Good morning and welcome to the sixth edition of Carnival of Fools! Things are starting to get dark and weird at this point; it’s the moment in the Grand Guignol when cheap blood pellets begin to flow all over the stage as the electoral entertainment rises to a half-rational Lynchian climax. If you’re one of those sickos, like me, with your face pressed up to the screen hissing, “YES . . . HA HA HA . . . YES!” at the historic catastrophe of it all, then please subscribe to get a weekly dose of disease every Tuesday morning. Otherwise, we need to address the question on many political observers’ minds this week: Where did all the Democratic “bros” go?
The Kamala Vibes Train Is Running Low on Coal
And the reason this question is top of mind is because the vibes are petering out for Harris at the worst possible time for her campaign: right before it ends. The first and most obvious predicate to this observation is that, in a campaign that has been fought to a draw nearly all season (except for that brief swooning moment when the bottom began to truly fall out for Joe Biden), all of us in the media commentariat — nay, not even Nate Silver himself is exempt, truly none of us are free of sin — have been playing something of a “vibes” game over this coin-flip race.
For in 2024, bewilderingly few of the old predictable inflection points — debates, press conferences, major media interviews — have existed as guideposts to help us reckon with the course of the race. We have nothing but the polls (polls nobody quite trusts, regardless of what we publicly aver, recalling the misses of 2016 and 2020) to measure against an unprecedented series of political “black swan” events: A legendary debate disaster reveals a conspiratorially hidden condition; a candidate, after having all but secured the official nomination, is forced out in an internal coup to be replaced by his ill-equipped and cipherous understudy; the Republican ex-president opponent is nearly assassinated, more than once. What does it all add up to? Only fools are certain. (“Smart” people like me flatter themselves for eschewing certainty and instead embrace uninformed hunches.)
But, for now, the most recent polls have turned against Harris — she is in fact becoming less popular over time — and thus the mood among Harris partisans has gotten grim. This plane doesn’t feel like it’s going to land without disintegrating on contact with the ground. And so emergency glass is being smashed and panic buttons stabbed across the Democratic coalition: Bill Clinton returns from the dead to rally voters in the Sunbelt, Barack Obama trots out and lectures black men in a huff in Pittsburgh, and Kamala Harris reads from a teleprompter to challenge Donald Trump’s physical fitness — all of them desperately searching for the disappearing working-class male Democratic voter.
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, ‘Men for Kamala’ Are from Some Alternate Dimension
Hollywood has been doing its part, too, although I suspect that the Harris campaign and the rest of the media wish they would have left well enough alone. By this point I hope you have all seen the series of third-party pro-Harris advertisements scripted and shot by one of Jimmy Kimmel’s former head staffers. You know the ones I’m talking about, right? In which men boldly explain to the camera how they’re (1) really, totally, I promise 100 percent heterosexual flank-cut slabs of authentic unpretentious dudeliness, which means they’re (2) man enough to support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in 2024, and What’s your problem, undecided male voter?
It’s a failure so spectacular and unwittingly revealing as to defy adequate description, which of course means that I am now going to attempt to describe it for you. “I’m a man,” says one actor, who might have made you genuinely wonder, as the shot intercuts several very non-rural, non-conservative-looking guys repeating the phrase. “I’m man enough to enjoy a barrel-proof bourbon,” says one. (“Neat,” adds another dude, because apparently only effete Republicans put ice in their drinks.) “I’m man enough to cook my steak rare,” proudly adds another, cognizant of the dangers real men undertake when dining at upscale restaurants. A faux weightlifter fixes us with a steely gaze and says he’s “man enough to deadlift 500 and braid the sh** out of my daughter’s hair.” (My suggestion: Aim more realistically for maxing out at 100 lbs first before you get to “braiding the sh**” out of anything, kiddo. Start with your sneakers.)
A large man lisps, “You think I’m afraid to rebuild a carburetor? I eat carburetors for breakfast.” (Carburetors have not been standard in engines for nearly 30 years, since they were replaced with fuel-injection systems in the early 1990s, and if he truly eats them for breakfast, then this explains his present frame.) “I ain’t afraid of bears,” says another, reminding us inevitably of the mistake women made en masse on social media earlier this year. And then this hectoring chorale of self-described men gets to the point: “I’ll tell ya another thing I’m sure as sh** not afraid of: women.” Yup, real men may not eat quiche, but they do vote Kamala, and these guys are the living proof of it — why, just look at how dudely all of them are.
