As those of you who read my blog know, I really thought Harris was going to win big.  Since last night, I’ve been thinking about why I and many other Democrats were so wrong.  The best answer I can give comes from the work of a wonderful historian, Robert O. Paxton.

     Paxton, who is now 92, was a professor of mine decades ago at Columbia.  His first book argued that Vichy France was not a nation of resisters to Nazi fascism, but rather contained many enablers and collaborators.  Since then, he has written primarily about fascism itself.  Paxton argues that to understand fascism, you need to look not at its leaders, but its followers.  What made Germany and Italy go fascist in the inter-war years, while France and Britain did not?  He concludes that the most important factor in bringing fascism into being is having a majority of the voting population believe that the current system is not only not working for them, but is actively rigged against them.

     I think this is what happened here.  A majority of white, non-college educated Americans swung the vote to Trump.  In addition, young people, most of them male, staggering under debt and unable to live on their own earnings, voted disproportionately for Trump.  So did Hispanic men, who come from a culture that has embraced patriarchy, to the point of providing the word “machismo.”  I thought abortion would win the election for women.  Instead, a number of states voted in favor of abortion rights, but against the female candidate.  I know that misogyny, which I hoped had decreased since Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, was a definitely a factor, but I find that too depressing to think about today. 

     What now?  Obviously, the Democratic party has to re-group and re-invent itself.  Meanwhile, I remember Benjamin Franklin’s warning in the 18th century: “A republic” –- by which he meant a government that was not a monarchy –- “if you can keep it.”  We must work now to keep it.  And to keep on keeping on.

Like many Democrats, I was deeply depressed after President Biden’s debate with Donald Trump on June 26.  It did not seem like a “bad night,” as the president said, but rather a steep cognitive decline connected to his age.  I wrote him the following letter:

Dear Pres. Biden,  

     I voted for you in 2020 and have been sending you $25 a month for the last year.  But I now think you should not run for a second term.  You've done an excellent job.  But I'm old now myself (81, like you) and I know how age has diminished me.  I'm a retired history professor from the City University of New York.
     Your performance at the debate scared me.  To me there is no worse fate for the nation than Trump becoming president again.  And, despite all his lies, he won the debate.  Sadly, I don't think that's the only time you're going to be incoherent like that.   I'm sure you want to run again.  But please balance that desire (and ego) against the good of a nation you have served so well. 

I, and many others, were extremely pleased when he decided not to continue to seek a second term three weeks later.  Despite what I said in my letter to him, I was delighted that he endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, to succeed him.

     In 2020, I did not care for Harris.  I found her very smart, but she possessed no charisma.  She reminded me of Hilary Clinton, whom I supported but did not work for.  I was pleased Biden selected Harris as his vice president, but more because she was a black woman and had been a state district attorney and U.S. senator than for her personality.

     But that has changed.  I think she has grown tremendously during her years in office.  She’s learned how to speak very effectively.  She’s now known for her laugh, for her quick wit, and for her ability to charm a crowd.  I was delighted that the Democratic Party rapidly united behind her on August 6th and even more pleased when she chose the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her running mate.

     I’d never heard of Walz until then.  I was hoping she wouldn’t pick Josh Shapiro, both because I thought he needed to remain governor of Pennsylvania, a swing state, and because I didn’t think a ticket of a black woman and a Jewish man could win.  But Walz is a terrific choice!  He’s a veteran, a coach, a family man and has supported causes like gay groups in the schools, IVF, which he and his wife, also a teacher, used to create their two children, and also supplied menstrual products to high school bathrooms.  And it was he who coined the successful and accurate term “weird” to describe their Republican opponents.

     There’s a joke going around that the most successful item the Democrats possess is J.D. Vance.  Unlike Harris and Walz, he and Donald Trump have been unremittingly negative and nasty.  Vance’s disparagement of “childless cat ladies” plus his subsequent “correction” that he “had nothing against cats” has gone viral.  Trump’s attack on Harris for “starting out Indian” and then “going Black” has done the same.  Suddenly now, Trump is the old candidate –- some have taken to spelling his first name “D-o-n-o-l-d” –-and he is making increasing numbers of errors in his few speeches.  In contrast, Harris and Walz are speaking daily to larger and larger crowds.  They’ve declared they plan to continue doing this and that they “can rest when they’re dead.”  Trump has been forced into at least one debate against Harris after she called him a coward for declining to debate her when he had eagerly fought for another debate with Biden.  I think she will cream him.  As will Walz against Vance. 

     At this point, the Republicans are offering a dark and scary vision of America.  They are trying to avoid the subject of abortion, the fascism of Project 2025, and the increased jobs, infrastructure, and international support created by the Biden administration.  In contrast, Harris provides a hopeful and generous vision based on these genuine accomplishments.  She is completely comfortable advocating abortion –- much more so than Biden, who could barely speak the word.  I think the issue of abortion alone is going tilt voters towards the Democrats.  Her laugh and sense of humor, which Trump has attempted to denigrate, are winning.  When has Trump ever laughed?  The best he can manage is a smirk.

     So hooray for these developments.  I haven’t felt this hopeful since Obama ran in ’08.  May this campaign have the same successful result!