Harris Is Right to Run on Democracy
Focusing on “kitchen table issues” isn’t enough for her campaign or the country.
WHEN PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN WAS STILL RUNNING for a second term, the defense of democracy was the central focus of his campaign.
He delivered speeches about how Donald Trump had “placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy” on January 6th. During his final State of the Union address, he declared: “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.” He believed the urgency of this threat would once again mobilize voters against Trump—that they just needed to be reminded of all the ways he had trampled their democratic values and institutions, as well as the ways he would continue to do so.
But after Biden withdrew from the race, Vice President Kamala Harris took a different approach. While she discussed Trump’s dereliction of duty on January 6th and his effort to overthrow the 2020 election, she mainly emphasized issues like the economy and abortion. She presented her campaign as forward-looking and more focused on “kitchen table” issues than re-litigating Trump’s attacks on American democracy. Perhaps this was the right call—Harris surged in the polls, raised more than $1 billion dollars (the fastest fundraising haul in history), and built a lead of several points over Trump nationally.
However, as the polls have stabilized and even narrowed with just two weeks until Election Day, Harris needs to remind voters of the stakes of this election. She has effectively introduced herself to the American people, but she needs to reintroduce them to the dark side of Trump—the authoritarian who attempted to steal an election, failed to oversee a peaceful transition of power, and would inflict permanent damage on American democracy if he returns to office in January.
Trump hasn’t been shy about the onslaught he would launch against our democratic norms and institutions in a second term. He would attempt to turn the Department of Justice into a personal score-settling machine. He would fire thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with an army of MAGA sycophants. He has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and he has spent years convincing supporters that any election he doesn’t win is fraudulent—a breach of trust that will undermine our civil society for decades to come. He says immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and plans to oversee the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Most ominously, Trump has suggested that he may try to deploy the military against his political opponents, whom he describes as the “enemy from within.”
As Trump’s rhetoric becomes even more authoritarian, Harris is adjusting her strategy. The New York Times reports that the “Harris campaign sees fresh political opportunities in Mr. Trump’s latest attacks on democratic principles,” and notes that her “aides believe voters are still not familiar with Mr. Trump’s statements, nor do they fully understand the stakes for American democracy.”
This new approach was evident during a recent Fox News interview with Bret Baier, in which Harris’s strongest moment was a discussion about the threat Trump poses to American democracy. “If you listen to Donald Trump,” she said, “he’s the one who talks about an enemy within . . . suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.” When Baier cut to a video clip of Trump denying that he said this, Harris responded:
He has repeated it many times. . . . You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy, and in a democracy, the president of the United States—in the United States of America—should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake.
Harris went on to cite former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who told Bob Woodward that Trump is a “fascist to the core” and the “most dangerous person to this country.” Milley is one of many high-ranking Trump advisors who have expressed grave concerns about his leadership. The Fox News interview was an opportunity to remind Americans that people who worked closely with Trump are terrified of what he will do in a second term.
Harris’s aides are correct to observe that many Americans don’t understand the dangers of Trump’s anti-democratic behavior. But while many political observers take the public’s ignorance of authoritarianism as an immutable fact of life, the Harris campaign sees a need to educate the public.
At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, Harris played a video of Trump threatening to punish his political opponents, which the vice president said reminded her of presenting evidence at trial. This prosecutorial mode is natural for Harris, and her ability to build a case against Trump’s authoritarianism is particularly valuable as the election nears. As Trump accuses the Biden administration of “lawfare” and the weaponization of government, he’s promising that his political opponents will be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law” and locked up for “long term prison sentences.” Harris has a responsibility not just to push back on Trump’s lies about his attempted coup in 2020, but also to expose his anti-democratic agenda for 2024 and beyond.
Harris should also continue to draw a straight line from Trump’s authoritarianism at home to his admiration for autocrats and contempt for the United States’s democratic allies abroad. During her speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris observed that “Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.” She attacked him for encouraging the Russians to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that haven’t spent what he believes is enough on defense. She promised to “stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” while Trump is promising to abandon Kyiv and cut a deal with Vladimir Putin.
A second Trump term wouldn’t just be catastrophic for American democracy—it would be catastrophic for democracy around the world.
“In the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny,” Harris said at the DNC, “I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs.”
Trump has never shared the belief that the United States is the leader of a global democratic coalition—a belief which has been the bedrock of a bipartisan foreign policy consensus in the United States since World War II. Instead, he regurgitates the views of America’s most implacable enemies. He blames Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the United States for the war in Ukraine. He says the “greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves.” Trump’s advisors say he is planning a drastic reduction of American forces in Europe, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton warns that Trump will withdraw from NATO entirely.
Trump has a purely transactional view of the United States’ relationships with other countries. He believes NATO is a protection racket, trade deals are zero-sum contests for economic dominance, and shared democratic values are meaningless. This is why he’s proud of his relationships with Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, and Viktor Orbán—he values the opinions of fellow authoritarians over democratic leaders.
When Harris said world leaders regard Trump as a “disgrace” during the debate last month, he responded by touting an endorsement from Orbán: “Look, Viktor Orbán said it. He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president.” Trump returned the favor, describing Orbán as “tough,” “smart,” and “one of the most respected men . . . they call him a strongman.” Trump regards this as a compliment instead of a condemnation of Orbán’s authoritarianism.
The battle lines of what Harris described as the “enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny” haven’t been clearer since the Cold War. The war in Ukraine is the largest European conflict since World War II, and it is an explicit attempt not only to extinguish Ukrainian democracy but to make the world safe for Putin-style kleptocratic authoritarianism. Autocratic powers around the world are increasingly cooperating to undermine the liberal democratic global order that was established after World War II: China is supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine, as are Iran and North Korea, while pro-Russia autocrats like Orbán have attempted to limit Europe’s support for Kyiv.
All these forces are desperate for a Trump victory. In the struggle between democracy and tyranny, Trump is on the wrong side.
While Trump’s authoritarianism has been out in the open for many years, Americans still don’t appreciate the depth of his contempt for democratic institutions—or how dangerous he will be in a second term. Harris is finally making this case to the American people. She’s reminding them that a president who threatens to go after the “enemy within” is more interested in dismantling American democracy than defending it. She’s urging Americans to take Trump literally and seriously when he promises to build his second term around retribution and his own personal power. She’s showing Americans what’s at stake. She must continue doing so until Election Day.
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