Alan Zendell, July 23, 2024

For all the hand-wringing and angst that preceded President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2020 election, for all the times we’ve heard “woe-is-me” and “what-will-we-do now,” the Democrats and the country may have found a real diamond in the rough. The very things that worried some of us about Vice President Harris may now be exactly what we need to defeat Trump.

As politicians go, Ms. Harris has always been a little rough around the edges. In the past, she was tough and demanding and not always easy to work for. But that was the past, and with the opportunities President Biden gave her to prove her mettle, she has grown into a far more polished politician and campaigner. There is suddenly so much energy among Democrats who felt everything slipping away two weeks ago.

The mood is almost euphoric, and it should be. Ms. Harris had a record-breaking first day, raising more than any candidate in history. Even more significant, the New York Times reported that 62% of the people donating to her campaign were first-timers. That must have Donald Trump’s people wetting themselves. Right out of the box, Harris is widening the Democratic base. The hope was that she would re-energize younger voters who hated the idea of two octogenarians running for President, and that she would catalyze women’s anger at Trump and firm up Democratic support among nonwhite voters. The initial indication is that she may already be doing just that.

As to her alleged roughness, I love her new image; her likability is infectious. And in light of who her opponent is and the threat he poses to our future, this time around her tough exterior is an asset the entire country will come to love. Joe Biden’s gentle, man-of-the-people style was exactly what the country needed in 2020. But in 2024, Trump has changed. He is the same amoral sociopath he was then, but now he’s gone feral, almost rabid. In 2020, he had a narcissistic need for power and adulation. In 2024, he’s added a desperate need to stay out of prison to his motivation, and the Supreme Court has already assured that if he wins re-election, he will never face any consequences for his crimes.

The old Trump was profane, bullying, misogynistic, and racist. The new, unhinged Trump is all those things, only more so. He has never been shy about lying, insulting, and slandering his opponents, but this year, there will be no gloves, and Trump has no filters at all. His acceptance speech at the Republican Convention showed us what the campaign will be like. His staff desperately wanted him to project a softer image and pull back on some of the extreme rhetoric of Project 2025. But after thirty minutes of reading from a teleprompter, Trump couldn’t control himself. The next hour was a litany of largely incoherent rants about everything he hates. He was completely off the rails, much scarier than Biden looked in his disastrous debate performance.

Biden was unprepared for Trump’s calculated assault. Harris won’t be. Harris won’t make the mistake of trying to campaign on issues, because since 2016, Trump has proved that campaigning on issues and past accomplishments doesn’t work. In 2016, he showed that lies, false accusations, and appealing to the fears and prejudices of his base was enough to win. In 2020, that didn’t work as well, and Trump’s campaign knew it from the outset. That’s why they said the election was rigged before it started.

Harris will remind African Americans that their employment and income numbers have never been better, assure young people that she hears them, and remind immigrants that America knows what it owes them. She will not sit back and let Trump attack her. Nor will she waste time defending herself against lies and nonsense. She knows that the way to take down a bully is to confront him face-to-face. She has made it clear that she intends to prosecute Trump in the only court that really matters in light of the Supreme Court shielding him from justice. Her court will be in session every time she holds a microphone or stands in front of a television camera, and she will recite every vile or criminal thing Trump has done every chance she gets.

Trump will not be able to withstand that kind of campaigning. He will erupt, and she will keep hitting him until it’s clear to everyone who can still think clearly that he is nothing more than an empty shell, albeit, one with the power to destroy our democracy if he isn’t stopped. It’s becoming clearer every hour that Kamala Harris is the one to stop him. It took her only one day to capture enough delegates to win the nomination. Imagine what she can do in a hundred days of campaigning.