s nominees, “was his choice for attorney general.” But opposition to Gaetz’s nomination has not been limited to just the Times, the Washington Post, or others in the liberal-minded press.

“This is a bad choice for AG that would undermine confidence in the law,” said a Wall Street Journal editorial. “Mr. Trump lauded Mr. Gaetz’s law degree from William and Mary, but it might as well be a doctorate in outrage theater. He’s a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get.” Gaetz, the editorial continued, “has no interest in governing.”

Even the conservative National Review found Gaetz’s nomination appalling. “Gaetz is so utterly unworthy of being attorney general, so transparently farcical as a serious pick,” wrote Jeffery Blehar a National Review columnist, “that his selection at all is indefensible.” Peggy Noonan, President Reagan’s former speechwriter had this reaction to the Gaetz nomination. “The choice obviously isn’t meant to reassure anyone outside the MAGA base—or even those within it who are intelligent,” she wrote. “It is an insolent appointment, guaranteed to cause trouble and meant to cause friction.”

Will the Senate “bend the knee?” Or be knee-capped?

With Republicans taking over the Senate—there’s also another possible explanation or two for the Gaetz nomination. One, that Trump may be hoping, ”scheming” says a Wall Street Journal headline, that the Senate won’t have to vote at all—and allow him to appoint his nominees without Senate approval. Or two, that by his sheer MAGA will he can bring the Republicans in the Senate to heel to rubber-stamp his nominees.

But what’s this about the Senate not having to vote at all? Doesn’t the president need the consent of the Senate to make appointments? There is an exception to the “advice and consent” clause in the Constitution that allows presidents—in supposedly limited circumstances—to fill vacancies without Senate approval “that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” Not surprisingly, these are known as “recess” appointments.

Due to the primitive nature of 18th century transportation and the long distances traveled, the founders anticipated that Congress might not meet for months at a time—so they gave the President what they thought was the limited power to make temporary appointments when the Senate was in recess. But having given the president an inch, they have mostly tried to take a mile.

While just about every president—including modern presidents like Clinton, Bush and Obama—have made fairly liberal use of recess appointments and tried to “sneak” more than a few past the Senate—never before has a president tried to use the recess power to appoint a Cabinet-level official, or their entire Cabinet—or to pre-emptively suggest the Senate make themselves scarce so that they could.

Earlier this week, as Senate Republicans gathered to elect a leader for their new majority after Mitch McConnel announced he would step down, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate, must agree to Recess Appointments.”

“The idea is anti-constitutional,” the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial, “and it would eliminate one of the basic checks on power that the Founders built into the American system of government.” So far, the new Republican leader and next Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, seems cool to the idea of walking away and allowing Trump to make appointments without Senate approval. “I’m willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way,” Mr. Thune said. So far so good. That’s the first clue that the Senate—even one led by the Republicans—might sometimes stand up to Trump.

The founders had no illusions that the president would always pick the best people. In Federalist #76, Alexander Hamilton got right to the point of the Senate’s responsibility to oversee presidential appointments. “To what purpose.” Hamilton asked, “then require the co-operation of the Senate?” It would be, he wrote, “an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters…from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.”

I told you so!

Democrats, who warned that on day one Trump would declare himself a dictator and claimed he is an “existential threat to democracy,” are shaking their heads and saying “see, I told you so.” And so they did. But I will reply the same way I replied back in 2016. That a Trump Presidency will prove, yet again, to be one of democracy’s finest moments. Not because of what he does, or tries to do. But what he can’t.

Does Trump sometimes test the boundaries of the Constitution—sure. But there’s a long history of Presidents trying to force their agenda by almost any means necessary, including ignoring the Constitution, stretching it to its limits, or pursuing workarounds. Just think of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 that President John Adams pushed through Congress, making criticizing the government, including the President, a crime. Or Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to “pack” the Supreme Court so he could get more favorable decisions. Fast forward to the the Biden Administration’s ignoring a Supreme Court decision ruling on student loan forgiveness, and the many Presidential power grabs in between.

President Biden has warned, time and again, that “Democracy is Fragile.” I disagree. Democracy, and if anything, our democracy, is incredibly resilient. We have, for example, weathered a Civil War, numerous Constitutional crises, World Wars, McCarthyism, and bad Presidents. It survived Trump I.

So, back to Beavis…I mean Gaetz. Is Gaetz a bad choice? I think so, for many reasons. As I mentioned before, the founders were not so naive as to think that Presidents would never try to put forward the nominations of “unfit characters.” It’s why they gave the power of “advice and consent” to the Senate.

I know that many on the left believe that President-elect Trump has the Republican Party in his pocket—and that the incoming Republican majority in the Senate will fall all over itself to placate him. But even given his stunning victory, I’m not convinced. The Senate has often been where Presidential overreach has gone to die.

“[I]t has been objected that the President,” Hamilton wrote, “by the influence of the power of nomination, may secure the complaisance of the Senate to his views.” But, he wrote, “the supposition, that he could in general purchase the integrity of the whole body would be forced and improbable.” And so it is today.

Will Trump be given deference on some of his nominees? Sure. All presidents do when the Senate is controlled by their party. And certainly, some Republicans in the Senate will heel to Trump’s command. But I have faith, though some might think it misplaced, that the Senate will not abdicate its Constitutional responsibilities to act as a check on presidential power.

You might think me naive, but already some Republicans, like Collins, Murkowski and Thune, have shown that the Senate will jealously guard its prerogatives. So, there is cause for my faith in the Senate, and in the checks and balances and separation of powers that are the bulwarks of our constitutional democratic republic. Like the previous Trump Presidency, our system of government will prove stronger than any one person—as it has for nearly 250 years.

And while the nomination of Gaetz will likely prove not so smart, it will prove that the founders were.

Good news folks—soon we’ll be back to being annoyed by prescription drug ads instead of political ones. Actors and actresses (am I allowed to say that?) will again be singing the praises of Jardiance and lowering their A1C, instead of political candidates singing their own and lowering our expectations. So, who will be the next President of the United States? If you’re watching the polls for a clue—the truth is they don’t have a clue either.

“The polls,” writes New York Times chief political correspondent Nate Cohn, “show one of the closest presidential elections in the history of American politics. Across the key battlegrounds collectively or nationwide, neither Kamala Harris nor Donald J. Trump leads by more than a single percentage point. Neither candidate holds a meaningful edge in enough states to win 270 electoral votes.”

The graphic below shows state-level polling from the 6 “battleground” states that will likely determine our next President. I’ve also included the National polls (“NA”). Some pollsters and election analysts are also including polls from Arizona, but Trump has been holding a steady 4-5 point lead there—so I think it’s a safe state for Trump. Both nationally, and in the battlegrounds, they show a virtual dead-heat.

A poll is like a snapshot, a moment in time, and more, or less, out of focus. Every poll, if it uses a random sample, has error built into it—even the best poll. That built in error is what pollsters report as the margin-of-error. Other polling errors, or bias, come from the polling firm’s methodology, just plain bad luck, or both.

So, no one should put too much stock in any one poll, even from a reputable pollster. Reputable polls with larger and better constructed samples usually show a margin-of-error of around 3%. A poll showing a 50-50 tie, for example, could actually be 53-47 either way, or anywhere in between. And research has shown that pollster’s calculations of the margin-of-error are often underestimates. Even the best poll, with a solid sample and good methodology, has a 1 in 10 chance of being off by more than the margin-of-error.

Don’t underestimate Donald Trump!

Added to the normal challenges of predicting an election based on taking random samples of say a thousand or so voters from the millions who will vote, Donald Trump has proved to be as vexing for pollsters as he has for many voters.

Polls in 2016 and 2020 consistently underestimated support for Trump. Either the polls were systematically failing to reach a “random” sample that included enough Trump voters, or some Trump voters didn’t feel comfortable saying they were voting for Trump. These so-called “shy Trumpers” have proved to be a real problem for pollsters.

In politics though, as in physics, for every action there is often an equal, and opposite, reaction. If Republicans have “shy” Trump voters who are cowed into refusing to admit they support Trump, well then, Democrat pollsters and consultants have to have “shy” Harris voters to help explain underwhelming polling.

Some campaign strategists have begun to claim that domineering husbands/partners are forcing some women to “hide” their intentions to vote for Harris. “I don’t have direct evidence of this, but in this highly contentious environment, it’s not implausible for there to be a significant percentage of women voters who are not just hiding their intended Harris vote from their significant others, but also from pollsters,” Mark Putnam, a Democratic consultant, told the Wall Street Journal. It’s also “not implausible” that pollsters and party consultants are inventing the “shy Harris” voter to cover their asses if their polls, or campaign strategies, are wrong.

Some pro-Democratic groups are so afraid of men bullying their woman partners into voting for Trump that they have rolled out a series of ads, featuring the actress Julia Roberts, reminding women that their votes are secret. “You can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know,’’ Roberts assures them, as two women are shown marking their ballots for Harris.

Mainstream pollsters though seem unconvinced that enough women are being bullied into supporting Trump to skew polling results. The problem for Democrats, as Putnam admits, is that there’s “no direct evidence of this,” while there is evidence for the “shy” Trump voter and the failure of polls to reach a representative sample of all voters that correctly predicts Trumps actual support among the electorate. “The polls underestimated Donald J. Trump in 2016. They underestimated him again in 2020,” the New York Times’ Cohn wrote yesterday, “So can we trust the polls this time?” No, says Cohn, “at least if you mean by ‘trust’ what I think you do. You can’t safely assume that the candidate leading in the polls is going to win.”

However, it wasn’t only “shy” Trump supporters that may have led polls to underestimate Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020. More politically-engaged voters (those who follow politics more closely) with more formal education, for example, college graduates, are much more likely to agree to participate in polls in the first place. Those voters tend to be Democrats or at least lean that way. That leads to overestimating support for the Democratic candidate while underestimating Trump’s.

Trump does better among the less politically-engaged blue-collar voter without a college education. So if you’re not including these voters in your poll, your poll is going to be off. The higher quality polls are struggling for ways to find these voters and encourage them to participate in their surveys—some are even paying them to answer their questions. Without representative samples that include all likely voters, polls won’t be accurate.

“The case for pessimism on accuracy is straightforward,” writes Nate Cohn, “There’s no reason to believe that pollsters can reach enough less engaged and less educated voters, and there’s every reason to believe Mr. Trump still excels among them.”

Does this mean that the polls are still underestimating Trump’s support, and that he will coast to an easy victory? Not so fast. “The close polls don’t tell the whole story,” cautions data scientist Lenny Bronner, writing in the Washington Post. “It’s not unlikely that if we see a polling error of a typical size, one candidate — Donald Trump or Kamala Harris — could run away with the election.” Speaking of running away, I’ve already begun to see some folks on social media saying they’re leaving the country if their candidate doesn’t win. The upside there is that might help solve the housing crisis that Kamala Harris has been talking about.

Eli McKown-Dawson, an elections analyst for Nate Silver’s Substack “Silver Bulletin,” agrees with Bronner. “Donald Trump has a 0.3-point lead in Pennsylvania, while Harris has small leads in Michigan (D +1.1) and Wisconsin (D +0.9),” McKown-Dawson writes, but “that doesn’t mean the actual outcome will be all that close. If the polls are totally accurate we’re in for a nail-biter on Tuesday night. But a systematic polling error is always possible…And because things are so close, even an average polling error would upend the state of the race.”

I’ve been asked by a few people who I think will win tomorrow. My guess, I guess, is a good, or as bad, as anyone’s. I have no crystal ball, but if there is, in fact, “systematic” polling error, it’s likely that error will accrue to Trump’s favor. “If we applied the 2020 polling error to this year’s polls,” Bronner noted, “Trump would win six of the seven most critical states.” Lest Trump supporters get too cocky though, Bronner cautions that, “If a 2012-style polling error were to happen this year, Harris would win six of the seven swing states.”

“Fixing” the polls has proved an elusive goal—one that even election analysts working for the Washington Post and New York Times acknowledge. “It’s possible,” wrote the New York Times’ Cohn, "the polls could badly underestimate Mr. Trump once again.”

Here’s what I’m thinking. If pollsters haven’t yet corrected or updated their polling methodologies, they are likely to have underestimated the Trump vote. And given how close the race is in all of the battleground states, even slightly underestimating Trump’s support might be enough to swing some, or all, of those his way.

It seems that Trump has momentum in Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. Harris seems strongest in Michigan and Wisconsin. And that puts the road to the White House squarely on Pennsylvania. Almost every poll has Pennsylvania a dead heat—so any lurking underestimate of Trump’s support might swing Pennsylvania his way. If he wins Pennsylvania it’s almost certain he’s President again.

I can hear my left-leaning and Trump-hating friends collective groan, but Harris might still come out on top in Pennsylvania—and/or Nevada or North Carolina. If Harris wins Michigan and Wisconsin, and sneaks by in PA, she’ll be the one living on Pennsylvania Avenue. So I think that Michigan and Wisconsin are “must-haves” for her. Trump needs Georgia, and either North Carolina or Nevada, or both, along with Pennsylvania.

It looks like the Keystone State is the key to tomorrow’s election.

During her appearance on CNN’s Town Hall with Anderson Cooper, Kamala Harris dropped several “F” bombs, saying she believes Donald Trump is a “fascist.” Asked if she believed Trump met the definition of a “fascist,” she said “Yes, I do.” That was just about the only question she answered directly during the entire Town Hall.

Cooper tried, repeatedly, to get Harris to answer questions on the border, on her economic policies, on efforts to remake the Supreme Court, and on the Israeli-Hamas war—on anything other than Donald Trump is akin to Adolf Hitler—but to no avail.

