The Startling Transformation in the Race for President of the United States

Donald Trump has dominated, consumed, belligerently attacked, and perniciously unleashed malevolence and lies upon the American psyche for about nine years. During this period of time he astonishingly became a twice impeached president of the United States.

And after being defeated in his quest for a second term he became a vengeful arsonist, striving to set on fire the integrity and democracy of our cherished electoral system from which he succeeded in his initial victory to become President.

Forming a cadre of co-conspirators,  he destructively sought to ignite in flames Americas belief in itself as a beacon of free elections–resulting, incredibly in a denial of the results of the election among a majority of Republican voters.

Trump has  the ability to cast conspiratorial doubt upon a country that has no reason or evidence to believe the delusional and fascistic lies that undermine the foundations of our Declaration of Independence and constitution.

History books will describe a large part of America’s fascination with  this toxic but media savvy demagogue as a crisis of national pride and self-identity. I believe the judgment of history will be that he represented the greatest threat to the continuation of the greatest democracy the world has ever known. And if he wins a second term that judgment will be even more severe.  I submit that the verdict will be  harshly critical of a people that placed back into the most powerful political office in the world a man that has been convicted of 34 felony counts attributed to his attempt to illegally hide and cover up behaviors to prevent a porn star from revealing their affair just prior to the 2016 election.  The judgment will not be kind to a people that re-elected a man for whom—in addition to the guilty verdict on 34 felonies—awaits trial on at least 54 more, some extremely serious, such as attempting to defraud the American people of the legitimate results of an election and owning highly classified documents taken from his presidential office, then endeavoring to deny their existence and hide the evidence.

Indeed, history will not be kind to an electorate that had been told by the candidate that he had planned to be a “dictator for a day”, and whose closest advisers had drafted the blueprint known as Project 2025.  It is a project of 900 pages that seeks to undermine the checks and balances that prevents a President from undue influence over the non political independence of the Justice department.  It would seek to impose a national ban on abortion and further the health crises precipitated by overturning Roe VS Wade.  This would criminalize the role of the doctor in advising women about the reproductive health.   It is a plan that would deploy a massive military style deportation of immigrants, paying very little attention to the inhumanity such a massive policy would engender.  It is a plan that would fire hundreds of thousands of civil servants, and attack as deviant behavior the trans sexual population in America.  It would deny military service to the transgender population.  And this is just the tip of the iceberg in this massive overhaul of the federal Government.  The Vice Presidential nominee of Donald Trump, JD Vance, wrote the foreword to this plan, and it was adopted by two of Trumps closest advisors when he was President.  

I had thought Trump’s political career was over when he attacked John McCain as not being a hero because he had  been captured by the north Vietnamese.  And just the other day he has continued his denigration of the proud people of the military  by saying that an award recognizing civilian contributions to society is ” much better  than one bestowed on members of the military because many of those who receive that award are wounded or killed in combat”.

The catastrophic debate performance by an obviously physically and mentally aging President Biden on June 27 seemed to catapult the candidacy of Trump into a perceived inevitability that he would regain the Presidency.  And shortly thereafter there was the horror of the assassination attempt upon his life. His poll numbers in all of the battle ground states of Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada continued to surge, further adding to the sense that it was pre-ordained that Trump would easily defeat President Biden.  Despair had overtaken the democratic party.

But then something unexpected and amazing happened. It didn’t happen overnight, and it did not happen without anger from the President and his inner circle. It did not happen without a sense of betrayal by the President—a proud, confident, determined and brilliant strategist that had suffered many personal tragedies and for whom the Presidency did not come easily, but came late in his life.

But it did happen during President Biden’s bout with Covid.  He became convinced that he most likely would not win this election.  He bowed out of the race, and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris.

While many democratic supporters and donors were pleading with the President to drop out of the race, many were arguing that the replacement should be decided in an process prior to and during the convention.  It would be a sort of mini primary that would vet the candidates and be  survival of the fittest.  This never happened ! Instead there developed a movement behind Vice President Kamala Harris, and no challengers inserted themselves.  Instead there was a sense of unity that Kamala was clearly the one to rise to this occasion, and would give the democrats  a hope  that she could become the first female President of the United States.

