Blowing the bridge to the past

PLUS: Participate in the Substack Election Dialogues, including with Mehdi Hasan and me

The Substack Election Dialogues — a series in which political figures, writers, and commentators join together to confront the most consequential questions of the political moment — kick off tomorrow.

Each event will be live-streamed exclusively in the Substack app, so make sure you have it downloaded. It is also recommended that you subscribe to the participants to receive updates. 

I’m thrilled to share that I’ll be participating in this series with

Mehdi Hasan

of the must-read

Zeteo

. If you haven’t subscribed to

Zeteo

, you can do so here. Mark your calendar for our event, which takes place on October 23rd at 8:00 pm ET.

For additional details and to see more events, visit substack.com/dialogues. 

---

Based on many comments pushing back on my column from yesterday (which I do always read, and also don’t expect that all will agree with me, so appreciate those who share their dissenting views, so long as they are done in a respectful way), here is how I view the status of the presidential campaign 26 days before an election that will have seismic consequences for America’s future, and every person alive on Earth who will live over the next 100 years. A monumental choice is at hand in a brittle time, where scores of millions of Americans simply can’t handle being exposed to ANY fact, idea, thought, belief or information that challenges their cloistered viewpoints, constricted worldview, and belligerent rejection of reality.

Kamala Harris is in position to win the election, but her momentum has stalled. The “blue wall” is cracking. Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin warned donors recently that internal polling for her Senate campaign shows that Harris is "underwater" in Michigan, according to a video clip obtained by Axios.

Kamala has created a devastating opening for Donald Trump with her response to a question about what she would do differently than Biden with “there’s not a thing that comes to mind.”

Should that be her final answer on the question then Donald Trump will win because Joe Biden is a historically unpopular president, and as CNN’s Harry Enten has pointed out, no incumbent party has retained the White House with an approval rating below 25 percent:

HARRY ENTEN: If we look at whether voters believe we're on the right track or the wrong track, I think that this sort of gets at a problem for Kamala Harris's campaign. Just 28% of Americans think the U.S is on the right track. And I want you to put that into perspective. When does the average when the incumbent party loses the election, it's just 25%. That looks a heck of a lot like that, 28% who currently think the country's on the right track.

When the White House party wins -- Kamala Harris's party, the Democrats -- 42% on average think that the country is on the right track.

This 25% looks a lot more like dish 28%. It doesn't look anything like this 42%. This to me is a bad sign for Kamala Harris's campaign. The bottom line is, it looks a lot more like a loser than it does like a winner, when it comes to the country being on the right track.

If we look historically speaking, say the U.S. is on the right track, the incumbent party, when they win, today again, it's just 28%. Look throughout history, right? 96, 88, 04, 12, 84. It all of these instances, far more than 28% thought that the country was on the right track. 39 was the lowest back in 1996. We've got upwards of 47% in 84, of course, that was a blowout for Ronald Reagan.

There is no historical precedent for the White House party winning another term when just 28% of the country thinks that we're on the right track. Simply put, it would be historically unprecedented.

The polling in the race has made clear that the American people want to know more about what Kamala Harris will do as president. Personally, I’m with Howard Stern, on this question. I think it’s absurd, and I would also vote for a wall, a cat, a random person from the phonebook, a coma patient, or anyone over Trump because he betrayed his oath and attacked the US Constitution. 

However, the American people are never wrong. Get it?

Before Kamala Harris became a presidential candidate, the same polling that is now saying that people want to know more was showing that Americans thought Biden was too old and they didn’t want a rematch with Trump. The position of Biden’s political team and the entire Democratic Party’s elected officials was to state that the people were wrong, and either arguing with their belief or ignoring it was the smart thing to do. It didn’t work out well.

Ignoring the polling on this point will be fatal.

The American people are imposing a test on Kamala Harris. They want to see if she is her own woman who shows by deed that she will lead the country into the future by breaking decisively with our immediate past. People are looking for a proof point. They want to know what she will do that is different — not from Trump — but from Biden. That is the test. She has already distinguished herself from Trump. The velocity she needs to achieve to beat Trump is the same that she needs to convince people that this election is about profound change. Kamala Harris must make clear that an era is ending. All of it. Every bit of it. She should campaign on ending the age of pettiness and smallness. This requires what the American people are demanding, which is facing directly what they don’t like about her team, not his team.

The trajectory that carried Kamala Harris up and to the right since she entered the campaign has leveled off, dipped, and floated downward. A few weeks ago, I wrote that the race would tighten, and then break open for Harris. This is what I want to happen — and desperately hope happens. The polling is laying out a path that is crystal clear. Here it is:

The American people know Trump is the most prolific liar in American history. Watch this clip:

They know he is unfit, despicable, corrupt and malevolent. 

However, they think he is strong, despite my view and those of so many others, that he is pathetic and weak. Strong always bests weak in a presidential campaign. Always.

Trump is utterly, completely and absolutely known.

Harris is famous, but still unknown. She must close the deal by passing a test, which requires her to show by action whether she is fearless about truth telling and whether she can be trusted. When Harris says “not a thing” most voters don’t think that answer comes from a place of conviction about Biden’s perfection, but rather fear of speaking truth about the obvious because she is somehow controlled by what has been, as opposed to being strong enough to build what might be.

The question of whether Harris will be America’s first woman president will come down to this question. It’s time to close the deal by being fearless about winning. The presidency must be won. The vice president must be fully known within the next 26 days. The moment requires her to blow the bridge to the past.

Is she tough enough to do it?

I pray that she is.

---

---