“Would she expand the Supreme Court? Would people who make $500,000 see their taxes increase? Would Americans pay for benefits for migrants crossing the border? How would she codify Roe v. Wade into federal law? And what about Gaza?,” the New York Times’ Reid J. Epstein and Lisa Lerer wrote about Harris’ responses to Cooper’s questions. “Her answers boiled down to: Donald Trump would be worse.”

Voters, Epstein and Lerer noted, “asked direct questions. Harris gave circular answers.” Her attacks on him, they wrote, “appeared more like dodges of questions about her own plans than crisp responses about what she would do as president.”

So, that’s going to be the question. Will not being Donald Trump be enough to be elected President of the United States? How, I wonder, will we know Trump is worse if Harris refuses to tell voters what she thinks, other than Trump is a “fascist” and is “unfit to lead.” What are her plans, other than she’s not Trump?

I’ll give Harris one thing—she’s steadfast—as in she steadfastly refuses to give anything other than evasive, gobbledygook (by the way, that’s an actual word) answers to questions other than “is Trump a fascist” or on abortion. Rather than “gobbledygook,” the Times’ called her answers “discursive tangents.” I guess that’s why I’m writing the FOCNN News, and not for the Times.

But let’s take her responses to Cooper’s questions about the border as an example. “Under Donald Trump,” Cooper asked, “you criticized the wall more than 50 times, you called it ‘stupid’, ‘useless’, and a ‘medieval vanity project’, is a border wall stupid?”

“Well,” Harris responded, “let’s talk about Donald Trump and that border wall, so remember when Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it, c’mon, they didn’t,” and she then criticized Trump for not building as much of the wall as he said he would. “But,” Cooper reminded her, “you agreed to a bill that would give more than $650 million to continue building that wall.” Harris replied that she would work “across the aisle” for a “comprehensive border bill” that “deals with a broken immigration system.” You don’t think it’s stupid anymore, a clearly frustrated Cooper asked. “I think what he did [Trump] and how he did it did not make much sense.” But, “you did want to build some wall,” a now exasperated Cooper said. “I want,” said Harris, “to strengthen our border.” Now I know how my mom and dad must have felt when they asked “who broke that?”

Despite persistent questioning from Cooper, and credit where credit is due, he at least tried, respectfully, to elicit answers from Harris—she continued to dodge question after question. Later in the interview she was asked about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and non-sequitur’d (my made-up word, yet another reason I don’t write for the Times) her way to instead talk about the high price of groceries. “For many people who care about this issue [Gaza], they also care about bringing down the price of groceries,” she said. That’s some head-scratching segue. “They also,” continued Harris, “care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.” Another “F” bomb. Seems her mission for the Town Hall was to sneak the “F” bomb into every sentence she could. In that case, mission accomplished.

When asked about giving specifics of her tax plan she actually said “we can’t have this conversation right now…it’s a very complicated situation.” At least, apparently, too complicated for Harris. But shouldn’t a candidate for President be able to explain their own tax plan? Oh, wait, you’d actually have to have a tax plan, at least one more specific than “tax the rich,” to explain.

Is not being Trump enough?

“It was frustrating to watch,“ Shadi Hamid, a columnist for the Washington Post said. “Maybe not being Trump is enough, but I think voters want to be inspired beyond lesser-of-two-evils arguments (or ‘vibes’), and she struggles to offer that.” Part of the problem, Hamid suggested, is that Harris “doesn’t have strong core convictions, so she often has to calculate what to say instead of just stating what she actually thinks.”

Matt Bai, another Washington Post columnist, said that he was “struck by the answers she doesn’t have at this late stage of the campaign.” Bai too, was critical of either her unwillingness, or inability, to answer questions. “She couldn’t answer a question about expanding the Supreme Court. She’s been asked about a thousand times about her shifting positions on fracking and health care, and somehow she hasn’t found a direct answer,” Bai observed. “I don’t really understand it. But I think if people are asking why she isn’t running away with this election, you saw the answer.”

Maybe it’s out of desperation, but I don’t see the “F” bomb working for Harris. Of all the things that voters know coming into this election—they know Trump a lot better than they know Harris. Many Democrats prophesied back in 2016 when Trump was elected that “democracy was dead,” and have repeatedly labeled Trump a “threat to democracy,” yet according to all the polls at least half the country’s voters remain unconvinced.

“Most people think of fascist regimes as places where secret police terrorize ordinary citizens, free media doesn’t exist and protest is forbidden. That’s probably not what most Americans remember of their experience of the Trump years,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote, “when this newspaper [The New York Times] more than doubled its circulation and Trump’s loudest critics could be heard from the minute Joe Scarborough woke them up to the hour Rachel Maddow put them to sleep.”

Will calling Trump a “fascist,” rather than answering questions from the press or voters at Town Halls, be enough to convince undecided, unmotivated, or persuadable voters? If the polls, which show Harris and Trump in a virtual dead heat, are any indication, the answer is no. “The electorate,” proclaims the New York Times this morning, “has rarely seemed so evenly divided.”

Some Republicans are using their own “F” word to describe Harris—saying she’s trying to hide her true far-left leaning beliefs behind a curtain of slogans and platitudes—that she’s faking it. Is the real choice in November between the “fascist” or the “faker?”

So, I have some unsolicited and likely unwanted advice for the Harris campaign. If she really wants to convince non-MAGA Republicans, otherwise right-leaning voters who are not especially happy with Trump, or those who might just sit this one out, she might want to start answering some “F”ing questions.

Kamala Harris has agreed to appear on Fox News’ “Special Report” program this evening (Wednesday) with host and Fox News chief political anchor Brett Baier. According to Fox, Harris is scheduled to “sit” for 25-30 minutes of questions, though they were careful not to say “answer” 25-30 minutes of questions.

Harris has been widely criticized by media foe and friend alike for, up to very recently, refusing to sit for interviews—with the exception of a few fawning psuedo-interviews with the likes of MSNBC, The View, and the Howard Stern Show. Hardly journalistic heavyweights. It was only last week that she finally gave her first “real” news interview—on 60 Minutes—ostensibly to answer tough questions from an experienced interviewer.

But before the biggest audience she is likely to have before the general election just weeks away, Harris mostly danced around interviewer Bill Whitaker’s questions—with Whitaker sometimes playing the willing dance partner. “All politicians evade some questions,” Washington Post columnist and editor of the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru, said during a Washington Post podcast. “She does it a lot, and she has not mastered the art of hiding when she’s doing it.”

New York Times political reporters, Reid Epstein and Katie Rogers, described Harris’ performance as “a departure from some of her recent appearances on cable news and podcasts, she was repeatedly pressed on questions she did not initially answer.” It would have been more accurate, however, to note that she “never” answered many of the questions lobbed her way. Whitaker repeatedly tried, sometimes feebly, to follow up a few non-answers, though he quickly gave up when Harris reverted to gibberish mode. He often appeared frustrated.

Harris was again the serial question evader. If you were looking for thoughtful answers to tough questions, the interview got off to a bad start and never recovered. Whitaker has come under increasing criticism for asking slanted, or leading questions, and for failing to follow up evasive answers—60 Minutes for airing an edited version of the interview that made Harris look more decisive and, frankly, intelligible.

On the one year anniversary of Hamas’ slaughter of more than 1200 Israelis and the capture of 250, mostly civilian, hostages, Whitaker led off with questions about the Israeli-Hamas War. “What can the U.S.,” Whitaker asked, “do at this point to stop this from spinning out of control?” Israel, Harris replied, has “the right to defend itself,” but “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end.” Sorry, but that did not answer the question. No Whitaker follow-up. Moving on. Disappointing.

America, Whitaker asked next, supplies Israel “with billions of dollars in military aid,” but Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a ceasefire. He's resisted…Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?”

Both the question—and as it turns out, the answer—were problematic. First, Israel has agreed publicly, at least twice, to US brokered ceasefires that Hamas rejected. It’s Hamas that stands in the way of a ceasefire, not Israel. Whitaker should know better. Second, Harris’ answer was pure babble.

On August 20 the New York Times reported that “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, making his ninth visit to Israel since the war began, emerged from a three-hour-long meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and announced that the Israeli leader had assented to the new U.S. proposal intended to bridge the differences between the two sides, introduced at talks in Qatar last week.” The Times also reported at the time that President Biden was “hopeful” there would be a ceasefire “by the end of the week.” Hamas, not Israel, rejected that ceasefire proposal.

Back in February 2024, Hamas rejected yet another US brokered ceasefire proposal that Israel had agreed to. Vice President Harris said at the time “Hamas claims it wants a cease-fire. Well, there is a deal on the table.” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said of the proposal, “Ultimately, some of this comes down to Hamas and whether Hamas is willing to agree to a deal that would provide significant benefits to the Palestinian people that they claim to represent.”

As troubling as the premise of the the question was, Harris’ answer, in the edited version, was equally head-scratching. “The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” Harris told Whitaker. “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” She didn’t say what those “principles” were, or “where we stand,” and Whitaker seemed to be uninterested in knowing what she meant as well.

In the unedited version, Harris also said: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” This quote was edited out of the version that aired. Good luck untangling that one. Again, moving on.

Throughout the rest of the interview, Harris continued to rely on slogans and vague promises, like blaming high food prices on greedy grocers. In the interview’s narration, Whitaker says “Harris says she'll press Congress to pass a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries, but details are yet to be defined.” It would have been nice if Whitaker had asked her to define those details during the interview, and not resorted to a voice-over to make his point.

But enough of the 60 Minutes interview. Tonight’s FOX News interview is likely to be the must-see highlight of the campaign. Harris is going into the lion’s den and can’t expect to be treated with kid gloves. So far, Harris has played it safe, mostly unwilling to subject herself to aggressive questioning. Why then, you might be wondering, would Harris be willing to subject herself to be grilled by FOX, with the possibility of getting burned?

“Ms. Harris will have a chance to deliver her message to a viewership that may be skeptical of her candidacy,” writes the New York Times media correspondent Michael Grynbaum. “Her willingness to appear on Fox News may aid the perception that she is open to facing tough questions. And she can reach a swath of independent voters, more of whom watch Fox News than CNN or MSNBC, according to research by Nielsen.”

The race, with only three weeks to go, is a dead-even heat according to the most recent national and battleground state polls. The good news is that we only have to endure three more weeks of this. The bad news, there’s three more weeks of this. “This is a margin-of-error race,” Harris said during an appearance on Charlemagne Tha God’s radio talk show. “I’m going to win, but it’s tight.” With the race so close, Harris may be trying to woo moderate, non-MAGA, Republicans and independents who are uncomfortable with Trump, but unconvinced by Harris.

If that’s her goal, she’s going to have to give meaningful answers to questions about the border, the economy, and about Israel, if she wants these voters to trust her. But in doing so, so might alienate on-the-fence left-leaning voters. It’s a high-wire balancing act that Harris might not be up to—and if she falls there’s no net to catch her.

The pre-taped interview will air this evening (Wednesday, October 16) at 6pm. Baier has promised that the interview will be unedited and with limited commercial interruption. No one, however, has promised that Harris will actually answer the questions with other than slogans of vague generalities. Will she out-FOX the FOX?

I’ll be watching.

“Who else could I possibly vote for,” writes a friend in a social media post I recently stumbled across. The writer explains why it’s a no-brainer to support Harris-Walz—and lists all their reasons for choosing Harris over Trump. It ends by posing what the writer assumes to be a question with an obvious answer: ”Who else would you vote for?”

One answer came from another friend’s post about a week or so later. “That moment when someone says, ‘I can't believe you're voting for Trump’,” writes the author, “I simply reply, ‘I'm NOT voting for Trump’.” They are, they wrote, “voting between two vastly different ideologies.”

And that’s the dilemma facing many right-leaning voters who aren’t enthusiastic about Trump. Do you abandon your political beliefs because you don’t like the man? Some prominent Republicans are doing just that, saying they are voting for Harris because they reject Trump, the man. Former Republican Congressperson Liz Cheney, and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, no left-wingers, have. So has David French, a pro-life conservative opinion writer at the New York Times. “I can’t vote for Trump precisely because I am conservative,” French has written.

Vote for Harris or don’t vote at all.

But what options do the rest of those disaffected but conservatively-inclined voters have? Vote for Harris? Don’t vote at all? For many, neither is an option. Beyond pointing to the coming apocalypse if Trump is elected, Democrats haven’t given those voters anything to hang their hats on—yet expect disgruntled Republicans and right-leaning independents to vote for a candidate whose policies and political philosophy they reject—and judge them when they don’t.

“The ‘ask’ of the Democratic Party in 2024 is not, as some anti-Trump writers would have it, to merely compromise one’s convictions on this issue or that issue, to accept a few policies you dislike in order to keep an indecent and unstable populist out of office,” writes Ross Douthat, another conservative New York Times columnist. “Rather, the ‘ask’ is to ratify a record of substantial policy failure and conspicuous ideological fanaticism, dressed up for the moment in a thin promise that we won’t make those mistakes again.”

Only four years ago Kamala Harris ran on a platform that was soundly rejected by Democratic primary voters and donors—a platform that was too far left for most Democrats. She didn’t even make it to Iowa. A New York Times profile said at the time that “She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions.”

In November 2019, Harris’ State Operations Director, Kelly Melenbacher, resigned from her presidential campaign. “I have,” wrote Melenbacher in her resignation letter, “never seen an organization treat it’s staff so poorly.” She said she no longer had confidence in the campaign or its leadership.

“You can’t run the country if you can’t run your campaign,” Gil Duran, a former aide to Harris who’s now the editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, told the New York Times. And like her present campaign, the New York Times back in 2020 said that the “lack of policy specifics in her remarks was disappointing.” After dropping out she said she abandoned her campaign because she wasn’t a “billionaire.”

Staff and leadership troubles followed Harris to the Vice President’s office. According to a 2021 report in Politico, Harris’ Vice Presidential office was described by dozens of then current and former aides as “tense” and “dour.” Harris, the report says, “refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.” One aide told Politico that “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s---.”