Indeed, the coalescence was swift, dramatic, powerful.  And the money has poured in. She raised more money in her first week than any candidate for President has ever raised in a single week.

And in the few weeks since her becoming the anointed candidate of the Democratic Party for President, he poll numbers have surged. She and her Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz have pulled ahead in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.  She has pulled even in North Carolina and Georgia, states where Trump had been well ahead.

It would be instructive to read some of these poll numbers.  Among all adults, Harris leads in two categories where Biden badly lagged:

Americans by 56-26 percent pick her over Trump as having the physical health to become President.  And Harris leads Trump by nine points in being seen as having the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively, erasing a 30 point lead Trump had over Biden in this concern.

The subject of abortion is a clear weakness for Trump: Americans by 56 percent to 39 percent think that Trump had substantial influence in bringing about the U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminating the constitutional right to abortion—a decision the public opposes by 62 percent to 35 percent.

And the demographics have become very interesting, very impressive.  Independents went from up four points for Trump in July to up eleven points for Harris—a fifteen point swing.  People younger than age forty have gone from up two percent for Biden in July to up 20 percent for Harris—and eighteen point swing. Support from Black people has swung by twelve points in Harris’ direction—from plus 60 for Biden to plus 72 for Harris. She has seen a seventeen point swing among Hispanic women, from up two percent for Trump in July to up fifteen percent for Harris presently.  

The Vice President has shown considerable charisma in her campaign events.  I read and watch with amusement and distaste the mean spiritedness that seeks to demean the ebullience and joy of the Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ laugh. At a rally in Michigan recently, Donald Trump asked ” You ever watch her laugh ? You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy.  She’s nuts.”

Kamala Harris’ laughter is filled with joy, and her smile is radiant.  She possesses a merriment that dis-spells the darkness of a Trump dystopian America and celebrates the joy of being alive, her joy of being alive.

I can see in her smile and hear in her laugh a celebration of being American–the magnificence of being a woman of color, rising to prominence against the economic and social constraints that have prevented such an occurrence in American history until this moment in time.  Hers is an elation , borne of soulful confidence and vision that she can help to bring this country closer to Thomas Jefferson’s  foundational belief written into the Declaration of Independence that we have an “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Social media is filled with ridicule of Ms. Harris laugh as ‘fake and inauthentic’.  .  There is likely misogyny and racism in the ridicule of the Democratic candidates smile and ebullience.  And the meanness is only exacerbated by the aforementioned comments by former President Trump.

However, there is a serious intelligent woman behind her laughter, and I’m sure the former President will become quite aware of that when they debate next month.

The nation owes a deep gratitude to President Biden. There may be a place carved out for him on Mt. Rushmore among the all time great Presidents.

His accomplishments have been a combination of Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Just six weeks into his presidency, Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan to jumpstart the economy during the depths of Covid and change the course of the pandemic.  This plan funded our national vaccination campaign and helped to safely reopen America’s schools.

He brought forth the The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is the most significant gun violence protection legislation in nearly three decades.  It has already had an effect in keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, and it expands the mental health and safety services in schools.

He produced the CHIPS ACT, which brings back manufacturing from overseas and has resulted in nearly $300 billion in new American manufacturing investments.

The President signed the most significant expansion of of benefits and services for toxic-exposed veterans in three decades.  And he signed the Respect for Marriage Act—which enshrines marriage quality for same -sex and interracial couples into Federal Law.

The President signed landmark legislation to bring down the costs of prescription drug prices. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade and strip a constitutional right from the American people, he issued executive orders to preserve access to reproductive care.

Foremost among his  accomplishments is that since the start of Vladimir Putin’s naked, unprovoked invasion of  Ukraine, he has rallied the world to defend democracy and ‘stare down’ autocracy.

The scourge of Donald Trump must be defeated.  The transformation of this election is astonishing.  I believe the United States will have it’s first female President !

Bruce Farrell Rosen

San Francisco, Calif.