There is a reason why Trump’s Cold War callback is falling flat
Donald Trump is attacking Kamala Harris like it is the 1950s. He and his mouthpieces — most notably his vice-presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — are effectively arguing that the vice president, like other women, should know that her rightful place is in the home and not in the Oval Office.
Trump and his agents are also attacking Harris’ reputation as a sort of “fallen woman.” On his Truth Social disinformation site, Trump recently shared misogynistic posts suggesting as much. If the Republican Party had any semblance of decency — which it has not shown for some time — Trump and his agents’ disgusting attacks about Kamala Harris’ intimate life would be utterly disqualifying.
Kamala Harris is the country’s first Black and South Asian woman to be a major political party’s presidential nominee. Trump and his agents view that as disqualifying. To them, Harris is some type of racial trickster who inherently cannot be trusted to lead the country.
Trump, groping for effective avenues of attack and vulnerability against Kamala Harris, is now calling her a “Commie”, a “Marxist” and “Comrade Kamala,” falsely claiming that she wants to impose “Soviet-style price controls” on the American people. It is as though his mentor Roy Cohn, who was instrumental in the 1950s Red Scare, has been reanimated as a type of ghost who is advising the corrupt ex-president from beyond the grave.
In a sharp new essay at CNN, Stephen Collinson describes Trump’s strategy against Harris as his “feral political offensive.” Trump is not interested in winning the election against Harris based on policy but instead on attacking her humanity and personhood. The details the logic behind Trump’s feral offensive:
With little chance of improving Trump’s standing, Trump’s advisers see the only option as damaging hers.
“What matters is their ability to prosecute a case to the point where she feels like she needs to answer questions and that she’s on defense,” said Josh Holmes, a prominent GOP consultant. “I think it’s a serious paper tiger we’re dealing with here. I don’t think for 60 days they can keep the train on the tracks.”
Republicans have already started pummeling Harris with attack ads. The bulk of television spending by the campaigns and their allied super PACs between Aug. 23 and Aug. 29 — 57 percent — were attacks on Harris, according to data from the media-tracking company AdImpact. Twenty-one percent were pro-Harris ads that drew a contrast with Trump, and another 14 percent were purely positive about Harris, the data showed. Only 8 percent were anti-Trump attack ads.
“This is a moment in the message arc of us seeking to define her, she’s seeking to define herself,” a Trump adviser said. “We have a defined candidate — everyone knows everything about the person. There’s lots of new information about Kamala Harris that people just don’t know.”
As another adviser told reporters last month: “If you think this race is going to be decided on likability, you’re making a grave error because neither one of them is going to be liked at the end of this race.
