RUTHFULLY YOURS

The coronation of Kamala Harris is in full swing. With lightning speed, following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, the vice-president secured the backing of enough Democratic power-brokers, donors and media cheerleaders to become the presumptive nominee. So, what does Harris’s rise represent? What does she actually offer to the American public? Does she stand a chance against a resurgent Donald Trump?

Daniel McCarthy – editor-in-chief of Modern Age: A Conservative Review – returned to The Brendan O’Neill last week to discuss how the 2024 presidential election is shaping up. What follows is an edited extract from the conversation. You can listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: How do you think Kamala Harris will measure up against a bruiser like Donald Trump?

Daniel McCarthy: The Democratic Party and the media are going to try to repeat what they did in 2020. In that election, they were able to sell the idea of Joe Biden, even though he was not able to go out on the campaign trail. In effect, the pandemic allowed the Democrats to create a product without actually having any substance behind it.

The Democrats are going to try to do this again in a very compressed, four-month schedule. The idea here is to try to make it all happen so quickly that the American public doesn’t have a chance to really think about who Kamala Harris is. They would much rather run a campaign about what people don’t like about Donald Trump, than about what they do like about Kamala Harris.

I don’t think this is going to work. Those who do know who Kamala is are divided between those who think she’s awful, and those Democrats who are just going to take whatever medicine they’re served. I don’t think she’s got a real base of support, and independents are repulsed by her.

But the Democrats still have a fighting chance. If Trump and JD Vance play into the media’s narrative, they could blow the election. The Republicans need to make the failures of the Biden administration their focus, and they’ve got to be careful how they criticise Harris. She has an incredibly interesting personal life, to say the least. It’s the stuff of tabloids. But this is not something that voters are primarily concerned about. If Trump can’t refrain from cracking jokes about it, voters could wind up punishing him rather than turning against the Democrats.

That said, the Republicans are likely to continue leading in the polls. Trump and Vance are most likely to win, even though it’s a competitive election. Then again, we’ve had so many dramatic swerves just in just the past few weeks, who knows what’s coming next?

O’Neill: What do you think is at stake in this election?

McCarthy: The actual battles that will lead to the conclusion of the war are almost the opposite of what they appear to be. Things are actually going to be a little murkier in November than one might expect. Harris has all of these elite connections, but both Vance and Trump are quite wealthy individuals themselves. They certainly have a stronger affinity for the working class, but there is a tension between their own wealth and the idea of a more populist Republican Party. It doesn’t seem to be a problem for the supporters of Trump or Vance, and never has been, but the Democrats will make the most of that tension.

Harris doesn’t have a popular touch, let alone a populist touch, but she’s going to choose a running mate who will compensate for her weaknesses. The main contenders are people like Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. He’s a policy nerd, but I hear that Shapiro has a magic touch when it comes to communicating with middle America. Democratic governor Roy Cooper in North Carolina is also in play.

However, even if the Harris ticket is able to defeat Trump’s advance, that will not be the end of American populism. If anything, it would actually radicalise things. The Democrats will use token populism, via Harris’s running mate, to get elected. But once in office, they would not deliver for working-class people. You would see a lot of resentment and anger. All that would do is further radicalise the populace.

Fundamentally, if you don’t allow for a coherent and responsible populist movement, one that will change the flawed policies of the establishment, you’re going to get the kind of situation we have right now. A situation where nobody is in charge, because the establishment doesn’t have sufficient authority. Its policies don’t work economically, socially or otherwise. Yet, this is what our leadership class is invested in. If Harris wins in November, this absurdist, almost Kafkaesque situation will only continue. Americans will keep living in what feels like a surreal joke.