Kamala Could Still Blow This Whole Thing—There Are No Cheney Democrats & Very Few Cheney Republicans

No Matter How Far Right She Moves, To Trump She Will Always Be “Further Left Than Bernie”

Polling shows that Biden remains an incredibly unpopular figure. I don’t fully understand why— beyond the relentless disinformation campaign against him— but the latest polling from Emerson— which shows Kamala leading Trump 50.2% to 48.6%— has Biden way down in approval compared to other national figures:

• Biden— Approve- 39.9%, Disapprove- 54.7% (-14.8%)

• Kamala— Favorable- 50.4%, Unfavorable- 49.6% (+0.8%)

• Señor T.— Favorable- 48.6%, Unfavorable- 51.4% (-2.8%)

• Tim Walz— Favorable- 45.9%, Unfavorable- 45.5% (+0.4%)

• JD Vance— Favorable- 46.0%. Unfavorable- 48.0% (-2%)

So Kamala’s advisors are recommending she distance herself from him. Him personally? His policies? CNN reported yesterday that they want her to roll out “new plans and promises for what Harris would do as president, in part to directly demonstrate notable differences, like in her recent more blunt speeches about abortion rights and tackling the southern border.” And I doubt they’re talking about showing a difference in any way that would be a positive thing— like taking a strong anti-genocide stand.

For me there was already a big betrayal of progressives when she disavowed Biden’s goal of getting the very wealthy to pay 39.6% on capital gains. She announced 28% would be enough. It isn’t enough, although it was enough to make me start thinking about not voting for her. And, as for the southern border— which isn’t as big an issue for me— Kamala has been moving in a Trumpian direction in that arena. Like Trump, she’s “now pledging to impose some of the most restrictive immigration, asylum and border policies in decades… shifting from framing herself as an advocate for the undocumented to touting herself as a former border state prosecutor who will be more effective than Trump on the southern border. If elected, Harris is pledging to curtail who's able to claim asylum, and pursue felony charges for illegal border crossings. She'd also continue building a border wall.”

Edward-Isaac Dovere reported that “Internal Harris campaign research on the September presidential debate found that one of the most popular moments for the vice president was when she said, ‘Clearly, I am not Joe Biden.’… In mid-September, the Democratic research and polling initiative Blueprint conducted a national poll testing a long series of potential statements Harris could make about herself and Biden. Those that performed best, the polling found, ‘were those that displayed a clear break between her and Biden,’ while those that performed worst were ‘those that portrayed a future Harris administration as building on the accomplishments of the Biden era.’… Running as an extension of the president is not a strong position, Harris aides know, while asserting what she stands for is… Harris wants to create space, top aides say, but not too much space. She wants to be loyal— but she also wants to win. She is still planning to lean on Biden, who is flying to Milwaukee on Tuesday for an event trumpeting more projects made possible by administration efforts, to buck up union members or to park himself in battleground Pennsylvania for political stops in the final weeks. But no one on the vice president’s team is upset that Biden is headed to spend a whole week of October overseas on a non-pressing diplomatic trip to Germany and Angola. Some wish he’d go away for longer. Part of leading Democrats’ focus on Biden is seeing him as the albatross embodiment for the unsettling feeling spreading among Democrats that the vice president is not— or at least, not yet— where she needs to be to win in just over four weeks. Still haunted by the 2016 election, they’re frustrated and despairing that even now, seemingly no number of Trump’s offensive statements, lies, lack of plans or legal problems can shake his support.”

Hillary made a strategic campaign error calling them a basket of deplorables on September 9, 2016— but that doesn’t mean her description wasn’t spot on. She noted that “half” of Trump’s supporters are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamphobic.” They were then and they are now— and they’re damn proud of it… and “half” may have been overly generous.

I’m not worried that she accepted, touted, likely solicited endorsements from the Cheneys and other very conservative Republicans. In fact, I admire coalition-building, as long as you don’t sell out your basic values in the process. But what are her basic values? These days I barely know if the Democratic Party has any basic values... at least beyond “social issues.” Did she make any policy concessions? On Friday, The Nation published an essay by Dave Zirin, Behind the Harris Campaign’s Quest for the Mythical “Cheney Democrats”. 