It’s such a marvelous misfire that, at first, I was convinced it was a dark “op” by the smartest and most savagely effective pro-Trump memetic forces on the internet. I mean, how much clearer could the joke have been? The Harris campaign is bleeding male voters of all races and classes outside of educated middle-class and elite suburbia, and here comes a brilliant 30 Rock–style ad to twist the knife, like Steve Buscemi trotting on camera and jocularly announcing, “How do you do, fellow male bumpkins? Why aren’t you voting for Kamala Harris like the rest of the country rubes in the ad?”
But no — and, my God, I cannot believe this is true — they meant it sincerely. As my colleagues have already gleefully noted, I underwent a horrible epiphany about it live on Twitter on Friday afternoon, starting from “Clearly this is a right-wing op meant to savage Kamala” to hedging my bets with “God help them if it wasn’t,” and it finally dawned on me that My God, they meant it for real. I was left pondering the same question anyone else would when watching Jimmy Kimmel’s former head writer and a bunch of out-of-work Los Angeles actors simulate masculinity: Are there any remaining normal heterosexual males making branding decisions in the Democratic coalition? Are these writers and actors only working for themselves, pathetically imagining their own idealized “normal male Kamala supporter,” because they’re having such trouble finding any normal ones in daily life?
Tim Walz, Relatably Normal Gun-Owning American Male
The same people behind the “Men for Kamala” ad also came up with one for vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, and I will inflict upon you only the link for this one, since Walz was out there this weekend making cringeworthy images for himself without help from his Hollywood friends.
Yes, Walz went pheasant hunting with shotgun in hand, and, like almost everything else that he has attempted during this campaign season, it didn’t go so well. If you’ve lived long enough you’ve seen variations on this old political ritual before, in which a politician throws on garish camo and a vest and “hunts” for the benefit of the cameras to prove to “the folks” what an everyday regular Joe he is. I recall similarly unconvincing attempts by John Kerry and Mitt Romney back in the day. (Barack Obama had the good sense to not even bother with a stunt that he considered to be beneath him; John McCain had nothing to prove about masculinity to anybody, ever.) But I figured that Tim Walz, a former congressman from rural Minnesota, would still know how to handle himself. Apparently not!
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m the opposite of a “gun guy,” and it is for that reason that I recognize what it looks like when a guy unfamiliar with them encounters one. It’s not that I’m anti–Second Amendment, I am merely so completely unfamiliar with firearms that I can honestly say I’ve never even seen one outside of a cop’s holster — or the hands of a distantly glimpsed thug crossing a busy street — much less held or fired one. (Needless to say, I have been the subject of savage mockery internally at NR for this, but these are the wages of growing up in suburban Maryland, going to school in Baltimore, and moving to Chicago — and of having been mugged to date exclusively at knifepoint.)
So, far be it from me to ignorantly suggest to Tim Walz that “maybe you shouldn’t load a shotgun with the shoulder stock angled in a way that could accidentally backfire directly into your unprotected crotch.” Instead, I decided to turn to my friend and colleague Luther Ray Abel, whom we’re really lucky to have because he happens to sit squarely in the middle of the Harris-Walz ticket’s target demographic: Luther is an impressively bearded Navy veteran, recreational shooter and occasional outdoorsman, and most of all a genuine northern Wisconsinite. Why, when you think about it, demographically, he’s Kamala Harris’s ideal swing voter!
Alas, Luther’s notes suggest that he was unimpressed: Like me, he was alarmed at how Walz dangerously reloaded his shotgun against his legs (rather than securing it against his armpit) and proceeded to wave it around like an elephant’s trunk. Luther was even less impressed with Walz’s brandishing one of the simplest long guns in America as his own personal “pheasant-hunting” Beretta A400 and then visibly failing to properly load or handle it. (“It’s a $2,000+ shotgun made for people playing on Easy Mode,” says Luther.) Walz may have once known how to handle himself on a hunting trip. If so, it’s pretty obvious that his skills have gotten rusty since he went to Saint Paul and became governor. Luther’s final thought: “How did nobody distress this man’s hunting clothing before he went out there? The stuff looked like it was fresh from Fleet Farm.”
I do not know how many pheasants Tim Walz managed to bag on his hunting trip. I do know he bagged not a single swing vote in any state where it will end up mattering. And, on that note, I look forward to seeing you again next week, as we continue to search for the electorate that will show up next month.