FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
He is no longer the candidate for "change".
If you're compiling a list of never-before-seen 2024 campaign events; An acting vice president has become a candidate for "change".
It is almost a violation of the laws of the political universe. By definition, a vice president seeking to inherit the Oval Office has been part of the outgoing administration and is directly related to the head of state.
But this time, the sudden rise of Kamala Harris, along with the identity and character of her opponent, has — at least for now — made her the candidate who embodies change, however little her policies differ from the current president.
And worst of all for Donald Trump, it deprives him of one of his greatest powers. Trump rode into the presidency in 2016 with a promise to strike at the status quo. Now he faces credible accusations that he represents the past — and there's a telegenic, younger challenger eager to do what he once promised.
Recall again the race of Trump against Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's campaign scoffed at the idea that she might represent the status quo — wouldn't she become the first woman president? How much more difference can you imagine? This was a serious miscalculation. Clinton had been a key figure in the White House for eight years as first lady, a senator for the next eight years, and then secretary of state. She was a visible, important figure at the highest levels of American politics for a quarter of a century.
In contrast, Trump represented nothing but change. He lacked every quality usually associated with the presidency: Ignorant of history, a life devoted only to personal aggrandizement, famous as a figure in the gossip pages and as a reality TV star. But at a time when large numbers of citizens felt frustrated by the government's failures to protect their lives and property, Trump's own insect-like aspects were more like traits. No experience in government? What did the experts do! They raised the rhetoric that the time has come for someone to speak in plain English!
Clearly, whoever else Trump was, a vote for him would be a vote for as different a president as could be imagined. There is something attractive and empowering about it.
The American public has long shown a desire to break away from "normal" politics in ways big and small. That means Alaska voters can send a write-in candidate to the Senate, as Lisa Murkowski proved after losing the GOP primary. That means Minnesota voters could elect former wrestler Jesse Ventura as governor in a third party. That means California voters can — for the first time ever — recall a sitting governor and replace him with a bodybuilder-turned-actor named Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It is this realization that constitutes Trump's presidency in the first place - a strange version of the slogan "Yes we can!" made famous by another well-known candidate for "change". In 2016, Trump voters said yes, we can put a candidate with no experience and no traditional qualifications in the Oval Office; yes, we can ignore the warnings of the mainstream press; yes, we can vote for more radical change than at any other time in our history.
In 2024, however, Trump's claim to change is much harder to achieve. For one thing, the voters are asking for a restoration; Trump has already been in the White House before. On the other hand, Trump seems unable to put aside his loss in 2020; he insists on reconsidering his false claims of stealing the election, even going so far as to attack Georgia's wildly popular Republican governor. Whatever else it is, it is no change.
Now see what happened on the other side. For a year or more, Democrats have faced the dim prospect of holding onto a historically old, historically unpopular White House. Resignation and despair were the true candidates of Joe Biden. Then, with that debate performance, it became clear to the most important forces in the party that Biden simply could not win in November. Amid a campaign of mounting pressure and worsening polls, the president gave up and withdrew his re-election bid.
It seemed as if the Democratic Party had rediscovered a power it had never used, perhaps not even known; far from being a "coup", it was the execution of a political party's essential task: to use formal and informal power to protect itself from political disaster.
Within two weeks, voters were now faced with a reality that previously seemed impossible: “You don't want to vote for Biden or Trump? Now you don't have to! Do you want change? Here she is!” The outpouring of money, volunteers and crowds toward Harris testifies to the power of this sentiment.
Harris and her new campaign also seem aware of the changing dynamics of the race, as well as how powerful it can be in signaling forward progress: "We're not going back" has quickly become a mantra for Harris, with the audience singing it back. It's a way to talk not only about the attack on abortion rights, but about many other things about the Trump era and the failures of the past.
A cautionary note: We don't know the half-life of these feelings. Republicans will have about a billion dollars to remind voters that Harris is still the second-highest official in the Biden administration and to argue that she bears responsibility for widespread discontent over issues like immigration and inflation. Perhaps Trump will discover an instinct for self-preservation and stop his anger. Perhaps events will conspire to weaken the administration in its final months.
But for now, at least, we have to appreciate that the vice president's emergence as a candidate for change is just another way in which this campaign is like watching a Steph Curry half-court shot./ Adapted Pamphlet from Politico "
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