Kamala Harris: The Future Is Now
A blueprint for her campaign.
Tonight I’m going to suffer through the Trump speech on the livestream. Come and do it with me. It’ll be off the chain. The show will be here.
1. Message
What was true three weeks ago is true today:
Joe Biden’s position is not tenable.
It is the Democratic party that will decide whether or not he steps aside.
Evidence continues to suggest that the party has decided.
Political parties are amorphous, sprawling institutions with multiple power centers. But it is clear that Democratic elites such as Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer have reached the conclusion that Biden must pass the torch.1 A super-majority of Democratic voters agrees.
The logic of this situation is that Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee and that Biden will withdraw while simultaneously being part of a choreographed handoff in which the entire party structure unites around her.
Note: As I was writing this, Axios added this reporting:
Several top Democrats privately tell us the rising pressure of party congressional leaders and close friends will persuade President Biden to decide to drop out of the presidential race, as soon as this weekend.
Why it matters: The 81-year-old president, now self-isolating with COVID, remains publicly dug in. But privately he's resigned to mounting pressure, bad polls, and untenable scrutiny making it impossible to continue his campaign, the Democrats tell us.
One of the reasons Harris is the most viable alternative is message and vision. Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer might be better political talents, but you cannot come up with a rationale for a presidential campaign overnight.
Every campaign has a rationale, a raison d'être, that can be condensed into an elevator-pitch. The rationale is a combination of an idea, a vision, and a person. It has to be timed correctly. The messenger for it must make sense. This is all infinitely harder than it sounds.
Successful campaigns have deceptively simple rationales:
Reagan 1984: It’s morning in America.
Clinton 1992: Change versus more of the same.
Obama 2008: Hope.
Trump 2016: I will hurt the people you hate.
Unsuccessful campaigns tend to have unintentionally revealing rationales:
Dole 1996: I’m a war veteran and Baby Boomers are embarrassing us.
McCain 2008: We can ride this storm out if we just put country first.
Romney 2012: I have an amazing resumé and I’ve always wanted to be president.
This last rationale shows up over and over in losing campaigns. You could argue that it was the basic motivation for Gore 2000, Kerry 2004, and Clinton 2016.
What is the rationale for a Whitmer or Shapiro campaign? It doesn’t exist beyond: I’m a popular governor in a must-win state.
That’s pretty thin stuff. And while either of these politicians might be able to come up with a compelling rationale for why they should be president over time, they aren’t going to be able to do that work between now and November.
The only Democrat who has a compelling rationale—right now—is Kamala Harris.
What is it?
Kamala Harris: The future is now.
The Harris campaign should be insurgent, not incumbent. She should run against everything from the recent past: Against the fractions, broken promises, and lingering hatreds of the Obama years. Against the revanchism of the Trump years. And against the weariness of the Biden years.
Her rationale is that she is the candidate to turn the page on all of it. If you are sick and tired of the last decade of politics, Harris is the candidate to wipe the slate and begin anew.
“The Future Is Now” implicitly acknowledges the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency nature of her nomination. It aggressively puts COVID and January 6th and inflation in the rearview mirror.
Kamala Harris is the candidate who can say, “We are tired of fighting about vaccines and the insurrection and Trump’s crimes. Together, we will make a clean break from all of that and start a wholly new era.”
Harris is a credible messenger for this pitch because she is a black woman who is a generation younger than Trump and Biden. She embodies change from the status quo. But simultaneously, she has enough experience to play as tested. She’s been a senator and a vice president. Her candidacy does not ask voters to take a chance on a young, untested quantity.
Properly positioned, Harris doesn’t ask voters to merely vote against Trump, because she frames all of Trump’s problems both as dangers and as emerging from the bowels of history.
Trump becomes both a danger and the incumbent from a despised period in the past.
We’re doing something new here a The Bulwark. We’re building a media company that sees around corners, but doesn’t flatter our audience. We don’t sugarcoat reality, but we don’t wallow in doomerism.
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Come and ride with us at Bulwark+. History is happening. Right now. And the only way through is together.
What does “The Future” mean policy-wise? That’s the least important aspect of a campaign’s rationale, but it’s not hard to sketch one out for Harris:
With Trump out of the way, pass the border security bill that Republicans and Democrats both voted for.
Enshrine Roe in federal law and put the unpopular Dobbs decision in the past.
Extend the 2017 tax cuts for people—but not for corporations.
Expand on the Affordable Care Act and continue to bring coverage to more Americans while pushing down prescription drug prices.
Stand firm against Russia and China.
You can add your own agenda items. But the theme must always be: Turning the page on everything from the last decade. Go ahead and discuss this in the comments.