Another continuing criticism of Harris is she changes her positions on issues when it’s politically expedient, or that she fails to adequately define her plans and policies to begin with. “When she ran for president the first time,” New York Times Washington correspondent Reid Epstein recently wrote, “Kamala Harris darted to the left as she fought for attention from the Democratic Party’s liberal wing,” and “often appeared as if she were not sure what she believed.”

Has she mocked a disabled reporter? No. Has she bragged she grabbed someone by their most private of parts? No. But she does have a track record of treating her staff poorly, avoiding being pinned down on policy, and changing her mind to court new voters or public opinion when it suits her purpose. Her record as Vice President? Let’s call it “undefined,” mainly because she refuses to define it with anything other than what has been described as “word-saying gibberish.”

She was “anointed” the Democratic candidate without a primary, or any meaningful democratic process, except having been the Vice President and not being a diminished Joe Biden. She avoids interviews—at least those with anything other than friendly interviewers—and ducks reporters questions. “In her first one-on-one cable TV interview since becoming the nominee,” the New York Times said of Harris’ Wednesday interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, “the vice president repeatedly dodged direct questions.” According to the Times, “her media strategy has been to sit with friendly inquisitors who are not inclined to ask terribly thorny questions or press her when her responses are evasive.”

That’s a different kind of threat to democracy. “Trump may be much the worse sinner,” says New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, “but Democrats aren’t blameless when it comes to weaponizing the instruments of state power to interfere with the will of the voters.”

Many on the political left would have those on the right, at least the “moderate” right, vote for Harris. “Who else,” they ask. But, notes the Times’ Stephens, “votes need to be earned.”

What is Harris doing to earn the vote of non-MAGA Republicans? From what I can see, nothing. As a US Senator, she was aligned with fellow progressive Democrats Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker—part of what Politico called the “Hell-No Caucus.” And while she may have “moderated” her views (some say flip-flopped) on fracking to make her more palatable to Pennsylvania voters, she continues to refuse to elaborate on her plans for the economy, the border, or the role that the US expects to play in the Middle East—or just about anything else.

But Trump! But Trump!

“But: Trump”, writes the Times’ Stephens, “That’s the all-purpose response for many voters to any doubts about Harris’s qualifications.” The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, has described the choice between Trump and Harris as one between “Awful and Empty.” Empty, writes Noonan, “means trouble, a blur when we need a rudder, a national gamble based on insufficient information. It means a policy regime that would be unpredictable, perhaps extreme. You don’t want that.”

And “Awful?” According to Noonan, “Awful is—well, awful. But he [Trump] was president for four years, we didn’t all explode, institutions held, the threatened Constitution maintained. So—maybe that’s their vote. ‘Close your eyes and think of England’.”

What would it take?

About a week ago I was asked “what would it take to vote for Harris?” For many Republicans and right-leaning independents, the answer is likely, “a miracle.” But a start would be to begin to answer questions and give interviews with other than fawning media types like Oprah Winfrey or biased journalists like MSNBC’s Ruhle. What, for example, does she mean by “opportunity economy?” What else, besides voting for a border bill that may, or may not, ever cross the president’s desk, will she do about illegal immigration? What does she she mean when she says the stands with Israel?

“She owes us these answers,” writes Noonan, “It is wrong that she can’t or won’t address them. It is disrespectful to the electorate.”

The dilemma, if indeed there is one, is one of political philosophy, not necessarily personality. Are there Republicans who will vote for Harris, or not at all, because they don’t like Trump? Certainly. But the question that potential Republican voters get asked is “who else could you vote for” or “how can you,” not “why?” The implication being that voting for “Trump” (voting Republican), reveals some moral or intellectual deficiency, or character flaw, in the voter. If voters always voted for the better person I think we’d have had very different presidents. And Harris has her own failings, some of which I’ve touched upon.

“I hate the idea that we should condition friendship or respect based on the way in which a person votes,” David French wrote in the New York Times. “Time and again we make false assumptions about a person’s character based on his or her political positions.”

So, back to where we started. “I'm not just voting for one person,” my pro-Trump friend wrote, “I'm voting for the future of my Country.” And I’m sure that’s exactly how my pro-Harris friend sees it. A few weeks ago, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that while the 2024 presidential election changed dramatically with Biden’s withdrawal, “What has not changed is the vast differences in political values between voters who support Harris and those who back Republican nominee Donald Trump.”

On issues like the Second Amendment, immigration, criminal justice, abortion, the role of government—and many others—Americans are deeply divided. While more voters, according to Pew, see Harris as “a good role model” (though not by as much as some might think), many others believe she won’t make “good decisions,” especially on the economy. Only 25% of Americans, Pew found, “rate national economic conditions excellent or good.” And Most American’s don’t believe either will “bring the country closer together.”

As much as some want to make the presidential election about the character of the candidates, and by extension, the voter—and lord their support for Harris over anyone who might deign to think of voting for Trump—most Americans are more concerned with the issues they care about and the direction they see the country going. “There are,” reports Pew, “wide differences between voters who support Harris and Trump when it comes to the issues.” Three-quarters of Harris supporters and eight of ten Trump supporters, for example, “fundamentally disagree with the other group about the nation’s core values.”

There is at least one thing that many voters do agree on, however—they are dissatisfied with both candidates. According to the same Pew survey, nearly a majority of Harris supporters (48%) and most Trump supporters (54%) are not “too, or not at all, satisfied” with either of the presidential candidates. Expect MANY Americans to be unhappy with either result, no matter who wins.

So, if you’re a person who asks “how could you,” or exclaims “I can’t believe,” maybe you’d be better off asking “why?” Virtue signaling won’t change anyone’s mind. According to the two latest New York Times/Siena College polls, Americans are equally divided between Harris and Trump. Driving home the other evening I passed a yard sign that read “Harris-Walz, Obviously.” Sorry, but to many Americans, including millions of undecided voters, it’s not that obvious. And while both Trump and Harris pander to the party’s extremes, many voters are caught in the middle, relying on their chosen parties withering tenets to guide them.

What many voters do have in common, however, is that they’ll be voting for a future beyond Trump. For many on the left, literally a future without a President Trump. For many on the right, they’ll be voting for things like future Supreme Court justices, or a better economy, or for more secure borders—decisions and policies that echo long after a president’s four years.

For them, that’s the “why.”

If you’re worried about your pets being eaten by Haitian immigrants, or about the government providing gender transition surgery to detained migrants, then last Tuesday evening’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was for you. If you are more concerned with facts, and what each party’s presidential candidate has in store for the country if elected—well maybe you should be glad you skipped it, or sorry you didn’t.

Social media, news sites, opinion writers, and editorial boards, have been consumed since last Tuesday with the question “who won?” Not surprisingly, 13 out of 14 New York Times columnists and opinion writers thought that Kamala Harris “won” the debate—mostly on “style” points—though they almost all described it as “meh,” or “sad” or “depressing.” Even right-leaning commentators were unimpressed with Trump’s performance. Barton Swain, a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, wrote that “If Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, which he might, we can count it as one more reminder that abysmal debate performances have often been overcome.”

But the more important question is not who “won” the debate, but who “lost.” The losers were anyone hoping to find out anything more about the candidates, especially Harris, other than what their advertisements or campaigns tell us. Trump has his four years as president to run on, and has been vocal—some say too vocal—about his policies on immigration, abortion, the economy, and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. You may not like them, but by now we pretty much know where he stands. Harris, on the other hand, remains mostly a mystery, even after almost four years as Vice President. Intentionally so.

She has come under increasing criticism from the press, and the Trump campaign, for avoiding interviews and dodging reporters questions. Since President Biden stepped away from the campaign in July, and she became the Democratic presidential candidate, she’s given only one interview—to a friendly CNN. Coming into the debate, New York Times Opinion Editor Kathleen Kingsbury wrote, “many reported that they didn’t know enough” about where Harris stands on the issues. “For those voters looking for answers on policy, the debate is unlikely to have left them feeling better informed … she mentioned a handful of plans she’d pursue if she won the White House. Yet we learned very few new details about those plans.”

Kim Strassel, another Wall Street Journal editorial board member, echoed Kingsbury’s disappointment with Harris’ lack of candor. “Viewers hoping this debate would be the moment Kamala Harris finally had to answer for a dismal Biden-Harris record were sorely disappointed. Ms. Harris deftly changed the subject on nearly every direct question she was asked, and neither the moderators nor Donald Trump pressed her on the omissions.”

It’s too soon to tell if the debate helped, or hurt, either Harris or Trump. It’s likely not to have changed many minds. “I actually am not sure that this changes much precisely because we didn't learn that much that we didn't know. We knew Harris was basically saying we knew that Trump is a maniac if you give him any room to run,” Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle said during a podcast. “What we don't know—what is her actual plan for taxing unrealized capital gains? What is she going to do about tax reform next year? What specific things, other than the $6,000 extended tax credit, is she going to do to realize her vision of moving forward into the future with joy?”

Swing wildly or jab and duck?

Some have compared the debate to a boxing match, and in some ways, that’s an apt comparison. Trump’s style was to swing wildly, hoping for a knockout—occasionally connecting, mostly not. Harris’ was content to jab (Trump) and duck (questions).

“As for Mr. Trump’s presentation Tuesday night, it was terrible,” the Wall Street Journal’s Swain wrote, “He let Kamala Harris provoke him to anger, ranted about the 2020 election, constantly interrupted his own assertions, and failed to capitalize on obvious vulnerabilities.” Meanwhile, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peggy Noonan wrote that “Ms. Harris won shallowly. I mean not that she won on points, or that it was close—it wasn’t, she creamed him—but that she won while using prepared feints and sallies and pieces of stump speech, not by attempting to be more substantive or revealing.”

Trump, however, did have his moments. “But on a night when Harris set traps every which way for Trump (and he took the bait essentially every time),” the Times’ Kingsbury observed, “the one moment those tables were turned was when the former president asked her what she would do differently from the past three and a half years. Some voters may still be left looking for that answer.”

It isn’t only the candidates, however, who have come under public scrutiny for their performances. Debate moderators, ABC News broadcast journalists David Muir and Linsey Davis, have also been criticized for failing to follow-up evasive answers and for fact-checking Trump while refusing to do with same with Harris. Mark Penn, an adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton from 1995-2008, and Andrew Stein, the former New York City Council president, wrote in the New York Times that Muir and Davis “called Trump out on every falsehood but let Harris get away with one lie after another.”

This is not to say Muir and Davis weren’t right to challenge Trump when he exaggerated some fact or statistic, or failed to answer a question. It’s that they were wrong, actually derelict, not to go after Harris the same way. For example, Davis made sure to challenge Trump when he said that some states allow a baby to be “executed” after being born. “There is no state in this country,” she quickly corrected him, “where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”

Yet when Harris said that Trump called neo-Nazis protesting in Charlottesville, Va., “very fine people,” or that he threatened a “bloodbath” if he loses the election, they failed to step in—even though these claims have been repeatedly debunked. They also failed, starting with the very first question, to follow-up on Harris’ non, or evasive, answers. This was to be the trend for the entire debate.

Muir began by asking “When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” Harris responded by reminding voters she grew up “middle class,” and that she had a “plan to build what I call an opportunity economy,” though she never got around to explaining what that was. She then claimed that Trump was planning to give tax cuts to billionaires and that he supported what she called the “Trump sales tax, which would be a 20% tax on everyday goods.”

Rather than press Harris to actually answer the question of whether Americans are better off, or to clarify just what she means by “opportunity economy,” Muir instead said he wanted to “drill down” on Trump’s tariff plan as “many economists say that with tariffs at that level costs are then passed onto the consumer.” Fair question.

But why didn’t they also question Harris about the economists who have ridiculed her claim that high food prices are due to price-gouging grocers and that price-fixing groceries is the answer? Or, that she provided the deciding vote for the American Rescue Plan—which many economists blame for fueling inflation by dumping trillions in borrowed federal funds into an already recovering economy? That was just the first of many unanswered questions or unchallenged statements by Harris. It’s no excuse that Trump failed to follow-up as well.

“Time and again,” write Penn and Stein, “we find that supposedly neutral democratic institutions have been corrupted by bias. Debate moderators must check their biases and seek to be scrupulously fair, or they shouldn’t do the job … ABC undermined the system for everyone.”

Yes, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could teach CIA spymasters a thing or two about how to make it through an interrogation without divulging any meaningful information or revealing any plans. But that doesn’t absolve Muir and Davis from trying.

Let’s debate debates.

Do debates even matter when they’re not debates? Trump has said he won’t debate Harris again—and, not surprisingly, Harris has called for another debate. But if moderators don’t follow-up questions, and candidates give self-serving and evasive answers, or respond with unchallenged slogans, what’s the point?

The Biden-Trump debate back in July mattered—but only because Biden’s performance was more residential long-term care than presidential. “When it comes to vote choice,” according to Dustin Carnahan, professor of Communications at Michigan State University, “research has generally suggested little impact from watching debates. Debate viewers tend to be among the most politically engaged and thereby likely to have their minds made up well before the debate.”

That’s not so say that debates necessarily have no impact on voters—though their effect may be indirect. Potential voters may be influenced more by the after-debate media coverage than the debate itself. Which is why reporting free from bias is so important. “While more knowledgeable voters tend to learn more from viewing the actual debates,” Carnahan said, “less knowledgeable voters have been shown to narrow this gap in the days following debates due to debate-related content being hard to avoid even among those who are the least politically engaged.”

Prior to the debate Trump was complaining that the media is biased against him, but even among the right-leaning media the post-debate coverage has not been favorable. That’s likely one reason Trump has said he won’t debate Harris again.

