The next three weeks will be a bleak tableau of competing apocalypticisms.
Gone are the days when Kamala Harris and Tim Walz could claim a monopoly on bonhomie. They were joyous. Donald Trump and J. D. Vance were weird. The contrast between the campaigns was no longer as existential and dreary as the one Joe Biden sought to establish with his Republican opponents. Rather, the choice before Americans was between incompatible affectations — irascibility versus rapturous idealism.
But as “brat summer” gave way to apprehension autumn, the Democratic ticket is retreating back into a familiar comfort zone. The light cultural disparities the Harris campaign once cultivated have fallen by the wayside. The vice president and her allies are again warning that the very survival of the democratic experiment is at stake in this election.
During a campaign stop in increasingly competitive Wisconsin this week, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz resurrected the charge that Donald Trump is a fascist. Indeed, Walz reminded attendees of his rally in downtown Green Bay, Trump’s own chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, accused Trump of being “fascist to his core.” To substantiate the charge, Walz pointed to Trump’s own remarks in which the former president pledged to use the armed forces to root out and subdue “the enemy from within.”
“Let that sink in,” Walz said of Milley’s accusation, “and don’t be a [bit] afraid of saying it because that’s exactly who he is.”
Harris, too, has dwelled on Trump’s cynical comments, in which the former president made it plain that the “enemies” who consume him are his domestic political opponents (not, as Trump’s interpreters have claimed, domestic criminals or illegal migrants). “He’s talking about that he considers anyone that doesn’t support him, or who will not bend to his will, an enemy of our country,” Harris warned. “This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America and dangerous.”
In a recent town-hall-style event moderated by The Breakfast Club host Charlamagne Tha God, Harris declined to reject the allegation that Trump exhibits traits and tendencies associated with the 20th century’s national socialists. “By voting in this election, you have two choices,” Harris began, “One, mine, that is about taking us forward.” At this point, the host interjected. “The other is about fascism,” he posited. “Why can’t we just say it?” Harris did not object. “Yes,” she said, “we can say that.” In a subsequent exchange, Harris was confronted by a town-hall participant who feared Trump would put “anyone who doesn’t look white into camps.” Again, Harris declined to allay her interlocutor’s concerns. “You’ve hit on a really important point and expressed it I think so well,” she mused, “which is he is achieving his intended effect — to make you scared.”
If stoking voters’ anxiety is the Trump campaign’s goal, as Harris suggests, she’s not above that tactic herself. There was a period at the outset of her improbable nomination to the presidency when the Harris campaign appeared to jettison Joe Biden’s contention that Trump represented a unique “threat to democracy.” The campaign’s tactical retreat implied that this was no longer defensible terrain. The Democratic Party’s warnings were overhyped, and they no longer generated the traction they had among persuadable voters.
As the race has tightened heading into the home stretch, however, the Harris campaign has begun to rely once again on the Democratic Party’s most reliable voters. It’s a base election again, and the Democratic base is addicted to the allegation that Donald Trump is an unreconstructed Heideggerian.
It might work. It might not. In any event, even if Harris wins in November, she will no longer be able to claim that she was lofted into the presidency along with a torrent of good feelings and unbridled optimism. The next three weeks will be a bleak tableau of competing apocalypticisms. Voters will be left to assess only which flavor of Armageddon they prefer.