Trump Is Stumped. So Be It

IIn short, the American electoral process pits cities (Democrats) against rural areas (Republicans) in a fight refereed by the alternating political moods of the suburbs. It is an old matter of opposing sides that overlaps with other social and cultural rifts sharpened by partisan dynamics.

Insulated by his MAGA base, Donald Trump has only sought to amplify this polarization by choosing the ultraconservative JD Vance as his running mate, a man who grew up in a modest family in small town Ohio. Trump is pursuing the same populist strategy that narrowly won him the presidency in 2016: Exploit the sense of exclusion felt by rural, working class communities to the maximum effect, except that, while not entirely false, this image of an American heartland deeply choked with resentment is a caricature, as is the assertion that we will always define rural America as clinging to traditional, even reactionary values.

The strategy that elected Trump eight years ago — that phony anti-system — cost him the presidential election in 2020. Sticking to his guns, and at the same time caught off guard by Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Trump, the miraculous survivor, is facing defeat in the Nov. 5 election against Kamala Harris, whose entrance onto the scene is electrifying Democrats in a way no one has seen since Barack Obama.

Harris made a more interesting and smarter choice by selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate when observers expected her to choose ambitious Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. A Democratic stronghold bordering Manitoba, Minnesota is the progressive incubator in the vast American Midwest whose voters sit on the ridge between Democrats and Republicans.

Having represented a rural Minnesota county for 12 years, Walz, a 60-year-old baby boomer with the air of an affable grandfather, represents not the city-country split but, rather, where it comes together. In favor of abortion and gun control, he is the complete ideological opposite of Vance even as he steps on the toes of rural Republicans. One major quality he has is that he has won elections with the support of independents and moderate Republicans. He is the unifying white male the Democratic Party expects will help Harris, that dangerous leftist from California, win just enough votes among rural and working class voters to take key states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

“Harris-Walz: most left-wing ticket in American history,” Trumpist Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X, which is not completely false. What is indeed notable is the fact that Walz’ profile brings the Democratic ticket toward the center in a way that could attract moderate voters. It is lost on no one that Walz governs a state with a significant Muslim population and where Biden was punished sanctioned for his staunchly pro-Israel stance on Gaza during the state primary.

The tandem more fundamentally fits into the rise of the left wing in the Democratic Party, which began with the candidacy of Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders in 2016, then affirmed itself under President Biden, considered to a certain degree as the most to the left — and the most pro-union — since Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.

Judging by research from the American National Election Studies surveys published by The New York Times, it appears that the duo is clearly in tune with the majority of Democrats. In particular, one study shows that white Democrats are leaning more resolutely to the left since the mid-2010s under the impact of two major concomitant phenomena: the emergence of Trump, and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement marked by the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin. Republicans will certainly use this against Walz, literally accusing him of having sided with rioters when he delayed deploying the National Guard, a distortion of the truth.

With three months to go before the presidential election, the counters have been reset to zero. Harris quickly managed to erase the lead Trump held over Biden in the polls, resulting in a race that is neck-and-neck, and states that were no longer in play are now back in play.

In 1 and 1/2 weeks, the Democratic National Convention will take place in Chicago, Illinois, strongly reminiscent of the one held in 1968 amid demonstrations by the anti-Vietnam War movement. With Johnson’s withdrawal from the race, Hubert Humphrey, also from Minnesota, would win the party’s nomination only to lose the election to Richard Nixon. What does Trump hope for? That Harris blunders, her campaign stumbles and a crack opens in the unified Democratic front. Hopefully he does not end up back in the saddle.