Yet another might be that despite what many thought was a poor debate performance, Trump doesn’t seem to have suffered in the polls. According to the latest aggregate averages, Trump continues to lead (narrowly) in the key swing states of Arizona and Georgia, while Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada remain essentially dead heats. So if debates don’t matter to voters, they aren’t going to matter to candidates.

If there was a debate winner, and that's debatable, it was likely the media. An estimated 67 million viewers tuned in for at least part of it. And despite being widely acknowledged by the media as the “winner,” Harris hasn’t seen the bump in the polls she must have hoped for. “So if anything's going to change between now and November,” Washington Post columnist Jim Geraghty said, “Harris needed to do something different, and I don't think she did that last night.”

From here on in, the race will be about turnout and winning over that sliver of as yet uncommitted voters. Neither Trump nor Harris, for different reasons, have given those voters a convincing reason to earn their vote. Trump for sometimes saying too much, and Harris for oftentimes saying too little.

“To the undecided voter this isn’t a simple choice between stability and peril,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Duothat, “It’s a choice between two candidates and coalitions that for different reasons don’t merit public confidence. And in a democracy, if you keep offering voters two bad options, you shouldn’t be surprised that they will often choose the one you are sure is worse.”

The Nazis were not so bad. That’s according to the man former FOX News host Tucker Carlson just called “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” The Holocaust? What Holocaust? There was no Holocaust, no evil plan hatched by Hitler to exterminate the Jewish race, no “Final Solution.” Six million Jews dead? Nothing sinister about it—it was all just an accident of history, oh, and poor planning—very unlike those Germans. Oops.

Oh, and Hitler? He wasn’t so bad either. He just wanted peace. Or, as the comedian Mel Brooks once quipped, “A little piece of Poland, a little piece of France.” The “real villain” was Winston Churchill for daring to fight back when Germany was overrunning Europe and ridding it of Jews, gypsies, Poles—and anyone else not Aryan or unwilling to bend the knee to Hitler.

“[T]hey [the Nazi’s] launched a war where they were completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners and so forth that they were going to have to handle,” pseudo-historian and holocaust denier Darryl Cooper told an approving Carlson on his podcast last week. “They went in with no plan for that, and they just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead.” Hmm, and millions of people just “ended up dead?” Funny how gas chambers and firing squads will do that.

Defender of the West. The “Wild” West?

“I see you actually as a product of the west,” Carlson said fawningly to Cooper during the podcast, “and as a defender really of the west or its values, you know, in your approach, in your open mindedness, rigor, you know, belief in accuracy and honesty.” I’m wondering, though, what western values Carlson thought Cooper is defending? Unless, perhaps, what Carlson means are the values of the “wild” west?

Even before his exile from Fox News in April 2023, Carlson had been sinking closer and closer to political rock bottom—or at least his public persona had. But with this last podcast he may have finally gotten there. You might remember that Carlson was fired by Fox for his part in defaming the elections hardware and software company Dominion Voting Systems after the 2020 election. While publicly accusing the company of “rigging” the election, he privately called the claims made by President Trump that Dominion interfered with, or fixed, the results of the election “crazy.”

Fox ultimately settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion for $787 million, and in a press release announcing the settlement the network said, "We acknowledge the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false." Carlson’s repeated public claims about Dominion and widespread voter fraud were prominent among them.

As part of the lawsuit’s discovery process, Fox turned over thousands of internal emails and text messages from Fox program hosts—including Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Carlson—many which privately questioned the veracity of Trump’s claims that the election had been rigged. Among those emails and text messages were messages written by Carlson, calling Trump a “demonic force, a destroyer.” Another said, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights, I truly can’t wait.” And another, “I hate him passionately.”

After leaving Fox, Carlson started his own “network”—TCN, the Tucker Carlson Network, on social media and a website—and worked hard to get himself back in Trump’s good graces with flattering comments and Trump-friendly guests. And there he was, given a prominent speaking role and sitting next to Trump at the Republican convention in July.

Asked about the podcast, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance has, so far, refused to criticize Carlson (as has Trump). Vance said, through a spokesperson, that “Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture but he obviously does not share the views of the guest interviewed by Tucker Carlson.” Sorry, but not so obviously.

Those just weren’t Carlson’s guest’s view—they were, by extension, Carlson’s. He called himself a “follower of your [Cooper’s] work,” and praised Cooper for “the way you treat history with relentless curiosity and honesty.” Carlson spent time at the end of the podcast promoting Cooper’s website and thanked him for the conversation and “for your addition to the sum total of knowledge.”

It was no interview. What it was, was a two-hour ass-kissing. Carlson, as is his style with his “guests,” never questioned, challenged, nor critiqued Cooper’s outrageous claims and Holocaust denials. Besides nodding approval, or interjecting an “Oh, right,” Carlson was mostly silent—except for the occasional plug for his own X page or website.

Why then wouldn’t (or couldn’t) Vance disavow the entire interview, or Carlson , for that matter—or at least Carlson’s failure to confront Cooper’s crazy defense of Hitler and his Holocaust denial? Some have speculated that it’s because of Carlson’s outsized influence on the Republican Party. All things being unequal, I’m not so sure. Carlson needs Trump more than Trump, or the Trump campaign, needs Carlson. Trump won’t lose votes if he chastises Carlson—but Carlson certainly will lose viewers if he criticizes, or breaks with, Trump. If Trump calls Carlson to heel, as he has already done once, you can bet he’ll lay down at Trump’s feet. Yet, there’s been no rebuke.

Given that the Trump campaign has been using the Democrat’s “wanna have it both ways” stance on Israel and the Israeli-Hamas conflict to court Jewish and Zionist-inclined voters—you’d think they’d jump on the chance to distance themselves from Holocaust deniers. Instead, Democrats are using Carlson—and Trump and Vance’s refusal, so far, to repudiate him—against them. Every Jewish Democrat in the House of Representatives, for example, signed a statement “condemning Tucker Carlson for amplifying the views of a Holocaust denier and blasting Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, for failing to denounce the interview.”

Carlson has the right to promote crazy, vile, antisemitic, and abjectly false, theories. But failure to condemn them, and their purveyors, is another matter. That’s not rejecting “guilt-by-association cancel culture,” that’s rejecting political and moral courage. Republicans like New York Congressman Mike Lawler, for example, told the news site Jewish Insider, "Platforming known Holocaust revisionists is deeply disturbing.” And the conservative writer Sohrab Ahmari, a Vance supporter, told the New York Times that Carlson, “a journalist I used to admire,” gave Cooper “the same credulous, uncritical treatment he now seems to reserve for all the crackpots who frequently grace the podcast he hosts on X.”

Vance is scheduled to appear on Carlson’s TCN podcast on September 21. “This poses an elementary political test for the Republican ticket,” the Washington Post’s editorial board rightly asks, “Will Mr. Vance keep his date with Mr. Carlson, thus lending his imprimatur to someone who lent his imprimatur to Mr. Cooper? If he does keep it, will he at least confront Mr. Carlson?”

We may not have to wait until September 21 to find out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kamala Harris bring it up at tonight’s presidential debate. Trying to force Trump to scold, or repudiate, Carlson would be must-see political TV. Will Trump become a Carlson denier? Yet one more reason to watch.

Kamala Harris isn’t a childless cat lady—but perhaps a cat has got her tongue, as she continues to avoid interviews and ducks the press. On Tuesday she whisked by frustrated reporters as she boarded Air Force Two, giving them the “talk to the hand” gesture, while “pretending to be on the phone,” according to some press reports.

Last week she finally gave her first interview since President Biden abandoned his candidacy and withdrew from the race 45 days ago. Sitting beside her was her avuncular emotional support chaperone, VP candidate Tim Walz. It was, as it turned out, more Oprah than Walter Cronkite, more stump speech than interview.

Dana Bash, CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent, lobbed mostly softball questions at the pair, and either failed, or refused, to follow up evasive or incomplete answers to her questions. There was, perhaps not surprisingly, no Harris bashing. I half expected Bash to ask Harris her favorite color, her astrological sign, or who was her teenage crush.

“Kamala Harris didn’t hurt herself in her interview this week with CNN’s Dana Bash,” writes New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. “She didn’t particularly help herself, either.” She was, says Stephens “vague to the point of vacuous,” and “struggled to give straight answers.”

Meanwhile, Stephens colleague at the Times, Michelle Cottle, had a different take. “I think that went pretty well,” Cottle asked rhetorically, “don’t you?” Cottle then defended Harris’ performance as a “solid job” (translation: she didn’t f**k up). “Did we get a deep dive into Harris’s policy positions? No, we did not,” Cottle wrote, “But that was not the point of this interview.” Alright—if not to find out more about what Harris will do if elected, what WAS the point? Harris isn’t hawking her newest movie or skin care product, she’s the Democratic candidate for president. Shouldn’t we expect direct answers to tough questions. According to Cottle, apparently not.

“This was about Harris introducing herself to Americans in her new role,” Cottle wrote, “and proving a few basic things to everyone.” Like? How about proving you can answer a direct question with a direct answer? That, sadly, remains unproven. Harris has had nearly four years as Vice President to introduce herself to the public, and she had a widely watched primetime address at the Democratic National Convention only a few weeks ago—shouldn’t we be beyond introductions? “Introducing” a candidate is the purpose of campaign ads and rallies, not primetime press interviews.

This wasn’t some glib and fawning appearance on “The View”—it was billed as a serious primetime interview with the candidate who would be President. A candidate who has, so far, refused to expand or explain—in anything other than broad generalizations and cliches—how she will govern if elected. Nor was it Bash’s job to introduce Harris, it was her job to interrogate her. “Amusingly,” Cottle wrote, “Bash looked more flustered than Harris did for most of the interview.” If you read on, you’ll see why.

“Kamala Harris’s campaign handlers were no doubt giving each other high-fives on Thursday night watching their candidate’s interview on CNN,” said a Wall Street Journal editorial. “The Vice President got away for the most part with repeating her campaign’s platitudes about ‘the middle class’ and ‘a new way forward’ and was never seriously challenged on anything.”

Both Bash’s failure—or unwillingness— to press Harris for details and specifics, and Harris’ non-answers were disappointing. I was hoping for more from both. I get why Harris was evasive; she’s trying to avoid both being pinned down or pinned to the Biden record. But Bash should know, and have done, better. If you want to call yourself “Chief Political Correspondent” for a major international news organization, then you should ask tough questions and be willing to follow-up slippery responses. After the interview, Bash was on the defensive, saying she knows it was “just right” because it “p**sed off” both the left and the right. I wasn’t a journalism major, but I don’t think that’s the standard they teach to.

Good at sitting and smiling.

Even after the almost 30 minute interview, we learned almost nothing new about Kamala Harris—or Walz for that matter—except that Harris is good at evading questions and Walz, says Reid J. Epstein of the New York Times, “is good at sitting and smiling.” That’s a low bar for the possible President and Vice President of the United States.

Before anyone accuses me of picking on Kamala, I am—someone has to. So let’s look at some excerpts from the interview and you’ll see why. Bash began by asking Harris what she would do on day one. “Strengthen the middle class,” was pretty much the extent of Harris’ reply. “So,” a frustrated Bash asked again, “what would you do day one?” Harris replied with more generalities. She said she would be “implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy,” “bring down the cost of everyday goods,” and “invest in America’s small businesses” and “families.” Blah. Blah. Blah.

“So,” Harris concluded proudly, “there are a number of things on day one.” That’s quite a to-do list, except she never explained how she would do any of it. Bash could, and should, have asked “how,” or “what’s your plan,” but instead gave up and moved on. Maybe that’s why she looked so “flustered?”

One of the slogans of the Harris campaign has been “we’re not going back,” apparently meaning back to when Trump was President. “But I wonder,” Bash asked, “what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy specifically because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president?”

Harris started out by blaming Trump and the pandemic for high prices, and then bragged that inflation is now under 3%. “But you are right,” Harris told Bash, “Prices in particular for groceries are still too high. The American people know it. I know it. Which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries. For example, dealing with an issue like price gouging.” This would have been a good time to ask “what agenda,” or to remind Harris that her “price gouging” fix has been almost universally derided by economists.

“So,” continued Bash, “you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already,” Yes! Finally a good follow-up question! “We,” Harris replied, have brought inflation down to 3%, and capped “the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors.” Well, that’s good news for diabetic seniors, but I’m not sure they are a key voting bloc. This was the perfect opportunity for Bash to remind Harris that inflation had risen to an historic high of 9% under the Biden-Harris administration, or to press Harris on her having cast the deciding vote for the American Rescue Plan, which many prominent economists blame, including Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s economic advisor, for fueling inflation in the first place. Summers had called it the “least responsible” economic policy in 40 years. Instead, sadly, next question.

Next up, immigration. OK, I thought at the time, how is Kamala going to wriggle her way out of this one? “Why,” Bash asked, “did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” Harris started by denying having any meaningful role in border policy—despite her campaign’s claims that “she was in the room” when all important decisions were made, and again, blamed Trump for the border crisis by reportedly killing a bipartisan deal to ramp up border security. She promised to lobby for and sign a border security bill. That was it. Yet another evasive non-answer. Yet again, Bash missed an opportunity to follow-up, or to remind Harris that the administration could have fixed the asylum process unilaterally, and legally, by executive action from day one.

Her agenda? No Agenda.

“Harris isn’t running on a policy agenda,” wrote Matt Bai, a Washington Post columnist, “and when pressed on it, she’s guaranteed to lapse into maddening generalities.” So here we are, less than one week away from the debate between Harris and Trump, assuming neither backs out, and Harris has only permitted herself to be interviewed once—and that with Tim Walz holding her hand. Hardly reassuring.

