The Democrats successfully completed the seemingly impossible task: they generated enthusiasm among the voters for the so far unpopular vice president. The question is, will that be enough for Harris against Donald Trump?
Before Joe Biden suspended his re-election campaign, it was widely accepted within the Democratic Party that Kamala Harris would have no chance against Donald Trump in the November election. As the most unpopular vice president of all time, Harris' only advantage seemed to be that he was younger and more energetic than Joe Biden. After the president's resignation, however, the entire democratic elite lined up behind him, and the American media machine started to rewrite the narrative. The Harris campaign transformed a liberal and aloof politician into a centrist and inspiring candidate, and polls show that a significant number of people have accepted this transformation.
The tactic of the Democrats is simple: Trump is a divisive candidate, hated by millions, who needs to be replaced by a lovable, inspiring character,
even if this character is actually just a fantasy, and the politician behind him is neither inspiring nor likable.
If political positions were to decide, then it would be enough for the Republicans to point to the activities of Kamala Harris as a senator and prosecutor, on the basis of which one can count on an even more progressive and much more left-wing president than Joe Biden.
But the Democrats don't want to sell a policy, they want to sell a story: Harris is presented as an inspirational candidate who is a child of immigrants, a woman of color, and a woman who will oppose the "evil, racist, old and white" Trump. It's all part of a well-thought-out strategy that saw the best campaigners come together to create Kamala Harris. Their huge advantage is that Harris enjoys the support of the media, influencers and the entire American pop culture. Time also works for him: he has to maintain this new image for less than three months.
When Kamala Harris ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, she briefly led the race, but her positive image quickly crumbled as she gained more attention and more screen time. Democrats have now recreated the popularity that Harris enjoyed for a few weeks in 2019.
The big question is: can they maintain this status until election day this time?
Disadvantage to advantage: personality
One of Kamala Harris' biggest problems throughout her political career was that no matter how many times she gave an interview or made a spontaneous statement; circular sentences leading to nothing left his mouth, which could easily be parodied. The Democrats took it and figured out that this quality of Harris is actually positive, and that she is everyone's "wine aunt" who sometimes talks back and forth. In fact, it's not enough that she's everyone's aunt, she's actually a "brat". "brat summer" is a trend that was born based on the hit of the singer Charli XCX: a brat is a party animal, a laid-back girl who sometimes says stupid things, but is actually smart. Although sixty-year-old Kamala Harris is probably not remembered by this description, TikTok's algorithm picked up on the trend, and the singer herself gave it her blessing.
Kamala explains the Russian-Ukrainian conflict:
(In the video, the vice president says: “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists alongside another country called Russia. Russia is the bigger country. Russia is a strong country. Russia decided to invade the smaller country called Ukraine. So basically this is incorrect…”)
The campaign strategically avoids allowing Kamala Harris to express herself spontaneously: since Biden's withdrawal, she has not given a single interview, not even in written form. A similar tactic was used in 2020 with Biden, but while in the case of Biden, people remembered what he was like as Obama's vice president, in the case of Harris, the goal is more to make people see the Kamala Harris that the Democrats are trying to bring to life. The fewer spontaneous manifestations it has, the fewer errors there are, and the more the image of it can be shaped.
Sure, the Internet is full of Harris' previous unpleasant statements, but unless someone is looking for them on purpose, they certainly won't appear on American news sites.
Another strategy used by the campaign is for Harris to speak exclusively from the text seen on the helpline during his campaign speeches, avoiding improvisation altogether.
This makes his expressions highly edited and prevents him from saying confusing sentences. That's what Trump's staff have been trying to get him to do for years, as he's also prone to going off script. Harris is not one of the charismatic politicians, but he certainly gives better speeches than Biden, and is younger and more energetic than Trump, who is approaching eighty.
From liberal to centrist
The Republicans may face serious difficulties if the election is not decided on issues. As vice president, Kamala Harris is part of the current administration, so the bad decisions of the Biden administration affect her as well.
For now, however, Harris' campaign is trying to distance itself from Biden.
In the past three and a half years, his task was to solve the border situation, he was also called the "border tsar" in the media, despite this, he did not visit the border for a long time, which he explained in an interview by saying that he "hadn't even been to Europe yet" as vice president. Because the Biden administration's border policy is hard to defend, the Harris campaign and the American media are communicating that the vice president was never actually responsible for it.
The Washington-based newspaper Axios, for example, claimed that Harris was never a "border czar", while they themselves previously referred to the vice president as such.
As a senator, Harris was one of the most liberal politicians in Congress.
A site called GovTrack analyzed his polls, which called him the "most liberal senator," and the independent website unexpectedly removed that analysis from its site after Harris was nominated. No major bills or laws are associated with Harris. However, during the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate campaign, he spoke on many important issues: he supported, for example, the reduction of the police budget, green policies, and the ban on fracking (deep sea oil drilling). However, the campaign is now trying to position him as a middle-line candidate, as well as appealing to him as a "law and order" candidate, citing his prosecutorial background. The oddity of the campaign is that Harris' official website does not have a dedicated section on what his positions are or what his plans are.
Some analysts say the Harris campaign made a mistake in picking the vice presidential nominee. Many expected the liberal politician to choose a centrist candidate, but this did not happen - as he named Tim Walz as his vice presidential candidate, who followed a progressive line as governor of Minnesota. Walz is an energetic and good speaker who is also being emphasized as a personality and trying to sell him as a "father figure".
Walz has even more progressive views on trans issues than Harris.
The Washington Post described her as "one of the foremost champions of transgender rights and gender identity-affirming care (gender reassignment surgery)" . He signed an ordinance that made Minnesota a "trans haven" for parents who supported their minor children's transformational treatments (hormones, surgeries, etc.)
However, Walz is positioned as the party's target audience for conservative voters in the Midwest, as he is a white man who previously served and coached in the National Guard. So, instead of his progressive governance, they focus on his personality as well.
The removal of Joe Biden from the race was a huge relief for the Democrats, and they are doing their best to say as little as possible about the circumstances of this removal, or the fact that Biden remained the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of the US military, while he was found unfit to do so. to campaign.
The Harris campaign is riding a wave of relief and enthusiasm over Biden's ouster.
Harris's first big test may be the presidential debate with Donald Trump in September, but until then, based on public opinion polls, the vice president's popularity may increase. According to the polls, Harris and Trump are neck and neck, and the Democratic candidate is getting closer to the former president in several swing states.
Featured Image: X/Kamala Harris
