All the "Trump is a fascist," Trump is Hitler," and "Trump will destroy democracy" arguments are not gaining any traction, say Democrats. They're wondering why Kamala Harris isn't hitting the economy harder.
Harris has actually lost ground by attacking Trump's supposed fascism. What's worse, she's lost ground on what Americans are saying is the number one issue this election; the economy.
“Where I don’t think she’s done a good enough job is, [Trump] gets away with saying, ‘The economy is the worst it’s ever been, there’s more unemployment, inflation is the highest it’s ever been.’ None of that is true,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist.
“It’s almost like he lies so much you get tired of refuting it, and I think that’s a mistake,” he said, referring to Trump’s ability to frame the Biden economy to voters.
Trump hasn't hypnotized voters, making them believe something that isn't true. Trump has successfully framed the economy in personal terms for millions of Americans. Damn the statistics; the economy is hurting people. If Harris had picked up on that earlier, she could have pivoted to her own economic plans. Instead of telling Americans they were stupid for believing the economy was not going gangbusters, she could have laid out a coherent plan for her administration.
Instead, she got sidetracked with the personal attacks on Trump. Now, because she hasn't defined herself or her economic program, all she's got is "Trump is a poopy-head and a fascist." It's not likely to work.
“Her economic message hasn’t broken through,” a Harris donor said. “And the economy is the issue most people care about. She narrowed the gap a little on the issue, but she’s left a lot of people wondering about her vision.”
While Harris has narrowed Trump's sizable advantage on the economy, she's still far behind, 46-38.
Former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich, who once claimed that the federal debt doesn't matter and that huge government spending doesn't lead to high inflation, said that Harris needs to adjust her message to "center on 'anti-elitist' economics."
Harris the populist?
“When all of [the polls] show the same thing — that Kamala Harris’s campaign stalled several weeks ago yet Trump’s continues to surge — it’s important to take the polls seriously,” he wrote in an essay published on Substack.
“She needs to respond forcefully to the one issue that continues to be highest on the minds of most Americans: the economy,” he said.
“I still think there are folks out there who can’t tell you what she plans to do,” a Democratic strategist said. “That should have been something our side hammered home every day.”
Instead, Harris "hammered home" that Trump was a fascist. We'll see on election day how that turned out.
Future Forward, the Democrats’ biggest super PAC, issued a similar warning in a memo circulated Friday, saying attacking Trump for being a “fascist” isn’t persuading swing voters.
The group found Harris’s characterization of Trump as a fascist ranked only in the 40th percentile of moving votes, while her discussion of expanding Medicare to cover the home care for the elderly ranked in the 95th percentile of effectiveness.
I would not want to be in the room during the Democrat's autopsy of the race. There's liable to be blood on the floor.
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