“To Win, Kamala Must Move to the Center” Really? I Don’t Think So.

I have “stolen” Yascha Mounk’s Substack essay headline today. There he has made the argument that, to win, Kamala Harris must move to the center because the majority of Americans she needs to voter for her will only vote for a moderate. Mounk here is not making a unique argument. This point is being made throughout the pundocracy.

I get this point about Harris moving to “the center” on some key issues and many others are saying the same thing. But it seems to me that there is something important being missed in all of this “positioning” talk.

First, no matter how much she were to moderate her positions, the vast majority of Trump voters will never learn this because the MAGA cultosphere simply does not let in any such information, period. Tens of millions of Americans have no idea what her true positions are and never will. They don’t live in a universe where this information is shared or tolerated.

Quite the opposite, MAGA is a universe defined by Trump himself and so, to these people, Harris will always be what Trump says she is. It’s the same for his caricatures of the state of the country and the world. It’s all lies all the time and no one in that universe cares to know any different

But, Harris’s public demonstration of moderation would presumably make a difference to so-called swing or undecided voters. These are presumably voters not in the cult or and/or not willing to admit they are in the cult, and they demand moderation in all things.

Well, except that they presumably do see some mainstream news and information; and they are deciding between Trump, with AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL of his baggage, including

• Felony indictments and convictions;

• Ongoing election denialism;

• The J6 attempt to overthrow our democracy;

• His ongoing and growing litany of threats to imprison all of his political enemies;

• His promise to round-up, throw into internment camps, and deport millions of people;

• His promise to fill the streets with US troops to quell any and all dissent;

• His wanting to set loose crazed groups of armed militia thugs to terrorize whomever they please;

• The certainty that he will invite Putin to dinner and invite him, further, to do with Ukraine and Europe and that whole part of the free world whatever he would like.

And there’s SO much more. SO much more.

Not to mention that TRUMP HAS ALREADY SHOWN ALL OF US WHO HE IS AND HOW HE WILL “GOVERN.” — which is by his increasingly unhinged whims and without regard for what is lawful, moral, or good — or for anything but bringing himself more adulation and money.

So, all of these “undecideds” have a pretty full plate of information about Trump, the Republican candidate for President of the United States — the candidate who constantly parades around the country restating these campaign promises in broad daylight or in convention hall limelight.

Isn’t every one of these items on this disturbing, dystopian list disqualifying?

Isn’t even one of these items disqualifying to swing voters?

Do swing voters really not already have as much information and evidence as one could ever need to see the differences between these candidates — and which one is more “moderate?”

But the punditocracy has nothing much to say about this. They think instead that, in order for Harris to win, the. Most important thing she can do is to piss-off some lefties.

Really??

There’s something just fundamentally missing in all of these analyses.

If you aren’t fully in the Trump cult, how can you possibly, as an American citizen, think that the choice between these two candidates isn’t absolutely clear?

I’m not sure I get it. I don’t know that anyone does. But I do have at least one theory, which is not mine. It was most famously articulated by the scholar Hannah Arendt:

The Banality of Evil.

When Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “Banality of Evil” half a century ago she was working to understand and express how great wrongs, including even genocide, can arise. She came to the insight that evil can arise simply because people don’t have to think about what is actually happening right in front of them — and/or that they might, in fact, be enabling people to do really evil things without having to think or justify it as well. Eventually, these things can be “. . .accepted, routinised, and implemented without moral revulsion and political indignation and resistance.”¹

So, what does the banality of evil have to do with what Kamala Harris needs to do? My theory is that Harris needs to assert leadership in ways that expose — and get people thinking about — the banality of the evil growing all around us.

Some of the most motivated voters on the democratic side are women of all ages personally affected and/or offended by the Dobbs decision and especially by the ways in which so many states so cruelly leapt to demonize and criminalize reproductive freedom. These mobilized women are not stuck in the banality of evil rut. They are experiencing this evil directly. They are some of our most determined “warriors” for freedom.

We need more Americans to feel personally touched or moved by the growth of autocracy in our country and to become such warriors — or at least democratic voters!

And this means Harris and WALZ must manifest the authentic, principled, and inspired leadership that we need to get us all thinking — thinking about what’s right in front of our eyes — and then to use our common sense.

And they need to do that by showing and hammering home what Trump has wrought: from the corrupt judges distorting our laws and Constitution starting with SCOTUS and running on down, to the Republicans in the House and Senate, and their governors and legislators in the states working cruelly and feverishly to put women in their place again.

Harris and Walz need to get people thinking about how directly they are and will be affected by being drawn farther into the cynical, grimdark, dystopian black hole in which Trump dwells, along with his unfathomably twisted Bannonite and Muskovite allies.

What has excited so many people about Harris and Walz to this point is their leadership in changing the narrative and “the vibe.” What this tells us is that their leadership is primed for this moment. And so are we.

Harris and Walz’s leadership is the opposite of Trump’s and Vance’s. Rather than dark and brooding, menacing and reactionary, Harris and Walz lead with enormous energy, optimism, intelligence, and good old-fashioned common sense. They possess signature leadership strengths that can lead us out of so much of our nation’s unthinking descent into the bleak, black hole of Trumpism.

We, and media, and all of our allies and resources must become the supporters, repeaters, and the amplifiers of their leadership and their message, which perhaps can be encapsulated in the aspiration to:

Make American Think Again!

So, my theory: The support Harris and Walz need to win this election will not come because they tweak some position that ruffles some progressive-left feathers that then tickle the fancy of some undecided swing voters.

The support for Harris and Walz will come by way of people from all walks of life being roused to think about and reject the banality that is enabling such evil to be sown and home grown right in front of our eyes.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

1. Hannah Arendt's challenge to Adolf Eichmann, Judith Butler, The Guardian, Mon 29 Aug 2011 07.32 EDT