“Did the media or the Democratic ticket get anything out of this CNN interview?,” the Post’s Bai asked. “Maybe, if you’re a network looking for hype, or if you’re a candidate who just wants to check the box of having sat for some questions. But I’m pretty sure no one else did.”

CHICAGO — Political speeches, especially convention speeches, should come with a disclaimer and trigger warning: “The following contains material that is not suitable for all audiences, viewer discretion is advised. It contains content upsetting to members of the opposing party, or to anyone tired of hearing the same old campaign promises. The following speech is mostly a work of fiction, and any similarity to actual events or facts, or resemblance to actual people, is unintentional and entirely coincidental.”

With the Democratic coup complete, Kamala Harris has now officially deposed Joe Biden by accepting the Democratic nomination for President at the party’s convention in Chicago. Harris gave her eagerly anticipated acceptance speech to a convention hall full of adoring delegates, party faithful, Hollywood celebrities, titans of industry, and a frustrated press. The king is dead (oops, Trigger warning—violence), long live the Queen.

Harris emerged triumphant from a convention that shut out the party's pro-Palestinian wing and featured taunting d**k jokes from the Obamas, without having to endure the indignity of a primary, or tough questions from the press. She has been widely criticized for refusing to give interviews or answer questions from reporters, to expand on her promises, or tell us how she would accomplish them. The New York Times has described her campaign as “Heavy on Buzz, Light on Policy.”

Would she, as she declared at the beginning of her acceptance speech, “chart a new way forward,” or would she be Biden 2.0? Will her “new way forward” actually mean going back to her 2020 progressive presidential campaign? If you were wondering before her convention speech—you’re certainly still wondering now.

“And you see throughout the week,” New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada said when describing the convention, “there was a lot of creditmongering on her behalf for all the stuff that people liked in the Biden record and a lot of silence on the stuff that people did not like on the Biden record. Bernie Sanders did a lot of that.”

Pro-choice patriotism

Harris spoke inspiringly of her modest upbringing in a one-parent household led by her mother, and her record of public service as a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office and as the Attorney General of California. She presented herself as a tough prosecutor with a soft heart—a woman of the people. “And to be clear,” she said, “ and to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.”

Beyond her backstory, however, Harris didn’t spend much time on policy. There was a defiant defense of abortion rights, a claim (that strains credulity) that she, not Trump, is the true protector of the border, a passing mention of something she’s calling the “opportunity economy,” a brief foray into foreign affairs (support for Ukraine, and a vague promise to support Israel), and attacks, of course, on Donald Trump and his “billionaire friends”—ironically, in front of her billionaire friends, some who had paid as much as $5 million to watch the convention from luxury suites lining the convention hall.

“The speech went into detail, as far as I could tell, on Roe v. Wade being a good thing and Donald Trump being responsible for overturning it,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Duothat. “It went into some detail, I guess, on foreign policy in a kind of generic, America should lead the free world and Donald Trump has creepy affection for tyrants and strongmen. And it went into some detail on Jan. 6 being a disgraceful event and not wishing to bring back the man responsible for that disgrace. So pro-choice patriotism, I guess, was the substantive argument.”

The editorial board at the Wall Street Journal also wondered aloud where the “beef” was. “Kamala Harris introduced herself to the American public on Thursday evening and her presentation was much like this week’s Democratic convention: well delivered, confident and optimistic, and mostly devoid of policy substance.” The Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, wrote that “Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech on the final night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago featured high rhetoric but not many facts easily checked.”

They say the “devil is in the details,” and to the extent that’s true, the Harris campaign has been, so far, a political exorcism. She has cast evil detail out of her campaign, and instead relied on promises and platitudes. While she did say that if elected President she would sign a bill guaranteeing a national right to abortion, and claimed that she, not Trump, would secure the border by signing the bipartisan border bill that failed in Congress earlier this year, her speech was mostly devoid of specificity. And unless Democrats take over the House and retain the Senate—neither is assured—it’s unlikely she’ll have a chance to make good on either of those promises.

“Her largest distortion concerned abortion,” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, “claiming that Mr. Trump wants to pass a national ban on ‘reproductive rights,’ which is the euphemism Democrats now use for abortion. Mr. Trump has stated time and again that abortion should be a state issue and he won’t sign a national ban.” Democrats are running hard on reproductive rights, but that might not be enough as they try to court independents and disaffected Republicans.

Voters, especially independents, are much more concerned with the economy. According to the survey firm Gallop, 79% of Americans describe the economy as “poor” or “fair.” Besides the intentionally ambiguous promise to “create what I call an opportunity economy,” and “to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries,” she provided no specifics on how she would do either. She’ll likely have to do better if she wants to win over uncommitted voters.

To calm fears that she might be weak on defense, Harris said that “As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” Again, the Washington Post’s fact-checker reminded readers that “Biden proposed spending reductions,” to the military. “Harris, having suddenly become the Democratic nominee, has not put out detailed policy papers yet,” Kessler wrote, “but it’s worth noting that Biden repeatedly proposed budgets that have failed to keep military spending ahead of inflation.”

And speaking of fear, if details won’t move voters, maybe scaring them will. Writing in the American Psychological Association’s newsletter, Kirk Waldorf notes that “fear is a powerful motivator in elections.” Harris, for example, repeated her oft-debunked claim that Trump wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. “We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare,” she said. “This is mostly false,” wrote Kessler, “We have awarded the Harris-Walz campaign Three Pinocchios [the more Pinocchios the greater the “exaggeration”] for a version of this claim, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from asserting this all week.”

Kamala the Chameleon?

In her convention speech, Harris leaned heavily on her experiences as a prosecutor—with the implication that she would be tough on crime. The promotional materials for her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer,” described her philosophy as “making the criminal justice system truly — not just rhetorically — tough.” But, as the New York Times reports, “By the time she ran for president in 2019, Ms. Harris was no longer talking tough. She called herself a progressive prosecutor and proposed to end the death penalty, mandatory minimum sentences and cash bail.” And now as a presidential candidate in 2024, “she is back to being a Top Cop,” the Times Shalia Dewan wrote. “Ms. Harris’s central pitch to voters has been her record as a prosecutor who has put away ‘predators, fraudsters and cheaters’.”

Much like her stance on crime, Harris’ position on border security has been…let’s say…flexible. Some might say “opportunistic.” As a presidential candidate in 2020 she criticized President Trump’s border policies as “medieval.” And as Vice President, she stood by as millions of illegals flooded across the border, overrunning the social service networks of cities, counties, and towns across the country. Even Democrats were pleading with the administration to get tougher. “This crisis originated with the federal government, and it must be resolved with the federal government,” New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul said last year. “The challenges we face demand a much more vigorous federal approach.”

“The answer to this question [about what to do about the border] is not can we find more places for migrants to fit in New York City and in New York state,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. “That’s just not the answer. The answer is how do we stop the flow … Any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border, is a failed plan.”

As a presidential candidate in 2024, after mostly ignoring the border as Vice President, border security is at the top of her agenda. “Let me be clear, after decades in law enforcement,” she told the convention crowd, “I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border.” Beyond committing to signing the failed border bill, however, she offered no specifics. “On Immigration,” New York Times editorial board member Farah Stockman wrote, “Harris Is a Bit of a Chameleon.”

Sticking to her guns

In her convention speech, Harris said that “we must also be steadfast in advancing our security and values abroad. As vice president, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances and engaged with our brave troops overseas.”

Monday was the third anniversary of the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and give Harris credit for loyalty, if not for good judgement. While saying she mourned and honored the servicemen and women who were killed by terrorists as the US fled, she also said “President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war.” When she says she “engaged with our brave troops overseas,” I’m not sure that’s what they had in mind.

“The withdrawal decision was arguably the worst of Mr. Biden’s Presidency,” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, “as he ignored the advice of nearly all of his advisers that a date-certain, total retreat would likely result in the collapse of the Afghan government and a Taliban takeover.” Harris has said she was with the President during all major decisions—so that would be a decision she will have to defend if, or when, she agrees to be interviewed.

Kamala, Kamala, where are you…on the issues?

Like many politicians, Harris has a penchant of changing her tune when the music doesn’t suit the crowd. Since she has been refusing interviews and hasn’t scheduled any press conferences since President Biden withdrew from the race (sound familiar), it’s been impossible to pin her down on any of her statements or promises.

“The problem with Harris is that she’s a political chameleon — a tough-on-crime prosecutor in one phase of her career, a self-described ‘radical’ in another,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens said. “Voters will want to figure out whether she’s a pragmatist (good), an opportunist (not good) or a phony (doubleplusungood). One way to find out is to insist that she sit down for some serious journalistic interviews and answer a few difficult questions.”

Early voting in some states, like the pivotal battleground state of North Carolina, begins next week. Playing keep-away from the press and public might be an effective campaign strategy, but does it hold up to the promise that Harris made in her convention speech. “Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are,” she said, “let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for.”

It’s time, Kamala, to show us.

NORTH CAROLINA — If you’re wondering why grocery prices are so high, just ask Kamala Harris. OK, you can’t ask her since she’s not taking or answering questions. You’ll just have to take her word for it. But during her first “policy speech” last Friday, which was more campaign rally than policy address, the former crime-bustin’ prosecutor from San Francisco revealed the real culprit for higher prices.

No, it wasn’t Colonel Mustard in the pantry, and it certainly wasn’t Mr. Biden, or Ms. Harris, in the White House. Nor was it the dumping of almost two trillion of federal aid dollars into an already recovering economy over the objections of many prominent economists (more on that later) and calling it the “American Rescue Plan.” Nope. It was, Harris said with a straight face, the Greedy Grocer at the Food Mart. Seems Mr. Whipple (if you were born in 80’s or later, google it) has been squeezing more than the Charmin.

Americans are unhappy with the economy—the survey firm Gallup reports that only 25% of voters rate it as “excellent” or “good”—and nervous about rising prices. That’s not good news for candidate Harris. So, despite a strong start, it made sense for her to speak to an issue that many think will be her campaign’s Achille’s Heel—the economy. “As president,” she told the crowd assembled in an airplane hangar in North Carolina, ”I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans, like the cost of food…I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food.” Applause. Applause. Applause. Boo bad grocers. Boo, bad, bad, grocers.

Though that might make sense to Harris and the adoring crowd proudly displaying Harris-Walz signs, it doesn’t make much sense to economists, economic reporters, or the editorial boards at national news outlets, like the usually fawning Washington Post and New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal. Turns out, it’s Harris that doesn’t have a Clue.

In an scathing editorial, the Washington Post said her “speech” was “an opportunity to get specific with voters about how a Harris presidency would manage an economy that many feel is not working well for them. Unfortunately, instead of delivering a substantial plan, she squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.”

“Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris,” continued the editorial, “has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s. Whether the Harris proposal wins over voters remains to be seen, but if sound economic analysis still matters, it won’t.”

It was a certainty that Harris would have to try to deflect some, or all, of the criticism aimed at the Biden Administration’s economic policies, which have come to be known as “Bidenomics.” She is, after all, part of the administration, and up until at least a month ago, embraced them. “President Biden and I came into office with a plan to grow and strengthen America’s economy,” she said in a speech in August 2023, “that is called Bidenomics. That is called Bidenomics, and we are very proud of Bidenomics.” Oops. Oops. Oops.

But if Harris can’t attack, or distance herself from Bidenomics, what is she to do? The answer, at least her answer, was to find someone, or something, else to blame for inflation. Numerous public opinion polls show that consumers are most upset by rising food prices. Bingo! Greedy Grocers! The grocers did it! Turns out, however, there’s one small problem with that strategy. It’s not true.

Even the New York Times isn’t swallowing it. “Economists have cited a range of forces for pushing up prices in the recovery from the pandemic recession, including snarled supply chains, a sudden shift in consumer buying patterns, and the increased customer demand fueled by stimulus from the government and low rates from the Federal Reserve,” reports the Times Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek. “Most economists say those forces are far more responsible than corporate behavior for the rise in prices in that period.”

The Wall Street Journal put it more bluntly. “There is also no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation. Retail grocery prices have risen roughly in tandem with wholesale prices. Supermarkets also have narrow margins on sales—roughly 2%, compared to 8% on average for other businesses.”

Oops again.

Fixing prices won’t fix anything

Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former Obama administration official, told the New York Times that that policies meant to curb corporate price gouging could instead keep the economy from adjusting—limiting supply and spurring even higher prices. “This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” he said. “There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.”

Again, the Wall Street Journal put it more bluntly. “If Ms. Harris really believes in this price-fixing, she lacks the most basic understanding of economics. If she is merely floating it to be able to get ‘price gouging’ into a speech, her cynicism is also telling.”

Harris didn’t, of course, go into any detail about how her plan to cut food prices would work, other than to blame those evil, greedy, price gouging, grocers. In what has become a troubling trend—borrowed from her boss, the President—she again refused to meet with reporters or answer questions from the press. So, no one, possibly even Harris herself, knows what she means.

Now a month into her candidacy, she is still avoiding engaging voters, and the press, with anything other than trivialities, cliches, slogans, and sound bites. The New York Times captured her campaign, so far, in a headline that reads, “Harris’s Early Campaign: Heavy on Buzz, Light on Policy,” and accused her of “cherry-picking the most popular parts of his [Biden’s] agenda and betting that a younger messenger can sell them to Americans.” What’s that saying about a silk purse and a sow’s ear?

Harris is going to find it tough going to disavow her role in Bidenomics. She was, after all, the tie-breaking vote, as President of the Senate, for the “American Rescue Plan,” which borrowed $1.9 trillion (yes, trillion) and doled it out in stimulus payments, even after there were already signs that the economy was on its way to recovery.

Lawrence Summers, the former President of Harvard and economic advisor in the Obama administration, warned at the time that it would pump too much demand into the economy too fast and risk overheating—spurring inflation. It was, he said, the “least responsible” economic policy in 40 years. Oops, yet again. Clean up on Aisle 5!

