Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Glendale, Ariz., on Aug. 23.Go Nakamura/Reuters
The weird thing about the U.S. election is that Kamala Harris, despite serving as Vice-President for three and a half years, is coming across as the new-change candidate while the challenger, Donald Trump, looks much the opposite. Shopworn. Predictable. Yesterday’s sham.
In Canada, there’s Justin Trudeau fatigue. In the U.S., Trump fatigue. They are both likely to lose because they are both played out.
With Mr. Trudeau, who has spent nine years at the helm, the fatigue is more pronounced. The “Time for a Change” billboard glares at him wherever he goes. Though he says he will contest the next election, don’t bet on it. He’s not irrational.
Mr. Trump has been out of power for almost four years but, given his daily bomb-throwing proclivities, you’d never know it. He’s been in Americans’ faces, jarringly so, all the time. And his act has never changed. This is now his third presidential campaign, a rarity in U.S. politics, and the insults, the outrages, the narcissism are much the same. He’s Donnie One Note.
Ms. Harris, a low-key Vice-President, has received only a small fraction of the media exposure accorded Mr. Trump. People are curious about her. She opens up new possibilities, stirs excitement and optimism. With Mr. Trump, the promise is for more chaos and instability. The advantage for Ms. Harris is that Americans will want relief from that, and Mr. Trump will fall victim to the peculiar irony of being sunk by the time-for-a-change impulse, even though he isn’t in power.
There didn’t have to be Trump fatigue. The failed assassination attempt in July gave him a marvellous opportunity to change the script. But he blew it. In his speech at the Republican National Convention a few days later, he trotted out the same old cheap shots and grievances and baloney that have had Republicans on an electoral losing streak since 2016.
Mr. Trump did get back in the spotlight with the news that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was backing him. The timing was nice. It stole from the Democrats’ post-convention glow. It may have been a mistake for Ms. Harris to turn back entreaties from the black sheep of the famed family and see him turn to Mr. Trump. Better to have him on your side than against.
But I suspect Mr. Trump’s corralling of the candidate who divulged he had a dead worm in his brain will be seen as doubling down on madness, a narrowing of the Republican tent as opposed to an expansion of it.
Mr. Kennedy, who made his career as an environmentalist, is teaming up with someone who is anything but. He has called Mr. Trump a “terrible president,” a “terrible human being,” an appalling “bully,” and a supporter of tyrannical governance whose policies were absurd and terrifying. Why not join hands? Mr. Trump, who previously dumped all over RFK Jr., now says, “He’s a great guy, respected by everybody.”
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The convicted felon (sentencing still to come) and his acolytes are furious at the favourable media coverage being accorded “Comrade Kamala” as Mr. Trump calls her. Watching Sean Hannity of Fox News going on and on about it, I thought he was going to burst into tears.
There are striking contradictions in Ms. Harris’s policy record, as there are with anyone who’s been in the game a long time. She’s been smart to avoid media interviews because the more you put out, the more you are likely to be caught out. On Thursday night she will be called upon to explain some of her positions in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. Republicans are worried that she will find a way to avoid participating in the Sept. 10 presidential debate. Maybe she should. For front-runners, as we noticed with Mr. Trump, who skipped every debate in winning the Republican nomination, it is often a wise strategy.
Mr. Trump was confronted this week with a revised indictment accusing him of plotting to overthrow the 2020 election. He was also confronted by a letter from more than 200 Republicans who worked for previous Republican nominees endorsing Ms. Harris. While trying to convince voters that the country is broken, he’s been confronted by news that the economy is doing well, that crossings at the southern border are way down, that the crime rate has fallen sharply.
The race is still close. But Mr. Trump has got nothing in the tank to run on, save the same old tiresome script he’s been peddling for eight years. A majority of Americans have tired of hearing it. They want to move on.