The Democratic consultant class— the immortal swamp things of DC— only ever seem to have one idea: pitch your campaign to the political center. In 2024, this means trying to win over what are being called “Cheney Democrats”— whatever the hell that means. This strategy apparently requires ignoring your base on domestic issues and horrifying it on foreign policy by funding Israel’s genocide. In our polarized political moment, this is electoral suicide.

The Harris-Walz ticket is running a campaign rooted in the fantasy that there is a centrist wing of the GOP appalled by Donald Trump. For this to work, Trump would need to be an outlier, and a significant section of the GOP would need to be looking for an alternative.

Those reasonable Republicans are gone, if they ever existed. Liz Cheney lost her reelection bid (against a Trumpist stooge) by 30 points, the second-greatest loss of an incumbent member of Congress in US history. The modern-day GOP base is proudly nativist and out for blood. Republican politicians aren’t offering healthcare or higher wages. They are instead spending this election season drooling for a pogrom against a small Haitian community in the Midwest. (Former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, who once was roundly rebuked for praising Strom Thurmond’s segregationist campaign for the White House, isn’t punished but promoted in today’s GOP.) Republicans would sooner gargle kerosene than challenge their own racism and sexism to vote for Kamala Harris. Some of these folks may have been Obama voters, but if they haven’t already become Democrats, they certainly won’t vote for one now.

Many of the same people who shouted with joy— yes, joy!— when Biden stepped down and Harris and Walz stepped up are now recoiling. Harris needs the base to turn out, and we already know Harris is hemorrhaging votes, especially in battleground states like Michigan, by arming Israel’s genocide. Young people will stay home or vote third-party, because they are being told that there are no electoral avenues for them to change a morally abhorrent policy in the Middle East. In Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, about 35 percent of Democratic voters say they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the person supported an arms embargo, compared to just 5 percent being less likely to vote, according to an August poll conducted by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding. And in an October poll, among Arab Americans deemed most likely to vote, Trump is leading Harris 46 to 42.

I have no doubt the Harris-Walz team knows that it is repelling many young people and Arab American voters. And we know now that Biden says in private what so many critics have been saying in public: that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing a ceasefire and launching a regional war in part to hand Trump the presidency. And yet, a Democratic administration still arms him. Netanyahu is humiliating Biden for the world to see, and Harris won’t break from Biden’s Israel policy. Facing such an obvious sucker punch, the Harris campaign insists on sticking out its chin.

This is not incompetence. As Dan Denvir of the podcast The Dig tweeted, “What we’re seeing is not so much Democratic Party elites ignoring the anti-war demands of their constituents so much as a coordinated reaction against the party’s anti-war base. They want to silence and demobilize their base so party elites can pursue endless Israeli war abroad.”

It’s a betrayal of every person terrified of another Trump term who is working to make sure that never comes to pass. The Harris campaign is nauseating its base, because it refuses to adopt positions that could cost them those all-important votes at the Cheney compound in Wyoming or among Upper East Side fundraisers.

There is a different campaign that could have been run, a campaign that the Democratic Party may not be built for: one that broke early from Biden on Palestine, one that opposed the execution of Marcellus Williams, one that didn’t run to the right on immigration, opening the door for Trump/Vance to take the issue to an even more rabid place. It is easy to blame their campaign manager— an Uber vice president and DC technocrat, David Plouffe— for trying to robotically triangulate Harris’s positions. The campaign is clearly afraid of pissing off Zionists— of both the Jewish and Christian variety— and of raising people’s expectations with a bold economic vision. They are playing prevent defense instead of going on offense. They’re hoping that Trump will say enough crazy things and that Vance will make more people hate the sight of his face, and they’ll eke out a victory. Walz, the ex–defensive coordinator, should know that the only thing a prevent defense prevents you from doing is winning. This is a base election. And the Harris-Walz campaign feels way off base.