Dem
51
GOP
49
In 2016, Michelle Obama famously said: "When they go low, we go high." Boy, is that ever so 2016. As far as Democrats are concerned, that's dead as the dodo. They are now trying to bury Donald Trump and especially Sen. J.D. Vance under a mountain of jokes, snark, and memes. They never did this before. It's weird.
Speaking of "weird," that seems to pop up all the time now, along with its big brother, "creepy." Couches seem to be everywhere, but no sofas or davenports. Maybe loveseats could make it big, though. Harris' campaign has become less Oval Office and more online provocateur. Trump does not know how to handle this, since it is so different from Joe Biden's campaign. It clearly is getting under his skin, which tends to make him say things that might cause Chris LaCivita to tear his hair out—if he had any.
Before Trump's recent news conference in New Jersey, the Harris campaign issued an "advisory" warning: "Donald Trump To Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home." Saying this would have been beneath Joe Biden. Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright said: "We went from 'when they go low, we go high,' to 'when they go low, we go with the flow.'" James Carville said: "After eight years of Trump, there's no discussion among anybody about going high."
At a fundraiser last week, Tim Walz said: "I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people." At another event, he referred to Trump and Vance as "creepy and weird as hell." When Trump spoke with Elon Musk, the Harris campaign sent out an e-mail saying: "The two worst people you know are live this evening." Harris' team believes that being snarky helps them with people who feel disconnected from the political ecosystem.
Another whole field where Harris is on offense is Trump's age. When Biden was on the ticket, he couldn't very well call Trump a doddering old fool. Harris has no inhibitions about directing that attack at Trump. She calls him a "relic of the past" among other things. However, she has to be careful not to alienate older voters. On the other hand, when he gives an incoherent, meandering, 90-minute speech, she has plenty of his own material to work with.
But Harris is not only negative. Another major theme is whether the country will go forward or go backward. While many of Trump's older supporters want to go back to a time when women were in the kitchen, Black people were out in the cotton fields, and LGBTQ people were in the closet. Harris supporters tend not to yearn for those days. (V)