So rather than eat Bidenomics, Harris would rather blame grocers. Not so fast Vice President Harris. You break it, you own it. Though if Friday’s speech is any indication, she might want to change her campaign song from Beyonce’s “Freedom,” to Del Shannon’s “My Little Runaway.”

I’ll let the editors of the Washington Post have the last words. “Even adjusted for the pandering standards of campaign economics, however, Ms. Harris’s speech Friday ranks as a disappointment.”

AMSTERDAM, NY — “Our stickers kick ass,” proclaims the upstate New York labels, stickers, and promotional products company Sticker Mule. And while the company’s stickers might “kick ass,” there are those that have been looking to kick the company owner's ass, or worse—merely for preaching acceptance of other’s political choices, and for revealing his own. Yup, nowadays them are fightin’ words.

“I don’t care what your political views are but the hate for Trump and his supporters has gone too far. People are terrified to admit they support Trump,” Anthony Constantino, Sticker Mule’s owner, posted on the social media platform X shortly after the failed assassination attempt, “I’ve been scared myself. Americans shouldn’t live in fear. I support Trump. Many at Sticker Mule do. Many at Sticker Mule also support Biden. The political hate needs to stop.”

But what began as a call for tolerance ended with slurs and death threats. The backlash was immediate, harsh, and sometimes veered to the violent. Constantino was attacked as homophobic, racist, and accused of endangering the welfare of his employees. His life, and his business, were threatened. The media site Slate described it as “MAGA” and Mule Sticker’s employees as “shocked.” Not shocked, mind you, that Constantino received death threats, but “shocked” he was bold enough to admit he supported Trump.

Forbes magazine’s “workplace culture, equity and belonging” columnist Rebekah Bastian, a self-proclaimed “product leader, entrepreneur, writer and artist,” in an article titled “Sticker Mule’s Political Stance Undermines Workplace Inclusion and Customer Trust,” wrote that Constantino, by revealing his supported Trump, “alienated many of the company's employees and customers.”

She says she spoke with three Sticker Mule employees (out of the company's more than 1,200, hardly a representative sample), all who wished to remain anonymous (of course) “for fear of repercussions,” and who “all shared a lack of belonging and psychological safety at work from this incident.” Funny, but they don’t appear to have been complaining about the “lack of belonging” or fearing for their “psychological safety,” before the “incident.” Is just the knowledge that your boss, or maybe a co-worker, is a Trump supporter now a workplace “incident?” Will the new hashtag be #MyBossIsMAGAtoo?

“Talking the talk,” but not “Walking the Walk”

Political leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, constantly talk of “uniting” Americans, and of “building bridges,” but it’s mostly empty rhetoric. They “talk the talk,” but rarely “walk the walk.” More often they are burning, rather than building, bridges.

In his Inaugural Address, President Biden said the goal of his administration would be “Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.” Yet according to a recent Pew Research survey, Americans are more divided than ever. “Ordinary Americans,” reports Pew, “are more polarized than in the past. Partisan divisions on issues are wider than they were a few decades ago, and many Americans hold deeply negative views of those on the “other side” of politics.”

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last month, Trump told the crowd that “The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”

For both Biden and Trump, the rapprochement was short-lived. Neither could stick to the promises they had made just days earlier to tone down the rhetoric. For Biden it was an interview with Lester Holt right after Trump’s Butler, PA rally, for Trump it was later in the very same convention speech where he had said “our society must be healed.” Perhaps he meant “heeled?” Hotter heads eventually prevailed, and both went on as before. Trump was back to being the “existential” threat to democracy, and the President was back to being “crooked Joe.”

Dump Trump? Then What?

Many on the left want those on the right to repudiate Trump, sometimes as a condition for maintaining a friendship or respect, sometimes—as with Sticker Mule—in the name of workplace harmony. But if Trump supporters—at least the non-deplorable ones (if there are any)—dump Trump, what can they expect in return?

“Time and again, from 2016 to the present,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Duothat, “the Democratic Party has treated Trumpism not as a civic emergency but as a political opportunity, a golden chance to win over moderate and right-leaning voters with the language of anti-authoritarianism while avoiding substantive concessions to these voters and actually moving farther to the left.”

Dumping Trump—and when I say “dumping” what they mean is either voting Democratic or not voting at all—means abandoning the political, social and cultural values and policies that make them Republicans, or conservatives, or lean-right. That’s not compromise—that’s surrender. “Democratic leaders,” continues Duothat, “mostly aren’t interested in offering serious accommodations to erstwhile conservatives in return.”

If Democrats really thought Trump was the “existential” threat to democracy they claim, Douthat argues, they would be willing to make concessions worthy of that threat in order to woo right-leaning or independent voters. But they won’t, “at least not if that means passing up chances to enact policies you think are necessary or giving up on causes you hold dear.” Why should Democrats expect moderate Republicans to abandon ship when they won’t even throw them a life-preserver?

So instead, the strategy is to “shame” Trump supporters into either going woke or staying home. Back in 2016 the New York Times published a political “post-mortem.” Columnists—mostly Democrats—reacted to the election of Donald Trump with either apoplexy, reflection—or a mixture of both. “It turns out,” wrote Michael Lerner, a rabbi and progressive advocate, “that shaming the supporters of Donald J. Trump is not a good political strategy.”

In his essay, Rabbi Lerner warned fellow Democrats that supporting Trump “does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans,” only that there are “many who feel misunderstood and denigrated by the fancy intellectuals and radical activists.” In her essay, Sarah Jaffe, an author and fellow at The Nation Institute (now the Type Media Center) observed that “Mr. Trump was a bomb they were willing to throw at a system they felt was failing them.” Even Hilary Clinton admitted that “half [of Trump supporters] are people who feel the government has let them down and need understanding and empathy.” The other half, of course, were a basket of “deplorables.”

Rachel Kleinfeld, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, notes that while American voters might not be as ideologically far apart as they believe, it’s our political leaders who have become more extreme, pulling the most extreme voters—kicking and screaming at the other side—with them. “More ideologically extreme politicians,” she observed, “have been running for office since the 1980s.” Classic political science theory assumed that politicians chased voters. Seems it's now the other way round.

“Leaders on both sides need to stop describing the stakes of the election in apocalyptic terms,” pleads a recent Wall Street Journal editorial. “Democracy won’t end if one or the other candidate is elected. Fascism is not aborning if Mr. Trump wins, unless you have little faith in American institutions.”

There is, however, some cause for optimism—and it’s coming from an unlikely place—college campuses. According to another Wall Street Journal editorial, “The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is opening the doors at its new school committed to free expression…The School of Civic Life and Leadership will offer three courses this fall, including a primer on the American political tradition and a class on the fundamentals of civil debate.” The goal, says the the school’s dean “is creating an environment where students can disagree better.” Maybe there is hope on the horizon.

Speaking of what’s on the horizon, like it or not, in a little more than two months, about half, or more, of voters will be casting their ballots for Donald Trump (75 million did in 2020)—unless, of course, the left can shame them all into voting Harris-Walz. That seems unlikely. Trying times are ahead for many. So too for Washington Post columnist, and editorial board member, Colbert King.

In an essay in Saturday morning’s Washington Post, King recalls a Washington National Cathedral forum on reclaiming civility in public life he attended earlier this year. The Cathedral Dean told attendees, “I can think of few topics more important than civility and the need for civil discourse in order for our democracy to thrive.” His column is very much worth a read.

“Keeping that in mind as we encounter Trump on the campaign trail is asking a lot,” King confesses, “But it is the correct challenge.” The Harris campaign, “shouldn’t go low,” he writes, and it “shouldn’t give in to contempt and hate or speak about Trump and his supporters in dehumanizing ways.”

You want to stick it to Sticker Mule? Don’t buy their labels or stickers. Wanna stick it to the boss? Quit. But don’t be an ass.

“The press has questions for Vice President Kamala Harris,” writes Michael M. Grynbaum in the New York Times, “She isn’t giving a whole lot of answers.”

Actually, she’s not giving any answers because she’s not letting anyone ask her any questions. “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies” might be the new Harris campaign slogan. “Kamala Harris is all but telling Americans they’ll have to elect her to find out what she really believes,” cries a Wall Street Journal editorial, “as the Vice President ducks interviews and the media give her a free ride.”

Since deposing President Biden last month, Harris has continued the Biden-era tradition of no unscripted interviews with the press—not even the friendly press. We saw what happened when Biden did—and Harris has a bit of train-wreck history when she does. I have mentioned before her disastrous 2021 interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, where she went off the rails trying to defend the Administration’s border policies (notice I didn’t call her “border czar”). Afterwards she didn’t give an interview for over a year.

“In the nearly three weeks since President Biden withdrew his candidacy, catapulting Ms. Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket,” Grynbaum observes, “the vice president has shown little eagerness to meet journalists in unscripted settings. She has not granted an interview or held a news conference.” New candidate, sadly, same old no story.

While Harris has been busy ducking the press, former President Trump was back at Mar-a-Largo duking it out with them. Earlier this week he gave yet another combative, open-ended, classic Trump, press conference that featured him berating the press for asking “stupid” questions. “Trump’s appearance put attention back on him,” noted the Washington Post, “where he prefers it. Some Democrats said they would welcome him doing news conferences more frequently.” They should be careful what they wish for.

Say what you will about Trump, but you can’t criticize him for hiding from the press—only for not. Just in the last week alone he’s sat down for a controversial—and one where he knew was in hostile territory—interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (where he questioned whether Kamala Harris was actually Black) and gave that stream-of-consciousness press conference at Mar-a-Largo.

But what about the Democrat’s own candidate? Is their strategy to let Trump talk himself out of the Presidency while Harris gives the press and the American people the silent treatment? One only has to listen to former President Clinton’s media advisor, the bombastic James Carville, for a clue. “Where is it written,” Carville asked reporters from the New York Times, “that you have to sit down for a press interview?” Really? From the party that preaches transparency and freedom of the press, which might mean actually talking to the press?

Some in the media aren’t buying it. “The chief indication that the Harris team knows what it’s doing,” writes LA Times columnist Jonah Golberg, “may be its effort to keep the candidate herself under wraps.” The insinuation is, of course, that Harris can’t be trusted off-script.

While playing keep-away from the press might be good campaign strategy, Harris is still the Vice President—and second-in-command in an administration where there are real questions about the President’s ability to capably fulfill his duties. “It is disturbing,” Golberg cautions, “that even as Americans and our allies harbor serious concerns about whether the president is up to an increasingly fraught geopolitical and economic moment, his constitutional understudy has done so little to reassure the public.”

If Harris won’t answer questions from reporters, how will the press, and voters, be getting information about her, her policies, and her plans if elected? Simple, we can just take her word for it. “The vice president’s top priority is earning the support of the voters who will decide this election,” the Times reported a spokesman for Harris saying, adding that the campaign was ‘being strategic, creative and expeditious’ in using TV ads, rallies, local organizers, ‘and of course interviews that reach our target voters’.”

Hmm, “interviews that reach our target voters?” That sounds suspiciously like a “non-interview” interview with only friendly press. And still, Grynbaum notes, “He did not say when such an interview might take place.”

Will we learn about Harris only through tweets and posts? Will she feel the public’s pulse by retweets and likes? It’s not just speculation. “Ms. Harris this week tweeted a photo of her sitting next to President Biden in the White House situation room discussing the Middle East,” noted the Wall Street Journal editorial, “The point is to suggest she’s a co-pilot on Biden foreign policy.” For all we know they could have been discussing what the President had for breakfast. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’d rather have the thousand words.

“The world is more dangerous than it’s been in decades,” the Journal editorial continues, “and Americans deserve to know how the woman aiming to be Commander in Chief Harris would confront these threats.” And what about domestic issues like the economy, and Harris’ favorite subject, the border? Will she pick up where Biden left off? Will she chart her own course? Besides saying “what he [Biden] said,” what does SHE say? These are just some of the questions that reporters want to ask—and answers that voters want to hear.

When Harris ran, however briefly, for President in the 2020 Democratic Primary (she dropped out even before the Iowa caucuses), she advocated a progressive agenda that even Democrats rejected. Since then she’s played a quiet second-fiddle to President Biden, who was already playing a barely audible second fiddle. We know who Harris was in 2020, but who is she now? There has been speculation that by picking a bona-fide progressive in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, it will free her to drift towards the political center. But since she refuses to be interviewed, who knows who the 2024 Kamala Harris is? Does Kamala?

It may be at least a month before we know. Harris and Trump announced Thursday that they have agreed to three debates—the first will be September 10, and Harris said Friday that she won’t agree to any press interviews until at least after the Democratic convention on August 19. “I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,” she told the New York Times.

Avoiding the press is nothing new for some Presidents and Presidential candidates, though Biden and Harris have pushed it to its very limit. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Biden hadn’t had even one press conference in 2024 until after the disastrous debate performance. During the 1976 Presidential election Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter, for example, taunted (in Jimmy Carter’s polite, Southern, way) then President Gerald Ford for hiding in the White House’s Rose Garden issuing press releases and performing ceremonial duties while Carter campaigned across the country answering reporters questions. It was dubbed, not surprisingly, the “Rose Garden Strategy.”

Will Harris’ campaign strategy be a Rose Garden Strategy by another name? Rather than hiding out in the Rose Garden, will Harris’ 2024 campaign be known for hiding behind tweets and posts—or behind photos with Joe Biden? Presidents, or a party’s current Presidential nominee, are usually considered the head of their party. Will Harris be both the Democrat’s Unquestioned and the Unquestionable leader?

WASHINGTON — Until yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was mostly known (at least outside of Minnesota) for calling former President Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance, “weird.” And while Kamala Harris’ choice of Walz, a little-known Governor from a Midwestern state, might seem “weird” to some, he’s likely the safest choice as she looks to define herself without the distractions of a controversial running-mate.

