By Dave Andrusko
Well, one thing we know for sure. The closer we come to November 5, the more unhinged the attacks on former President Donald Trump will become.
You’ve already seen the depths to which pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris will plunge—and it’s still 2 and a half weeks to go. Clearly Democrats in general, their presidential nominee in particular, are said to have been “liberated” to call Mr. Trump a “fascist.” That joins “unhinged”; ‘increasingly unstable”; and “is seeking unchecked power” as slurs.
According to the New York Times’s Jonathan Weisman, “For years now, Democrats have avoided calling Mr. Trump a fascist in part out of fear of alienating his followers, said Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian of Central Europe and the Holocaust. For one thing, Democrats did not want a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of Trump supporters as “’a basket of deplorables.’”
The Times argues that when someone who worked in the Trump administration called him “fascist to the core” (in Bob Woodward’s latest polemic), that opened the floodgates.
A much more plausible explanation is that Ms. Harris is reading the tea leaves and realizes desperate times call for desperate measures. That’s why the barrage of worried stories about Mr. Trump’s growing support from Hispanics, Black men, and (to a lesser but important extent) Black women, has so rattled her campaign.
POLITICO, a reliably Democrat outlet, wrote yesterday that while “Kamala Harris is expected to win the majority of Latino voters in Pennsylvania and nationally…her weakness among Latino men is worrying to operatives on the ground.”
Elena Schneider and Holly Otterbein tells us that “interviews with a dozen Latino Democratic elected officials and strategists in this key swing state reveal ongoing fears that Latino men, in particular, still aren’t on board with Harris.”
By the third paragraph they outline the massive problem for Democrats:
The drift among Latino men to Trump shows up everywhere in public polling — as Democrats’ lead among Latino voters has deteriorated to its lowest levels in decades, part of a long-term trend for Democrats. That’s true in Nevada and Arizona, two highly diverse states where Harris faces problems with diminishing support among Latino voters. And Harris’ performance with Latino voters in Pennsylvania, home to about 580,000 registered Latino voters, could tip the entire election.
In some polls, Elena Schneider and Holly Otterbein write, “Harris’ numbers with Latinos have hit dangerously low levels nationally. Biden won Latino voters nationally by a 26-point margin in 2020, but a New York Times/Siena College poll found Harris with just a 19-point lead over Trump with this group.”
They offer nervous Democrats some good news:
Other polls, however, show Harris holding even with Latino voters. One poll that broke out Latino voters in Pennsylvania released this week found Harris winning 64 percent of them to Trump’s 31 percent, an improvement over other national polls of Latino voters.
One other point. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, was supposed to have appeal to rural voters—”White Dudes for Harris” — which has proved to be a colossal mistake.
“She picked someone who is un-relatable everywhere, from Philadelphia’s neighborhoods to small town and rural Pennsylvania,” said Guy Ciarrocchi. “And, he’s just plain ‘weird.’”
It’s even worse in rural Pennsylvania, where Walz and “second man” Doug Emhoff tried a “real men for Kamala tour,” complete with ads and Zoom calls about why men should support her.
Then they sent “Elmer Fudd” – aka Walz – out hunting. In newly purchased hunting clothes, using the wrong rifle (plus demonstrating that he didn’t know how to load it), Walz resembled something like King Charles attending the Indianapolis 500.
Finally, David Bossie argues no matter how hard Harris tries to make this a referendum on Trump, the buck stops with Biden-Harris:
No matter how hard Ms. Harris tries to make this a campaign about debates and Mr. Trump’s medical records, Americans are suffering from the policies she has implemented since January 2021.
It’s clear that voters want a change, and Ms. Harris is the candidate of the broken status quo.
The American people are looking closely at this race. They are discovering that Mr. Biden’s failed record is Ms. Harris’ failed record, and the stale policies Mr. Biden was promising for a second term are the centerpiece of Ms. Harris’ pessimistic vision for the future.
Make no mistake: The 2024 presidential election is a referendum on the Biden presidency, much like the situation in 1980. Americans who had had enough of President Jimmy Carter’s economic malaise and foreign policy weakness overwhelmingly elected Ronald Reagan.
More on Monday.