Trump Card

As both parties adjust to the new contours of this year’s election landscape, it’s worth remembering how we got here in terms of the issues at play.

For decades, the Republican Party has settled into the role of retrenchment and reaction against inevitabilities, opposing both the growing diversity of the population and the globalization of the economy.

These changes are relentless and can’t be stopped, but they can be mischaracterized and demonized to instill fear in the people who feel they’ve been left behind.

So it’s no surprise to hear Trump’s heated rhetoric against “illegal” immigration or “vermin” and “the worst economy” or “killer inflation.”

The third great GOP complaint — urban crime — is an old bugaboo hauled out by virtually every Republican candidate for higher office since Herbert Hoover, regardless of whether the actual crime rate happens to be rising or falling. 

It’s falling at present, and tt has nothing to do with national politics.

Meanwhile, complaining that too many immigrants are coming to the U.S. is about as creative a campaign idea as complaining that water flows downhill, i.e., the immigrants will always go where the jobs are. Policies set at the federal level have precious little to do with it.

But what a demagogue can do is exploit the issue by instilling fear of outsiders — this is the easy, cheap option favored by Trump. He also sprinkles in anger at a few random crimes caused by immigrants, even though those are incredibly rare incidents that have little to do with border policy or the crime rate.

As for inflation, the prices of food and other necessities have indeed gone up in response to various factors related to rapid economic growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the main causes of recent inflation are “volatility of energy prices, backlogs of work orders for goods and service caused by supply chain issues due to COVID-19, and price changes in the auto-related industries.”

Federal government spending is always a factor with inflation, and so a legitimate topic for debate, but both parties love to spend taxpayer money so there’s little substantive difference between their approaches to governing.

Rather than acknowledge these realities, politicians prefer to simplify complex issues and blame their opponents for things beyond either party’s control. They do so because blaming each other is an effective political strategy.

So in order to compete with Trump, Harris and the Democrats may need to develop effective counter-attacks on their three main issues — immigration, inflation and crime — while exploiting their potential advantage in at least two other areas.

The biggest is abortion/reproductive rights. Harris has been a strong advocate, which should help her with the all-important sliver of voters who may decide the election — suburban women in the swing states.

Particularly on abortion, the GOP is vulnerable, and Trump knows it. By stacking the Supreme Court with extremists, he caused the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Most Americans do not agree with that decision or the state bans that have followed it.

The other issue where Harris may have the upper hand is somewhat more nebulous but critically important and that is Trump’s authoritarian aspirations. In the end this represents her strongest card in the high-stakes poker match just now getting underway because most Americans don’t want a dictator.

We must collectively hope that she plays her cards right and can therefore beat back Trump’s attempt to subvert our democratic way of life. In this, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

HEADLINES:

• Harris seeks to rally Democrats after Biden drops out of race (CNN)

• Harris' campaign says it raised more than $100 million after launch (CBS)

• Majority of pledged Democratic delegates endorse Harris after massive fundraising day (CNBC)

• Historic move sets Democrats and the country on an uncertain path (WP)

• Secret Service director grilled over Trump assassination attempt (Axios)

• Joe Biden’s Departure Sends Trump Into a Conspiracy-Theory Meltdown (New York)

• Trump wrote on Truth Social minutes after Biden dropped out that Biden was "not fit to run for president." Trump continued ranting and pushing conspiracy theories late into the night. [HuffPost]

• The rich world revolts against sky-high immigration (Economist)

• The remarkable contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (WP)

• The Puzzle of How Large-Scale Order Emerges in Complex Systems (Wired)

• Conspiracy theories swirl about geo-engineering, but could it help save the planet? (BBC)

• China’s Long Blueprint for Economy Falls Short on Details, Raising Concerns (WSJ)

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington this week, under pressure to end the Gaza war both from Israelis who want hostages brought home and from a US administration focusing increasingly on the election (Reuters)

• Americans tend to retire later than people in other countries. The U.S. statutory retirement age is 66 or 67, depending on your birth year. That’s higher than the age in all but nine countries — worldwide, the median is 61. (WP)

• Autonomous Assistants: The Next Step of the GenAI Revolution to Empower Employees and Serve Customers (ATT)

• Tesla to have humanoid robots for internal use next year, Musk says (Investing)

• Artificial intelligence isn’t a good argument for basic income (Vox)

• As new tech threatens jobs, Silicon Valley promotes no-strings cash aid (NPR)

• The Push to Develop Generative A.I. Without All the Lawsuits (NYT)

• Walter Shapiro, stalwart political correspondent, dies at 77 (WP)

• Kamala Harris Turns Down Democratic Nomination To Work On Alaskan Fishing Vessel (The Onion)