The Great Momentum Shift
The 2024 election is a different race than it was only last month and Republicans are struggling to keep up
Only last month, being a Democrat in the United States was a dismal affair. As Biden’s term in office neared an end and challenges to Trump’s 2024 run continued falling flat, it began to grow clear that Democrats’ chances of pulling through again in 2024 as they did in 2020 were unlikely. Despite mounting felonies, Trump’s persevering standing in polls against Biden remained a source of angst and confusion for the Left.
The first of the debates was the event that changed everything. It made a reality out of a race that had felt like no more than a faraway concept for large swaths of Americans. We knew who was running, but not where the contest between them stood. The debate revealed the scoreboard.
Biden had an adequate grasp on policy, but his presentation and comportment fell short in every conceivable regard. He seemed old and befuddled, and in his best moments on stage, he still failed to stoke confidence that he was the leader that our precarious political moment demanded.
Trump told a familiar series of lies with virility, and Biden’s faltering irresolution and fumbling of words stood as a damning confirmation of Republicans’ most scathing attacks. It left the outcome of the race seemingly set in stone: a 34 time felon and aspiring despot would become our next president.
Kamala Harris’ assumption of the top of the ticket following Biden’s dropout from the race has spurred a dizzying momentum shift that few could have anticipated. She’s overseen a reinvigoration in the political process that has shocked both Democrats and Republicans alike. Considering the record-breaking fundraisers that began the moment she assumed Biden’s run for office, to the jaw-dropping numbers of women, young people, and minorities registering to vote all across the country, it’s clear the race today is barely recognizable from the one we each knew merely a month ago. It’s something on which nearly all of us can agree.
But one of the strangest features of this stark and sudden transition is just how obvious this path forward always was. Harris is the wildcard who was hidden in plain sight. When Biden took office, much of his base reasoned it a foregone conclusion that Harris would ultimately be the one running in 2024 at the top of the ticket.
Some of his most enthusiastic supporters assumed Biden wouldn’t dare try to squeak out a second term. Now 81 years old, his decision to drop out was as wise as it was obvious. To do anything else looked like lunacy to much of the world. But it never looked more fanatical than allowing our insurrection-inciting leader to rise to the top of the polls, let alone run for office again in the first place.
Some Democrats are in a state of numbness and dejection over the truth that such realities are even possible. To have an aged Joe Biden as our champion through these times was a fact that discouraged even his most vocal fundraisers, as George Clooney’s tide-turning op-ed exposed.
Now that the race between Harris and Trump has been affirmed by their respective political conventions, Republicans are struggling to keep up with the staggering shift. Trump at times fails to resist the same lines of attacks he resorted to in prior months, as though the race he’s running is still one against Joe Biden. When his attacks do turn to Kamala, they’re ineffective at best and prejudicial at worst. They rely on race baits and misogyny, and they’re rooted in the same sort of hateful thinking that has made Trump so unappealing to middle-of-the-line voters all along.
There’s no part of his messaging that’s helping to win over people that have been on the fence during this fraught battle for America’s future. He’s unsuccessfully toiled to distance himself from Project 2025. His halting, disjointed attacks on Harris do little to sell his visions.
In his most shameful moments this past month, Trump has only cemented himself as the flawed, vicious, and revenge-obsessed cretin that Democrats paint him as. Of course, that portrait has never been hard to sell. Direct footage and quotes lay bare his identity. But as he grows increasingly incensed with the current predicament, he only leans more and more on his most ignominious ills.
It’s precisely because of that tendency that his handlers want mics muted during this upcoming debate while Democrats would prefer the world see his faults on full display. They think he’ll hurt his own cause given too much freedom. Trump’s allies fear he’ll be unable to contain himself and stray from the battle plan. His lulling campaign schedule almost certainly owes to that same paranoia.
By all appearances, those concerns are founded. Recent weeks have seen him question the race and parentage of his opponent and wallow incessantly in old grievances. We’ve watched him whine and complain and implore his fans to participate. He rants and raves and hugs flags and says things that sometimes raise eyebrows from even his front-row rally goers. He’s angry, bitter, and resentful in the same breath that he’s craven, filterless, and infantile. He’s weird.
But in some moments he seems sullen. He appears worn by the race — tired, monotone, and defeated.
The polls from today reveal that states that were in firm battleground territory as recently as late July have swung into the Kamala camp. Others show states that swung firmly toward Trump suddenly back in play. There are few credible pollsters that speak well of Trump’s performance in weeks’ past and his current prospects for the election ahead.
The former president is a figure that thrives on praises and takes no real offense at those accusations that color him as a credible threat. The claims of his tyrannical ambitions have never hindered his pride. The repeated lamentations about insurrections and his echoes of Nazi sentiments hold no weight to the people who remain in Trump’s corner. Trump doesn’t even attempt to diffuse blame much of the time that those damning claims are leveled.
But pointing toward the copious ways that the former leader strays from conventional behavior have a surprising cogency. Calling him weird is an argument he still hasn’t learned to combat. The remarks elicit “I’m not weird, you’re weird!” retorts that feel more at home emerging from the mouths of first graders than they do authoritarian hopefuls. They betray an imbalance. Trump and Vance are unprepared to field attacks about their normalcy or lack thereof. Neither their attempts to turn the charges on their opponents, nor the efforts to portray them as liars, have proven persuasive.
Among their most pathetic efforts have seen the Trump campaign synthesizing support from Taylor Swift with an AI image generator, while simultaneously accusing their opponents of using AI to mislead about crowd sizes, as well as leveling bizarre accusations against vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz for innocuous dog park behavior. None of the lines of attack are sticking. Even Trump’s latest array of ads seem to lack their normal punch and vigor.
Likely the most debilitating blow that Biden dealt his former opponent’s campaign in dropping out of the race was forcing him and his allies into scrambling to rebuild an entire war machine that was once singularly focused on the image of a “Sleepy Joe Biden.” The meticulously orchestrated battle plan that aimed to reach a fever pitch once the election season kicked into gear has fallen apart. He and his allies have been forced to pick up the pieces and attempt to reassemble them into something salvageable from the ground up.
For a few days after he dropped out of the race, there was an uncharacteristic silence from the Trump camp as they tried to regroup. Facing an unprecedented incursion from the Left, they’ve had to go on the defensive.
Our politics are fast-moving and are prone to shift on a dime. Just as our race once looked hopeless and now appears more hopeful than ever, tides could turn once again. November 5th is nearing, but it’s still a world away when we consider the assassination attempt on Trump that took place little more than a month ago, yet already feels like a distant memory to many.
Harris may continue to ride this wave of momentum all the way to the White House, but enthusiasm could just as easily wane. If we grow complacent in the confidence that she’ll win, it could be almost as harmful as losing faith in the process entirely. The deck seems stacked in her favor today, but if Democrats want to see her win the White House, the battle before them won’t be simple.
George Clooney’s “tide-turning op-ed” was exceedingly cruel and unnecessarily hurtful. It's not WHAT he said, it's HOW he said it, and HOW he chose to present it to the world. He embarrassed President Joe Biden, the United States of America, and mostly himself. Ass.
Excellent summary of the current political situation. Well written, balanced and insightful. Thank you for sharing it