“It seems very likely,” writes Phillip Bump in the Washington Post, “that the most common reaction to this pick will be a terse one: Who?”

“This was a choice designed to maintain the social fabric of the Democratic Party,” says pollster and election guru Nate Silver, “and avoid news cycles about a disappointed left and Democrats’ internal squabbling over the War in Gaza.” According to Silver, “It’s a nice pick: Walz, a two-term governor and six-term U.S. Representative, is from the family of Tim Kaine-style VP choices: inoffensive, unlikely to cause any harm, ‘safe’.”

The choice of Walz was likely more about who he isn’t than who he is. While he’s reliably progressive, pro-union, pro-abortion rights: “an avuncular Midwesterner and former high-school teacher,” writes John McCormick and Tarini Parti in the Wall Street Journal, ”who in recent years has signed into law policies popular with the Democratic base,” he’s uncontroversial almost to the point of invisibility.

Coming into Tuesday, many thought that Harris might choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro—a popular Governor in a battleground state. If Walz is, well, more Waltz, Shapiro is more Twist. He’s younger—Walz is 60, Shapiro is 51. Walz was a school teacher who went to a small, obscure, college; Shapiro a Georgetown-educated lawyer. Walz is low-key, Shapiro has been a controversial (at least in progressive circles) and ardent supporter of Israel, as well as a critic of pro-Palestinian campus protests.

“The basic reasons for picking Shapiro are that he increases the likelihood you win Pennsylvania, he has a demonstrated track record of popularity in the most important swing state, he’s obviously an extremely talented politician and perhaps a future standard-bearer for the party himself,” writes Silver. I have to quibble a bit with Silver here. Harris might see that last plus for Shapiro as a negative for her. Would she, desperate to set herself apart atop the party, want to put a potential rival, and perhaps a better campaigner, on her ticket?

“And also, the reasons for not picking Shapiro aren’t great,” adds Silver. “Democrats in the political bubble overstate the salience of the Gaza issue and understate the benefits of moderation, and that’s before getting into the issue of Shapiro’s Jewishness.”

Ah, the issue of Jewishness. Walz is definitely not Jewish. It wasn't so long ago, last October in fact, that being Jewish might have made you an attractive Democratic Vice Presidential hopeful. But after October 7, if you're a Jew who hasn't abandoned Israel, you're an anathema to the party's left wing. I'm sure Harris would prefer to avoid a pro-Palestinian encampment outside her campaign headquarters chanting “Divest Shapiro.” So goodbye Jewish Rye and hello good ‘ole White bread.

So far most of the polls show Harris and Trump running neck and neck—and even given Harris’ dismal approval ratings as Vice President not so long ago, a honeymoon period is expected. But these are mostly national polls, so keep in mind that it’s the Electoral College that ultimately determines who the President is, not who gets the most popular votes (as Democrats are painfully aware). In order to win—you MUST have an Electoral College strategy and you must amass the most Electoral College, not popular, votes. Like it, or not (that’s an argument for another day), those are the rules for the 2024 Presidential Election.

Silver, the founder of fivethirtyeight.com, the politics, economics and sports analysis website that was eventually swallowed-up by the New York Times (and now ABC News), believes that Pennsylvania is the most crucial of all the battleground states, followed—not so closely—by Wisconsin and Michigan. (Five Thirty Eight, by-the-way, happens to be the total number of Electoral College votes) Winning Pennsylvania is critical—and that’s why he thinks that Shapiro, not Walz, was the better Vice Presidential choice.

“Do I think Harris came to this choice for the right reasons — or at least the reasons that I think are the right reasons? Mostly not,” Silver says. “Although I think it was a real mistake not to consider Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who would seem to be a dominant strategy over Walz other than that it would mean having two women on the ticket … I thought the decision not to consider Whitmer or other candidates who weren't white men was poor.”

There was another white guy rumored to be in the mix—Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords. You might remember that Giffords, a member of the US House at the time, barely survived an assassination attempt back in 2011. Kelly had been considered a moderate counterweight to Harris—especially since Kelly has, according to the Washington Post, “struck a tough tone on the border that could help win over moderates.” But having Kelly on the ticket would likely have brought even greater scrutiny to Harris’ border woes, and focused attention both away from Harris, and on an issue perceived as a weakness for the Vice President.

So, what about Walz? “Walz was viewed by some Minnesotans as a moderate Democrat when first elected governor,” McCormick and Tarini Parti wrote in their Wall Street Journal article, “but he has governed more to the left than some initially expected.” Walz has, for example, supported driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and voting rights for the formerly incarcerated. “To win in November,” they say, “Harris likely needs to do the reverse of what Walz did. She already is distancing herself from some of the more progressive parts of her record.”

But Walz has some positives. He’s an army veteran who, in addition to being Governor, served six terms in Congress representing a right-leaning district. He’s a former teacher—and Shapiro has supported school vouchers, earning the ire of teacher’s unions. He won’t anger the progressives, or the moderates. He’s white. But perhaps most importantly to Harris—he’s also invisible; there’s almost no chance she’ll be upstaged by him. And while that might not make him the strongest VP choice, it might make him her perfect Walz(ing) partner.

WASHINGTON DC— What if you had a credit card that never maxed out? When you reached the credit limit you could increase it yourself, regardless of how much you overspent, and someone else paid the bill so that you could keep on spending as much as you wanted. In that case you’d likely be a member of the US Congress, or the President of the United States.

Last Monday the US Government surpassed what would have been—only a decade ago—an unimaginable milestone, or more aptly, millstone. The debt incurred by the federal government now exceeds $35 TRILLION. That’s 35 THOUSAND billion, or 35 MILLION million! It’s a truly staggering amount. To put this amount of debt in perspective, if you confiscated every penny from every millionaire in America—there are an estimated 22 millionaires in the US—you still couldn’t pay down the federal debt. The government now owes more than $100,000 for each American adult and child.

“America’s gross national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time on Monday,” reported the New York Times, “a reminder of the nation’s grim fiscal predicament as legislative fights over taxes and spending initiatives loom in Washington.” Gross indeed.

Meanwhile, Rome burns as politicians fiddle with whether or not Kamala Harris is really “black,” whether she was—or was not—the “border czar,” or whether JD Vance is really as crazy as he seems. “The leading presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump,” said the New York Times, “have said little about the nation’s deficits on the campaign trail, suggesting that the economic problem will only worsen in the coming years.”

Many of us might wish for more bipartisanship in Washington—seems every year there is less—but when it comes to spending money the federal government doesn’t have, Congress and the President have been dangerously bipartisan. Both Democratic and Republican Presidents, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress, have operated on continuous overdraft, writing checks with money they don't have but knowing won't bounce.

Maybe the reason you're not hearing much about the federal debt is that neither former president Trump nor Vice President Harris can credibly point the finger at the other, without having the same one pointed back at them. “In the presidential race, there’s not much partisan difference or advantage on this subject. Donald Trump and President Biden have overseen similar additions to the nation’s accumulated debt—in the range of $7 trillion in each case—during their terms,” says Gerald F. Seib, the Wall Street Journal’s former Executive Washington editor, “The national response to both has been, by and large, to look the other way.”

Only five years in the past sixty has the federal government run a surplus. The vast majority of the time it has run deficits—often massive ones that exceeded, sometimes far exceeded, 20% of the total budget. How is that level of financial irresponsibility sustainable? The answer, it’s probably not.

Saddled with more than $35 trillion of debt, the federal government now pays more in interest on debt than it does to defend the nation. “Net interest is the fastest growing category of federal spending,” a recent Washington Post editorial lamented. “For the first time ever, interest costs will exceed defense spending this fiscal year.”

Yet neither party seems all that eager to curtail spending, or to address runaway debt, with anything more than a press release. “Both political parties are using the debt mostly as a rationale for doing things they would like to do anyway,” according to Seib, “some Republicans to oppose more aid for Ukraine, for example, and some Democrats to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.”

In addition to dollars, federal debt is often measured as a percentage of GDP, Gross Domestic Product, which is the total of all the goods and services produced by the US economy—everything that’s made, bought and sold. It’s also referred to as the total national output. “While income is usually measured in money,” according to economist and Senior Fellow at Stanford University, Thomas Sowell, “real income is measured in what money can buy, how much goods and services. The total real income of everyone in the national economy and the total national output are one and the same thing.”

“Only a dozen years ago, the aggregate government debt amounted to about 70% of the nation’s gross domestic product,” Seib said in his Wall Street Journal Guest Essay, “This red ink can have painful, if hidden, consequences. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] projects that the weight of the debt will reduce income growth by 12% over the next three decades, as debt payments crowd out other investments.”

Attention To Deficit Disorder

Deficit spending isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be a useful tool to spur the economy or respond to catastrophic events. But like most tools, it’s designed for a specific purpose. You don’t use a screwdriver to drive a nail, at least you shouldn't—and politicians shouldn’t be using deficit spending as a way pay for things they want now, but can’t pay for now—or maybe ever.

Like a compulsive shopper, Washington politicians are addicted to spending, and not so much to paying. If you’re in Congress long enough, or you’re the President, it’s only a matter of time, it seems, before you contract “Attention To Deficit Disorder,” a political malady whose symptoms include no longer paying attention to budget deficits and sticking the bill to the American taxpayer.

So, if Congress and the President routinely ignore budget deficits, do deficits even matter?

Some economists, like Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University, an advisor to US Senator Bernie Sanders, a favorite of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), don’t think so. They don’t even think we should be using the term “deficit.”

“It would be far better, in my view, to simply call the resulting difference ‘net spending’,” she said. Kelton believes it’s not a deficit at all, since the government can print the money that makes up the difference between what it spends and what it receives in taxes. The federal government is, to MMT adherents, essentially an unlimited cash machine that can, and should, be accessed anytime (which is pretty much all the time) that the federal government runs out of money.

Kelton describes what you and I would call a “deficit” as how “much income the government is adding to the financial positions of the non-government sector.” The emphasis is hers, and it sounds like something unintelligible an economist might say. Since the government prints it’s own money it’s not “borrowing,” according to Kelton. “Ask yourself, does a currency-issuing government ever need to borrow its own currency from anyone?” Fortunately Kelton is very much in the economics minority.

Why the deficit should be of interest

“If we just have the debt keep growing, we have to pay interest on that,” Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan said. “So we have to spend more ... just to pay the interest on the debt, which means that more of our budget needs to go towards the interest on the debt.” That means less for defense, social programs and infrastructure. And more debt can mean higher interest rates. The US is now actually borrowing to pay interest on the money the federal government has already borrowed.

One way the US pays for budget deficits is by selling bonds to investors, including institutional investors like hedge funds and banks. Increasingly, however, those “investors” include foreign nations like China. It’s estimated that foreign investors, including foreign governments, now “own” 40% of US debt.

Does it matter who “owns” US debt? As it turns out it very well might. Way back in 2007 the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, issued a report that warned that “the United States continued dependence on foreign borrowing is a significant vulnerability in the event of shock, such as a collapse in U.S. housing prices, or an extreme national security breach, that might slow the inflow of new funds into the United States.” Again—this was when government debt was just a fraction of what it is today. Luckily, we haven’t had a catastrophe that would trigger that vulnerability—but it’s no stretch to think that our adversaries, like China, would be happy to pounce given the opportunity.

Another way out of the deficit spending—ballooning federal debt morass is to tax our way out, or limit social safety net programs like social security and Medicare. Both parties have said, so far, that Social Security and Medicare cuts or benefit changes are off the table (we have written about this before)—and Republicans, and many moderate Democrats, will likely continue to reject tax increases. So, are we back where we started, kicking the debt-can down the road, hoping for the best and that no-one cares?

“Bipartisan neglect of the debt would be excusable if the underlying problem were somehow solving itself, but the opposite is true,” according to a Washington Post editorial. “The list of possible long-term negative consequences includes high interest rates, severe budget cuts and even a government default.” The Wall Street Journal’s Seib strikes a similar tone. “History,” he writes, “offers some cautionary notes about the consequences of swimming in debt. Over the centuries and across the globe, nations and empires that blithely piled up debt have, sooner or later, met unhappy ends.”

Personally, I prefer happy endings, and for far too long we’ve been giving Washington too much credit. “Giving money and power to politicians,” humorist Dave Barry once equipped “is like giving whiskey and car keys to a 16-year old.” Perhaps it’s time we took away the keys, the bottle, oh, and the credit card.

In March 2021, to much fanfare, President Joe Biden announced that he was taking border security seriously and was placing Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of managing migration at the southern border. Biden said he was giving her a "tough job," but that she was "the most qualified person to do it."

"While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also—because we can chew gum and walk at the same time—must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek as the president has described to come here,” Harris said at the time.

Now that she’s the (very) likely nominee of the Democratic Party after the withdrawal of President Biden from the campaign, Harris—with much of the left-leaning media’s help—is attempting to distance herself from the border, something she has been quite adept at since Biden gave her the task more than three years ago. That must be the “walk” part of “chew gum and walk”—as she has mostly walked away from any public role in border security. A silly word game over whether Harris was ever the “border czar” has ensued.

The genesis of the term “border czar” to refer to Vice President Harris is disputed—and Republicans have frequently taunted her with that moniker. It’s a title that Harris, and lately many in the media, have rejected—especially now that it’s almost assured that Harris will be the Democratic nominee and immigration is an issue at the top of voter’s minds.

“But Ms. Harris was not, in fact, appointed border czar,” declaimed the New York Times, in the July 17, 2024 edition, “nor was she tasked with addressing the broader problems plaguing the border itself.”

