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Notes -
"The Democrats' new sunny vibes"
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-democrats-new-sunny-vibes
Noah Smith argues that with Kamala Harris and her surge in the polls gave the Democrats more chill and optimistic vibes. Going back to normalcy. The only thing missing is a "It's morning again in America" ad.
Case in point: I read right now the headline that Joe Biden warns about the "bloodbath" Trump allegedly promised if he loses the election. It is like soothing cool aid for /r/politics, but it does sound a bit hollow from a cranky old Biden, doesn't it? I don't think Harris will make the same doom & gloom attack. Maybe there is a bit good cop / bad cop dynamic here.
Regarding her VP pick Tim Walz I read the worst about him here, but looking at pictures of that guy I just don't feel it. He looks harmless and nice. Noah says the record shows that Walz is a pro market Yimby guy who is pro-nuclear. When the biggest problem of America is that it can't build anymore than you want a guy like him at the top. And mirroring the tone change of the Democrats Walz message is not an angry "kill the rich!" like from blue-haired-Antifa-communists, but a pragmatic "help the poor".
Walz may not appeal to social conservatives, but the aim is to appeal to independents/undecided anyway. And he is the sort of guy who both signals that woke is over, because woke won:
"Post-protestant middle-American orthodoxy" is quite mouthful. But it is not quite the professional–managerial class, instead a bit more folksy.
Regarding the lefty fringes, neoliberalism is back on the menu:
The Democrats have realized that memory is short, at least in the sense that bringing up what your opponent did three years ago has less relevance than what he's saying now. Trump was unusually restrained while he was leading, and Biden's references to his past behavior didn't stick because they seemed at odds with the Trump of 2024. Now that Harris is the nominee the strategy is for her to run a straight shooter campaign that accentuates the positive and only criticizes Trump in terms of his most recent statements, to the extent that they even pile on rather than letting these statements speak for themselves.
One of Trump's primary weaknesses as a candidate is his tendency to pander to his base in situations where it costs him votes among constituencies he needs to win. If Trump calls Harris a DEI candidate then his audience cheers but ordinary suburban swing voters think "Is he really going there?" She doesn't even have to respond, since him belaboring the point is only digging himself in a deeper hole. Similar thing with Tampon Tim — trans issues get right wingers fired up but aren't going to swing an election. The more time spent attacking a vice presidential candidate on that just makes it look like the Republicans don't have their priorities straight.
The worst thing, though, is that Trump seems to be doing to himself what Biden never could. Trump was able to keep a more or less even keel through all of Biden's Threat to Democracy talk. Now that Biden's out of the race, Trump can't help but make election theft comments about a popular Republican swing state governor. Why should Harris say anything about it when Trump is all too willing to remind people himself? What does bringing this up accomplish for Trump? Are there really that many Biden voters out there who think the election was stolen? Do swing voters need Trump to remind them of all the things they find distasteful about him? As long as Trump keeps making these kind of bonehead moves, the Harris campaign is going to sit tight and talk about positive vibes. Why go after Trump in this situation? It's an attack ad without the downsides of running an actual attack ad. And Trump seems more than willing to oblige. The question isn't only one of how long the shine stays on Harris, but of how much Trump will add to his own stink.
There has been a trend recently of leftists here promoting the idea that their social views are anodyne to "normies", but those of conservatives are repelant. To me this is consensus building. That their views are normal, unremarkable, just water in which we all swim, but those of opposition should remain unvoiced, lest they expose just how unpopular they are.
I don’t think @Rov_Scam is saying that normies are cool with leftist values. I read it as normies mostly don’t want to get dragged into the mud on culture war topics. Trump calling Kamala a DEI hire is an insult in language that only really matters to people firmly in his camp already, which is true. The Grill party voters that decide the election see it as Kamala saying nothing and Trump making a vaguely racist attack in response, raising the Grillist’s “Oh, right. This guy again.” alarms.
I disagree on the trans attack in terms of political value. Trans issues are still very much an ick for Grillists, so tying Harris/Walz to the trans enthusiasts on the left, especially in the context of enforcing it in schools, i think works to Trump’s benefit. “Vote for these two and you get four more years of gender ideology in your daily life” is exactly the kind of thing Grillists are hoping to avoid.
Normies just don't think about trans stuff, and they don't want to think about trans stuff. Intentionally bringing up trans stuff is annoying, which is why it's bad for Trump. Normies would also be annoyed by someone making a big fuss to get tampons put in boys' bathroom, but so long as they don't have to encounter it, they are happy.
Analogously, suppose it were the case that right wingers were really into anime tentacle porn. This would disgust normies, and they wouldn't like it. However, if the Harris campaign continuously brought it up, those feelings of disgust would bounce back to the Harris campaign.
The median American view on transgender issues is, "I don't get it, they have the right to do what they want, and I might have some worries about what's going on in the schools, but that's something I'll deal with a school board race, and I don't get why Presidential candidates think it's more important than the economy/immigration/abortion/whatever."
Again, America is an inherently libertarian and 'mind your own business' country, which will frustrate both left-leaning and right-leaning people occasionally.
The median private American view on trans issues is deeply philosophically inconsistent, combining both a level of acceptance that would make Ron Desantis cry with a level of bigotry that would be totally unacceptable to HR guidelines.
In all honesty, 90% of it comes down to what you picture a hypothetical trans girl looking like.
Donald Trump is arguably closest to the median view on trans issues, with the combination of ‘sure, Caitlyn Jenner can use the women’s bathroom at Trump tower’ but also ‘let’s not allow 11 year olds to ruin their lives with dangerous hormonal medication’.
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