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Commentary

What Do the Trump and Harris Campaigns Say about the America They Want to See?

August 20, 2024

A political campaign can, should, and very often does tell the American public something about who the candidate is that’s running the campaign. There are, of course, some basic questions, common to any job application, that a campaign should answer: What are your qualifications? What are your achievements and accomplishments? What are your goals and ambitions? In a political campaign — especially a presidential campaign — there are some additional yet crucial questions: Who are you? Who are you running against? What is your vision for America?

In these days of vitriol and polarization, the latter slate of questions, and the final one in particular, have become of paramount importance. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have White House experience; each can point to achievements and accomplishments (whether factual or falsified); and the goals and ambitions of each candidate are necessarily wrapped up in the question of “What is your vision for America?” Thus, as political solutions to pressing problems are more desperately sought, the answers to the questions “Who are you? Who are you running against? What is your vision for America?” become of greater and greater significance.

The Harris campaign makes no bones about the current vice president’s vision for America. As if her policies — open borders resulting in rampant crime, abortion extremism, LGBT worship, and the aggressive prosecution of pro-life and Christian Americans — aren’t enough of an indication already, Harris reiterates her ambitions for America’s future in her inaugural campaign ad. That ad explicitly asks, “What kind of country do we want to live in?” The answer for Harris is simple: video footage shows Harris spending time with LGBT activists and abortion devotees. There is no room in Harris’s America for straight, white men, for Christians, for pro-lifers, or for anyone, it seems, who isn’t as far-left as Harris herself.

The vice president’s choice of running mate further confirms this. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) is, if it’s at all possible, just as pro-LGBT and pro-abortion as Harris. He has supported unrestricted abortions up to birth, gruesome gender transition procedures for children, and proudly presided over the destruction of Minneapolis in the BLM riots of 2020.

Harris is also staffing her campaign with the kind of people she wants to see more of in America. The Washington Stand previously reported that the Harris campaign is asking job applicants to choose from a slate of “neo-pronouns” if they want to help the vice president become the president. The Harris campaign is also requiring that staffers have the controversial COVID-19 shot.

Thus far, the Harris campaign still has no policies listed on its website, even though the Democratic National Convention has decided this week on a party platform. Harris has also continued to avoid media interviews and even shied away from debates against her political opponent. However, she never turns down an opportunity to vilify her challenger, calling Trump a harbinger “of chaos, of fear, of hate.” During the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Trump was mentioned nearly 150 times by Harris and her allies, while issues like “the economy” and “inflation” garnered a combined total of 30 mentions.

So what is Harris’s vision for America? According to the campaign she’s running, it would seem to be LGBT activism, abortion extremism, a dozen made-up pronouns and “gender identities,” the resurgence of COVID hysteria, and the demonization of political dissidents — in this case meaning about half the country.

And what kind of campaign is Trump running? Unlike Harris, the 45th president actually speaks to reporters, hosts solo press conferences, and generally seems comfortable speaking without a teleprompter. In late June, when debating then-presumptive Democratic nominee and President Joe Biden, Trump said, “I wish he was a great president because I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at one of my many places enjoying myself. I wouldn’t be under indictment because I wouldn’t have been his political opponent. Because he indicted me because I was his opponent.” He continued, “I wish he was a great president. I would rather have that. I wouldn’t be here. I don’t mind being here, but the only reason I’m here is he’s so bad as a president that I’m going to make America great again.”

Trump tells the American people who he is. More than that, he shows the American people who he is. Just a few weeks after the debate, when Trump was shot in the side of the head at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last month, he pushed his security detail aside to face the crowd of his supporters — and the shooter — and raise his fist while telling his countrymen to fight for their nation. He demonstrated to the American people that he is a man of courage, a man willing not just to fight for his country but, if need be, die for his country.

And who is Trump running against? The former president has received much criticism — including from his own party — for his attacks against Harris, from questioning her racial identity to highlighting the failures and flawed policies on her record. Among the chief of those failures and flawed policies in Trump’s crosshairs are Harris’s immigration and economic policies. One of the Trump campaign’s latest ads took footage of Harris at one of her own presidential campaign rallies discussing inflation: “A loaf of bread costs 50% more today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50%,” Harris said. Trump’s team cut the clip there and added, “I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message” over the former president’s campaign logo. The Trump campaign has also launched documentary-style ads compiling news clips reporting on violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants allowed in the U.S. by the incumbent Biden-Harris administration.

But Trump’s vision for America is slightly less clear. Where Harris takes a strong and even an extreme stance on such issues as abortion and the LGBT agenda, Trump’s 2024 campaign has not been as clear as his campaign four years ago. His attention is focused, almost solely it seems, on mass deportations and tackling inflation. While these positions are, no doubt, of great importance to Americans, they are far from comprehensive.

The nation is, as Trump himself has declared on numerous occasions, in steep decline. Economic disaster and a seeming flood of illegal immigrants are part of the problem, but they do not address the problem in its entirety. What of morality? What of the slaughter of innocent unborn babies? What of marriage and family? Trump has told the American people who he is, he has shown the American people who he is running against, but what is his vision for America? Does it really stop at low gas prices and a border wall?

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.