But according to a report in the very same New York Times from April 2021, just weeks after Biden’s announcement, “Ms. Harris will also soon be taking over work from a departing official with years of experience. Last week, Roberta S. Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico chosen as Mr. Biden’s ‘border czar,’ said that she would retire from government. She said she was happy to see Ms. Harris assume the work of stemming migration from Central America.” Maybe reporters from the New York Times should read…The New York Times.

At the time of Biden’s announcement all the major news outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, reported that Harris would be coordinating the administration’s immigration policy and often referred to her as the “point person” chosen to “stem the tide of migrants.” A Washington Post headline announcing just that, “Harris to be point person for Biden administration in stemming flow of migrants at the border,” was typical.

To be, or not to be, the “border czar”

Whether Harris was, or was not, the “border czar” or “point person” is irrelevant—she was the Vice President of the United States—and like it or not, she’s going to be saddled with any of the real, or perceived, failures of the Biden Administration. Try as she might, there will be no distancing herself from that—and the border is generally regarded by the public as a policy disaster.

According to the non-partisan Pew Research Center, “Americans overwhelmingly fault the government for how it has handled the migrant situation.” The public opinion firm Gallup recently reported that “Significantly more U.S. adults than a year ago, 55% versus 41%, would like to see immigration to the U.S. decreased.” In their latest survey, Gallup found that “42% describe the situation at the U.S. border with Mexico as a crisis and 35% a major problem.”

And THAT is a major problem, perhaps a crisis, for the “Border Czar,” “point-person,” Vice President, whoever—and now likely Democratic nominee for President Kamala Harris.

Republicans, especially former President Trump, who advocate border security are often portrayed as “inhumane,” or “uncaring.” It wasn’t that long ago, however, that the nation’s leading Democrats, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, were saying that the United States needed more secure borders and were touting their successes in slowing immigration. And that was when illegal immigration was a fraction of what it is today.

"When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system. And I began by doing what I could to secure our borders,” President Obama said in a November 2014 statement. “Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history. And over the past six years, illegal border crossings have been cut by more than half.”

In his 1996 State of the Union Address President Bill Clinton said “there are some areas that the federal government should not leave and should address and address strongly. One of these areas is the problem of illegal immigration. After years of neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our borders…Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation of immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal immigrant here, working hard to become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.”

Too Little, too Late?

In an article that’s more fawning than reporting, the New York Times tried to downplay both Harris’ role in immigration policy as well as the level of immigration during Harris’ tenure as Vice President. “After the number of migrants crossing the southern border hit record levels at times during the administration’s first three years, “ writes the Times, “crossings have now dropped to their lowest levels since Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris took office.”

The “at times” the New York Times refers to is more truthfully the entire time, and the crossings (actually illegal crossings) that have now “dropped to their lowest levels since Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris took office,” are still the highest in more than 20 years. So much for unbiased reporting.

Back in June the President, realizing that concerns about the border could be his campaign’s Achilles Heel, said he would “take the necessary steps to secure our border.” After three years of unprecedented levels of illegal border crossings the President said “today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.” But what the President could have done in June 2024, he could have done in June 2021, or June 2022, or June 2023. Why didn’t he? A cynic (me) might say that the sudden change in policy was not intended to stem the flow of illegal immigration as much as to stem Biden’s plummeting approval ratings—which are now irrelevant.

Oh, and by-the-way, nowhere in the statement is Vice President Harris mentioned—nowhere. So, that might tell you one of two things—one, Harris never had anything much to do with border policy (in which case the March 2021 announcement was political fluff), or that Harris had lost the President’s trust on the border. Neither bode well for Harris, who has worked harder at avoiding border questions than quelling border crossings.

For much of the past three years, Harris has mostly avoided questions about the border, or acting in any meaningful way that it remotely concerned her. “After her disastrous interview with Lester Holt of NBC News in June 2021, in which she struggled to articulate the administration’s strategy for securing the border,” wrote New York Times reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Katie Rogers and Peter Baker, “White House officials — including some in her own office — noted that she all but went into a bunker for about a year, avoiding many interviews out of what aides said was a fear of making mistakes and disappointing Mr. Biden.”

The quarrel over whether Harris was the “border czar,” or not, is much ado about nothing—and it’s not the right question. “As Joe Biden’s vice-president,” observes The Economist, “Ms Harris is in essence running as an incumbent. She will inherit his weaknesses, which Republicans are more than ready to exploit. That is most evident on immigration.”

The right question then, is what was she, and the administration of which she was a part, doing about the border? The American people will expect an answer to that one.

According to Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, if you don’t have children, you don’t count—at least not as much.

Back in 2021, JD Vance, then a candidate for US Senate in Ohio, gave an interview on FOX News with Tucker Carlson that’s just now drawing attention. Vance was complaining about Democrats and said that the US is being run by a bunch of “childless cat ladies.”

“We’re effectively run in this country—via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs,” Vance told Carlson, “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” During the interview, Vance cited Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (not a lady by the way), and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as examples of “people without children” in the Democratic Party.

Mocking someone for not having children is a cruel low blow, even in today’s hostile political environment where almost nothing is out of bounds—and should have been beneath someone who was running for US Senate. On top of it—it wasn’t true. Harris has two stepchildren, and Buttigieg and his partner are the parents of two adopted children. Whether it’s by choice or not—it’s none of Vance’s business whether someone has, or doesn’t have, children or why—or to punish them for what may not even be a choice. And, do only someone’s biological children count?

It’s ironic that one of the leaders of a party that preaches getting the government out of the lives of its citizens and criticizes the “nanny” state would instead be preaching the “baby” state.

Since the “cat lady” remarks became widely public, Vance has tried—in his own, and as it turns out superficial and combative way—to backtrack, a bit. “I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this,” he said on the “Megyn Kelly Show” this past Friday, “but the simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way.”

If only that were the “simple” point he was making. Perhaps he thinks we are the simple ones? No JD—the not so subtle point you were making is that parents—especially parents of biological children—have a greater stake in the future of our nation, and therefore should have more of a say in how our country is run. Might parents (all parents) have a different perspective that having children gives them—OK I can go with that as far as that goes. But Vance goes farther—much farther.

How do I know? Because Vance gave another interview in 2021 that is even more disturbing than the FOX News interview. In a speech to a conservative policy group, Vance said that each American’s political power should be proportional to the number of children they have. The more children you have, the more your vote should count.

“Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children,” Vance told the Intercollegiate Studies Institute back in 2021. “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power—you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic—than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.” Sorry, but that doesn’t sound very democratic to me.

Vance, 39, is the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir turned movie about Vance overcoming a dysfunctional, chaotic, hardscrabble childhood to attend Yale Law School—with a stop as a US Marine serving in Iraq in between. In many ways Vance’s life is the cliche rags-to-riches American Dream story—but his politics can be a nightmare, even for Republicans.

“Hillbilly Elegy” catapulted Vance to national attention—which he leveraged into a successful race for US Senate in 2022—and now possibly to being the Vice President of the United States. Once a “Never-Trumper,” who called Trump '“toxic,” an “idiot,” and “reprehensible,” Vance’s evolution into the MAGA movement, some might say “devolution,” has an air of malleable ambition about it.

“There is, of course, nothing inherently pathological about changing one’s political views,” Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times. "Vance, however, swapped out not just his beliefs but his entire public persona in just a few short years. ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ contains an indictment of ‘conspiracy-mongers and fringe lunatics’ who spread lies about Barack Obama’s religion and birthplace. And it laments the corrosive cynicism that led many in his white working-class community to embrace these falsehoods.”

So, walking back comments or repudiating prior beliefs is nothing new for Vance, but during his appearance on the “Megyn Kelly Show,” he had an opportunity to “clarify” his comments about disenfranchising the childless—he instead doubled-down. While calling his “cat-lady” comments harmless sarcasm—he avoided discussing his controversial voting scheme altogether.

We should be rightfully suspicious of someone who changes worldviews when it becomes convenient—or when a prior worldview becomes temporarily inconvenient. Abraham Lincoln once replied to a US Senator who criticized him for changing his mind, “I don’t think much of a man who is isn’t smarter today than he was yesterday.” But JD Vance is no Abraham Lincoln, and change has been a big part of Vance’s persona. In 2019, for example, Vance converted to Catholicism and was baptized.

It’s fair-game to challenge a politician for “flip-flopping,” though we should respect those, like Lincoln, willing to abandon or modify their thinking when it doesn’t work or they’ve come to see it as flawed—economic and foreign policy come immediately to mind. Vance has argued, for example, that his change-of-heart regarding Trump is a product of being shown he was wrong—or perhaps it was just wrong for Vance politically if he hoped to climb Trump’s Republican ladder.

I’m not surprised that Vance’s “cat-lady” comments have garnered so much media attention, but I am surprised that his childless “don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country” comment has received so little. Many in the media have focused on the “cat-lady” comment and tried to twist it into misogyny—I don’t see it as misogyny so much as stupidity.

The New York Times Maureen Dowd, for example, has argued that Vance believes in disempowering women and turning them into to nothing more than baby machines. “[O]n the campaign trail,” Dowd wrote of Vance, “he projects an archaic image nurtured by Heritage Foundation-Project 2025 fanatics and Vance’s fellow superconservative Catholics. You get the impression that they would love nothing more than to dispatch women back to the kitchen and bedroom, turning them into what Hilary Mantel called ‘breeding stock, collections of organs.’”

I’ve grown weary of the “Handmaid’s Tale” allusions, and I don’t think they fit here. Vance is no Harrison Butker—the Kansas City Chiefs kicker who believes that a woman’s highest calling is as a mother and wife, and whose focus should be inside, not outside, the home. Like Vance, his wife Usha is also a Yale Law graduate—they met in law school—and she has clerked for two current Supreme Court Justices, including Chief Justice Roberts. Up until Vance’s nomination as Vice-President she was a civil litigator for a large law firm. She’s no doting, submissive, housewife.

And it’s not just political power Vance wants to take away from the “childless.” He wants to take away their money too. According to Forbes during a podcast in 2021 he advocated a higher tax rate for childless adults and has supported giving federal loans to marrying couples that would be forgiven if the couple has children.

Vance, the Populist!

Does anyone other than me see a theme here? Vance is obsessed with Americans having more children—he’s a literal populist. It’s true that the American birthrate is at an historic low—as the younger generations have fewer children, and later—or not at all. And the marriage rate is also declining—and unmarried women are less likely to have children. Let’s put aside the obvious constitutional questions for now—and the violation of “one man, one vote.” Are Americans really going to have more children, or get married, to get more political power? Will the new come-on line become—”hey baby, let’s go upstairs…and make a new vote?”

There’s a scene in the movie Braveheart where Longshanks, the King of England, is plotting his conquest of Scotland and after several failed attempts he’s decided to give his lords free “reign” over newly married women so that the children born will have English blood. “If we can't drive them out,” quips Longshanks, “we will breed them out.” I’m not sure to what end Vance’s literal populism is aimed, but I am sure I don’t want to know. Does he think that we can **** ourselves out of our country’s problems?

Vance also has other unconventional ideas—at least for someone who styles themselves as a conservative Republican. “He is not someone who just parrots his party’s talking points,” writes Oliver Wiseman in The Free Press, “In the Senate, he hasn’t just voted with the GOP herd but teamed up with Democrats on a range of bills that stake out new ideological territory for Republicans. He makes some of Trump’s donors uncomfortable.”

He’s making me uncomfortable too.

To the surprise of nobody, President Joe Biden called it quits on Sunday, dropping out of the campaign for President while attempting to remain President for the remaining six months.

Whether he is successful in that strategy remains to be seen. Another stumbling public performance or two and the 25th amendment will be invoked to install Kamala Harris as President for the rest of the term. Biden is very likely to pardon his son and brother as he exits. While he has promised not to do so, President Biden knows this is the only way Hunter stays out of prison—so he will pull a Gerald Ford and protect his family “for the good of the country.”

Back to Kamala Harris, she immediately began acting like the de facto Democratic candidate for President even though she is far from locking up that position. Don’t believe me? Just look at who hasn’t endorsed her: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies.

I know that Biden endorsed her—that is of little value now that he is headed for a rocking chair. And I won’t spend time discussing the Clintons, as they play a Machiavellian style of politics that can never be taken at face value. Rest assured, Hillary is attempting to pull in every IOU and pressure point for a backroom deal at the convention to be the candidate. She is desperately attempting one last run at the brass ring—especially with Trump as the target since she wants to erase her failure in 2016. Given how abjectly terrible Kamala Harris has been at being Vice President, anything is possible next month at the Democratic Convention.

Democrats know that taking the nomination from Harris will have to be handled delicately. The party of “identity politics” cannot risk alienating their base so close to the election, and rest assured that the king-maker at the convention, former President Obama, will decide who gets the chance to make a run at Trump.

Unfortunately for Hillary, there is no love lost between the Clintons and Obamas—so it will be hard to see a situation where Obama lets such a divisive figure at the top of the ticket. Hillary has done herself no favors these past eight years either, being an election denier herself, and clinging to the hoax—funded through her campaign—that Trump was beholden to Russia. It is difficult to see a scenario where Hillary Clinton rises from the ashes like a phoenix to challenge Trump.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is at the apex of his popularity, having survived the assassination attempt and overseeing a well-run GOP convention last week in Milwaukee. Obama unleashed his sycophants to attack Biden when it became clear that Trump would crush him. The result was not hard to predict: Joe stepped aside.

Now, the steady drip of leaks and whispers about the frailty of Joe Biden may morph into questions of competency for Kamala Harris if the smoke filled room at the Democratic convention decides that is best. Kamala better do what she hasn’t done in three and a half years as Vice President, shine at public appearances, avoid word salads when the red light of cameras turn on, and stop her “nails on the chalkboard” cackling when she gets nervous. Otherwise, she will be cast aside as easily as Joe Biden was!