Trump, GOP on the defensive against a younger Democratic candidate

All right, let’s discuss the big story, the change on the Democratic ticket from President Joe Biden, who announced that he is not going to seek re-election, to the presumptive nominee, Kamala Harris. I say presumptive because although the DNC is not until the second half of August, she has secured the support of enough delegates to have that nomination. This is one of the biggest stories in American politics in a very long time.

And there are a lot of different things here. Let’s first talk about Kamala Harris as a candidate. One of the things that Kamala Harris has going for her is that she was part of the Biden-Harris administration and the Biden-Harris ticket in 2024. The reason this is relevant is that there have been rumblings about the anti-democratic nature of anointing or crowning someone after a primary election saw Joe Biden win, even though it wasn’t really a primary.

You know, when you have an incumbent president, you don’t do what’s called a real primary. Republicans didn’t do it with Trump in 2020. Democrats didn’t do it with Barack Obama in 2012. Republicans didn’t do it with George W. Bush in 2004. There’s not a real primary, but at least nominally, Biden Harris won the 2024 Democratic primary. The select the endorsement and sort of de facto selection of Harris helps to allay some

of the concerns that this was done in an anti-democratic way because people did vote for Biden Harris for 2024. And Harris is indeed on the ticket. Now, if people are really dissatisfied, one of the things that they could do is say, I’m not going to donate to Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris instantly setting fundraising record after fundraising record after fundraising record and even though I dislike the campaign finance system we have in the United States

I don’t want politics to depend on donations. I don’t want super PACs. I don’t want any of this it does depend on it right now and the donations are a good signal about enthusiasm and the delegates getting behind Kamala Harris from individual donors, often donating $92 was the average in those first 24 hours or even less. It shows that there is enthusiasm and that is very interesting and important, first and foremost.

Now, secondly, how will Republicans run against Kamala Harris? Well, the early days of this show that they’re going to do it in what seems to be a pretty pathetic and ineffective way. The first big argument unleashed against Kamala Harris is that she laughs in a funny way. Some, like Sean Hannity on Fox News, [are] calling it a cackle. Others [are] just saying she laughs at inappropriate times or in an inappropriate way. All right.

I mean, listen, if that’s the way you want to go against her, particularly given not only the absurdity of criticizing someone’s laugh, but the fact that Tucker Carlson laughs like an absolute idiot, J.D. Vance with his fake laugh as he sits along Donald Trump in these early campaign interviews that they’re doing together. If you want to talk about how people laugh, there’s certainly material on the Republican side as well. So that’s attack number one. Attack number two that they have launched against Kamala Harris is that she is childless, at least biologically.

J.D. Vance kind of previewed this years ago when he was running for Senate. He said, oh, the country is being controlled by people with no biological children, so they have no stake like Kamala Harris. Now, of course, she is stepmom to kids, but she does not have biological children. Others like Laura Loomer have more recently actually argued that the lack of biological kids for Kamala Harris is more a sign of her sexuality and kind of going after her for that reason. I don’t think this is going to work particularly well, especially since Americans have shown themselves to be pretty damn sick of misogynistic attacks based around reproductive health.

And some like Laura Loomer talking about how Kamala Harris likely had multiple abortions and her uterus is scarred and all these different things. I don’t think that’s a good line of attack against her either. And then Republicans have another problem, which is that like it or not, care about it or not. With Joe Biden stepping aside, Donald Trump is the oldest presidential nominee in American

history, period. And I started tweeting about this sort of as a joke. It’s tongue in cheek. There are policy reasons I’m not voting for Trump. I don’t want a civilly liable sexual assaulter or convicted felon being president. I think his trade policy is terrible. I don’t care that Trump’s old. But after focusing on Biden being too old for so long, Republicans are now saddled with the reality that the youthful and energetic 59-year-old Kamala Harris is going to put in particularly stark relief that Trump is the oldest presidential nominee in history, period, bar none. And his statements, press conferences and speeches are increasingly mangled and scrambled. He’s confused about electric vehicles and sharks and drowning and electrocution. This is going to become a problem, as Trump seems to be falling apart. So I am very cautiously optimistic about the future of this campaign for Kamala Harris. I want to hear from you. What do you think?