Trump In Disarray

Kamala Harris’s becoming the Democrats’ presidential candidate has thrown Donald Trump badly off stride. He has stopped complaining that the change from Joe Biden was unfair, but he’s gone to darker places.

Harris presses at least three of Trump’s buttons.

• Woman
• Black
• Daughter of immigrants

Worst of all, she will not fight on his ground.

Let’s look at the sequence of events.

Trump loses the debate badly to Harris. He and JD Vance then turn up the heat on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Meanwhile, they are sprinkling around racist provocations like Vance’s claimed love of Mountain Dew. Harris does not bite on the provocations. Rather, she calls out Trump and Vance for thinking so poorly of Americans, both in the racial slur and the attempt to stir up racism in others. Adam Serwer has detailed this dynamic. Trump is still complaining about the moderators’ fact-checking.

Oprah holds a campaign event for Harris including a number of other celebrities. This event features another aspect of Harris’s counter to Trump’s racism. She is a woman who sympathizes with and hugs and pats other women to comfort them. She is a black and Indian woman who sympathizes with and hugs and pats other women to comfort them. She speaks about what she will do as President to prevent more suffering. She isn’t talking about her identity, she lives it.

And, of course, the failure of so many celebrities to endorse your favorite President stings. So he will be BETTER FOR WOMEN. HE WILL PROTECT WOMEN, AND YOU WON’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT ABORTION, WOMEN! Please, please don’t think about abortion.

The people of Springfield hold strong against Trump’s provocations, and a number of Republican officials in Ohio have asked him and Vance to cut it out. He has now moved on to the same schtick in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Governor Josh Shapiro called out the lies.

All this is at least as much about Trump’s emotional state as it is that his campaign thinks that immigration is a winning issue. Trump, so far, understands that he cannot attack Harris directly for all those things that push his buttons. But he can attack Haitians in Springfield and Charleroi. He can tell women (they’ll believe anything) that he, an adjudicated rapist, will protect them and it won’t be at all creepy.

There have been a number of articles on how the Trump campaign is unable to control the message Trump puts forth. His press conference Thursday was a meltdown. Jack Smith’s 180-page report has been filed with Judge Chutkan. Tuesday brings the debate between Vance and Tim Walz, which probably will not turn out well for Vance. So Trump will have to come up with other provocations. They will probably have to do with immigration. Trump is entirely reactive, with no ability to move from his pet topics.

Just in: Dan Froomkin reframes the campaign. “What if Kamala is running away with it?” I’m a little more cautious, and I would emphasize the direction of her polls (up and up and up). I’ve looked at Trump’s disarray in this post. But I think he and I are saying the same thing.