Kansas Crimson

I’m not the first to note this. I saw a headline somewhere over the weekend that the campaign had reset to one between the Happy Tribe and the Angry Tribe. It’s always reductive to try to capture the vast complexity of two national campaigns in a simple catch phrase or binary opposition. But those broad descriptions can capture realities that transcend the details; they are often the takeaway for those watching only at a distance.

It doesn’t take much imagination to think of Trump and the MAGA movement as the Angry Tribe. I mean, they’ve always been Team Angry, or maybe Team Grievance or Team Vengeance. But what about the Harris campaign and the earlier Biden campaign? The Biden campaign, which I supported greatly, was not a happy tribe. I don’t mean that as a criticism. Happy isn’t the only or most important part of a political campaign. Especially when there’s quite a lot not to be happy about.

The Biden campaign was a slog. We’re having to fight a political campaign to protect what most of us view as our birthright as Americans. And we thought we’d already had that fight and won that fight four years ago. Then there’s the fact that the great majority of Democrats believed and believe that Joe Biden greatly exceeded expectations despite inheriting in the White House the ravages of the pandemic and having only the slenderest of congressional majorities. And yet despite these successes, Biden has been unpopular, judged statistically as net negative favorability, since his first year in office. And unpopularity is a messenger of future defeat. For upwards of a year before he stood down as nominee he was behind in the polls, usually very narrowly, it’s true, until the final week. But behind rather than ahead.

None of that is fun or happy.

I said I didn’t mean this as a criticism. And I really mean that. Politics isn’t about fun or being happy any more than life is about fun and being happy. We want those things but often we don’t get them. And we have to remain resilient in the face of reverses and all life’s vagaries. We don’t get to bail out when things stop being fun. Some of the most important things we do in life come in moments that are not fun, not happy, in which we persist in spite of those things.

Then there’s the matter of the President’s age which has hung over his presidency at least since 2022. There’s a range of ways the President’s supporters have viewed his age — as an unfortunate liability, an exaggerated issue mainly of optics, a big deal, a small deal, an exaggerated deal. But there’s something about the matter that transcends all of this. In pre-modern societies the king embodies the state. If the king is vital, the state is strong and vice versa. It’s a standard trope in the literature of medieval and all pre-modern kingship. And we’re not entirely different despite living in a rule-of-law, civic democratic state … at least for the moment.

Biden’s physical fragility cast an inevitable shadow, a pall of fragility and anxiety over his presidency, or if not his presidency than his chances of a reelection campaign, which as the months grew shorter, meant his presidency. Especially over the last year that fragility imbued the campaign with a feeling of limits and uncertainty.

This of course paints a very dreary picture. It leaves out the legislative successes, the out-of-the-blue high-wire act wins over things like the debt ceiling and rejuvenating American alliances in Europe and Asia. It leaves out the way that expectations were so often very low and he had a way of beating them. Again and again. But again, remember: we’re not talking about good or successful or necessary. Here we’re talking about happy. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that this captures the campaign. The campaign wasn’t happy. It certainly wasn’t ebullient or joyous. It was a slog, a sort of long twilight struggle.

I’m not sure what there is to analyze about how the Kamala Harris campaign is different. What’s different is right there in front of us. I don’t think we can remove from the mix that winning, or at least having an energy that makes it seem like you’re in the hunt, is transformative. Within moments of the beginning of Harris’s campaign, Democratic small donors went to their devices and sent her almost $100 million dollars in 36 hours. Though it’s taken about three weeks for her to move into a small but significant popular vote lead, almost from the first days polls registered a jump in support. Then there are the crowds, totally eclipsing those for President Biden’s rallies and even those of Trump’s. And all of this is impossible to separate from the three weeks that preceded it, a dismal and seemingly unending passage that functioned as a vast psycho-social slingshot, pulling back with ever-mounting physical tension into as yet unplumbed lengths of despair, anxiety and fear to be able, when released, to sling forward with an unimaginable intensity.

But the character of Harris’s campaign can’t be limited to prelude and success. The Harris campaign has a different texture. It is forward-looking and loose and ebullient in a different way. As we’ve discussed in other posts, her campaign has entered the broader popular culture in ways that neither Biden nor Trump ever has. I find it very difficult to pick apart what is intrinsic to the campaign vs the feel of energy and the possibility of victory. As I’ve told people countless times in other contexts, every losing campaign is full of idiots and vice versa. It may be a chicken and egg question that is mostly beside the point. But the difference in mood, texture and message is dramatically different and there’s little question this bulks very large in the campaign’s ongoing momentum going on one month in.

KUTradition wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2024 10:27 am anyone bitching about the cost of gas…the US is now producing record amounts of oil, and is now the largest global source, producing more crude that any other country…EVER

i’m obviously not happy about that, but i point it out to illustrate that fuel prices are controlled by more than ignorant hot-takes (refinery capacity specifically, which is ultimately controlled by the oil companies, which see record profits year after year)

Overlander wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:18 am All of this oil talk simply diverts attention away from the Crunchwrap Supreme disaster this administration has set into motion.

WTF am I going to do, eat a REGULAR Crunchwrap?

Back2Lawrence wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:21 am

Overlander wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:18 am All of this oil talk simply diverts attention away from the Crunchwrap Supreme disaster this administration has set into motion.

WTF am I going to do, eat a REGULAR Crunchwrap?

At least you can still afford the bell.
Under Trump, I could still eat such things! Of course, he probably kept the prices suppressed as they have a Trump-Themed taco (Doritos-Loco)

Overlander wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:28 am

Back2Lawrence wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:21 am

Overlander wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 11:18 am All of this oil talk simply diverts attention away from the Crunchwrap Supreme disaster this administration has set into motion.

WTF am I going to do, eat a REGULAR Crunchwrap?

At least you can still afford the bell.
Under Trump, I could still eat such things! Of course, he probably kept the prices suppressed as they have a Trump-Themed taco (Doritos-Loco)

Hey, he loves Mexicans….and they love him.

Shirley wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 7:20 pm Robert Reich:

Shirley wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2024 9:12 am Robert Reich:

jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2024 9:25 am

Shirley wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2024 9:12 am Robert Reich:

You probably recall the (great) Jerry Tarkanian quote, "The NCAA was so mad at Kentucky they gave Cleveland State two more years of probation."

This particular topic is relevant to me professionally. And lemme tell ya, the Cleveland States of the world sure feel like they pay the regulatory price for the skating by of the Kentuckies (?) of the world.

RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:58 am Speaking of Crunchwraps and inflation. WTF?!?!?!

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/stat ... 1903639981

JKLivin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 7:12 am

RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:58 am Speaking of Crunchwraps and inflation. WTF?!?!?!

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/stat ... 1903639981

It’s Bidenomics! Be joyful! You’re unburdened by what has been!

RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 7:45 am

JKLivin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 7:12 am

RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:58 am Speaking of Crunchwraps and inflation. WTF?!?!?!

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/stat ... 1903639981

It’s Bidenomics! Be joyful! You’re unburdened by what has been!

I'm going to start responding JFK! to you.
My response to your post above is..... JFK!
You're either purposely trying to act stupid or you truly are stupid. I admit I'm not sure which it is.
Your repeated use on here of "unburdened by what has been" is cute. I know you're ripping on Kamala but it makes you come off as a/an______________ (fill in the blank with a negative word).
I suppose you prefer "Believe me", "Like we've/you never seen before", "I know words, I have the best words", etc.