It’s been a while since my last post. Life gets in the way sometimes. We all have the same 1440 minute per day, so today, I made the time to post some of my thoughts about the tumultuous last couple of weeks in the 2024 election season.
I started this blog to serve as a small platform to express my political thoughts. I used to debate politics in an online forum, but I found after a while that debating politics is an abject exercise in futility. I pivoted to posting my philosophical views on life and my thoughts on interpersonal relationship dynamics.
All of that said, I still enjoy talking politics, even when discussing the subject with people with whom I disagree. What makes debating politics online so futile is that behind the barriers of computer screens in cyberspace, it is easy for people to be closed-minded to the point where only uncivil discussion is possible.
Uncivil discussion is not fun and it certainly isn’t engaging or enlightening. Some people find such drama entertaining, but closed minds are a hindrance to effective discussion and understanding. However, I still find politics fascinating and my interest in politics has never waned, despite my reticence to post about it much on this blog these days.
With President Joe Biden stepping aside and dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris stepping into the race, it is clear that the race for the White House became a lot more interesting.
I admit that I was not looking forward to the prospect of having to choose between the 81 year old Biden and the 78 year old Trump.
While it is encouraging that an octogenarian and a septuagenarian who is almost an octogenarian are still ambulatory enough to run for president, it said a lot about our country that no one younger wanted to step up and try to become president.
I suspect that waiting until the 11th hour for Biden to step aside and Harris to take his place as the presumptive nominee for president in the Democratic Party was not a spontaneous decision, and in actuality was meticulously planned. If it wasn’t planned, it certainly was the smartest move to make if the Democrats expect to hold on to the presidency for another four years.
I think most people are happy to have an alternative choice vs having to choose between two old men who in reality should be enjoying the twilight of their lives in comfortable retirement rather than trying to be President of the United States.
Ideologically speaking, I don’t care for Trump or Harris. I wish we had an alternative to the two party system that only seems interested in appealing to liberals and conservatives. Of course, anyone who knows me or follows my blog knows that while I have strong libertarian convictions, I take all political ideologies with a grain of salt since all ideologies are based on wishful thinking.
I don’t subscribe to the nonsense that if Trump or Harris becomes the next president that “our democracy will be destroyed.” I see that hyperbolic rhetoric for what it is. Fear mongering.
I do find it refreshing that the Harris campaign is taking a page from the Obama campaign playbook and is focusing on energizing more than just the traditional liberal/progressive Democratic Party base. Her selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz might seem like she is only appealing to liberals and progressives, but it is a mistake to think that is what she is doing.
Her selection of Walz is designed to appeal to younger voters and disaffected Republicans in rural, “red counties,” the kind of constituents that Governor Walz appeals to with demonstrated results. It’s not about how the Republicans can frame him from an ideological standpoint, but how he can shore up the Harris campaign’s ground game. Walz is a bulldog who is both articulate and plain-spoken and knows how to “speak Republican” in places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona.
In the battleground states, Harris already has the plurality of voters in the urban centers. She needs every vote that can be mined from the red counties and rural areas in addition to turning out more voters from her base in the urban and suburban areas.
The enthusiasm Harris generated amongst voters when she replaced Biden at the top of the ticket proved to be critical in reshaping the polls. She erased the formidable lead Trump had both nationally and in the battleground states over Biden. That should not be dismissed by those who either don’t support Harris or actively oppose her. It proves that people wanted a different choice for president in November vs having to choose between an octogenarian and an almost-octogenarian, both of whom are displaying the decline that all of us will face one day if we are fortunate enough.
I’m not prepared to predict that Harris will win this election just yet. However, I must admit that Trump’s path back to the presidency just became a lot harder and he has yet to demonstrate that his campaign has a coherent strategy to overcome Harris’s political momentum.
Painting her and Walz as “radical liberals,” engaging in childish name-calling, and “mean Tweeting” on Truth Social are not going to endear him to the demographics he needs to win. He’s running the same campaign that he ran in 2016 and 2020, and while it worked for him in 2016, it failed him miserably in 2020.
Circumstances are different for Trump than they were in 2016 or 2020. The older voters who tipped the Electoral College to him in 2016 are long gone and his populist message is a little hackneyed. The enthusiasm he drew even from his base simply isn’t there anymore. Harris is drawing the crowds Trump used to draw and she is starting to appeal to voters well outside of her base. Trump’s age doesn’t do him any favors and a lot of people cringe at the prospect of a guy like JD Vance being one 78 year old, fast food enthusiast’s heartbeat away from being president.
Time will tell if Harris will win, but this is certainly a different election than it was two weeks ago.
-The Rational Ram
The Rational Ram 
