2016 Redux?

She's a woman who decided to run for President and got the party and the incumbent Democratic President to discourage challengers to the party's presidential nomination.  She was talked up as the heir apparent, even though the Democratic Party hasn't produced a successful presidential candidacy by an anointed successor since Martin Van Buren was elected President in 1836.  Once she got running, she began ridiculing her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, and began to exude so much confidence she turned her rallies into hip-hop concerts, making populations in fly-over country feel put down and left out by a smug, entitled elitist.

Hillary Clinton in 2016?  No, Kamala Harris in 2024.

I recently read an op-ed column from Tom Harris (no relation) of The Telegraph in Britain in which he said that Democrats "have learnt nothing" from how they approached Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign.  After flicking away Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley like specks of lint, Hillary Clinton, the anointed successor to Barack Obama, ran a race in which she was already measuring the drapes for the Oval Office.  And what ultimately happened then, Tom Harris wrote, could happen to Kamala Harris now.  As far back as 2023, Representative James Clyburn said that Harris was the rightful nominee in waiting for 2028 without even considering the prospects of Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro.  Once President Biden was out and he gave his support to Vice President Harris, it all had the feeling of a promotion she was getting at the expense of everyone else by being in the right place at the right time.  Given Trump's disastrous appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists, it was only inevitable that he'd be ridiculed again.  But as a former supporter of a presidential candidate who was regularly ridiculed by his own party as well as the press, I can tell you this.  No supporter of a candidate for office likes to see his or her candidate ridiculed in such a manner, and Trump supporters went to the polls in 2016 with a vengeance - their own.  It's not inconceivable that history could repeat itself in 2024, as Tom Harris - a Labour Party member in Britain and no right-winger - has written.

However -  and this is crucial - there are differences between Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.  First, Harris knows she's not the favorite, given the closeness in the polls and the Republican advantage in the Electoral College.  Second, Harris actively courted Democratic convention delegates and did the work to endear herself to the party's rank-and-file.  Third, she has much less of a sense of entitlement, knowing how much of a lead balloon her 2020 presidential candidacy was and why it failed, as opposed to Hillary Clinton in 2008, who was more competitive against Barack Obama in 2008 and ran the same campaign against both Sanders and Trump in 2016 (experience, the gender card, yadda yadda), and with the same arrogance.  Fourth, the reaction from the Democratic Party faithful and Democratic-leaning independents has been more organically receptive for Harris than it ever was for Hillary.  Fifth, she's much younger than Trump,  while Hillary is only a year and change younger than Donald; 2016 was an election campaign between two old white people no one liked, much like the 2024 election campaign almost became.  Sixth, Harris is very comfortable in her skin; she actually loves the hip-hop played at her rallies.

But just as I'm still - still - angry at Karen Hunter for her takedown of Paul Ryan for his predilection for - HORRORS! - 1970s classic rock, Kamala Harris is always going to be one Beyoncé performance at a rally away from alienating enough swing-state voters to tip the balance to Trump.  Culture is still a powerful motivator, and besides, Trump doesn't have to rely on racially based culture issues in the fall campaign like he did last week.  He just has to remind voters of, say, the specter of a female President's Jewish husband being expected to decorate the White House for Christmas.

Don't count Trump out just yet.   

But if he has more encounters with reporters like he did with Rachel Scott, I just might. 😃