2. Rich Guys
This week Marc Andreessen revealed that after a lifetime in the Democratic party, he was leaving it: Both Andreeseen and his investing partner Ben Horowitz announced that they are on the Trump train.
Meaning that they saw Trump in 2016 and said, “No thanks.” They saw him in 2020 and said, “No Thanks.”
But after watching Trump attempt a coup they got onboard?
Here is Horowitz explaining their thinking:
We literally [believe] the future of our business, the future of technology, and the future of America is at stake.
“Literally.”
LITERALLY!
You see, the last four years of the Biden administration have been terrible for Andreessen-Horowitz. In 2021, Andreessen-Horowitz led or co-led $3.2 billion in funding rounds. By April of 2024 they were only able to raise $7.2 billion for investments.
In the spring of 2023, Andreessen-Horowitz had $32.4 billion under management. Today they only have $42 billion in assets under management.
So you can see why Ben Horotwitz views a second Democratic administration as—literally—an existential threat to his business.
If Trump doesn’t win, then Andreessen-Horowitz will go out of business, technology will stop, and America will—I dunno, cease to exist? I guess Andreessen and Horowitz took Trump both seriously and literally when he said that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Like I said: These are guys who looked at Trump’s insurrection and said to themselves, “Well shit. I’ve had this guy all wrong. Turns out he’s great. Let’s get us some of that.”
Imagine being Marc Andreessen. He grew up in rural Iowa and Wisconsin. But he was born at the right time—perfectly positioned to get rich during the first tech boom. Today he’s worth $2 billion.
Imagine being that lucky. Being showered with fortune and the blessings of liberty. And then deciding that what you really want in politics is authoritarianism.
This man is a monster. Not a literal monster, though. Just a moral monster.
PS: Not for nothing, but as smart as Andreessen is, he’s wrong a lot.2
3. Nate
This story about Nate Robinson’s ordeal with kidney failure and the healthcare system will terrify and sadden you.
IN THE FALL of 2005, Robinson stood in a doctor’s office at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Midtown Manhattan. He was 21, a rookie for the New York Knicks, recently drafted 21st overall out of the University of Washington.
He was there for a routine physical. The Knicks’ team doctor was a woman named Lisa Callahan. Standing 5-foot-2, most players she evaluated needed to sit down to look her in the eye, but Robinson, 5-foot-9, barely had to sit at all. She quickly took a liking to the Seattle native, known as a jokester.
During the initial physical, Callahan noticed Robinson’s blood pressure was higher than normal—nothing too troubling, she told him, but something they should keep an eye on. High blood pressure, she knew, was common among the Black population. Robinson otherwise passed and proceeded to begin his NBA career.
Later that season, in the spring of 2006, Robinson woke one morning feeling as nauseated as he’d ever been. He had no idea why. Throughout his life, he’d been healthy. He’d never missed a day of school. He’d never missed a practice. But, on that day, he felt sicker than at any point in his life. He worried he wouldn’t make it to Knicks practice.
“Stop playing, bro,” a teammate told him. “You're a rookie. You can’t be late.”
“I’m sick,” Robinson said. “I’m not lying.”
He knew his teammates didn’t believe him. So he hopped in his car, drove to practice and couldn’t make it to the garbage can at the practice facility. He vomited across the training room. His legs began to cramp, then his hands, up and down his body.
Callahan gathered Robinson and had him admitted at a nearby hospital.
After blood work, Robinson sat there as doctors explained that his kidneys didn’t seem to be functioning properly, which is what had been leading to his high blood pressure.
Robinson wasn’t sure what that meant.
Please do not tell me that Nancy Pelosi is a “bed wetter” who is “hysterical” and “wishing for a fantasy candidate.” If she thinks Biden’s chances of success are significantly worse than an alternative candidate, then you ought to at least take her view seriously and not say it is “bed wetting.”
For instance, Andreessen defended Elizabeth Holmes against people who thought she was doing criminal fraud.
Me on 7/3: He’s a patriot. If he’s smart he’ll announce he’s dropping out tomorrow.
Me on Sunday morning: He’s got to see the split screen between Bloody, fist raising Trump and how he looks and realize it’s over.
Sunday afternoon: His address was 40 minutes late and he didn’t say anything of substance except announce he’s speaking later from The Oval. He’s dropping out tonight.
Sunday evening after Oval address: He’s delusional. We are F’ed.
Tuesday: Pelosi is a BOSS. She won’t give up. God bless her.
Yesterday: “I’ll drop out if a doctor tells me to.”
“He has COVID”
Me: If he’s smart he announces he’s dropping out an hour before Trump goes on so it destroys whatever is loaded in the teleprompter.
Me tomorrow: Face plant??
VP Harris should make you her campaign manager, JVL.