Donald Trump is trying to crush Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s image as a force for change and destroy her personal credibility as a potential president as the contest heads into the final nine weeks before Election Day.
In recent days, the former president has unleashed a broad attack using the insult-based politics with which he won power in 2016, even as his advisers have urged him to focus his attention on core voter concerns like high prices and immigration.
He is seizing on tragedies abroad to accuse the vice president of responsibility for the deaths of American troops in Afghanistan and allege that she is complicit in the killings of hostages in Gaza.
Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have suggested that Harris’s mixed ancestry — a heritage shared by millions of Americans — is evidence of a sinister “chameleon” character that also explains policy reversals on energy and immigration.
In an ugly moment, he amplified a sexually-themed slur against her on social media. And his lurid campaign ads claim she will slash Social Security benefits by welcoming millions of undocumented immigrants into the country.
And in a reprise of GOP campaigns that brand Democratic candidates as extreme liberals, Trump and his supporters are trying to frame Harris as a communist and a “Bolshevik.” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem criticized Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, as a “security risk” because he once taught in China.
And Trump has also begun to suggest that this election may not be “free and fair,” saying in an interview aired Sunday that it was ridiculous to accuse him of “interfering” in the 2020 election. Those and other recent comments have raised the specter of a new national nightmare if he loses in November and refuses to accept defeat.
Trump’s desperation to find traction has also led him to make his own shifts on reproductive rights as he seeks to close a large gender gap in the polls. But his credibility may already be shaken after forming the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that struck down the constitutional right to abortion.
Vance also seems to have a talent for alienating female voters — like when he compared Harris to a nervous Miss Teen USA contestant.
Trump isn’t simply being true to his disorderly nature. He’s illustrating his difficulty in responding to Harris’s transformation of the race.
Increasingly bold attempts to puncture Harris’s bubble of hope also reveal frustration in the Trump camp that she is managing to distinguish herself from her boss and present a younger option than her 78-year-old Republican rival. And Trump is showing that there is almost nothing he would not do to win.
Trump is trying to make up for his own shortcomings
Trump’s aggressive rhetoric amounts to some of the harshest in years, even by his own standards, and means the next two months are likely to be brutal.
The question is whether this barrage of negative attacks will merely succeed in stoking the existential rage that Trump uses to mobilize his base in the polls, or whether it will begin to tarnish Harris in the margins of key states.
It might make some sense for Trump to throw everything he can at Harris. In two presidential elections, the former president never got above 49 percent of the vote in the so-called “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, or in the national count.
So his chances in November may depend more on destroying the current positive sentiment around Kamala Harris and dampening her prospects among small groups of persuadable voters in key states than on keeping hope alive of winning new voters for him.
But Trump’s behavior carries its own risks. His behavior last week, including a smiling campaign photo and giving a thumbs-up at Arlington National Cemetery that may have violated the law, could reinforce Harris’s warnings that Americans are eager to put the bitterness and chaos of the Trump era behind them.
While Harris has reestablished the contest as a tight race, her campaign acknowledges the still-potent threat from Trump.
“Make no mistake: The next 65 days will be very difficult,” Kamala Harris’ campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, wrote in a weekend memo, despite arguing that the vice president has multiple paths to the White House.
“This race will remain incredibly close, and the voters who will decide this election will require an extraordinary amount of work to win over.”
Harris campaigned in Detroit and with Biden in Pittsburgh to mark Labor Day in the US, celebrated on Monday (2), reflecting the importance of union members.
Working-class people have traditionally voted Democratic, but Trump’s cultural transformation of the Republican Party now attracts many workers, especially in rural areas. And Harris’s appearance with Biden in Pittsburgh previewed how the outgoing president could help his campaign in a state and among a group of voters where he remains popular.
The campaign tour comes a week before Harris and Trump meet critically on a debate stage scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia — one of the last predictable turning points of this campaign, with mail-in voting starting later this week.
Trump’s initial efforts to define Harris failed
Trump’s aggressive political offensive is a warning to Harris of what may lie ahead and underscores how difficult it will be to prolong the smooth rollout of her sudden candidacy, her selection of Walz and her successful convention.
But the former president’s intensity is also a sign — reflected in favorable public polls nationally and in key states — that his initial efforts to define her negatively have not worked.
Harris has come under fire from Republicans for lacking specificity on policy and for reversing previous positions on fracking and immigration. But her embrace of centrist positions also appears to be putting pressure on Trump and thwarting his efforts to mount a decisive political attack.
Her decision to tackle high supermarket prices with a promise to crack down on retail giants may explain how she has narrowed the gap with Trump over who is more trustworthy on the economy.
The controversy over Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery last week also showed how the former president’s hardball tactics could hurt him as much as her.
Trump’s tribute to 13 American service members killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan highlights one of the lowest moments of the Biden-Harris administration.
And while the vice president has participated in Situation Room briefings on the crisis, it remains unclear whether Trump can personally hold her responsible for the deaths in voters’ minds, given that Biden was commander in chief at the time.
Harris took steps to counter Trump’s attack on Afghanistan when she wrote on social media that he had “disrespected sacred ground just for the sake of political drama” by filming campaign videos in cemeteries and that it was part of a pattern of belittling the sacrifices of American warriors.
Trump responded by posting videos of some relatives of the fallen soldiers accusing Harris and Biden of complicity in the murder of their loved ones and supporting Trump.
The harrowing episode showed how Trump is willing to cross lines that more conventional politicians would consider off-limits. While some voters may see him as honoring fallen troops, others may agree with Harris that he is exploiting American deaths in wars for political gain.
On other issues, Harris is refusing to get into a dirty political fight with Trump that could tarnish her image. For example, the vice president was questioned by CNN in an exclusive interview last week about Trump’s claim that she “accidentally became black” for political reasons.
“Same old tired playbook. Next question, please,” Harris said.
Harris’ campaign, however, has seized on Trump’s argument that he did nothing wrong in 2020. The former president said in an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday: “Who ever heard of being accused of interfering in a presidential election, where you have every right to do so?”
Harris-Walz campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika woven her comment into the campaign’s broader argument that it’s time to consign Trump’s dictatorial instincts to the past.
“The American people are ready for a new path. They know that Vice President Harris is the tough-as-nails prosecutor we need to turn the page on chaos, fear and division, and defend the rule of law,” Chitika said.
The exchange encapsulated the stakes at the heart of the campaign’s bitter denouement: Trump is putting his faith in a do-anything-to-do attempt to oust Harris; the vice president is betting that her extreme attempts to do so will convince enough voters that he is unfit to return to the Oval Office.
This content was originally published in Analysis: Trump’s new attack seeks to destroy Kamala Harris’ momentum on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
