Harris Outreach to Republicans and Middle America

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

The last night of the Democratic convention features flags, veterans, and Adam Kinzinger.

Parts of Harris's acceptance speech sounded like ... Reagan.

Steve Benen at MSNBC:

When the “Republicans for Harris” rollout began in earnest a month ago, the effort featured some fairly prominent names, including former GOP governors, members of Congress and even Republicans who served on Donald Trump’s White House team. In the days and weeks that followed, the list of Republicans backing the Democratic vice president has continued to grow.

SEE Reagan, Bush, McCain & Romney Alumni for Harris

Neal Rothschild at Axios:

At this month's debate, Harris surprised many by saying that she is a gun owner, and in an interview with Oprah this week said, "If somebody breaks into my house, they're getting shot."Even as she advocates for gun control measures, she used the comments to signal not only that she didn't support confiscating guns, but that she has a personal stake in the Second Amendment.

Zoom out: The comments follow a pattern of Harris and Walz claiming rhetorical turf that has long been held by Republicans.Harris' campaign launch video was centered around "freedom," a pervasive conservative rallying cry for resisting liberal policies on taxation, gun control and government regulation. [ALSO NOTE "THE OPPORTUNITY AGENDA," A CLOSE COUSIN TO GINGRICH'S OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY.]

Harris and Walz are using it to advocate for abortion rights and fight interventionist policies like school book bans and curriculum directives.

Tim Walz's biography — his rural Nebraska upbringing, football coaching experience and everyday dad persona — serve to build up the ticket's Middle America credentials. And his "mind your own damn business" refrain taps into a libertarian sensibility.

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"Patriotism" was a common refrain at the DNC in August, and "USA" chants rang out from the audience throughout the week.
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What to watch: Harris is trying to steer Democrats' fortunes amid a political realignment that has seen the party losing favor with working class communities of color and gaining ground among wealthier suburbanites.

The Honorable Elizabeth Cheney

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

Jon Shields at NYT writes that Trump appeals to Americans who live in honor cultures.

Ms. Cheney, though, is fighting on behalf of her own code of honor. Hers is driven by a fidelity to what the Yale political theorist Steven Smith calls “enlightened patriotism,” one that insists on “loyalty to a particular constitutional form that we call liberal democracy or constitutional democracy.”

Such patriotism has always been in tension with the motto “my country, right or wrong,” because it is beholden to abstract, creedal principles, such as equality, individualism and the rule of law. And because these principles are open to interpretation, patriotism in the United States has long had a distinctly critical, questioning character. Mr. Smith even suggests that it birthed the nation, since the American revolutionaries regarded themselves as the true British patriots, not traitors.

Not unlike those British subjects facing a subversive king, Ms. Cheney had no real choice when faced with Mr. Trump’s assault on our constitutional order. To Ms. Cheney — and her Republican supporters in Wyoming — it would have been shameful to remain loyal to Mr. Trump. This is why, on the first anniversary of the Capitol invasion, she admonished on Twitter, “Anyone who denies the truth of what happened on January 6th ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

Beneath the surface of their honor feud lurk clashing understandings of political ambition. Unlike Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney is seeking the esteem of future generations by doing what’s in the public interest even if she is cast out of office for doing so. Ms. Cheney told a Wyoming paper that just moments before her fellow Republicans pushed her out of House leadership, she warned them “that history was watching.”

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is so loyal to his narrow code that he lacks even the theory of mind to understand Ms. Cheney’s ambition. For him, losing any contest is always dishonorable because it tarnishes his reputation as a strongman. Hence, his enduring fixation with ratings, polling and the “stolen” 2020 election. It’s also why he asked Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” as they stood over the graves at Arlington National Cemetery, according to reporting in The Atlantic.